The Dark Lady at Our Door

Death does not come in a single instant...it comes in waves. It washes though the house in little torrents of something I can barely describe--it makes the heart pound and quiets the voice. I pace, though there is nowhere to go. I whisper, though I know she can not hear me. My mother is caught in a world beyond. Her eyes are closed and she avoids suffering through sleep.

Last weekend she was fine. Last weekend she walked among the living and laughed and smiled and joked and shared in memories and ate salad. Today, she coughs and wheezes and retches and sleeps. Tomorrow it may change yet again. She might be better once the stronger medicines have time to build in her system. Or she might not.

She complained of a headache. She pointed to the specific place where her head hurt: right under the metal plate that marks where they opened her skull to remove the tumor two years ago. It throbs, she says. There is pressure, she says.

It's probably back, the doctor says.

And there is a lady in a dark cloak standing at our door. She does not knock, and though I know her, I do not let her in. No one else sees her. No one else senses her. No one else knows that she comes to visit whenever the house fills with the mist of the unseen--when my mother slips in and out of our world. The lady is quiet and patient. She comes and goes. And sometimes I fear her and sometimes--when my mother is in severe pain-- I wish she would stay. But I dare not ask her to enter.

Eventually, we need something from the store and I walk past the dark lady like a skittish child. I slip through our doorway and escape into the warm night air where the cicadas buzz and life throngs thick in the summer heat. But as I drive, I play a song over my radio that I know is the voice of that dark lady at our door:

A kite above a graveyard grey
At the end of the line, far far away
A child holding on to the magic of birth and awe


Oh how beautiful it used to be
Just you and me, far beyond the sea
The water scarce in motion, quivering still


At the end of the river, the sun down beams
All the relics of a life long lived
Here weary traveler rest your mind
Sleep the journey from your eyes


Good journey love, time to go
I've checked your teeth and warmed your toes
In the horizon I see them coming for you


The mermaid grace, the forever call
Beauty in spyglass on an old man's porch
The mermaids you turned loose brought back your tears

At the end of the river, the sun down beams
All the relics of a life long lived
Here weary traveler rest your mind
Sleep the journey from your eyes

When I return home, the lady is gone. My mother still sleeps and my father has put the lights of the kitchen on dim. I sit in the half shadows out in the living room, and somewhere behind my eyes, I cry.

It's Not Me, It's Us

I remember having an argument with Them once because I do not like to be wrong and because They have enough patience to keep after me until I admit that I am. I had created my first Kemetic oracle deck and pulled cards for a reading. Sixty-nine cards--showing words, not images. One of them? "Daily Ritual".

I didn't want to use the word Senut--though I knew of Senut and knew it existed in the temple and that it was meant to be exactly that: daily ritual. But I hated the idea of it. I hated the idea of being told "This--this here is what you will do to connect with the gods, and by the way? Do it every day."  Even if you don't want to. Even if you don't feel "in the mood". Even if you have other stuff going on. Every day. And I hated feeling like there was that expectation of me--that there was a need to develop some sort of spiritual discipline in me because my own way of talking to the gods somehow wasn't already enough of a dedication on my part.

It's actually a wonder--given how much my less mature self hated the idea--that I included it in the deck at all. I purposefully set out to not have a "daily ritual" in my personal practice. it seemed trite to me to schedule a time to talk to the gods. I talked to them everyday, in a sense, through prayer and devotional art. Why formalize that relationship? Surely, that was something only those who were deprived of that relationship,who had no practice speaking to gods, would do. So I went before shrine whenever I felt like I needed to and was convinced that it was perfectly fine to do things that way. But They had other ideas...

They did not hesitate to nag me with that card. It got drawn every time I did a reading. Every. Damn. Time.

Let me put that in perspective:

There are, as I said, sixty-nine cards in the deck. On a given drawing, I would shuffle the cards very well and draw nine. Even assuming that the first eight cards are not the card in question, thereby limiting the pool of possible cards by eight, the ninth card still only has a 1/61 chance of being the Daily Ritual card, or about a 1.6% chance. For every hundred times I preform a drawing, I should only draw that card at most twice. I have done drawings less than a dozen times and all of them have contained that card.

You think I'd take a hint. But in my usual defiant style, I didn't.

But now, like so many other things, I am reevaluating my stance on it. Here's what I learned once I stopped and listened--really listened--to the temple:

It's not about the expectation. It really isn't. It's also not about the spiritual discipline. It's not a practice meant to make me into a good little Kemetic. It's not meant to change my interactions with the gods or stop me from doing my impromptu ceremonies. Because--and this is the important part--it's not about me.

It's about knitting a community together through a shared act of Heka which draws its power from the forces of exact wording and mass repetition. When one does Senut, one does it as much to contribute to the community as to enrich one's own religious experience.

That's why there is no personalization of ritual words and no free choice in the ritual actions. To use a cliche, there is no I in Team. This isn't about how I talk to the gods--in fact, that's the one part of the ritual which is left open for the practitioner to improvise a bit--it's about how I share in a fellowship which is in diaspora, scattered across the globe. It's the song from American Tale (Somewhere Out There): "And even though I know how very far apart we are/ it helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star". It's the idea that whenever I say those words, at any time of day or night, there's a chance that somewhere in some remote place, another person is saying those exact same words along with me.

That's...beautiful.

Are there other ways to connect with the gods? Of course. But Senut is about more than that. It's not about me. It's about us.

And that is what I told Them I wanted, after-all.

Making Room for Ivy

For a long time, there has been one source for me--no...that's not true... a handful...but small enough to have the same affect--and there has been a desire in me to trust that source. Blindly. But ironically, not fully--I hemmed and hawed and half-ignored. It's a phenomena which I have encountered elsewhere...

When we have a student at the Alt. School who needs to really "get" something, to really think about it and process it (something like "you won't be able to graduate on time if you fail this class because you didn't do the big report...so you better start it now before it's too late) It does not do to have one adult say this. It has to be said by every adult that child encounters. We have meetings to manufacture this kind of group nagging mob effect. And it isn't because we think annoying the hell out of the kid will make him do something...it's because we know how easy it is to write off what one person says and how much harder it is to write off what a bunch of people say. That's the concept behind peer pressure, after all. It is easy for any of us to ignore one voice (especially if we have little investment in the relationship with the speaker), but it is a real test of courage and self-confidence to ignore a chorus.

Now, some people would call that manipulative. I call it simple psychology. I think in the US, peer pressure gets a bad wrap.It's not always a positive effect, by any means--especially when it is used to push someone into a dangerous or self destructive action--but like so many other social mechanisms, shunning it out right because it can be dangerous is unnecessarily limiting. We need peer pressure. Because sometimes we are wrong and hearing one person or one source say we are isn't enough to convince us. Especially if we have fostered in ourselves the healthy self-confidence and self-reliance that help us stand up to negative peer pressure and stand by our personal beliefs.

 Sometimes, we need the chorus to remind us that we aren't infallible--to at least plant the seed of doubt which can grow into the tenacious ivy that crumbles our walls. I would be the last to suggest that we should lay down our defenses and shift to meet each new perspective--we wouldn't be ourselves if we did that. As one of my teachers once said, "Our minds should not be so open that our brains fall out". But we shouldn't make our fortress air tight either. Give room for the ivy of doubt to grow, I say, and if it shrivels up and dies before the wall comes down than you are only further justified. It's all about finding out where your real boundaries are.

For me, making room for ivy means hearing many voices and giving them time and attention and good faith. I may not agree when push comes to shove, but I will have at least considered the other point of view.

That is part of why I sought out the temple. There is a richness of voices there. In the lessons and Reverends and books and other members. In the forums and chat logs and websites and the many, many blogs. I add those voices to the others I have been gathering in the last few months. Seeds are planted. Doubts take root and ivy flourishes. Walls I once thought foundational prove to be ornamental and come crashing down.

And I realize now--that is as it should be.

Voices from the Distant Past

This is complicated and uncomfortable to talk about. (Such is life, nay?) But...I think I have walked a life before this one. There are no details. No names. Just a feeling. At times I could swear I have bowed before these gods once in the past. At times I can almost recall the burn of sun or the spray of a river. Sometimes, when I'm bent over my workbench, I can almost remember lessons learned before in a similar art.I have always just brushed off these things. I thought that any former life--in Egypt or elsewhere--did not matter to the current one.

Then I met them.

My relatives are Jewish and Christian. My modern ancestors likewise. I tried to have an Akhu shrine once, but they did not respond well to it. I will admit, I was a bit hurt. But I respected their decision and let it go.

However. I am also an imperfect human being. After that rejection, I gave no offerings. I gave no prayers. I even said some ill things of a few of my beloved dead. I wanted to at least apologize--and show that I did not hold the incident against all of my ancestors and had forgiven the ones who had not wanted to be represented in my shrine. The Beautiful Festival of the Valley was approaching as I pondered this, and it seemed good timing.

I set the space, gathered the offerings, and purified myself. Then I approached the temporary altar (a small desk with limited space) and sat before the candles and bread and wine (sparkling grape juice, actually--I can't have alcohol). And I read the prayers in the book and as per the instructions, I broke bread with the deceased. I did not expect any answer, as I sat munching a bite of the loaf-- but to my surprise, there was a hand to take the other half of the bread.

The room seemed to get suddenly darker and in my minds eye, I found myself at a long table lined with faces I knew but didn't know and the air seemed to fill with the inaudible voices of a time long past. There was an hand on my shoulder, an uncle, I'm sure of it, and aunts sitting near me.These were people I knew intimately, but they were not relatives from my current life. There was a sense about them and how they laughed and looked at me, that I had come late to a party--that I was long overdue and they had been waiting.

It felt like home.

They came, not to scold me or to accept an apology. They came to tell me,

"We are here, waiting for you. You are not alone in the world of the dead. You have family here. You will join us again at our table when you come back."

They were joyous and they felt as though they had missed me. As though I had stepped out of that very place once before. I closed my eyes and I could feel night air in an open and dry place. I could smell candles made in another era.

Then as quickly as it had come, the vision was gone.

Ancestors.

I was once unhappy because I thought my recently departed kin did not want me and because, in my mind, that meant I had no ancestors at all. Now I feel a profound need to reconnect with voices long gone, and the warm glow of love from the unseen world touches me, like the candle buring on the altar, giving light to my eyes and heat to my face.

I remember. Can I ignore that? No. Even if I have always been wary of reincarnation claims. Even if I have always doubted my own feelings about it. Even if others raise an eyebrow when I say it. Even if it is uncomfortable to talk about. I have met them now, and so now I can not ignore it. Now I can not forget.

 I ate the rest of the bread and held onto the feeling of that place, the sound of those voices, and the touch of those hands-- for as long as I could until the seen world emerged from the dark and I returned fully to the world of the living; I whispered,

 "For your Ka. Drink of the intoxicating drink. It is a beautiful day."

 And I meant it

Shrines

Shrine space is problematic. I am not at home but living in a far removed corner of my parents' condo. When I am back in my own household, I will once again have my full shrine cabinet and Ahku shrine and festival altar:

But for the time being, I am squeezed into a tiny corner of the spare room I sleep in (once a sewing room--before mom was ill) and because not all of the guests coming to visit my mother in her final days are aware of my decidedly unusual faith, I can not make anything that would be overly noticeable. So I have had to make due:

(You can actually see by the corner how close it is to the bed. Not ideal, but I don't have many options)

(A close up of the actual work surface. My other supplies are stored inside the tin everything sits on. That little clipper like silver thing, by the way, is an excellent little tool used to put a candle out without creating a lot of smoke.) 

I don't think it's a bad thing to be forced to simplify once in a while.

Not having the statues, for one, helps me focus on Netjer instead of individual names, which is important for this class. Being forced to use simple objects and keep the small altar fairly clutter free reminds me that the artifacts of faith and the tools of faith are not the faith itself. The words and the heart are the core of ritual. Though I am not with only that.

I have my natron with me for purity, and though I can not use incense because of an overly sensitive smoke detector in that room, I have my Kyphi based oil* and a handmade diffuser which serves me just as well:

(The lower part conceals a piece of coton which holds the scent. I wave the talisman about the altar to release the scent at that part of the ritual)

In the event that I need access to my real shrine, I also have the linking talisman I made before I left:

My talisman making skills to the rescue once again.Yes, that is fully hand beaded by me. :)

There is a small scroll in the tube which bears half of a spell which links it to it's identical twin hanging above the statues in my home shrine. Speaking aloud the verse contained in this Talisman, then speaking the verse from the other should, in theory, connect the two spaces and allow me to tap into the consecrated space in my home and feel that comforting energy just as if I were really there. In theory. I will admit that I haven't tried it yet so I don't know how well it will function, but I felt pretty confident when I preformed the first half of the spell at my home shrine so I think it will work.

Overall, I feel prepared to do any work that needs to be done. I do miss my home shrine, though. But life is life. This is a temporary situation and even though I sometimes feel like I am stuck somewhere between normal life and life in the presence of the dying... I will make it work. I always have and I always will. As the Names keep telling me, life goes on still.

It must.

______

*The oil is vegan--meaning no animal products or by-products in it, is called Cairo and can be found here:  http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/wanderlust.html It is excellent for travel and situations where smoke based scent just isn't feasible.

Quick Note: Striking the name of the Waxen One

I reverted the second page of the blog to draft form because while I was reading elsewhere, I noticed another member striking the name of a certain serpent I mention often on that page. I think that makes sense--much as the ancients depicted malevolent forces with smaller carvings to lessen the affect of the image, so should one, in the modern equivalent, strike the name wherever it appears in text. It never occurred to me to do that before, but now I'm thinking it would be good idea. So I intend to go back and edit the page to strike the name or replace it with an epitaph (as is alternatively done in some of the ancient documents I've seen). The page will return soon-- once I've had a chance to make sure all the instances are struck  or minimized in some other way.

Update 6/17/12   2:05 am: The page is back up now. With more material added, no less. :) I continue to compile from previous blogs and old writings I find on my computer. I will be sure to always strike the name in the future.

Trust and Fear

Outside the window of my bedroom there is a highway. Through the tall, south facing windows, I can clearly see a busy on-ramp across from me. Today I have learned a lesson from observing it: I have trust issues.

Now, stay with me…I will get back to that thought in a moment.

I spent today sifting through the blogs of members on the forum, and the blogs linked by those blogs, and so on. I was looking for inspiration (and distraction, truth be told: today was another rough day for my mother, who spent most of the afternoon in pain between wakefulness and sleep). What I wasn’t looking for was fallout from something that happened all the way back in July of 2011.

I won’t repeat the words I read on those blogs here (anyone who knows what that date means can find what I found easily enough), but suffice to say I was worried. In fact, gravely concerned. I have been watching the temple for years but must have been looking the other way when this happened. I don’t recall it at all. I do remember a flood of refugees hitting the general pagan forums, but I never looked to see why they had all left so suddenly. The dozens of other blogs I hunted down and read today (checking the date in question to get a sampling of reactions) did little to ease my concerns.

But what I did next is the reason why I said in my application that I was finally mature enough to take this class: I checked the forum.

Yes. Instead of being my usual self and reacting solely based on the words of others and what they say was said I went and looked to see if I could find out what was said in the first place and hear it straight from the mouth the woman who first breathed it into existence. I was prepared for it to be bad. I was prepared to find something that would sour all of this for me and confirm what I had read elsewhere on the blogs.

But you know what? It wasn’t bad, and I don’t disagree with her. I liked what she had to say. I was comforted by her honesty even in the face of everything people said to her in the aftermath. I respect her declarations and her compassionate response to the criticism of those that challenged them.  

Then there was that insidious voice in the back of my mind…

That still doesn’t change what you really fear. What if it's “wrong”? What if his name is not the one she gives you? What if she says [insert name “I have issues with/is nothing like me”]? Then what will you think of her?

Back to the cars on the on-ramp.

It’s busy on that highway. At all hours of the day and night there is a steady stream of cars. Even more so tonight because it’s Friday and people are headed into the city for happy hour. But despite that, no one on the on-ramp slows down as they approach the bottom. No one. But I would— if I was out there. Because I don’t trust them. I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust chance or fate. I don’t trust luck. I don’t trust. But eventually I do it. Eventually, I merge. 

I asked him tonight. A plastic cup of milk and a bitter chocolate. No candles, no incense. Dripping wet from a shower, in my PJs. I sat there and I challenged him.

What if she’s wrong? What if I’m wrong?

No. What do you need? Aren't you the child who cried under the shrine because she didn't want to be alone anymore? Because she didn't want to be rejected anymore? Because she wanted acceptance and honesty in her relationships with others? Because she didn't want to carry the pain again?

He fixed me. He pulled me out of the darkness and gave me the strength and the courage and the temperament to insist on existing as I was no matter what others said or felt about it. But is his essence the only essence in me? No. Is his voice the only voice I cherish? No—though I do cherish him.

Make no mistake.

 I do empathize with him, and believe strongly in his cause.  I do still thrill a bit when chaos strikes. I do still like to test the mettle of my kings. I do still press my forehead against the glass to watch the storms. I do still get red of heart at times and speak out harshly against injustice and those who perpetuate it and stand spear in hand against the forces of uncreation. I do still do the things others will not do because someone must.

But…

I also write stories and devour knowledge. I also make talismans and hone my skills as an artisan. I also like being with people and belonging to groups. I also teach. I also obsess over death and dying and how it matters to society. I also cast spells. I also like numbers and math and order. I also play video games and watch anime. I also read tarot cards and have been trying to develop a personal deck. I also sing. I also draw. I also see land spirits. I also explore, constantly. I also like liminal spaces and dream worlds and mysteries and true names and…

And…

It goes on.

I am also many things.

I will not question how much he means to me. I will not question how much I have needed him at my side. But when he asks…

Aren’t you the child who cried?

I have to say yes. I am.

Aren’t you the child who pleaded for the thing I could not give?

Yes. I am.

He loved me enough to save me. He loves me enough to let me go... if I need that.

Because that’s the question I’m really asking when I ask “what if she’s wrong?” Because whatever her answer is, I have to trust that she isn’t wrong. Once I get past the trust deal, once I merge my car into this lane running parallel to me, that question doesn’t apply anymore.

What I was really afraid of was the unspoken question underneath it. The question I needed him to answer. 

Will you still love me? 

Will you still need me to? 

I don't know. I don't know...

A Need for Doing

The difference between me and her is that even when I can do nothing, I do something. The mind is an undiscovered country. I have read Frankl and I believe in his words. I cannot control my outer world, but my inner world is always mine. It is moments like this when I wonder what she sees when she closes her eyes. When I wonder if she has only regret and emptiness. Take me tomorrow. I feel good about my life. But she regrets the husband she chose, the career she chose, and sometimes, it feels like she regrets the daughter she has.

 But I am who I am.

The parts of me that need to change will change as they need to, and I resent her attempts to do it for/to me. There is a hidden rift between us. A gulf of fantasy and willing misperception. She does not accept who I am—and since that acceptance is really all I’ve ever wanted from her, we are still exactly where we have been all of my life: smiling for the picture and playing at happy family. I am a chameleon and I can fit into her life and live her paradigm with her…but at what cost? Clearly getting lost in that fantasy doesn’t make it real.

Don’t misunderstand.

I love her. I will always love her. And I forgive her in the same breath as I curse her. But that doesn’t make this moment any easier than the one before it or the one coming after it.

Is it selfish? That I want to go home, that I don’t want to be here anymore? Yes. And that’s why I’ve chosen to stay. But that doesn’t ultimately help matters.

And I don’t know what to ask her for. Or rather, I do but know asking won’t make things better either.

Take your pain medication so I don’t have to watch you make yourself suffer. Don’t criticize me or deal back-handed compliments and then act hurt when called out on them. Don’t speak ill of my father (he’s your husband, but he’s my blood) when in my presence. Don’t ask me to make the impossible happen and don’t get angry with me when I fail to do so. Don’t lie about me to the nurse when I’m sitting right there with you. Stop worrying so much about things that don’t matter.

But I can’t ask for it. For any of it. Because if she gives that up, she has nothing left but to sit and stare at the clouds outside the window and wait for death.

And the longer it takes the worse she is.

So we’re both in this prison.

If I stay and sit with her and look toward that western horizon, tomorrow is gone for me. When I sit at my work and slip into thinking about tomorrow, I am abandoning her, in a way—and she has an uncanny sense for when I’m doing it and never fails to interrupt.

The irony is that I end up sitting at the desk in the living room by myself watching TV and beading, which is exactly what I would probably be doing back at my apartment. But there is a world of difference between doing it because I want to and doing it because I feel like I have no other option. I can’t leave. And that’s the only difference between solitude and isolation.

But there has to be something…remember? I can do nothing about any of this, but I’ll be damned if I sit here without doing something. I fully intend to take action even if it’s an action taken only in my mind. I simply haven’t figured out exactly what.

Yet. 

A Woman's Hand

I didn't ask the question, but what was said struck me. Teacher. Coach. Counselor. Maybe even Kolee-dok-Zumil (for those who get the reference...I think it is a particularly apt description for this name in general). I added the last two myself, but the core of the thought is the same.


I was born on a clap of thunder. I was an outsider, always. Chaos is my natural element--it inundates my personal and professional life. But these things...


Do they make me his or are they the reason he walks with me?Nature or Nurture? The argument proves older than modern psychology.


 My family is mostly atheist. If you ask any of them, DNA is the force which makes the bones of who we are and anything gained beyond that is skin deep. Decorative and ultimately malleable. But in my heart I think on it and wonder...


I resemble my mother. It is a fact made clear to me by my father's frequent confusing of our voices over the phone and the comments of strangers. My mother is proud of it. "We're so alike," she tells others "we even finish each other's sentences."


That is true, to a point. But when I step back and look...when I am honest with myself...we are not the same. There are things from her that are in me, but a life lived differently makes a different woman in me. Teachers changed me. Friends changed me. Faith changed me. Books changed me. I changed me.


So what if He isn't my DNA?


What if he is Kolee-dok-Zumil? Does that matter? Does it change me or merely the way I see myself? Even if he is teacher, friend, faith, and knowledge. Even if he governs my life...does that mean he was the one?


There was a moment in my hour of deepest darkness--years ago-- that I looked up and cried out that the pain was too much. That there was no reason for me to exist. I was sure of it. I was sure that even if I asked for a sign of a higher power, there would be no voice to respond. But I asked, and I was answered. And for a long time I have thought...or told myself... that it was His voice. But is that true or was I misled because His name was the first name to speak to me personally in the days that followed? I think back on the moment now and I remember that it was not the voice alone which so impressed me as to convince me to give existence another chance. It was also the touch. The feeling which frightened me and comforted me all at once. The briefest sensation that couldn't possibly be real and yet, was. The phantom hand on my shoulder.


A woman's hand.


I remember that clearly, but only now do I realize the significance. There was someone else there in that moment. Even if he was the one that came for me... he was not alone. I realize that though I asked the question at the time, I never got an answer:


Who was she?


And now I ask and again, and I ask also: Is this the way for me to find out?


I don't know yet.


But this is a mark in their favor. I am on my way to being convinced.

When He Speaks from Within Me

There is a place in my heart which is full of fury and might. A place where I am strong in myself and sure of my course. It is always an ember smoldering within me, but every now and then it roars to life and fills me with flame. Not angry flame. Not hateful flame, but something else:

Defiant flame. A flame of challenge. Prove it to me. Go ahead. I dare you.

I genuinely don't want you to fail.

I want to see you emerge from those flames as strong as before you entered. I want to see you walk in righteousness and deserving glory--but I do want to see you walk through the flames.

It is not enough to tell me. Show me. Make me believe in you.

I look forward to giving  myself over to you honestly and completely. I look forward to being wrong about you.