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 Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:52 pm
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Big ol' edit: This thread is probably going to be "closed" until after June. College, my future career, a mood disorder, and 2 car accidents have basically taken over my life leaving me spiritually exhausted. (I don't even have my shrine up anymore, went through an atheist period, might be back on board now but who knows).
Kiwi (March 200 cool
I’ve decided to create one of these threads, because I’m oh-so-jealous of everyone else who has one.
A little bit ‘bout me:
I’m a Kemetic Pagan (or Neopagan, as I have been corrected in the past). I was brought to the Kemetic world by Isis, and this was about 2 years ago. After some research I discovered that the Ancient Egyptian version of Isis, known as Aset, is really different from who we view Isis as.
Anyways, I took the beginner’s course with Kemetic Orthodoxy. Right now I’m a Remetj with that faith (which means I am not fully dedicated to it, but I’m part of the community). But, I don’t follow Kemetic Orthodoxy. I’m “doin’ my own thang” when it comes to spirituality, I just don’t fit into a group.
So, shall we begin?
The Table of Contents: “Come read it, come see what it says…”
1. All About Aset, the goddess I honor.
2. Terms and Concepts
3. Death
4. Festivals/Celebrations (as I celebrate them)
5. Personal Piety: I am not a priest, but “I’ve got trouble so hard, I just can’t stand the strain”
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Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:54 pm
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About Aset
Right now she is the only Egyptian god that I honor on a regular basis. I have an image of her on my personal shrine, and I often pray to her. Other Kemetics have mentioned that she is a very intense goddess, she definitely has influence over my life! This doesn’t mean that I completely ignore the other Egyptian gods, I just have a different level of communication with them. On some days I will get little hints of Set or Djehuty in my life, but Aset seems to be the prominent one.
So, here’s a little bit of info about Aset.
-Her name means “throne” or “seat”
-Unlike Isis, Aset was actually a funerary deity. Aset and Nebt-Het were depicted as protecting the deceased.
-She’s strong, independent, fierce, and motherly (but not mushy). But, in the early period she was only a mother figure to royalty, over time she slowly gained popularity with the common people.
-Sometimes she’ll stay silent, almost as if she’s no longer there, just to let you figure things out on your own.
-She’s known as a powerful magician, she’s called “The Mistress of Heka”
-Taken from Philae.nu, here’s a description of her,
“It was probably easy for people to identify with her, especially for women, because of her sufferings in myth as a widow and lonely mother. She was also greatly worshipped for her healing and protective powers and love spells and amulets (tyet knot) connected to Aset were frequently used”
My offerings to Aset include incense, prayers, candle burning, sometimes food and drink, but most of the time I’ll make items for her. That seems to be the offering that usually pleases her, I guess she just likes it when I put all my energy into something. I made the picture of her that’s on my shrine, well…kinda. I printed off an image of her from the internet, and painted over it with acrylic paint. I framed it, and painted over the frame border so it’d be a darker wood (it just looked nicer that way).
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Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:55 pm
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Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:57 pm
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Death
So, here’s a basic breakdown of what the Kemetic afterlife is according to mythology (some mythology, with my memory I probably have some facts wrong):
The dead is lead to the Hall of Truth, their heart is weighed against the Feather of Ma’at (Truth). The heart is thought to have an account of all your good/bad deeds during your life. If you’re one bad son-of-a-gun your soul ceases to exist, but if you’ve done a fairly good job you’re brought to Wesir to join the afterlife.
So, basically here’s how I see it: When you die, your soul is judged based on how you lived. You should be thinking about your actions and taking responsibility for what you do. My exact thoughts on the afterlife? A portion of your soul (Ka) stays behind to help out your ancestors or friends, and another portion (Ba) is reincarnated…or maybe not, maybe it just joins a “heaven” type afterlife. It’s just impossible to know this for sure, and I’m not too concerned with knowing the exacts of the afterlife when I’m still trying to live.
Akhu
Mourning for the dead:
This is a belief taken from Kemetic Orthodoxy:
Mourn for 70 days, which is seen as the amount it took for mummification. The time it takes to become an Akhu. In psychology, it’s the time needed to adjust to the death.
Honoring the dead:
Kemetics honor the dead, we believe they are there for us. To help out, to be supportive. You have to remember them, no one likes to fade away or be forgotten about.
Ways of honoring: write letters to the dead, offer food, offer gifts, or create an Akhu shrine with pictures of your loved ones (a place to put your offerings).
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Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:58 pm
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Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 5:00 pm
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Personal piety and my mental state: ("If it keeps on rainin', the levee's gonna break")
I’m a lazy pagan, I’ll admit it. I don’t do rituals, I don’t care about spell work, my only form of communication with the gods is prayer, and I’m too damn impatient to meditate (but I can do yoga, so that makes up for it). I try my best to NOT draw attention to my religion, I don’t dress goth and I don’t wear any religious symbols. I keep my beliefs to myself, the thought of making this thread even freaked me out a bit.
A lot of Kemetics perform a ritual known as The Daily Rite or Senut, I find it unnecessary. In the Ancient times that would have been a priest’s job, and since I’m not a priest I have no “call” to do it. Oh, I still give offerings and I still have a shrine, but I don’t go overboard with it. I feel like all that elaborateness just interferes with my relationship with the gods.
Now, the fun part about my faith: mental illness really ******** things up sometimes. How am I supposed to know if my relationship with a god isn’t just a result of some screwy brain chemicals?
I’ve been known to become religious one week, then tear down my shrine the next in a “I hate god, I hate everything” tantrum. I’ve been overcome with paranoia to the point where I pray for protection against things that will never happen. I remember one night I woke up in a panic because I thought some man was outside my window, just waiting to break in and attack me. I was praying to Aset, “Please protect me, please don‘t let me get murdered, please!”
I can’t imagine how confusing it must be for a god to have someone like me worshipping them. You know, if that god actually exists.
(note: I have Bipolar Disorder, and it’s rapid-cycling. To put it in simple terms: I’m normal sometimes, depressed a lot of times, extremely hyper sometimes, paranoid a lot, and suicidal a few times in the year)
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Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 10:11 pm
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Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 11:20 am
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Sophist Vertigo_Kiwi Ka: Spirit/double. The human aspect of the soul; has earthly memories and personality. Aides friends and family, but can die out if forgotten. Ba: Immortal part of the soul, is only destroyed if fed to Ammit. The part that can reincarnate into a new body. (as my personal belief goes) Akh: Form in which the dead exist in the afterlife. Akhu: the dead, “The Shining Ones” I think you have the ka and ba switched around. The ka was the vitality/energy of the person. The ba was the spiritual manifestation, or what we might faultily translate today as soul. I could say more on this but I'd be citing a book whose information came from another source so I couldn't give you exactly which Pyramid Text I'm talking about. If you'd like to know anyway let me know and maybe I can pm. |
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Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 2:03 pm
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TheDisreputableDog Sophist Vertigo_Kiwi Ka: Spirit/double. The human aspect of the soul; has earthly memories and personality. Aides friends and family, but can die out if forgotten. Ba: Immortal part of the soul, is only destroyed if fed to Ammit. The part that can reincarnate into a new body. (as my personal belief goes) Akh: Form in which the dead exist in the afterlife. Akhu: the dead, “The Shining Ones” I think you have the ka and ba switched around. The ka was the vitality/energy of the person. The ba was the spiritual manifestation, or what we might faultily translate today as soul. I could say more on this but I'd be citing a book whose information came from another source so I couldn't give you exactly which Pyramid Text I'm talking about. If you'd like to know anyway let me know and maybe I can pm. Hmm. I've always understood it as Kiwi describes.
I took my information from http://www.hwt-hrw.com/Bodies.php as well as a book that goes in depth into the symbolism and cosmology of these. I never understood these things clearly until I read what role they served and their basis dependent on spiritual transition until I read the book I'm talking about.
Did you get your info from Kemetic Orthodoxy as well? I will recheck my sources to make sure what I'm saying is true. |
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Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 4:49 pm
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So I've checked my sources and I think what might be confusing you was that I didn't talk about the personality part. I'll elaborate about that now.
Not everyone followed this idea of having a conscious ka. That was mostly reserved for the pharaoh and the spiritual elite until the New Kingdom when it became more open to common people. "For the common people, this force was not felt as an emanation of their own personality, but rather was bestowed upon them from an extraneous source. This was the ancestral group that existed in the spirit world as a source of power, at one with the ka energy." (Naydler, Temple of the Cosmos) Therefore when the people died, their kas merged with the ancestral group. It was not believed that common people's self-consciousness was accentuated but rather diluted by absorption into the ancestral group. This is why offerings to the dead were so important. The ancestral group was considered the custodians of the ka energy and by giving them offerings and prayers they would continue to direct the ka energy toward the world of the living, making it possible for crops to grow, etc. Thus it may be explained as "undifferentiated universal life energy." (Naydler)
More on the ancestral group:
"The ancestors, the custodians of the source of life, were the reservoir of power and vitality, sustenance and growth. Hence they were not only departed souls but still active, the keepers of life and fortune. Whatever happened, whether for good or evil, ultimately derived from them. The sprouting of corn, the increase of the herds, potency in men, success in hunting and war, were all manifestations of their power and approval." (Rundle Clark, R.T., Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt)
Pharaohs, however, still maintained their self-consciousness when joining with their ka, which enabled him to assimilate it to himself, rather than be assimilated by it. This is where the spiritual double comes in. Because the pharaoh was able to keep his member-based self-consciousness (I won't go into that right now unless you want to know) the ka was sometimes pictured following behind the pharaoh as an exact mirror image. For example, the following is a picture of Khnum creating the pharaoh and his ka at the same time.
There was another picture I had from Hatshepsut's temple showing her making an offering as a pharaoh with her ka following behind her, but I can't find it on the internet, unfortunately. If you'd like to search for yourself it was from her temple.
There is more concerning the pharaoh's ka but I just wanted to differentiate between it and the ba.
The hieroglyph for the ba is the jabiru bird, with the human head that looks like that of the deceased whose ba it was. The ba is a spiritual manifestation, whose role it was to go to the heavens. It seems to be an in between state, and its region is the Dwat which belongs to Osiris. "Union with Ra was considered the goal of the celestial ascent of the king in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts." (Naydler) In the Book of the Dead, Ani prays, "O make the Osiris, my ba, divine." The difference between Osiris and Ra is that Osiris cannot renew himself alone, requiring help from Isis and Horus. The akh, then, would have been imbued with the light of Ra, as Ra could self-regenerate (as he does every day he passes over the sky). This self-renewing power is an indicator of its divine state.
I hope it's more clear now. The book by Naydler really is the best I've come across so far, and was recommended to me by a Kemetic author who relies on scholarly sources alone. I still need to verify it myself by reading more, but the website I sited which is from another Kemetic recon group makes the same basic differentiation that I do.
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Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 7:27 pm
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 3:33 pm
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:12 pm
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Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 6:09 pm
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:25 am
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