Frustration

I’m very frustrated right now. My health is back and forth rather constantly the last month. I’m not even sure what it could be anymore, although currently MS fits the bill best. Sometimes though, I do wonder if it’s all in my head. Is that such a bad thing? No, not necessarily, but if it isn’t and I ignore it, well that’s a bad thing. My symptoms mostly just don’t add up, or they wax and wane so erratically that I can’t necessarily make heads or tails of them. What’s important? What’s just random? Will this particular symptom stay? Is this a product of insomnia, or albuterol, heat or just because I’m thinking about it? For example, increased heart rate, blood pressure and trembling, albuterol side effects that I’ve had before and readily recognize. Sometimes though, they’re there anyway, even though I haven’t used my inhaler or had any caffeine. Even then, my shaking isn’t usually this bad unless I used my nebulizer, and I haven’t used that thing in literally two years. It actually needs to be replaced. So why is it so much more intense lately? I don’t know.

Then there’s this whole religion thing. I’ve been too tired or sick lately to really get much of anything from anyone. I wish it would rain, I’ve been having a hell of a lot more clarity and calm when it’s rained ever since I started trying to connect more with the weather and water as a whole. I’m also reminding myself that one can be Kemetic without the gods, not that I necessarily want to be godless. I’ve spent several mornings greeting Heqat and Qebechet, because why not? One is my good friend’s “grandmother” and the other is one I’ve always been interested in. Maybe I’ll just surround myself with ladies, because I also thought of Serket. It makes me think of an old dream where four or five goddesses were watching me walk through a corridor. They were observing me like scientists, but also guiding me.

Earlier in the month, I had a dream about carnelian beads, a prayer necklace with a pendulum at the end. I have no idea what the thing as a whole means, but certainly not with the pendulum. I own a pendulum, but it’s quartz, not copper or gold (could have been bronze, it was yellow-y and metal, I dunno) like the dream necklace. There were also statues of a fox, wolf and Anpu. His statue wasn’t the focus, and it was above my head, something important to me because, as a short person, I’m more likely to look down for something than up. I often find things on a lower shelf than taller people and look under things first. They often see things over my head. Basically, it means he’s staying out of the way, where I won’t see him. I only just now thought of this because I was remembering grocery shopping this weekend and completely missing things I was looking for because they were on a top shelf. The fox and wolf statues though, they were just above eye level, where I frequently look for things. They were warped, but the fox was smiling. Zolfyer’s fox promised me help if I was her liaison to him. I haven’t taken her up on the offer.

I honestly feel more receptivity from the goddesses. Perhaps I needed to go through all this frustration and such. I dunno, but this morning I reached out and got Aset. Quite clearly at that. Really, I was poking at Anpu, asking what was I supposed to do now, was I supposed to move on, are you listening? I kinda blew it off, wondering if anyone would listen to me. Low and behold, a familiar feeling, and then Aset. “I’ll listen to you.” Devo made a suggestion when I told her about my dream with the prayer beads/pendulum (which also included my mother telling me she had the same beads, showing me the carnelian string that was twice as long as my actual prayer beads) that I sit with them and see what impressions I get. I haven’t really had the energy or concentration, and I’ll admit that I was rather jaded and ticked off too, but recently I did and I couldn’t quite figure out who or what it was. It felt familiar, and definitely feminine, insistent too, but at the time I was very distracted and exhausted. So, who knows. Another dream comes to mind, a scene of Aset arguing with Anpu about his plans and walking away crying. Perhaps she was upset at his plan to teach me to be self-reliant and look for what I really want and what can genuinely work for me, even if it’s hard and annoying and incredibly frustrating. Even if it makes me feel abandoned.

So many perhaps’ and possibilities. So much frustration.

MoWD-Light

I cannot feel your light.

Your burning cinders,

Your burnished bronze,

Your rich indigo,

Both chilled and warm,

Shudder-inducing in its frosty breeze,

Soothing and enveloping in its heat.

None of the excitement of late autumn,

Nor the relaxing of mid spring.

Though your light paints the horizon

Every dawn and dusk,

I cannot touch you in it.

I cannot feel you breathing into me.

I feel a whole lot of nothing

Though I see you daily.

I feel a little of everything

Trying to reach you.

Where are you?

MoWD-Beginning and Forgiveness

I’ve talked about my beginning with Anpu many times. In fact, I’ve referenced it just in this project lol I’m not really sure what else to say. He lets me pester him, and he rarely gets enraged at my fickle nature. I imagine he is aware that my behavior is primarily a function of intense anxiety, depression and paranoia. There’s a lot of forgiveness inherent in our relationship. I don’t know why, I’m just glad it’s there, otherwise I’d have needed a new god a long time ago. Perhaps this is why I’ve still stuck with him despite how often I talk about reaching out to a different god or something. In the end, I need that calm, that forgiveness. The necessary quiet and control required to hear him is difficult for me to achieve, but that is something I need to learn. I do wonder when he’ll push me along though, but I’m hardly in a rush, though I probably should be. Who knows.

MoWD- Together

Together we dance, like a parent and child

I stomp my feet, and walk on your toes

You wait patiently as I try to keep up.

I’m terrible at it, pushing and pulling,

swinging and shouting.

Impatient, despite the music being slow.

You’re willing to hold me,

but I want to dance by myself.

So I twirl in circles, and fall to the ground

dizzy and laughing.

I do it again, and then I fall down

crying because I feel sick.

You wait patiently while I try to keep up.

Sometimes you pick me up,

but very often you wait.

Wait for me to call you, in my infinite stubbornness.

Wait for me to ask you, in my infinite hardheadedness.

Sometimes I stick my fingers in my ears,

playing that catchy song, not realizing you could punish me.

Insolent child, patient father.

Sometimes you’re not close enough

and other times, I’m so busy crying I cannot hear you.

Sometimes you just wait until I calm down.

And you are there, when I turn around

Ready to dance again.

MoWD-How?

It was easy for me. I was the most familiar with Anubis, and I had always thought it exceedingly cool that he was a jackal. I love canids of all kinds, and what I knew of Egypt was great as well. Then I found out people did this “worship the Egyptian gods” thing, and that I really jived with the religion.

Naturally I started pestering The Jackal.

He didn’t turn me away, though he didn’t exactly answer at first either. He’s been incredibly forgiving, since I am both very impatient and very timid at the same time. I can’t imagine how much of a headache I’ve been for Him. Even when I was writing those posts last week about not calling myself Kemetic anymore, I knew I wasn’t really going anywhere. He has never told me get out, and I don’t plan to. Even though sometimes I feel like I should. I just need to stir things up, and will still be doing research and perhaps reaching out to other netjer. I love this religion too much, I grok it too well. It simply works for me, I just have to find things to do to occupy my time (goodness gracious my brain wants to be kept busy so badly) and have a focus.

In other words, I don’t know what I want, but this god is willing to put up with my flailing and running around like a headless chicken. Honestly if I learned to sit the fuck down and be quiet for a minute I’d probably have less problems! Perhaps this is why even the louder gods chuckle and turn me right back around. “Oh look, one of Anubis’ anxious kiddies”.

I was a huge dork though, I’ll be honest. I really did reach out because he was a jackal, and he was decently familiar, but mostly his jackalness.

MoWD-Who?

Who would have thought, that little me would find You?

That I could reach out, in childishness and excitement,

To find Someone there?

You hear me, You see me, silent and salient.

Ah, the pain of your quietude, how it frightens my noisy mind.

But You are there, You are there, even when I can’t feel You.

The gentlest touch, the sternest expression.

Is that why they call you Strong of Face?

Despite my protests, You return.

Even when I transgress, You don’t turn me away.

Though I am fickle, You do not bite.

Is this why they call you Lord of Ma’at?

I shudder in delight at Your grace, Lord of Knives.

The sunrise hails you, Lord of Heaven.

The sunset praises you, Lord of Light.

Here I am, calling Your names.

Here I am, praising your horizon.

I am here, at your altar.

Never stop forgiving me

Your idiot daughter.

Month of Written Devotion

So, The Jackal’s Dance’s post reminded me that this was happening. I’ll be participating, although I’ve had a lot going on today so I’m going to post today’s and tomorrow’s tomorrow. Here’s the link for myself and anyone who wants to participate as well. Today is a sort of welcome post, the prompt is

1. Who? – Deity, spirit or chosen devotion for the month

Tomorrow is

1. How? – How did you become involved with your devotional topic?

 

Sunrise Praise

Dua Anubis, Lord of Light, who flings open the gates of the Duat.
You make way for the Sun God, refreshed by Nut, who rises in the East.
Lord of Heaven, you paint the sky a sweet hue
Of orange and yellow and blue.
You draw up the barque, and pull it across the threshold of the cosmos.
You craft the horizon as a door, worked carefully and detailed
To celebrate Ra’s return to the living.
God of duality, Jackal of Life and Death,
How beautiful is your work?
It praises you for creating it, as it praises the Sun for illuminating it.
Dua Strong One!

When Ma’at Becomes Isfet 2

The funny thing about life is how easily things can turn around. One day you’re totally doing the right thing, the next you realize you’ve made a horrible mistake, or what you’ve been doing backfires spectacularly. Maybe you were using a routine that worked perfectly, and now find it doesn’t fit you anymore. This certainly ties into my last post, and I’m starting to think I’m in that changeover phase. I’ve realized things are no longer working how they were before, and it’s time to change. Will that mean that I’ll permanently not consider myself a Kemetic anymore, even though I still strongly identify with the religion and its tenets? Possibly, or this could be a pressured sort of situation.

By that I mean, multiple things have come together to force the old out and cause change. I’m a little complacent, yes, quite lazy at times, just as much as I’m dealing with a broken brain and an uncooperative body. Last night I was pondering meditation and came upon why, even though I can meditate, I don’t like to. This train of thought was born of reading a post by someone else (another point I’m going to make later was inspired by reading a post this evening) about movement and dance. Ironically it was not, in fact, Devo, but a witch I follow on tumblr. It made me realize that I also have difficulty quieting my body, much moreso than quieting my mind. It’s not that I can’t sit still, it’s that I have physical problems that make it uncomfortable to sit or lie in certain positions for extended periods. Further, while I can quiet my mind if I try hard enough, I don’t actually want to.

It is almost physically painful for me to quiet my mind. I am a thinker and a dreamer. I have a very loud brain, and it loves to craft ideas. More importantly, it’s depressed and anxious, it’s also angry (that’s what happens when you are told repeatedly that your emotions are too intense, invalid, shouldn’t exist and then heap abuse on top of it). It’s quite painful to have my brain sit still for any extended length. Even when I’m going to sleep, it’s busy. It’s also boring, but that’s something else entirely. I never really considered it that deeply before, but there it is. Am I willing to do it? Yes, I’ve meditated successfully before with visualizations. Even then, however, we can see that I’m not sitting in the total silence, blank mind sort of meditation.

As I said in my last post, I don’t intend to drop Anpu. I don’t intend to completely abandon what I know and love. Perhaps I should do some divination (something I’ve been avoiding because I’m nervous. I can tell that I’d get better readings if I worked intuitively instead of with the cards’ ascribed meanings, but I know I have sock puppet syndrome sometimes, and yay anxiety for making everything hard). Perhaps I should just poke around or toss a flare into the netjeru’s space. Lost puppy to a good home. Bakes. Has cat. Stubborn, not terribly consistent, easily bored, skittish. It would certainly be something, but I don’t know yet.

Starting on a new path and maintaining it was ma’at. It is now becoming stale, burdensome and useless. Isfet. I must either change my path or abandon it entirely, I must maintain ma’at.

I already elaborated on the biggest pain in the ass part of my life. I’d like to touch on some other things here. First about this movement as meditation part. I don’t know if that’s a good alternative for me. For one thing, I don’t have a lot of space, and anyone who has ever done yoga with pets knows that they get in the way. My kitten, for example, loves to be underfoot for reasons we can’t comprehend. We’ve nearly hurt her more than once because she walked right up behind us and under a raised foot. Really though, lack of space is a big factor, along with self-consciousness. I was thinking for a while that I could sing, but that takes more effort than one might think, and I’d potentially be doing it for several songs. Even just the change over would be distracting. Then I was thinking meditating with my plants, which I will likely give a try at some point. I’m going to keep trying to come up with other ideas as well.

Then there’s still magic. I plan to work more extensively with my plants and hopefully find info on devas and individual spirits. Water is a harder one for me, I don’t live objectively close to any bodies of water and I know that physical proximity helps me a lot. I recently found some nice sigil resources and need to go through those. I’d also like to learn more about clairsentience (touchy-touchy me) and other touch-based magic, therapies and divination. I also need to play around with what I’ve got, since I can feel in my bones that I’d get better readings from my cards if I did it by intuition.

Shadow work. I know I need to do shadow work. I will be honest and say I’m afraid. I’m also stubborn, because in some ways, for some things, with certain people, I don’t want to let things go. Very common thought process, I’m sure. Perhaps this is also why my practice and relationship went sour. Anpu did mention shadow work quite frequently. Even Dapper has scolded me for avoiding it, not that he should talk. I have very intense emotions. For someone who wasn’t taught healthy ways to handle intense emotions, trying to confront them and the fact they’ve been pent up and compounded for years is terrifying. It’s also angering, because I shouldn’t have to do this. I shouldn’t have to do this and the people who hurt me should be sorry and should have been sorry sooner.

I see why Kali wants me. She certainly knows all about getting carried away by strong emotions. Anpu is a god of change, which I brought up a few posts ago. Perhaps these things will get sorted out once my house is whole and calm and aired out.

I mentioned that there was another post I had read. This was about cocoons and change. I wasn’t expecting it, but it was certainly timely. It described reasons why one might feel a witchy change, a witchy cocoon phase, would be happening and the “symptoms” you might feel as it happens. I certainly feel like I’m going through that right now. It’s difficult.

I still feel like I’d benefit from a louder, more active god and more structure. It’s hard to find structure that works when your mind is very fluid. It’s always moving and always wants to move. Crochet is probably the only thing that really matches both structure and fluidity, but at the same time it’s very stimulating and creative. I suppose I could try that, since I do like making simpler things with the knowledge I know as opposed to following complex patterns. It depends on my mood. It just seems both difficult and silly to really meditate or even try to astral while crocheting. There are moments of focus necessary, even with simple designs and stitches. Won’t hurt to try though right?

Any suggestions for me out there? For example, where can I get a decent, tiny cauldron? Like, just bowl sized or something. Also, someone remind me to get cheap red pots as well, and a red pen, and ingredients for baking and yummy foods. I intend to celebrate wep ronpet this year, because I honestly feel like I need to. New year, new path, new god, new me. I may also reach out to Aset, I hear this is a special week for her. I haven’t talked to her in a while, and perhaps she or one of the other goddesses can help me here. I admit freely to being too scared of Kali to work with Her, it has kept me out of shrine honestly. They say all goddesses are one goddess in Hinduism, and there is quite a bit of overlap. I imagine it won’t hurt to ask Kali to be a little less frightening, or gentle, to give me a nudge or something in the right direction. A few hints perhaps of where or how I should look for information. (HINT HINT KALI, HINT HINT ANPU, HUMANS ARE HARDHEADED)

I love this religion a lot. I love these gods a lot. I love this community a lot. I just need more help. Something to go on, some direction, something that even my stubbornly fluid, lazy brain can happily latch on to and do. Or at least relentless pursuit and nagging until I get shit done (jk, that doesn’t work that well). I’m tired of long ass Fallow Times. I’m definitely tired of being unable to contact Dapper. I am tired of this cluttered apartment in this cluttered city where my windows view concrete and asphalt. Where are my plants, I need leafy hugs.

I do wonder what I’ll accomplish if I start working with my plants. Finding information on working with plant devas and individual plant spirits is a pain. Most green and plant magic is all about herbs and oils and whatnot. While I don’t mind that, I don’t have the luxury of doing that type of spellcraft, because I don’t have space for the plants and I don’t really cook with fresh herbs. My typical seasoning is mixed, so kitchen witchery is kind of weird. I can’t afford to just buy things willy nilly either. It’s so hard to really figure out what I want and what I need. I really just don’t know what I need and can’t articulate it.

Until then I’ll play around and just focus on planning for wep ronpet. Mayhaps I’ll finally join the KO beginner’s class. I don’t like their application honestly. I can understand it, and understand the reasoning for the questions on it. I just don’t like being asked those questions. They’re difficult to answer (which I suppose is the point), but they’re also often used to judge me and make things unnecessarily difficult. Sort of like “why do you want to work here” at job interviews. I’m lost and need help, y’all have pre-established structure and stuff. It may be time to break out Eternal Egypt again. Been a while since I read that. I’m ok with that though. Now if only I was any good at song-writing or music making and then I could sing.

I’m also wondering if I could make it a habit to pray or otherwise give offerings at sundown or something. Sundown is a little inconvenient, if only because it often happens around dinner time, which would be good for offerings I suppose. There’s always dawn and sunrise, but I’m not a morning person, and further I’ll be starting school soon. Sunset may be better. We’ll see, I may give it a try. 21 days to build a habit right?

Now it’s getting early, 5:33 am. I’m gonna play with my plants and cards for a bit, because why not? I am a horizon child, this is my time.

Pondering

So, I was having some thoughts about sound and song with my magic. It occurs to me that I suck at using sound on the astral. I’m not that kind of learner, that’s a type of focus and processing I need help with (which probably means I’d be better off with a data entry or non-phone customer service job, but that’s neither here nor there) so it’s not a viable option for the limited astral control I have. I figure that working on waking astral travel is the better bet, which hopefully will enable me to figure out my strengths, especially as a healer and for fighting.

As far as the strengths go, it seems likely that I’m some sort of line walker. That is, I can squish, split, crack and merge planes. I seem to be really good at working in two planes at once, with the possibility of being a soul diver like Devo. I was talking with Cloudi about that and, after suggesting I could probably merge soul pieces with the right training, I got the thought that Anubis works like that. He’s a soul fixer, mending ibs and bodies, using proxies (like scarab amulets and false parts) to create a complete body. He heals by binding and merging, he kills by rending and cracking. As a liminal deity he walks between worlds, able to operate on two or more planes at once because he is between them, because he has brought them together. If he was so inclined he could teach me more about all of these things.

Back to the physical world and my magic though. I’m still puzzling out the best way to handle things. Whatever has me jiggling and wiggling seriously impedes my magic. I had trouble before anyway, since everybody only ever seems to use earth energy and it just doesn’t agree with me. However, I feel like sigil work may be useful. It moves my body out of the equation by making something else (in this case a grid, matrix, circuit, or diagram) the main energy conduit. I’m also still looking into water magic but it’s slow going. The other day though, I was singing and decided to specifically focus on helping Dapper feel better and have some energy as well as strengthening the wards.

The results were noticeable. The focus itself helped a ton and I honestly wasn’t expecting to raise so much energy so fast. While we are talking rock music, a naturally powerful and high energy genre, and my favorite group, and the wards are programmed to absorb energy from music, the effects were so palpable that I was having a hard time singing! The wards also held the energy in so it got more concentrated, but it didn’t affect my body all that much and I was still able to direct it, though I will admit it was fairly wild.

This could potentially be a good avenue to pursue and explore, after all I adore singing and my control is present Here. It makes me ponder what I could do with different genres. I always sing rock and the band I love is a source of comfort, so as expected I was able to use the energy generated to soothe despite its fierceness, however I might be able to achieve greater effects with gentler songs and genres. At the very least it will be personally useful even if I don’t pursue it for wide-range magical purposes. What would happen if I raised energy in a circle and used it with sigils or a traditional spell? The wards can absorb any excess, the song energy isn’t inclined to do more than fall away once I stop singing. It could be useful.

Thoughts. Many thoughts.