Symbols and Cues

One of them approaches me and holds a small crystal leaf out over my arm. It flashes blue against the white of my skin. Another man comes and does the same, and then another. Masters. That is the word which is used for these men in their humble robes. I am uneasy. They are there for me. I am important to the mass of people standing around me, and yet, unimportant at the same time. The crystal leaves, flashing blue, show that they have my best interest at heart. 

One of them, a gruff man with gray fur around the collar of his robe…his leaf does not flash blue. It is a cascade of orange and yellow and green and pink. I glance in his eyes and his gaze is disparaging, he continues on without waiting for me to nod. It is dangerous to ignore what has happened, but I do. I suddenly feel that the others are impatient, that I would only be holding things up, and that I might somehow displease them. I know that crystals sometimes show those colors against a white which is too pale. The leaves should not do this. They are enchanted to flash blue regardless of my skin. I know this, but I rub my arm self-consciously… and maintain my silence. 
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The take-away from the dream was immediately obvious to me on waking, because I have a crystal leaf with those exact properties. It is one of the most powerful talisman’s I own—a relic of my childhood—and that blue flash is a symbol in the language that only They can speak to me.

It is a well-timed dream because it comes right before I move on to Chapter 3 of Trance-portation and prepare to imprint cues on myself to help me slip in and out of trance only when I desire to. The crystal leaf is not one of them. In fact, it is not even a symbol that I will need for this trancework, but I sense that it will be important for what I think will come after. In the mean-time, I am vested in the task of deciding what cues to incorporate into my practice.

Music is obvious. I have used the route of dedicated music before and it seems the most natural for someone like me who can perfectly replay instrumental songs in her mind on demand (there is also the timing aspect of that…something loop-able would be good). And of course—Talismanarist*  that I am— I am also considering a talisman to put on when doing trancework, perhaps one which contains some vehicle for storing a scent paired to the same purpose. I am thinking one of the oils I own would be good. There is another scent which I used when doing spellwork as a teen, but I have only found it in candles and I don’t want to be limited to flame.

And for reasons I don’t fully understand, a part of me wants to use a blindfold--and my Ba is fluttering and loudly insisting it should be embroidered…

I will have to think on that.

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*Yes, I made up that title…we need a word for people who make Talismans which is not as grandiose as “Alchemist” or “Artificer” but not as mundane as “Artisan” or “Artist”. Also something not starting with “A”.

Noticing the Sky

The question is perhaps, whether I really need to have a single overriding purpose, and to be driven by it, in order to have destiny or if it is the nature of a being with a multiplicity of Iru to be many disparate things simultaneously and see that they converge at some point, hopefully in a way which brings something into creation that is unique to the multifaceted individual which has wrought it.

So I ask Him, because I have not asked him anything in a long while: Can I worship in as many ways as there are names and still fulfill my obligations to the whole? Yes. Can I stand within many circles of community while at the same time standing outside them all? Yes. Can I choose different careers, arts, and modalities of living and have them all contribute to a comprehensive sense of self despite them being at odds with each other now and then? Yes.

Fall has officially begun and it is that time of year when I am usually most productive. It’s that time of year when the sunlight filters at angles through the atmosphere—still strong enough to light the trees gold in the morning and evenings, but not strong enough to fill the air with heat. Light slips in its cycle and drifts way from the clock, waking me to darkness and returning me to the same long before I clock out of the small classroom where I work. Soon, we will be buried under an inundation of snow, and the fields of ice will begin collecting the water our farmers need in order to grow the next year’s crops. But for now, we still reap from the dead stalks of last year’s growth—the living still feast on the bodies of the deceased.

Things change and yet they stay the same. Students leave my room and new ones filter in to replace them. My father and brother take my mother’s place on the speed dial of my phone. The landscape of the altar changes and the icons of yesterday return in a new arrangement and their number grows, but the offerings remain as they have always been. I turn my eyes from the past to the future and contemplate change…

The chill in the air reminds me of a different night when I was led out into a field that crunched with morning ice to see the milky way spill across the sky. I felt my place in the world then—in the vastness of existence, my place was small. But knowing that did not discourage me: it comforted me and excited me. So much to see and know…I was reminded why I keep exploring, why I returned…

I pulled cards for His oracle and He left no mistake about what He intended for me. Trust the Nisut (AUS) and the community she keeps in her care, contribute to that community, believe in your multiplicity and listen to your intuition. But then a more curious thing—look toward the sky.

 Seek Nut. 

Why? Because I found my meaning in the depths of her star field once? Because my mother is ascended now, is in her keeping? Because she is the Name who presides over the year? Or is there something else? Is there something more?

I left the city because I could not see the sky. Now I live where there is nothing to obstruct my view. My mother felt the same—Midwestern skies, she said, were so beautiful. She spent her last days gazing out the window of her condo at that expanse of sky, and I sat with her and watched the same. Whenever I step outside, I look up—this has been true of me ever since I was little…there is something there for me, something which has always been wordless, but curiously, is no longer nameless. Nut.

I am surprised that I didn’t notice Her there before.

Day 70

There was a veritable feast laid out for the dead, with three liquid offerings and four food offerings—all of my mother’s favorites, because this evening we welcomed my mother home. Her picture now rests beside those of her family and her locket and ring are on the little shelf next to the others. I sigh, basking in the sense of rightness and peace before I close the little shrine’s doors and blow out the candle as I sing her song one more time.

Day 70 is an eternity away from day 1.

In some ways, it doesn’t hurt any less than it did that night, but it hurts different. It’s gentle pain now that brings reassuring tears. She has changed…but not so much that I don’t still know her. The pain is gone from her now…that’s the biggest thing. She finally sees how much my father really does love her. She finally sees how much my brother and I do to be good people and leave a positive legacy in the world. All the criticism and all the pettiness is gone. Her spirit seems somehow bigger than it was, brighter than it was, and far more knowing. She finally has that wisdom she always wanted, that universal knowledge that she always searched for…and true to the woman she was in life, she’s already started using her new found powers as an Ahku to benefit the family.

So…yeah. Closure. It feels nice, it does. :)

Wards

I realize now, long after the fact of course, that I forgot to mention in the Grounding and Centering post that it was essentially my reaction to Chapter 2 of Trance-Portation. (Remember, I’m working through the book and using this blog as my “journaling” exercise as recommended by Mrs. Paxson) To recap Chapter 2 briefly before moving on: my reaction to the chapter on basic psychic readiness techniques is that I already do those things; I just do them under a different name.

I will add to that something which I did not bring up last time: my house needs wards. Physical ones, I’m thinking, since I already do so much work in Talismanry and it makes sense to cash in on that skill whenever possible. Of course, this means getting supplies, then making the wards with those supplies, then purifying everything, then doing a full blown ritual to set the wards in place. It probably also means starting some sort of tradition of offering to whatever Netjeri end up inhabiting the wards. There is a lot that goes into something like this.

But I don’t think I need all of that merely to begin the work outlined in this book. The shrine room has been properly consecrated and dedicated—given the shift in energy of just entering that space, I know it is well protected enough to give me a safe place to begin trance practices even if I wouldn’t be comfortable doing the same in my living room—so I’ll go that route for now and take my time to do the wards properly.

Still, I thought it might be interesting for people to see exactly how I’m going to go about the warding process, so I decided to write a few posts about it. This is the initial “brainstorming” type post and I’ll occasionally post updates as I work through the stages of actually making this vision manifest.

First, I’ll start with what I mean when I say “wards”—in this case, I’m talking about specific, carefully crafted objects which can act as vessels for protective spirits (Netjeri) who will be tasked with defending my home and keeping its unseen spaces clean in exchange for offerings of some sort. There are other ways of going about warding, but many of them require a lot more dedicated time and personal energy to be spent maintaining them (sometimes weekly or even daily refreshing is required depending on how the ward has been set up and its relative staying power). I also like the idea of having some friendly and protective Netjeri around: my goal here is not to empty my house of the unseen, but to make the unseen part of my home more comfortable. I fully intend on working with spirits throughout my trance work explorations, so it makes sense to have a few allies around in case something goes wrong, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Planning is critical when going about major things like permanent wards. It helps to define one’s goals and then build one’s process around those goals. First, I’ll start with the obvious goals arising from the problems I’m trying to solve:

Goals

1. Keep my blessed (but still nosy and oblivious) dead out of the bedroom and away from the hallway in front of the bedroom so I can sleep at night.
2. Chase out the little unseen critters that like to play with the white noise of the fans and mess with random things.
3. Defend against the larger unseen things that occasionally show up when mystical work is done outside the shrine room.
4. Keep out the energies from other apartments.
5. Help get rid of the damn spiders. (Seriously. I have a dedicated dust-buster for spider removal and I have to use it daily despite the building having been sprayed on numerous occasions)

Then there are the things I intuitively want to make sure I consider when coming up with my design options because it makes me feel more comfortable and at ease when things are structured in such a way:

1. As I already mention several times, I definitely want to go with inhabited wards. Specifically, I want friendly ally spirits who are well aware that they are more or less “employed” to protect my home. (And will be “paid” through some sort of reasonable set of offerings). Companionship is a bonus for both of us, and I should hope that they would see it that way too and enjoy being around the house as much as I hope to enjoy having them around.
2. I would like said ally spirits to work together throughout the home space rather than having “domains” and/or being tied to specific areas. (ie, I don’t want to designate one as the kitchen spirit because I want a long term relationship with these beings and what do I do if I move into dorms for grad school and suddenly don’t have a kitchen? Or worse, we end up in a studio apartment and suddenly there isn’t enough space for them to each have a “domain” even if the domains are non-specific)
3. I also want them to have some autonomy and be able to express their personalities and interact with me and my guests. I don’t want them to be objects or mechanisms. I don’t want them to be servants who can only speak when spoken to. I want them to be members of the family.

My ideas based on the above:

I think I’d be best off creating a system of wards, inhabited collectively, and not individual wards inhabited individually. This does several things: it removes the tendency for wards to be “domain” driven and encourages the right types of spirits to apply for the job, aka spirits willing to work as part of a team effort and who don’t feel an overwhelming need to “claim” physical space. I don’t mind if they claim items in the house. In fact, I’d be thrilled if they, say, took an interest in managing the tarot cards or decided that one prefers to work with windows and another would rather mind the doors. I think that would go a long way toward encouraging the sort of autonomy and personality I’m hoping for.

Along that same line of thinking, it would also help to have some central focus for the system, perhaps a sort of altar where I could leave their offerings for them or speak to them in general terms even if I don’t know specifically where they are at a given moment. The outer wards then, would not be "inhabited" so much as serve to communicate the boundaries of our space and act as guidelines rather than anchors. It would make sense to place them above doors and windows to show the edges of the home. It might be nice to still make them vessels as well as markers, though, to give the spirits places where they could curl up and rest when not active. That might help keep them from all ending up at the central altar. Sort of like their own version of a “living room” (the altar) and “bedrooms” (the outer wards). In that way, I suppose they could claim the wards as their own, but in a more generalized fashion and not dependant on the placement of the wards.

That central altar could also be where I let them know what I need them to do as well as where I give them offerings for doing those things. For example, maybe a small jar where I put my requests of them—I could write a note about the spiders, for instance, and trust that they would take care of it as best they could. For bigger issues and crisis situations, I might want to skip the jar and have some way to call an emergency meeting, maybe a little bell would do the trick.

 I should also create a sort of “contract” delineating what I expect of them and what they can expect of me in return, so everyone is clear on the terms of the relationship.  I should set out a few simple but firm rules for any spirit living in my space and how I intend to hold them accountable. For example: I need them to be friendly to my dead even as I ask them to firm about the boundaries of my bedroom. They could be a bit scary toward the dead if need be, but I would draw the line at them doing anything that would overtly hurt my dead. I would want them to be clear that I will personally handle any dead that won’t listen to them. That would take a bit of explaining to communicate, but the rule itself would be simple and clear: Don’t hurt any of my beloved dead for any reason.

 I should also list the things I am willing to do in return. Things like the food and drink offerings I can provide (breads, fruits, wines, water, etc…), other non-food offerings (flowers, incense, candles, etc…), gifts I can bring whenever I find them (such as smooth stones found along the river, feathers, collections of objects of certain colors, etc…), creative offerings I can make for them (drawings, beaded baubles, origami, etc…) and actions I am willing to perform (such as singing a song they like once a week or reciting poetry or doing a dance or some such).

It might also be worth the time to create some means for them to be able to communicate when they want to leave (for whatever reason) and give them a clear, no-hard-feelings way out (rather than them having to cause enough trouble to get dismissed). Maybe some sort of sign which we both know the meaning of and will allow me to react appropriately—though in addition to the sign, I should devise a way to confirm their intent so I don’t respond rashly to an accidental coincidence. Tarot cards are an obvious mechanism for confirming, but defining actual signs…that’s trickier. I would need it to be something odd enough that I’d notice but not so odd as to be outside the realm of their ability. Maybe having a set of options is the best route to take. Off the top of my head I can think of a few: multiple light bulbs burning out all at once, the repeated sounding of a wind chime placed in a corner with very little air current…something like that.

So now that I have a basic idea of what I’m doing, it’s off to make design sketches and figure out exactly how I’m going to make all of this work. :)

[An additional note: Yes, I have already talked to my Ahku about staying out the bedroom. It hasn't changed much because I think they have trouble telling the difference between "bedroom" and "rest of the house". Having one of the ward spirits herd them out of that space if they wander into it seems like a good solution. Maybe they'll get a sense for where it is eventually. In a broader sense, while I don't mind sharing my space with them, I do need my own space occasionally, and while most of them understand that, not all of them do. It is not my intent to have the ward spirits deal with this issue in my stead, but rather, to help enforce the decisions I make.]

I am now officially a Remetj! :D

Remetj.

That was really the only word I needed to see in my e-mail this week to suddenly be having the best week. And now, of course, I have been suffering from a severe compulsion to “READ ALL THE THINGS” on the parts of the forum that I couldn’t see before. But it’s more than that: it’s a step forward in a new world. As the high school I work at winds down from an early homecoming and gears up to start the first “real” weeks of the semester, I face the beginning of another year—one in which nothing is the same for me.

I realize that is an almost redundant statement: if we aren’t trapped in a cycle of stagnation, then things are almost never “the same” as they were in the years, days, or moments before we stopped to think on them. Yet… the timing of things this summer…

My world has changed in a fundamental way on many levels.  The world of Beginner was very different than the world of Solitary Kemetic in ways I wasn’t expecting—and I know that the world of Remetj will be different still from that of Beginner. I eagerly look forward to that change, but even as I overflow with excitement for that new, shiny future which dawns in the east, I mourn the slow fading of a different light as it sinks in the west.

For a long time, I have lived in the world of Mom as Everything—in fact this summer was christened by me as the “Summer of Mom” as soon as I heard the diagnosis in April…but I only called it that until I realized that it's really more correct to say “Lifetime of Mom”. I was so close to her. I can’t say that in words that would do her justice. My world was her. My mother filled a role for me that was as dangerous as it was beautiful: Mom as All, Mom as Other Half. Which makes learning to live in the world of Mom as Ancestor especially hard…

Next Saturday is already day 70.

It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, and yet, it feels infinitely longer. There is still a hard, sharp edge to the grief, but the wound her death caused has ceased bleeding now and it begins to pull back together as new skin grows to cover it.  That doesn’t mean it hurts any less, or that there won’t be a proverbial scar left behind, just that it isn’t a danger to me anymore. The pain is now a healing one, not a rending one.

I slowly return to myself. My hands go back to beading, my mind goes back to telling stories, and my deeper self goes back to dreaming up new destinies. My gods put tasks before me and the voice whispering within me prods me along the path. I call my brother and my father often; I speak to friends daily—and my heart is beating again. I plan and scheme and go about life in general. I am whole once more. I am hale.

The ancestor shrine is ready. The words of the prayer are already starting to echo in my heart and mind, reverberating in the unseen space I’ve made for her to inhabit when she returns from her journey. I am not certain what to expect. I am not certain what she will be now. I am not certain because, for all I knew of her, I still only knew her as one of the living. She will be different. She will be changed by death. It is my firm belief that all souls are. I welcome that change even as I fear it. I will accept her in any form she takes, but there is no way to prepare for the moment when I first catch a glimpse of her transformed and transfigured self.

So much of life is about not knowing how you will react to things, but finding the courage to keep your eyes open anyway.

A few months ago, I didn’t know how I would react to the Beginner’s class. I didn’t know if I would be impressed or disappointed, satisfied or left wanting, finally connected or more alone then ever… I didn’t know if I could come to terms with the idea of the RPD or if I would be able to accept the Nisut (AUS). Would I feel anything during Senut? Could I really learn to connect with my ancestors? Would I really hear the voices of the other Netjeru if I put Set’s statue away? Could I bear to put his statue away long enough to find out? It was those uncertainties which had kept from applying for the class years before when I first heard of the temple. I only applied this summer because after six years, I had eventually realized that there was no way to know the answers but to discover them by experience.

I wrote here once, a long time ago it feels like, about trust. I have something to add to that:

I trust now.

 I trust the Nisut (AUS). I trust the process and rite of RPD. I trust this community. I trust Senut. I trust my ancestors. I trust all of the Netjeru, when they speak, and I trust Set, even when he is silent. And in all of that trust, I have found what I had not dared to hope for. I am impressed, not disappointed. I am satisfied, not left wanting. I am connected, not alone. I have gained something which was not in the lessons proper but somewhere between the lines:

I am prepared even when I am unprepared. I am ready even when I am not ready. I have learned to put some trust in existence. I didn’t realize that I needed to learn that, and at first, I didn’t realize that I had learned it. Until I thought about it this week when I was buying flowers for the ancestor shrine…

Everything is in balance now. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect or even that it’s comfortable, but it does mean that it is inherently bearable. It doesn’t have to be fair that my mother was taken from me so young. It doesn’t have to make sense that the cancer came back when she had been doing so well. It simply is what it is. The important part is that this terrible thing did not go unbalanced on the scales: there have been blessings along the way to soften the blow (I cannot even fully express how much the beginner’s class, and the HoN community in general, helped in all of this—simply by existing and taking me in and giving me something to hold on to), and there were Names who stepped in to steady me when I started to fall.

 Balance. Fairness. These things are not about individual events and single grains of rice, they are about sums and the weight of the crops against the need for them. The scales dip and soar as they even out, and as long as all eventually returns to the calm, steady equilibrium that makes things functional…that’s really all I can ask for.

Wow. That got overly philosophical toward the end there. I really did start this just to announce that I’m now a Remetj. I suppose that means the title of the post is now a bit misleading.

Sorry about that.  XD