Tag: sobeq’s story

In Service.

I have made bright Ma’at which Ra loves, I know that He lives by it;
it is my bread too; I eat of its brightness.

Inscription of Hatshepsut at Speos Artemidos
The public washing of hands marks my official consecration of a w’ab priest.

10 years ago yesterday, I stood before the Shrine of the Truth and the Mother, taking a vow of service to my gods. I am stunned that somehow, while I wasn’t paying attention, 10 years crept by — and now I have spent a decade in the service of the Netjeru.

But life changed. My household was significantly impacted by Hurricane Sandy. My father, also my employer, became seriously ill, and I stepped into his role at work. I moved into a 1-bedroom apartment with my fiancé. I got married. I did a year-long unpaid internship. I finished graduate school. I got seriously ill (and recovered, dua Netjer). I moved into a bigger apartment with my husband. I started working in my field. I changed jobs. I bought a house. I moved again. And now, a global pandemic. Not to mention the challenges within the religion itself during that time — changes and conflict are a matter of course when you work with other people, and the temple is no exception.

I struggled at times. I found myself feeling like it was impossible to continue my service some days because I could not maintain the consistency with which I first approached the priesthood. If I couldn’t live up to what I had done in my first year of service, how could I call myself a good priest? If I couldn’t observe every festival, show up for every event, greet every sunrise — how was I carrying ma’at to my gods and Their people?

When I came to the priesthood, I assumed that integrating that work into my life would mean establishing strict routines and prioritizing religious work over other things. I tried that, for a while; it didn’t work. I am a human being before I am a priest; a human who wants to be in relationship with others, have hobbies, and have a meaningful career. At some point in the last year — I couldn’t pinpoint if I tried — I dropped that approach. I dropped the judgment. I set boundaries for myself. If I go to work, I don’t go to shrine; if I don’t go to work, I go to shrine. I think that eased the pressure for me; now instead of judging myself for “missing shrine” five out of seven days of the week, I celebrate when I go both Saturday and Sunday. It also taught me that the trick to service is not in pushing harder, or doing more, but in being deliberate and finding that sweet spot of balance. Ma’at, anyone?

I am grateful for the growth that being a priest has permitted me — personally, professionally, and spiritually. I am proud and honored to serve the gods in ritual, and in all I do. I am optimistic that as I continue this work, I can continue to carry my gods to the people who love Them, continue to grow, and continue to serve Them to the best of my ability.

(I’m also hoping to write more — even short snippets here and there — because I really do miss blogging. So hello again — I hope I can be more present here this year.)

Hello again.

It’s been almost a year since I last wrote here.

I want to start making excuses — to write about all of the upheaval in my personal and professional life, explain what’s kept me focused on other things, and try to transform it into some useful metaphor for devotion to the gods or other spiritual practice. It’s not going to work. What has kept me away from this blog (and distanced me from my devotions) has been a combination of professional burn-out and a depressive episode that crept up on me in spite of my attempts at vigilance. The burn-out has been abating due to a new job that is more fulfilling, and the depressive episode… well, I’m hesitant to say too much and risk jinxing it, but things finally seem to be moving in a good direction.

I won’t commit to writing here more often. What I will commit to is re-invigorating my religious practices, which dwindled to the barest necessity over the past several months. With any luck (for this website, anyway) that will be enough to re-invigorate my blogging practices. Wish me luck?

Carrying Their Light, Every Day

I’ve known for years that I was meant to work in a service-oriented position. In elementary school I thought that meant being a teacher. In high school, I waffled between psychology and music education. As an undergraduate student, I landed squarely on the side of psychology, in a tiny corner called “counseling”.

The funny thing about counseling is that you don’t really get to experience it until you’ve already expended significant effort training in it. The work of counseling is so delicate that you have to be carefully trained – and even then, it takes years of supervised practice in most states before you’re permitted to launch your own counseling practice. So for years, I was chasing a goal that felt as alien as the moon — and yet as dear as the grass beneath my feet. How could I love this field so deeply without experiencing it? Real talk — I have no freaking idea. I loved counseling wildly for all four years of my undergraduate training and for all five, laborious, snail-slow years of my graduate training, and I have no idea how.

Now I have the luxury of sitting in my office, embracing the trials of the clients who come through my door. I love every minute of the chaos, of the heartbreak, of the frustration, of the anxiety. I love seeing the face of someone who hears “I’m in your corner” from another person for the first time. I even love the hard stuff. I love sitting with someone in the depths of psychosis, sick and scared and a world apart, compassionately assessing their needs, and advocating for their treatment. I love extending my hands to hold someone’s grief with them for a short space of time.

I first met my gods when I sought out gods for the work that I wanted to do. Sekhmet was the first deity of healing I encountered; Wepwawet just felt right, for reasons I have difficulty articulating. Wepwawet opens the door to healing, creates the space of safety I try to create in my office. Sekhmet illuminates the space with Her light, chasing away the darkness. My Beloveds, too: Bast brings music and joy, the compassion needed to embrace sorrow; Nut brings patience, endurance, wisdom; Khonsu, the surgical precision that carves out pain and exposes bitter truths; and Nebthet, most recently come to my shrine, brings quiet comfort, a gentle mirror to gaze into and reflect.

Even on the hardest days — the days when I’m leaving job #2 at 11 PM after starting job #1 at 5:30 AM, after I’ve been yelled at, told off, had my training questioned, written and re-written assessments, made mistakes and cleaned them up — I still walk out full of joy, with my chin up, feeling like I am finally in the right place.

My goal since becoming Kemetic has been to carry the light of my gods wherever I go. Through the work I’m doing now, I believe I can.

What’s up, Sobeq?

Whoa. So I graduated, and finished my semester teaching, and then I had oral surgery.

Which got infected, and stayed infected.

And spread into my sinuses, and stayed in my sinuses.

I’m still trying to boot this infection even now. It’s not the worst infection, but it’s lingering just enough to make me feel lousy.

But in all of this, I’ve gotten some great news:

licenseapproval

(Those following things are the licensure fee and my fingerprints. In 3-4 weeks, I’ll have my license and license number, and I’ll officially be able to call myself a licensed counselor.)

Now I need to find myself a job to use the license.

Pretty much a great way to end the year!