Spirit Overrides Mind

I went down to St Claude to look for a job. My first stop was the New Orleans Healing Center. It's in the process of opening up, and it has my favorite spiritual person running a shop there, Mambo Sallie Ann Glassman and her Island of Salvation Botanica. I figured I could see her new digs, ask what's happening in the neighborhood, all that.

I get in there, and start crying. I just break down, and tell Sallie I desperately need a job, I'm depressed, all that. She gently offers me the appropriate candle, and money drawing oil. I sniffle and thank her, and on top of this, she calls her shop girl to do some free (yes, FREE!) acupuncture for my depression.

Casey takes me into the private reading room, feeds me Emergen-C (I hadn't eaten yet), some Bach's Rescue Remedy, and gets to work. She sits with me twice the required time for it to all work. She listens to me cry, talk, admit all kinds of things I was even barely thinking. Through it all, she was calm, the very soul of gentleness, and better than any therapist I've ever met.

She takes the needles out, puts some sticky magnets on the backs of my ears, and admonishes me to go eat something. Then (oh, Netjer, can it get better??) she tells me of a free acupuncture workshop this very night in the same neighborhood.

If I ever needed a sign, that was it. I have an all-day pass on public transport. I have no excuses.

If you're ever in NOLA, take the adventure, go down to St Claude and St Roch, the giant orange and turquoise building, and visit Mambo Sallie and Casey for some mojo and some healing. They're wonderful people.

Ok, one more...

I've said before that Florence Welch puts me in the mind of worshiping Hethert.

This song would fit in with any ecstatic worship. Rock concerts can do that, but this, I feel is special. I adore this video.

More Music and Momma

I'm meditating more on my spiritual Mother - and I got a request to hear Bjork. This song in particular.

It brought me to tears. Good ones.

Di Wep Ronpet Nofret!

This is my first Kemetic new year. I celebrated with ritual purification and prayers at dawn (very unusual for me, I am not a morning person!). But even during the Days upon the Year, I could feel a shift in me. I feel the funk I've carried with me for too long lifting, and I also think I'm becoming Kemetic.

My new name fits. Whether being Qefathethert is going back to who I truly was before the world told me I wasn't her or not (and I strongly suspect this is true), I feel like myself. But new.

Last night, I even made natron! I had been using salt beforehand (I know, not bad, but not great), so it felt good to actually speak the prayers over kernels of natron and not just salt.

Just out of the oven.

Crumbly!

Turns out, half a cup of salt and baking soda each makes a lot!

Now, I can purify for senut the proper way. I chose to break it up with my hands - I know many prefer powdering it with a mortar and pestle, but there was something organic about peeling it off the tinfoil (for various reasons, I do not own a baking sheet - long story) and crumbling it with my hands. I also chose to use the ceramic bowl decorated with the moon and stars that my mom brought back from Morocco - it reminded me of Nut. Thanks mom! I think it will be my purification bowl from now on.

This year belongs to Ptah, "the builder." There are certainly many things in my life that I need to build. No more slacking - I will use this present momentum to forge ahead and build the life I want.

What exactly that means, I'm not sure yet, but I will spend today meditating on it - and perform the isfet banishing ritual as a way of cleaning house.

I wish everyone a blessed life, whether or not this is the new year for you! Nekhtet!

New Year's Eve

Tomorrow is Wep Ronpet. Today is the last on the "days upon the year." This day belongs to Nebt-het (Gr. Nephthys), and honestly, I've never understood Her much. But being in the Kemetic community, even if it's only online, I'm learning more about this vague goddess who seems to always be in Aset's shadow.

She's wife to Set, who is one of my beloveds. She is associated with death, and her hair is often described to be like mummy wrappings. She's necessarily associated with vultures, which, in the ancient Egyptian mind, were always female, and simply created out of thin air (literally).

While containing all these aspects that make her "spooky", and great fodder for a Halloween costume, She is identified by two hieroglyphs on her head - "basket" and "house." She's a household goddess. It seems that the ancient Egyptians honored death in their own home, next to fearsome protective deities like Bes and Taweret.

Of course, Nebt-het is also depicted and called upon in tombs, with Her sister Aset, since they both were the ones who found the cut-up body of Wesir and put him back together again, making the first mummy. Her wings protect the mummies of kings alongside those of Aset. She also was nurse-maid to Heru-sa-Aset (young Horus), which put Her at odds with her own husband. Set wanted the throne that Heru got.

I don't know if I will ever understand this Lady of Mourning, but I just might visit a cemetery today.