Her-wer's Birthday Celebration: What is seen by Two Eyes

The setting sun was pink and low in the western sky, mirrored by the waxing moon rising in the east. The colors of the prairie were soft and dusty, reminding me of the desert I once dwelled in. I could not help but imagine that the two luminous orbs above were the eyes of Her-wer as he looked through the horizons on this, the day of his birth.

Still I avoided the Senut.

The prior nights events hung with me and happenings early in the day frightened me away from them for a short time…

I was told once, by a psychologist, that if you can still ask whether or not you are crazy, you most certainly aren’t. Psychosis is in degrees—we all contain the seeds of illness for they are the tools of the consciousness and subconscious, of the mind and the soul. It is when the seeds take root and cover the landscape of one’s entire life like vicious weeds blocking out all light to the healthy growth below, then we say of it “that is craziness and must be dealt with”. The rest is merely human.

That is small comfort when one wanders so far into the unseen as to forget, temporarily, the road back to the normal world. I cannot say if what I experienced were visions or delusions, but in either case, I was fearful.
I paced the hall in the morning. Sunlight. Dawn. In fact, well passed dawn. After being up at odd hours the night before, I slept until well into the apex of the day. The light should have brought comfort and normalcy back to my home, but something lingered from the night before. It’s not his day anymore, a deeper part of me whispered into my mind, why still think on this?

I remember my grandmother’s house when I was a child and the garden we ran wild through on sunny days like this. I remember the stepping stones near the screened porch: 24x24 tiles of weathered wood, they were like driftwood made by rain, curious relics to appear in a grass ocean hundreds of miles from the sea. I remember my brother and I lifting them up to search for crawlies and salamanders in the moist black earth under them where the sun never touched. I remember the beetles—thin but bulbous at the same time, often very large. They were from His world, though I didn’t know it then.

I was in the bathroom this morning, looking for something in a cabinet when I felt it. A small niggling. A flicker of something, something that was “almost life” hiding somewhere near me. I looked down and saw a clump of fuzz tucked between the baseboard and a floor mat. I almost breathed a sigh of relief. Somewhere between my childhood and now, I lost my reverence for crawly things. My fear of insects boarders on inappropriate these days. The mere thought of them lurking in my living space sets my heart pounding and has me checking sheets and looking under couch cushions.

But my mind wouldn’t leave well enough alone. There is something under the rug, my intuition whispered. A spider? My stomach flipped. This is spider season in my local clime, when the weather becomes less amenable to the critters and they start looking for future winter quarters in old buildings like ours. Wolf spiders. Big ones. I shuddered and hoped I was wrong as I flipped up the mat to look.

Not a spider. A thin but bulbous beetle, black as ink—exploring the grout lines of the tile just as the ones from my childhood used to explore the dark dirt below the wood boards. But they don’t belong in this climate—I’m several ecosystems north of their natural habitat. What kind of omen was this?

I zapped it with a dust buster. A dead omen now.

I tried to ignore it. I tried to go back to doing normal things, but my mind wouldn’t let it alone. I went and laid down on the bed for a bit, trying to relax and remind myself that I was just being silly. They probably live in lots of climates, I thought, I’ve just never chanced to see one here before. Then I noticed sounds out in the hallway. Familiar sounds, but eerie outside their normal context. Voices coming from within the white noise of the fans. It’s a normal occurrence around here. I’m used to voices at night when I’m trying to sleep, unintelligible, half whispered. No one else hears them, but since they’ve never actually said anything to me, I’ve never seen them as a threat. But during the day? This was new.

I went out into the hall and turned off the fans.

Then, when I went back in the living room, I discovered I had a sudden and irrational fear of the lilies in the flower arrangement on my ancestor altar—there was something in the way the smell of them permeated my home, mostly unnoticed, but occasionally overly present and haunting, and something in the way the other flowers wilted even as the unopened buds of the last few lilies bloomed…I was afraid to touch them or move them but suddenly didn’t want them in my space anymore and wasn’t certain why.

“Enough!" I said, "I have had enough of the unseen.”

I know how to fix these things. Modern society gives me a plethora of ways to avoid and drown out the natural world of the spirits. Self love, pizza, and anime (in that order) is more than enough to firmly anchor in the mundane—which is what I did. (That first one may sound like an odd choice, but it makes sense: no better way to bring an idle, other-seeing mind back into the physical now than with some basic hard-wired biology) I spent the afternoon doing decidedly non-spiritual things (read: goofing around on the net and playing Nintendogs) while staunchly refusing to even consider doing Senut.

Then I had to make a short trip to the store for milk and assorted other groceries and saw that stunning sky above me. *sigh* A few hours later I was purified and standing before the shrine. But I kept the lights on. And I was upfront about my concerns, about how I was skittish of the unseen even as I reveled in it. About how I had had enough of death, even as it continued to consume my world.

But the presence that came, the Netjer I invited, here on his day outside the year…he was not a presence of death or destruction. He was calm and bright and full of life. Life. My gods it’s been so long since I felt that. And I did feel it, strongly, and I was moved to tears despite my struggle not to be—I have also had enough of crying. He didn’t say anything, but his presence enveloped me and reminded me that there is life to be had and there is life to be lived. My shrine, I learned, does not need to be filled with darkness and mystery—it works even with the lights on.

 Because even the unseen is not always a dark place.

Balance, in all things, is key. I think Her-wer is a Name who understands duality intimately. I have no sources to back that up, but I felt it in the moment and think now I understand why I am drawn to the images of him that show him with the two cosmic eyes—one solar and one lunar—grasping the shen in his claws.

It is something to aspire to. I also must learn to see with both eyes. The seen and the unseen. It is not a choice between them. It is a struggle to weigh both equally. A good lesson, and one I am thankful for.

Dua Her-wer!

Addendum to Last Night's Post...

The whole timing thing is a good lesson. It really is. So I’m not going to derail the previous post by annotating it. However…

Several things occurred to me on waking the morning after:

 1)The hell? That spell wasn’t actually supposed to do anything, I was just intending to read it as a prayer. That it was actually a very loose translation from the book, that it was written as modern poetry, and that I was viewing my intention to read it mostly as an act of art and not an act of heka, makes it somewhat puzzling that it worked at all. The fact that its working didn’t surprise me at all during or immediately after the event is also puzzling—because it sure does surprise me now that I’m thinking on it clearly.

2) I drove a car while *magicks stuff* were happening?! Okay, with the benefit of hindsight, that was probably just a tad unwise. I mean, nothing bad seems to have happened and I know I didn’t feel impaired in anyway, but even just reading my entry from last night, it’s clear that the spell didn’t fully take effect until I was halfway to the store—and given that I had no idea what it would ultimately do to me, it was foolish to get behind the wheel. New personal rule: no driving or operating heavy machinery after writing and/or reading Ancient Egyptian spells.

3) Speaking of not knowing what it would do to me…that’s understandable, since those particular spells were written for and are specific to the dead. And it did not occur to me last night to look up whether or not casting them on the living is at all advisable. I actually have no idea if that was a good move or a bad one. Oh, and the spell in question for those who are curious: Not Decaying in the Other World. A body transfiguration spell….geez. And here I am being surprised that it had a physical effect. Oh no, I was all “Look it has Wesir’s name in it! That’ll be good right?” *head desk* Again, nothing bad seems to have happened but the fact that I didn’t even stop to think on it…

4) Apparently, these things I have planned are entirely too *big* to fit in the personal prayer part of Senut. Of course Senut feels stilted and dull after something like that! My sense of timing is an issue, but I don’t think the timing deal, as important as that realization is, was the reason Senut felt a little anti-climatic last night. But to be fair, that was not what I had originally intended to do. Read prayers, offer special offerings, done…that had been my original intention. Of course all that went out the window when I got seized by the words I was writing…

5) I really hope I am not coming off as overly dramatic when I write these posts. I am honestly not usually god-bothered to this degree. But I have noticed the unseen encroaching more heavily on my normal space recently. I think I have had more of such experiences in the last three months than I have in the seven years I’ve been Kemetic.

So…I wonder if today will be interesting. If the pattern of late keeps up, I know Tuesday will be.

>.<

Wesir's Birthday Celebration: A Lesson on Timing

Voices and small unfamiliar sounds chase my footsteps as I leave the shrine room. I had meant to start at midnight, but ended then instead. It is only now that the veil grows thin and the sounds of the unseen pierce through. That is unfortunate: I would have been happier to hear them fifteen minutes ago because it was disappointingly quiet during the ritual.

Timing is a problem.

I have always been early to things—a habit grown from my mortification of always being late as a child due to my mother (may her soul forever shine) always running on her own clock. I tend to overestimate how much time I will need in order to arrive at the appointed moment. Hurry up and wait. That is the life I lead.

Because of the purity requirements of this (I conducted the short ceremony as the personal prayer part of Senut) I had to take a ritual shower first. I ordinarily like purity requirements because it makes me feel better about my preparedness to do things in ritual space. But I was so worried about the show taking too much time that I started way too early and without looking at any clocks between the shower and the actual proceedings, I had no idea how off I was from my target time.

It’s probably a mute point because Wesir didn’t wait for me to be in ritual space anyway. In fact, he didn't even wait for the ritual shower. It happened earlier in the evening:

I had meant to read the spell (from the Book of Going Forth by Day) during the ceremony when I offered the special libations and the black plum. But as I was copying it onto the small card I intended to read from—my intent was to save space, the book itself is rather large—I activated it. That’s the wrong word (activate) but I don’t know what else to call it.

It grabbed me, held me, and infiltrated every limb and every organ in my body. I felt shivers rustle through my arms and legs and something that was both warm and cold settled in the core of me.

But I wasn’t looking for it to happen just then. In my mind I though “Gee…if writing it makes this much happen, I wonder what saying it will be like?” totally oblivious to the fact that the act of writing had already accomplished what I had hoped to accomplish by saying it.

Paying no mind to it, I threw on proper clothes so I could head to Wal-mart to pick up some last minute supplies. It was already 10:30pm and I was worried about being ready in time for midnight. The night air was hot and muggy—and misty. Not in a physical sense. The mist of the unseen.

“Huh,” I thought, “sort of long off from midnight isn’t it?”

I got in the car and headed off toward the store, taking the country back road because it was quicker. The pavement was a black river winding through hills lit dimly by the half moon. Wind stirred the sparse trees throwing shadows into the pools of light cast down by the street lamps that dotted the empty road. The night was deeply, heavily silent—save for the wind through the windows. Suddenly, I felt a small rush of an essence I knew.

I had felt it once before—in a triage room as the nurses debated the best course of action to save me from the dehydration that was weakening my heart and leaving my brain without life giving blood—and I knew the name of the source. Wesir. I breathed in sharply and felt something tight curled around my torso, something like strips of cloth wound firmly, but made of something warm and light—for a brief second I felt as though those strips of *something* were holding me together, keeping my heart centered within me, keeping my lungs beneath my breasts, keeping me right and in balance.

I pulled into the Wal-mart parking lot and noticed that most of the lights in the lot where burned out. Strange. They were all lit the last few nights I had gone. I could still feel the strange essence of the unseen curling around me when I got out of the car and something in my step was odd as I walked to the door.

But when I walked into the bright fluorescent lights and harsh smell of industrial cleaners the feeling quickly faded. Of course, Wal-mart didn’t have what I wanted. I knew nothing else would be open, so I got something that was close enough and headed home. On the drive back I noticed that the road looked different—the street lights seemed brighter and the hills darker, the pavement was a dull grey and the trees were still. I kept looking for something, but didn’t find it. Kept waiting to feel something, but felt nothing. The sounds of my car were loud and garish so I turned the radio on.

Back at home I did the ritual shower and Senut and the ceremony went off without a hitch. But when it came time to read the spell, I found that there was very little power in the words. The images that had been evoked in me before when I was writing it weren’t there. The odd little shivers and the strange physical sensation of his presence were absent. I read it twice. I read it with feeling. I paced while reading it and acted out portions of it. Nothing. I finally ended Senut, removed the foot, and reverted the offerings.

Then the dead decided to mess with things in the apartment while I was cleaning up. Which brings us back to where we are. “How ill-timed”, I thought as I chased the spirits out of the shrine room by flipping on the lights. I hardly wanted them cavorting around while I was in another room, or worse, once I had gone to bed.

Ill-timed ...

I don’t think gods care much for our human time. I am reminded again of how Set laughed at me once when I insisted he had things he should be doing in the hour before dawn on the longest night of the year. It is dawn somewhere on this plant every minute, he reminded me. Local time was uniquely my concern. I had been waiting for midnight because the saying goes that it is midnight when the veil is thin. Apparently no one told Wesir that. No one told him that spells are only supposed to work when you say them, either.

Something seems…wrong. My Senut is suddenly too formal, too stilted. Too dependent on timing. I had a deeper more meaningful experience while driving to Wal-mart, for goodness sakes! An experience I all but ignored because the timing was off.

And I should know better: my mother had no sense of time when she was dying. Does that not imply that time is different in the unseen? I am trying to force these things into Dejet when they dwell firmly in Neheh. This is not the time of humans and history. This is the time of myth and cycle. These things happen in the time of the gods, not in the time of men. By their very nature, the epagomenal days lay outside the linear year.

Time is out of joint; as it should be.

*sigh*

I have a lot to learn.

An Answer from The Ibis

I was expecting to be greeted by Set….possibly by an angry Set. I was up pacing (again) at 2am (again) going over the RPD dilemma (again).

 My mind simply wouldn’t shut down. I was not myself tonight at the reunion. I don’t know myself. I don’t have confidence that I am right about anything anymore. Okay, I said to Set, just once more, I can accept the results even if it’s not you, but what if it’s someone who really doesn’t fit? I don’t know what’s right, but surely my sense of what’s wrong hasn’t failed me…

 I went to the shrine room because I wanted to get some kind of *thwack* and get told to stop worrying about it and go to bed. But I didn’t. Set wasn’t there. The room was quiet and peaceful and…

The Silent One. The Ibis.

Knowledge is power and peace. He told me. Go look up the Names you think you can’t relate to. See if they are really as unknowable as you believe. 

Turns out most of them aren’t. Name after name went on my list of Names I could accept. Bits and pieces and connections… I followed his brilliant suggestion and looked at each name as if I had just been divined as that Name’s daughter. I found ever more disparate parts of myself that could recognize them. How can I know myself if myself is so malleable? If I cannot guess the correct answer, does that mean that for all my effort I know nothing of my soul? Horizons within me opened and I saw something I hadn’t seen before, learned something that seemed impossible to learn. I felt something solid in my mind shift and then dissolve.  How could there be so much that was hidden from me? How could I have missed all of this? What does it mean that this is here within me? Did I fail in all I have done to know myself?

No. It means you are greater than you think. You can contain multitudes.

Quoting Walt Whitman? I suppose I can see it: if we are all chips of creation and if every piece of creation contains an image of the whole, than anything is possible and the fact that it is unknowable, that we might be inherently unknowable even to ourselves, that there may be hidden depths even though we scoured the landscape of ourselves for lifetimes…it is naught but a beautiful mystery.

 Which I can accept.

Still, there were two names, only two, but…

I could not make them fit in me. Taweret. Bes. Protectors of pregnant women and children and the home. The everyday Netjer. The ones most present in Ancient Egyptian lives and seemingly least present in mine. I have no partner and no child. I have no connection to that warm and happy home they symbolize. I have no hope for that common, comfortable life.

So what would it mean to you if they were named?

It would mean soul searching, I guess—perhaps a sign to walk away…Or would it? Maybe it would be something I dare not even think on. Permission. I have always sensed that I was meant to accomplish something. I have always felt that if love or child were a hindrance to that that they were not mine to have—that I would be kept from that. What would those names be to me? Permission to have a common life. Permission to settle down and want nothing more from the world than what my ancestors were satisfied with.

You do not feel that you have this permission?

Maybe not. Maybe that’s why their names bother me instinctively. Maybe that’s why I feel so strongly that they could not be the ones who made me…But that’s silly. The RPD is not about permission. The forces that created my soul are not about permission. It’s about where this flicker of life which resides in me first found its lighting. Am I really so convinced that I am not of that? What if I am? Would that be so terrible? I suppose it wouldn’t be.

 I suppose I they are in me too, then. All of the Netjeru are reflected in me in one way or another.

That is why you must ask.

Hence the divination. I see. So that’s the reason for it? I’m human, so I can’t possible know. I can’t possible know which of the myriad remnants of creation within me are the work of my parents. I can guess, based on which strands seem the strongest, but I’ll never really know if I only guess. I’ll never know if those feelings are strong because certain Names choose to walk with me, because they are thick strands in the weft, or if they are strong because I have found the center threads, the warp of the loom.

If I want to know for sure, I have to ask. And I have to ask someone who can answer without bias. Someone I trust implicitly to cast the divination without any concern for its outcome.

The room is quiet and I’m done for tonight. It has been a long day and there is peace enough now for me to rest.

Ten Year High School Reunion: Debrief

It’s amazing what ten years will do, it really is. The first thing out of A’s mouth when she got to the reunion was a complaint about how little things have changed.

“It’s just like high school,” she scowled, “look at all those fucking preps standing together over there.”

“They’re in line to get drinks” I told her.

“They’ll sit with their clicks,” she said, “you just watch.”

Like you just did? I thought to myself. I didn’t have time to argue the point because the other members of our little group of outcasts descended like vultures on the table. I hadn’t intended to sit with them. I had been sitting alone only moments before—just resting, to get off my feet for a bit, not hiding from the so called “preps”. In fact, I had been talking with the “preps” and found that they had grown into really interesting people. We had discussed our jobs and ambitions and I found myself entirely at ease with them. There was no talking of our actual high school days, just a pleasant mutual respect for what one another had become—because healthy people don’t hold onto teenage grudges a decade after the fact.

I gritted my teeth through some of what followed, but when my group started snickering amongst each other and insulting the former class president while he gave a brief speech, I finally had had enough. I got up and moved to a different table—a table where I didn’t know anyone—and introduced myself.

You have no idea how big that is for me.

I am not, by nature, a social person. I ran with the outcast crowd for a reason. I learned early on that I was incredibly awkward around people I didn’t know, and occasionally, even around people I did know. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to try being a bit more outgoing. Something I’ve thus far had more success with on the net than in person.

At first, they were a bit hesitant given how sudden my intrusion was, but I fell into the pace of the conversation quickly and soon we were laughing and having a good time. It wasn’t as smooth as it could have been, but it wasn’t painfully awkward either. They were actually very nice and we found out that several of us had connections to one another via coworkers—we didn’t even realize before talking that we lived in the same town. It was cool and it made me feel more connected to my community.

Later, V. dodged A. and the others and came up to me and asked me if I was doing okay.

“Yeah,” I said, “I just couldn’t deal with their crap anymore.”

“Yeah, well…nothing’s changed,” she nodded glancing over at where they were getting more intoxicated with every passing moment.

“Except me, apparently,” I said.

“No, hon,” she smiled, “you just grew up.”

Grew up. Is that what I did? In some part of me, I know I’m an adult now, but I still feel like a child so often that I forget. I watched the sunset for a bit while the band started to play out on the back deck of the bar. Then I quietly slipped out the back door when it started to get dark and headed home.

I’m looking forward to the twenty year reunion.

Wep Ronpet 2012 Plans and Notes

I’m currently watching the clock to make sure I don’t miss the second half of my ten year high school reunion—the first night went fairly well as I was surprisingly less awkward than I usually am in social situations. I even managed to get up the nerve to trade contact information with a former classmate who might want to hang out on occasion—seeing as how we now live relatively close to one another (and have matured enough to be able to have some sort of friendship despite coming from vastly different backgrounds). I’m happy enough for having made that connection that I think it warrants attending tonight’s shindig as well—if just to see what might come of it. New year approaching, I think anything which opens doors for the months to come, is a good investment of time and energy.

But I wanted to spare a moment between reunion events to jot down some plans for a celebration of Wep Ronpet and the days upon the year which precede it. The Nisut (AUS) has been kind enough to put out an official state ritual for use at home on the actual dawn of Wep Ronpet, but so far, I’m on my own for the days upon the year.  So I decided this was a good time to practice doing Senut daily—I’ll modify the personal prayers portion to suit each individual Netjer associated with the five days:

So far, it looks like Sunday will see recitation of passages from the Book of Going Forth by Day for Wesir, and maybe the reading of a poem from Awakening Osiris (a poetic translation of the book) as well. If I’m feeling particularly moved by the spirit, so to speak, I might even wear the hospital bracelet I kept from the night when Set sent me to meet his brother in person.

Monday will actually entail both a prayer for Her-wer during the actual Senut and, later, a pilgrimage to a place near my home which has special significance. I have also toyed with dedicating my home-made cards on this day because of the sun/moon connotations and the link between that and Her-wer’s eyes. This could also be a good time to formally deactivate the linking talismans and remerge them into a single unit so the shrine energy is not split anymore (since they also work heavily with the two-eyes symbolism—I may even be able to layer in a dual purpose to the talismans and use them ritually in this context…we’ll have to see.)

For Tuesday, I’m creating a ceremony for Set on his day based on the general ritual for him in Reidy’s Eternal Egypt (the full ritual seems a bit redundant when some of it is already accomplished by Senut and there are portions which I simply can’t make happen) and I will also participate in the max-online attempt on the HoN forums that morning.

Wednesday will see some awesome amulet creation heka befitting the Mistress of Magic, and a prayer to Aset. I have a good bit of research to do to make this happen, but thankfully, I have a few days yet to accomplish that.

Thursday will be the grand opening of the household ancestor shrine, to be preceded and followed by prayers to Nebt-het and a special offering to her in thanks for helping me through the end of this year. This may also culminate in editing work on the novel which is more or less dedicated to her and possibly a span of being sequestered in the library (which is also the shrine room) with that intent.

And of course, Friday is the state ritual at 5:49 am. I might invite a friend over for that, or I might go it alone, depending on how I feel about it as the day approaches.

Whew. That’s going to be a lot, but it should be fun. :)

Dreams of my mother

I dreamed about her last night and a fairly painful and intensely personal conversation with her followed at my waking. Something is already different—I could feel it in her response. It’s like she’s just now realized she needs to address these things with me and wants to before she finishes her journey. I can’t decide if keeping it from her in her final days, if pretending that nothing was wrong between us, was a merciful decision or a cruel one. I can’t decide if I did that on her behalf or on mine. I wanted to retroactively fix the relationship we’d had all my life by simply deciding it no longer mattered.

Her memorial is today, a few hours from now, and this is not how I intended to go to it—thinking from this place in my mind. I’m dressed up in newly purchased clothes. Because this has been billed as “a celebration of life” and the only dressy clothes I had already were black and that seemed inappropriate to the spirit of this gathering. Blue and white. That’s what I will attend in. The clothes are a bit too small for me (small town shopping is a bitch if you’re a 4x like I am) and I have to wear a slimmer underneath to look right in them. I put them on a few hours before so I could hopefully stretch them out a bit and assure myself that they won’t break in the middle of the event.

It’s all so mundane and so catered to what other people want and think. I’m always so worried about whether or not I’m doing everything “right”. Did I dress right? Did I send invitations to everyone I was supposed to? Did I pick the right colors for the flowers? Is my necklace too flashy? Should I wear a necklace at all or go without jewelry?

If I had my way I’d grieve alone at the base of the shrine, just crying and wishing I understood things better. No other people required.

Was I supposed to do that already? Is this supposed to be closure? For who? Me or them?

For better or for worse, it was my mother who taught me to ask these questions. I have spent my life trying to please her, alternately getting angry at her or myself when I couldn’t. She tried so hard to make me what she wanted me to be and I’m just not that. But I managed to fool her near the end…

Is that why I’m having these dreams? Did she find out and now she’s disappointed again? In me or in herself?

I went to a family event at my best friend’s house yesterday. I watched her and her mother as they tried to be calm with each other for the day and not argue. It lasted for most of the time but eventually they bickered a bit because they just can’t help driving each other crazy. Yet…it’s undeniable that they love each other deeply.

So…it’s okay mom. It’s okay that we didn’t always get along. It’s okay that we’re not carbon copies of each other. It’s okay that we had the relationship we did. And we’ll figure out how to go on from here together. I don’t know if you can sense the injuries I limp along with, the damage inside me, but if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that the flaws and baggage we carry are what make us human. You didn’t do anything to me that every mother hasn’t done to her child. I’m strong enough to see this through.

Love you always.

I should know by now that the turn around on divine arguments is not long...

Just wanted to see if you really mean it. 

So the point of that was to make sure I actually made the decision and wasn’t just going along with it because I felt I had to when you didn’t tell me no? Is this is more of that “you have to make your own decisions and quit relying on oracles” thing we’ve been working on?

Close. But also: I’m still here. Don’t ignore me.
-------
I am always surprised by how pleased he is when I get mad at him. Like he enjoys seeing me get pissed and stand up and tell him off. I think he likes when he pushes and I manage to come up with the strength to push back. That’s not how society raised me to think of deity and I find it is hard to shake my western preconceptions in that regard.

Fine, fine. I get it.

He’s not going to tell me whether he’ll show up or not because easing the anxiety would defeat the purpose of a “rite of passage” in the first place. This is more about maintaining doubt and not falling to either side of the line until after the moment has come. And regardless of how the RPD alters the future of my religious practice, it does nothing to change my past.

There is an old song I learned in girl scouts: “Make new friends, but keep the old/one is silver, and the other’s gold/a circle is round, it has no end/ that’s how long, you should keep your friends.”

A simple lesson lost with age. Part of this will mean remembering that whether he created me or not—he made me. He molded me through his influence, and at times, interference, in my life.  He was the one who got me ready to make this decision in the first place. His work with me is the reason I am strong enough to accept any Name that comes up—even if it’s his.

That statue isn’t going anywhere. The only thing the RPD would influence in that regard is where I might end up putting it—the main shrine or a separate one built just for him (he pointed out that if I rearrange my entire apartment it would be possible to have more than one). Even if he’s not in my line up, the RPD won’t negate my obligations to him, it will just add to the number of obligations I have overall and alter the order of priority that I give them. This is not an all or nothing thing. And I know that—gods know it’s been said enough times in the beginner’s class. But apparently, I still needed to put it in order with my personal experience and make it coherent in the context of my individual journey.

So there you have it: I’ve gone from fearing he wouldn’t be there, to accepting he wouldn’t, to angry that he still might, to okay-I-give-up-I’ll-just-wait-and-see…which is probably where I needed to be in the first place…which he probably knew all along…

----
Birthday. I get offerings… and ritual. 

Do I have to read the silly part where they talk about your testicles?

*expectant stare*

Sigh.

A One-sided Argument

I put the statue away and now it feels wrong. Suddenly everything feels wrong and I really don’t know why it should be that way because I thought we agreed on this.

There were storms last night and I sat watching the lighting for a long time. Even with the shrine cabinet cleaned out, rearranged, and moved to a different room…it just won’t feel right no matter how I reorder the layout. Even with the right materials out and ready for senut— with the natron made and the Kapet scented oil at hand and the ritual whites designated and clean…it still feels wrong to stand before the shrine when it is empty of his image.

I promised to keep my shrine generic and pray to Netjer during senut and not to specific Names. I get the reason for that. Distance yourself a bit from the Name that brought you to the faith because it might not be that Name that shows up in the RPD. Because you have to have an open mind when you undertake that rite of passage. Because you can’t be thinking “X is the only name I’ll accept…” or “Well, if it’s not X name then it’s wrong” and still have a meaningful and moving experience.

And I worked at that—I really did—at accepting that he might not be the one. And I understand that there is no obligation to honor one’s parent gods exclusively. I get that I don’t even have to go through RPD in the first place and that a Remetj is just as valid a role in the community as Shemsu. But I want to go through the RPD and I want to accept the results, whatever they are, as true because I want to believe in this. I want to serve the Names that created me and I want to believe that this heka preformed by the Nisut (AUS) is not fallible because I want to believe that it really is the gods directing the divination.

So if his name doesn’t come up, I want to be able to accept that. So I have distanced myself from him—and he let me…which seemed like a sign. So I ran with it. I prepared myself to accept whatever might come. I even let myself be a bit excited by the prospect that I might be wrong—that it might even be someone I’d never have expected, that there may be some other nature hidden in me that I have yet to discover despite my introspective tendencies. But as soon as I started going “gee, I wonder who it might be…” he made his presence in my life known once more—forcefully.

And all I can think is…seriously?

Open Letter to Set:

Dude wtf?

You’re the one I wanted in the first place!

 I’ve never doubted you before, but when I asked, you wouldn’t commit to coming to the RPD. I’m not trying to run from you. I’ll serve you without any hesitation. But I need a community—that’s part of being Kemetic. And I want to commit to this community—fully—and that means going through this rite of passage (and I know you understand rites of passage). If you really are the one who created me and you can’t stand seeing me give my allegiance to some other god then you know exactly how to fix this:

We both know damn well that you can make those shells fall however you want them to.

I have already decided I want to do this. I have already decided I trust this temple and I trust this Nisut (AUS). I have already decided to commit to them. I have no problem committing to you as well, but you have to meet me halfway.

You want your statue back? You want me bowing to you and only you?

Then show up at my RPD.

:P

And yes.

I did just stick my tongue out at you.

Home Again

“Is it square?”

According to the cards that lay before me, the answer is yes. That’s shorthand for “You know what you need to do and there are not any hidden issues you need to address”. I was a bit concerned to see the purity card come up. I didn’t think it was a present issue and the cards don’t usual talk about things that haven’t already happened and/or are imminent. I glance at the calendar. I shouldn’t be “imminent” on that  for a few weeks yet.

How soon I forget that bleeding is not the only purity issue.

My home has been vacant and unattended for three months. I didn’t have a lot of time to ready it for my departure when I first left to tend my mother, and it didn’t occur to me that lying in state is not much better for apartments than it is for people. In addition to the random mess from when I was packing, there were Tupperware leftovers in the fridge which had become thriving mold colonies, dead flies and moths littering the dinning room floor, a bone dry toilet which had become stained by hard water minerals, spider webs hanging from everything, and a coat of dust so thick it didn’t even stir when I dropped my suitcase as I looked around in utter disgust.

That was most definitely a purity issue.

But I was too tired to do much about it. I had driven for eight hours through several construction detours to get home, on less than four hours of sleep because the faithful air bed I had been using at my parents finally gave way and popped in the middle of the night right before my trip.

Despite being exhausted, sleep was not on my schedule for the afternoon. It was 111 outside and close to 103 in my third floor apartment. I turned on the AC and waited for sunset, lying on the couch and drinking water to keep hydrated. Five hours later, I had the temperature down to 89 and finally felt rested enough to attempt some rudimentary cleaning—it was still too hot to get any real sleep anyways. I tried to flip on the kitchen light so I could scribble a list of things I needed to do on the pad attached to the fridge only to discover it was burned out.

Did I mention Set’s card was in the reading as well?

This is par for the course for us. In the back of my mind I know he’s just stirring up my world because I need something to do to keep me from thinking about the look on my mother’s face when she couldn’t breathe. Her eyes still haunt me, and I’m happy to have distractions from that. I spent part of the night getting rid of the dead bugs—I’ve had enough death for a while—and then ended up hanging out a friend’s house until late so the AC had a chance to work. I threw some clean sheets on the bed when I got home and collapsed into the moderately comfortable 79 degrees that was just cool enough to let me get some sleep.

I started the real work the day after—vacuuming things, scrubbing things, washing things, disposing of things… it took me all of today to even make a dent in what needed to be done and I imagine the better part of tomorrow will pass before I am finished. I’m taking the opportunity to rearrange and organize my space a bit differently—I’d like to start the new year off from a different place than the one I have been living from. From a place of courage and growth, instead of a place of waiting and fear. Changing my physical living space is a nod toward that goal.

But not all of my problems go away with just a good scrubbing.

There are still flowers that need to be ordered for the memorial. There are still relatives and friends who need to hear my voice on the phone and confirm that I’m okay. There are still the dozens of people here in our hometown who haven’t heard yet but will when they stop me to ask me how my mom is…

But if I put the shrine in a different place and get rid of that table I hate it makes me feel like things are normal again. If I move everything around, for just a moment my heart doesn’t notice that something is missing.

I deleted her number from my phone. But gods help me…it feels strange to not be able to call her. I glance at the special stationary I bought to write letters for her. I know the two aren’t that different. In my heart, I know she can and will hear me and that she can and will respond. But…things are different.

So I move everything around because that’s a difference I can control instead of one I simply have to accept.

Keeper of the Archives

I dare not claim I understand what happened that night, and to be honest... I try not to think about it.

 Four days after, I dwell again in the world of the living. Among people whose life-long ambitions and momentary goals shine through their brisk pace in the skyways and malls of downtown Minneapolis. The Wells Fargo center is a hub of activity—clicking heels echo against fine marble and the smell of crisp dry cleaned suits and professionally light perfumes fill the air. I get the sense that everyone around me is there for some modern purpose—opening new accounts, transferring money, tracking investments, renegotiating mortgage rates.  But we are there for a different purpose.

“I need both of you to sign,” the young man running the safety deposit vault says as he slides our IDs back across the counter.

We go with him to get the box and the sounds of the world disappear into heavy silence. In the small room we take it to, there is a single fluorescent light buzzing on the wall above a table, and we sit in the institutionalized chairs as we dig through the box looking for a small stack of envelopes. My father hands me one of the most faded ones and nods.

“Those are their citizenship papers.”

I look with reverence upon the faded images of my grandparents. Then I pull out my notebook and start writing. There is information on these forms that I need. Birth places, immigration dates, early addresses. All of it precious clues that will help me trace the family line as I go in search of names—in search of ancestors.

Because life doesn’t stop when someone close to you passes.

 Because our obligations to the dead do not end with those closest to us.

I know in my heart that my mother is traveling in the duat on her way the great halls somewhere beyond the liminal spaces I see in my dreams. I want her to have a proper ancestor shrine to return to when her journey is complete 66 days from now—but I do not want it to be empty save for her.

 There are other names to write on that list.

My experience with the spirit of E.M. just prior to her passing and my experience with Nebt-het the night of…my view of things has changed. My priorities have changed. For now, my mother’s name will be spoken often by those who knew her in life. But I know that, eventually, she will no longer be the most recent, most oft remembered name in our line. Eventually, she too will be a distant ancestor who exists mostly in faded pictures and aging legal documents. Someday I will suffer the same fate. For any of us to be remembered, all of us must be remembered. Future generations must look upon former ones with reverence and respect and feel the power and weight of their family history. Archives make that connection possible: without archives to back the names of the living, the names of the dead are swiftly forgotten and the power of the ancestry quickly lost.

I find other papers and scan them with my phone so we don’t have to spend too long at the box. An hour later, I leave with what records we have, prepared to research the rest. I am matron of the house now, I tell myself, it is my duty.

I am honored.

Gone from my sight...

It is over.

I have not had time to process what I have seen and heard and experienced, but...I did not expect it to be like that. I don't know what I did expect.

Maybe I expected a Hollywood death where my mother would rasp her last words then look skyward to speak no more.

Maybe I expected a death like my grandmother's where my mother would pass silently in her sleep while no one was watching.

Maybe I expected it wouldn't happen at all, that she would miraculously awaken from her comatose state and suddenly recover as she has done so many other times.

I did not expect the wild sounds in her chest and the wide eyes as she struggled to breath. I did not expect the long bone shaking moans or the gurgling and the choking. I did not expect the convulsions in her abdomen or the stiffness in her arms.

The nurse came after my panicked call to the hospice 24-hour line. She looked over my mother calmly even as my mother's ragged breaths heaved and ebbed in tides of what looked, to me, like agony.

"This is normal," the young nurse nodded, "we see this a lot. I know it's probably not as peaceful as you thought it would be, but it's normal."

She went on to explain that my mother's lungs were failing. The noises came from fluid gathering in them. It is distressing to hear, she told me, but normal. We had done everything we could do. We had given her enough morphine, enough sedatives--she was as comfortable as any dying person could be, the nurse assured me.  That made me feel better about what was happening, but it didn't make it any easier to watch as my mother struggled to die.

I prayed. I begged.

Please don't let her keep on like this. Please let her go.

And the spirit of E.M. was there and the other spirits of her family were there--I could feel them. Then peace came over me--wings from the corners of my sight wrapped around me.

Stand at the end of the bed and let me borrow you. 

I had been reading the Raven Kaldera book again when my mother first started her convulsions, so I was in the frame of mind I needed to be in to listen to her speak, to follow her directions.

I did not lose consciousness, but I felt my body stand differently and something shifted in my eyes and hands. There was something other than me radiating from my form and I looked toward my mother and whispered almost silently--so quiet even the nurse who stood next to me didn't hear. I don't recall the words now, but they were words I had no business knowing. I felt my mother leave her body and in the same moment, mine went limber again and the feeling was gone.

The body continued to fight for breath, but the gasps became even and mechanical. Four gasps. Pause. Four gasps. Pause. Four gasps...

"It's just her body now," my father told me as I sat next to him--my father, the man who doesn't believe in spirits, "it's just her body going through the motions."

And so it was. It took a few hours for the last breath to come and when it did, it was a quiet whoosh and then nothing. It was peaceful at the end. The room was empty of both the living and of spirits when I said a quiet goodbye as we waited for them to come and take her body. After she was gone I went to my room and picked up my prayer book. I flipped to the section on Nebt-het and read the prayer aloud. I felt wings again briefly, and then I slept.

Waiting for a Moment

I wait.

She is beyond us—in another world. Her connection to our waking reality is tenuous at best. And there is a point when she has gone too far to come back. A point when there is no hope of her speaking or eating or drinking anymore. It is the point when a decision is made. When they bring out the morphine and the sedatives and sleep becomes life for her—and, eventually, it will become death for her. It is that moment when preventing her from suffering is all that is left to do… but also waiting and watching and getting more drugs for her and talking to her silent body and holding her cooling hand.

I am confident now that she is truly done with this life—she is truly ready to go. There will be no more years, no more months…not even two weeks…

I wait.

It is near.

And the dark lady is in our home now. She waits in the threshold of my mother’s room, guarding the line between our world and hers. And the dog is fearful of that cloaked woman, but I am no longer afraid… because she is not the only presence here. Sometimes I hear their voices briefly—the ones who walked before my mother. There is a man with them now—the ancestor who was almost lost, the one whose name had been forgotten by all but my mother, the one who sent me the tiger to help me find the name again, the one whose Ka I fed that he might walk by day and journey to meet her before the end. He has reached my mother in time.

I wait.

I sit with her in the dark of her room as a summer storm rumbles away into the night. I tell her who the man is and that I have brought him to meet her on the other side. I tell her that I trust him—that I will be okay and that she doesn’t have to worry about anything anymore.

I wait.

Two Weeks Notice

I don't like our nurse. It's not that she isn't good at what she does, and I am certainly grateful for all that she's helped us with, but every now and then...

"Sometimes, you know, people just have to put their lives on hold for a couple of weeks."

We were talking about end of July, when I'm scheduled to go back home--whether my mother has passed yet or not. It's a rigid date. Not because I have to get ready to go back to work or because I absolutely can not miss my ten year high school reunion, those are reasons but not the reason: it's rigid because I need it to be. Because I need an end. Because I need a point in time where I know I will be free (if only for a short while) from this place of death and dying. Because I need to know that even if she beats yet another timeline, even if she holds on for another month or another year, that at some point, my role in this will have ended.

It's someone else's turn to put their life on hold "for a couple of weeks"--mine has been on hold for three months.

No. That's not quite true. My life has been on hold for six years...

Ever since 2006 when I got the call: "Mom has cancer."

I wasn't expecting to hear those words as a newly minted teacher--twenty one years old and finally out on my own away from the oppressive influence of a woman who had been living vicariously through me. I was ready to make my own way and be my own person. I was ready to call weekly instead of nightly and to make decisions that she would shake her head at privately. But that single devastating call changed everything. There was to be no rebellious assertion of self, because suddenly, the world wasn't about me anymore. All prior disagreements, every complaint I'd ever had, everything she had ever done that I'd never had the chance to confront her about...it all had to be "water under the bridge", they said, because we didn't know how long she had.

Four years of remission--a time when I tried to get myself back on my feet. I took some hard blows on a failing job market and had to move back in with my parents for a time. Eventually, she went back to work. There were arguments, but I was still cautious, still shaken by the thought that it could come back. I helped where I could--she broke a leg, I nursed her back to health--I didn't say some of the things that occurred to me to say when my chest got tight and I wanted to scream. I didn't make big deals out of small things, I didn't push for space. I only stood my ground when I really needed to.

Then she started getting headaches. There was a new tumor. In her brain. Surgery followed. Treatment followed. Remission followed that. But...Dad lost his job and before I knew it, they were moving. Mom was still finishing her last rounds of chemo, Dad had to go on ahead without her so he could start the job that would bring the health insurance to pay for it. I cared for her. I stayed with her and the dog. I packed the house. I cleaned out the basement full of unwanted junk and black widows. I managed the property once they were both gone until it finally sold.

A year passed. I got my own place and started a small business--the first thing I had done completely for myself in several years--and things were going well. I was looking forward to this summer. I had plans. Plans to further my business and my career. Plans to casually hang out with friends for the first time in what felt like forever. Then I got another call. I don't remember all the words, but I remember a few: Tumors. Inoperable. Untreatable. Terminal.

I gave up my summer.

I don't regret that, and I don't resent it either. But I do resent being told, in not so many words, that it isn't enough. Who is a nurse to make that judgement? When will it be enough? When is it okay to want my father or brother to step in? To want professionals to step in? To want to go out into the world of the living and remember that I still live...

When can I finally take my life off hold?

When she dies.

That's the unspoken answer. The answer no one wants to give because it's unreasonable and they all know it is. Because the truth is, we don't know when that will be. It might be two weeks, two months, two years...we don't know.

The room got quiet afterward as the nurse quickly tried to come up with other options. There were nursing homes. Some free, some expensive. We could hire help to come in and tend her for part of the day. There were volunteers, neighbors, friends... but she kept looking at me, waiting for me to step in and pledge myself. She kept frowning like she couldn't believe I would consider any of those options. Like I was a horrible person for wanting to leave when it was just "a couple of weeks" extra.

My chest felt tight and my heart sank back into my core as if it could hide from the decision. My inner soul fluttered its wings against my ribcage in warning. My counselor's words came back to me "you have to take care of yourself, it will get to you". How could I take care of myself when I was trapped in a tiny space with an eternally dying woman? How could I take care of myself when everyone around me seemed to expect me not to?

I didn't say anything. My mother didn't say anything. But then, suddenly, my mother's body said something for her. She had a seizure right there in the living room during the meeting. And this time, it didn't just go away. That evening, she went from normal and fairly functional to a rapid progression toward death. This isn't the first time she's slipped, but my gut is telling me it may be the last.

And I feel...relief.

It's horrible. To feel that at a time like this.

 And I blame the nurse--right or wrong--because she was the one who closed the door on me and made me feel like my mother's death was my only salvation. Because she is the reason, that for a brief moment during that meeting, I looked forward to the death of this woman who I am supposed to love unconditionally. In some part of me I can't help but wonder if my mother's soul heard the panic brewing in mine and decided that enough was enough--that it was time to start packing up and leave.

Now my mother sleeps in the room next to me, trying to rest in between bouts of vomiting. She has occasional seizures that make her arms and face go numb and slur her speech. The pain comes in bursts despite medication--up and down the spine and in her head--and there is stronger pain medicine on order and emergency medication in the fridge to tide us over until then. But the pain isn't our only problem. Food and water are suddenly an issue. She can't take anything in and nothing is coming out despite laxatives given in every imaginable form. It's as if her digestive system has just shut down.


So they've given her a new timetable: she won't make it two weeks. Maybe less than one.

And because she's beat every time-table anyone has ever given her, I don't believe it just yet. Time will tell if she will beat this one too or if she is finally done with the race. And because I don't ever want to catch myself hoping for the latter again, I have decided: whether she dies or not, two weeks is when I am done with this race.

And I don't care what the nurse thinks of me for it.

Polyvalance

"I thought I was handling it well--then boils started showing up on my hands and arms. You have to take care of yourself. It will get to you."

I have the fortune and privilege of teaching at the high school I graduated from. My former high school counselor still works at the school, and so when I found out that my mother was dying and that I would need to leave town earlier than expected to spend the summer helping tend to her, I showed up in my old counselor's office. She had lost her mother earlier that year. "It just sucks," she said when I asked what it was like, what I should prepare for, "no matter how old you are, it just sucks." Then, right before I left, she chased me down in the parking lot to give me the above advice, the warning, that no matter how strong we are, the death of a parent is a gut wrenching, hard hitting thing to deal with.

I haven't had any boils, but the night before last night I woke up at 5am as my body shook and what felt like boiling blood raced down the sides of my neck and my abdomen. It was almost like I was a space rocket struggling to take off. My mind was suddenly distant from my physical self and I felt like my soul might flee my body. I felt like I was dying--in fact, I remember thinking that. I remember thinking "So this is what it feels like to die...". It ended almost as quickly as it began.  Then my chest tightened and my stomach heaved. A moment later, my arms went numb and tingly.

I seriously considered the possibility that I had just had a heart attack (I'm very overweight, and I have heart disease in my family, so that's the first thing that came to mind) and I nearly stumbled into my parent's bedroom to ask someone to call 911. But the feeling of impending doom started to fade and I didn't feel like I was in immediate danger of dying so I decided to look up my symptoms online. To my surprise, the Web MD symptom checker didn't kick back heart attack but something I had never considered myself at risk for: Panic Attack.

I was always under the impression that panic attacks involved some sort of panicky feeling and irrational fears--something completely psychological. That's not really true, apparently. Panic attacks are physical events. It's the brain flipping on the body's fight or flight response system at a time when that kind of drastic physical survival mode is not really needed or desired. About 5% of people have at least one during their lifetimes. They aren't usually dangerous, but they are terrifying.

So...mystery solved right? My suppressed fear of my mother's imminent death, and my anxiety over exactly  when it will occur and how I will react, got released in the middle of the night as my brain struggled to cope with a volatile combination of ridiculous levels of stress and sleep deprivation. Just like my counselor experienced boils showing up on her arms. A physical manifestation of a difficult emotional situation.

But...

There was a dream. I was trying to get onto the right bus (not quite the boat from mythology, but the analogy is the same in either case) to travel to the duat. But I couldn't find the right one. I remember that clearly. I remember the shaking started right after one of the attendants told me it was time to leave anyway and we started moving. That's why I woke up thinking I was dying, and why I wasn't entirely surprised until I realized I was awake and that dying in real life hadn't been part of the plan...

There was a reading I did the day before with the "kemetic-oracle-cards-in-progress" deck that I made earlier this month. It had the duat card and akhu card in prominent places. It said I had issues to work through with both of them.

There was the dream later that evening when I tried to nap after I calmed down a bit. A dream where I was in the duat among the dead and speaking with an ancestor who came to me in the form of an old man/tiger who was a father in his life and who said he was desperate for offerings so he could go forth by day with his family, because he was separated from his wife and children somehow--an ancestor who just might be my great-grandfather (the black sheep of our family)...

There was a dream my mother tried to tell me about from the same night--but she couldn't make her brain work long enough to get the story out fully-- it involved being unable to "connect" and not having some kind of "engine" working--which faintly resembles my bus dilemma from my dream just before I started to "die"...

I was raised atheist. Science is king in our household. Science says I had a panic attack, but my spiritual instinct tells me there was more to it than that. What do I believe?

My mind was wrapped around that question as I went to bed. I was worried, because everything I've read says people can develop a panic disorder if they start to fear having an attack, and in turn, cause more of them with that fear--even if the initial trigger was something else. Science told me I should be worried about that. And I was worried, because I was scared. But my spirit told me that my "day-trip" to the city of the dead was what caused all of it, that there was no reason to be afraid, that I just had things to deal with in the unseen. That I could go back to the normal dreamscape I was used to now that the message had been received.

And I thought again...what do I believe in? Which do I put my faith in? Science or Spirit?

I keep forgetting that I don't have to choose. Just as there are double (triple, quadruple, many) truths inside my faith, so are there many truths in the world. Polyvalance. The mechanics of something do not have to define it solely and completely. Just because what I experienced would be labeled by science as a panic attack does not mean that the mechanism of a "panic attack" was not also being used for a specific spiritual purpose. Could this be my psychological/physical reaction to my mother's condition, the endless waiting for death, and my stress boiling over literally in the fell hours of  the night? Of course. And it is that. But it is also more than that. It is also an encounter with the unseen, breaking through in a moment when I was receptive to it. It is all bound up together. There are strands weaving in from both realities. Because one thing can be many things--and in any case, the result is ultimately the same. And the solution to my problem, to the fear choking me and keeping me from sleep, was the same no matter which truth I sided with in that moment...

I pulled my prayer book off the bedside table and I read from it. I read until I felt a sense of peace, of comfort, of acceptance of what would be. Then I turned out the light and went to sleep.

It was a normal night.

Ancestors

They were proud.

I am still glowing from the warm feeling of that.

I made a necklace for them--a one of a kind design, never to be repeated--and offered it during the dua today. I read the list of names, saying after each that I respectfully offered to them if they wished it. I was surprised how many of them did. Perhaps, when refusing before, it was not so much the act of veneration they were averse to (and rejecting) as it was the way in which it was presented. Perhaps last time I was too presumptive and it came off as rude? It could also have been the pendant which swayed them. I sensed a special attention being paid to that object more-so than the food offering or the flowers or even the water. They were proud. Proud of my skill, of my eye for beauty. Proud of my creation--that it had come from our line. 

My ancient, other life ancestors were happy merely to see me, and though I do not doubt that they were about even today, this offering got attention from my modern, present life ancestors. From people whose names and stories I know. They loved the pendant and, I think, through it were able to recognize me. Then they were happy to hear me read their names. They stayed for a bit and enjoyed the offerings. They heard my plea on my mother's behalf and I think they may have answered it: they are intervening on our behalf.

I am grateful beyond words.

And so I decide I will make them more art. And so it begins.