Kemet Online: Followers of The Religion of Ancient Egypt: Happy New Year!

Em hotep, everyone! <bow>

I have been feeling lonely for all of you, since I’ve been squirreled away writing my dissertation at the speed of lightning (in one month). I had my dissertation defense on Saturday, July 31, and by the end of September, assuming nothing strange happens at the school, I should be able to claim the PhD. Nekhtet!

I mention this not to boast about the hundreds of pages I’ve written—although I feel pretty proud of that fact—but to say that this experience has taught me what is fundamentally important: my faith, my service to Netjer, my community. All of them have seemed to get far too little time and attention lately, and yet I know that I would not be finishing my doctorate were it not that Netjer (using Rev Renee as the human agent) had pushed me to do it. I know that Per Ankh and Sekhem Seminary are built on a firm foundation of learning and respect for learning, and that Netjer has brought this Temple together in this way for the purpose of increasing Ma’at in our time and place. Who am I to argue?

Aset gave Rev Renee and me a big kick in the . . . er, rear end a few months ago, that now was the time to finish up—and not a moment too soon, considering all of what we have had to do to make the meeting happen. It is a long and winding . . . um, complicated story, which I’ll spare you. What I will say, though, is that when you feel Netjer’s hand on your shoulder, it’s a good idea to pay attention.

We felt more than Netjer’s hand in the epagomenal days preceding New Year. Set’s birthday was the day before my meeting; and on that day I lost a necklace off my neck—never even noticed until I got back to the hotel—and also lost all my notes and the outline of the last chapter and conclusion of my dissertation. Hmmm . . . This is when you remind yourself that Set is about necessary destruction. But He’s also about enjoying himself. I went out to the car to look for my outline there and, not finding it, decided to throw out a couple of empty soda cups. I grabbed them and on the way to the trash can, looked down to see warm, sticky, dark brown Diet Pepsi soaking into my sweatshirt, shirt, and pants—all white, of course. On the way back to the room I said, I hope You are enjoying this, Set! I swear He chuckled.

However, the meeting was on Aset’s birthday, She who had gotten all this going in the first place, and She was there in great form, helping me answer the questions intelligently, and the committee agree that I was finished—also very intelligent, eh?

And we got stabilized and grounded on Nebet Het’s birthday.

The next day was New Year. Rev Renee and I went out to the swamp before dawn. Deep fog hung over the water, the moon outlined with pale lines just over the mountain ridge. Ra was invisible even after His light was strong enough to let us walk a quarter-mile or so to a secluded spot—not that anyone else was there. We held Djehuty up to be kissed by the rays of Ra’s face as they stretched out over the ridge and poured cool water on the budding and blooming water lilies. Early birds sang in the background, and Ra warmed the water, still shrouded in mist and fog. We walked to a deck built out into the water and—a huge blue heron flew down and landed no more than 30 or so feet from us. We’d never been so close to a heron before. He paused briefly, looked at us, then lifted on enormous powerful wings and flew up toward the sun, wheeling against the backdrop of deep blue mountains before brightening fog. Spectacular!

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Now that the end of this 7-year wild ride to the PhD is nearly over, I am excited to turn my attention to what is most important. I am looking forward to having more time for Daily Rite that isn’t so hurried, time to sit and listen for Netjer’s voice (aside, that is, from the kicks in the sit-upon I mentioned before), time for the writing that has been marinating inside me, put aside until after my . . . er, beloved dissertation was finished. And as we have just turned the corner of the New Year, this seems the time to begin thinking in those terms again. I wonder if any of you is feeling the same way and, if so, what your thinking is about how to organize your life so as to include all the parts of it, “ordinary” and “religious,” assuming that they can be separated in reality.

It’s easy to feel that we are letting the details of our daily lives take precedence over our religious lives. But as you all know, Rev Renee and I believe that often the path that opens in front of us, the one that we may not have planned or chosen, is in fact our spiritual work for the time.

I hope that none of you will need the kind of shoves and kicks in the sit-upon that Rev Renee and I have received, to pay attention to the signals from Netjer. Since we’ve been home, I have hurt myself several times. I burned myself twice on steam from the tea kettle—once sort of badly, the second time not at all, but you’d think I would be paying attention—hit my head hard on the side of the car getting in, and so on. I very seldom hurt myself; I think this is a pay-attention notice. So I’m paying attention: to the writing that needs to happen to finish my dissertation, to the words in my mind that Netjer seems to want to be written, to the need for more time for Daily Rite and more time for purification, to the powerful commitment I feel to building our Temple and our Seminary—I’m paying attention to all of that.

What about you? What are you paying attention to now, and what do you think is being conveyed to you? Are you feeling yourself drawn to something urgently? Could Netjer have given you a push in that direction?

What has been your experience of this New Year? We would love to hear about it.

Senebty!

Rev Sedgwick

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Rev Sedgwick Heskett, Hemet NebetHet-Nit and Amun
Heri Tep Hem Netjer Per Ankh
Per Ankh: The Traditional Religion of Ancient Egypt
http://www.per-ankh.org