30 Days of Sobek: Day 30 – Advice for those beginning to learn about Sobek

Well, this series is not a terrible place to start, but it is worth chasing up your own research as well. My focus is very much on the Faiyum, and Sobek there is not the same as Sobek in Kom Ombo, so I’d research as much as you are able to, and always ask questions of other devotees. There’s no harm in comparing notes when you’re just starting to honour a deity and you need to calibrate your discernment.

Other than that, just make an offering, light a candle, say a prayer or a hymn, and just talk to Him. You may need a lot of patience to hear Him. He can be very subtle and not always clear about what He’s saying to you, but persevere, check with divination, ask others to help, and always trust your instincts. He is a kind, gentle, wonderful god, and He will protect you very well if you let Him.

I can’t really help with Sobek-Ra, though. It’s not an aspect of Sobek I seem to get, even though I incorporate the Sobek-Ra-Wesir stuff into my mythos and practice. I think it’s possibly because I see Sobek standing in for Ra in these stories, not as Sobek-Ra, and so Sobek ACTING as Ra is very different to Sobek-Ra. My Sobek is much cooler, much more Sobek-like, and doesn’t have some of the qualities of Ra that I’ve seen Sobek-Ra devotees talk about.

But like I said, talk to other devotees and see how your Sobek compares. And, ultimately, do what you feel works best for you, and don’t feel you need to stick to any particular practice you see others doing if it doesn’t call to you. Your relationship with Sobek is yours alone. Never let anyone tell you you’re doing it wrong if you’re happy with your practice, and Sobek’s happy with your practice.

30 Days of Sobek: Day 29 – Interesting or Unusual Sobek UPG

I feel like I’ve written so much about my UPG already, both in this series and on my blog in general, so I don’t really know where to start in terms of anything interesting or unusual to share about Sobek that I haven’t written about already.

The Celestial Twins thing is probably the longest, and still the most concrete, piece of UPG I’ve got. It’s … I sort of feel it was Their way of introducing me to the Shedety mythos in a way that made sense to me, and it does reflect a lot of the Shedety stuff in ways I didn’t realise at the time.

Sobek, Renenutet(-Aset) and Heru were definitely a trio, and Sobek and Heru were one and the same god as much as They were different gods. This theme of Sobek being both Heru’s father, and His twin, this is backed up in that UPG in the mythos of Shedet.

I think the only other thing I can think of that might be worth sharing here is the Sobek bullet point list I did over on tumblr yesterday or the day before or something. I don’t often post directly on tumblr, but I did for that, and then didn’t share it here, so that’s something. Copypasting because I am lazy.

30 Days of Sobek: Day 28 – Things I Wish I Knew About Sobek

I wish I had more information about His historical cult. I know bits and pieces, but a lot wasn’t preserved, or it’s in a language I can’t read, or shut away behind an unaffordable paywall, or otherwise not available to me. And Sobek gets nowhere near the amount of research interest as Wesir or Aset or Heru or Set or Ra. So if there’s more out there, it’s not even being looked for, because no one’s interested enough to look for it.

I want to know about His major festivals, I want to know the temple calendars, the hymns, the myths, all of it. I want a more complete picture of what His worship was like, so I don’t feel so much like I’m scraping around in the dark for fragments that only paint a fraction of the picture. Because that’s what it feels like I’m doing most of the time. I’ve got fragments and other bits and pieces that don’t quite reveal enough. So a lot of what I do is modern, because what else is there to go on? I can’t practice anything if I just used what’s been left to us.

I wish I had a complete English translation of the Book of the Faiyum. What little I know about it fascinates me, and I’d love to be able to read and study it in its entirety. It feels really important to the cultus I’m building, particularly now that I’ve finished that thesis I was reading a while back about the death of gods in Ancient Egypt. There’s a whole chapter about Ra and one for Heru and one for Wesir and it is all super-interesting, and I want to know more. There’s a lot of Book of the Faiyum stuff in there that I find really, really interesting, but without being able to read it, I’m stuck. Ultimately, I’d love to recreate it, to bring it back to life and fill in the missing pieces. But that’s a lifetime goal that’s nowhere near being completed.

This is a little shorter than I’d have anticipated, but honestly, that’s really about it. That really covers most of my wishlist.

30 Days of Sobek: Day 27 – Worst Misconceptions about Sobek

Honestly, this question feels like a rewording of day 9, so I might just point you there. Though I think this phrasing makes more sense to me but idk.

I think the worst one is that He’s omg evil. He gets a lot of the Evil Crocodile God shit, particularly in popular media. No one can conceive of a crocodile god, particularly with Sobek’s temperament, being anything other than rampagingly violent, evil, and destructive. But they’re only seeing a fragment of His personality when they do that, and even Set isn’t 100% like this, either. But then no one seems to care enough about these gods to write them accurately, so I don’t expect it, either. It’d still be nice to see a more accurate portrayal one day. I’d like to see a version of Sobek that I recognise and resonate with, that feels like, yes, this is the god I know. But that might be wishful thinking.

That said, I hope these posts have at least given you a better idea of what Sobek’s like, if He’s not a god you know or worship. If there’s anything you want to know that isn’t covered with this list, feel free to ask and I’ll see what I can do. I want people to know more about Him, and what He’s like.

30 Days of Sobek: Day 26 – How my relationship with Sobek has changed

It’s changed a lot. Well, it would, over a 17 year period. I’ve got to know Him a lot better, in different and interesting ways, and to explore His relationships with other gods that I couldn’t have conceived of at the beginning.

This is the sort of entry that’s going to be either really short, or really long. I suspect short, because trying to articulate those changes is not easy, because so much of it is subtle and nuanced. I’m not sure most would notice them. But you hang around a god for 17 years and shit does change. You learn more about each other, you see more of each other, and you grow together. The paths change, the practice changes, but it’s all good because Sobek’s still there, at the heart of it all, no matter how things turn out or where you end up.

Yep, it’s another short entry. But I’m not sure what else to say for this, so. Here we are. And at least I’m all caught up now, so there’s that.

30 Days of Sobek: Day 25 – A Time Sobek Didn’t Help

I don’t think He’s ever explicitly refused to help. What He tends to do with me is more stand back and let me work it out for myself. I won’t get stronger if He does everything for me. So He’ll just step back, and let me work at it myself.

I suspect He takes this approach to my protection magics as well. I invoke Him for protection, but it’s that sense of agency, too, of being able to take care of myself just as well. That I’m not relying on Him alone. And I think that’s why learning protection magic calls to me so strongly. It’s to help myself so I don’t have to just be helplessly relying on Him. I need the confidence to protect myself, to know I will be safe anyway, and to use His presence to back that up. That’s how that’s manifesting in my life, at any rate.

30 Days of Sobek: Day 24 – A Time When Sobek Helped Me

I have a very vivid memory of being on the train home one day maybe a few years ago, and perhaps it was what I’d call fallow time. I’d not felt Him around for a while, but in that moment, on this packed train home, He just reminded me His name means ‘watching over you’, that He was always there, even if I couldn’t feel Him.

Perhaps it’s not being helped in a more obvious sense, but that vivid reminder still stays with me today. That reminder that He’s always there, even when I can’t feel Him, even if it’s fallow time, even if He’s off doing God Stuff. His gentle patient presence, that warm growl in my ear, that’s help enough for me.

30 Days of Sobek: Day 23 – My Own Composition about Sobek

Okay, so this took a while, because I wanted to write something new, rather than post something I’d already written, and I couldn’t think of anything until Sobek suggested SPACE GOD COWBOYS IN SPACE or something like that, so. This is silly and occaisonally serious, and has more Heru in it than I intended, but there you go. That’s Sobek for you.

This is nearly 1600 words of mostly unedited stuff I wrote over the past three hours or so, so don’t expect a brilliantly detailed plot. Sobek, I think, just wanted something fun, and I didn’t want to rewrite the myths again. Because I’ve done that already. So this is a little gem of Sobek’s sense of humour. Enjoy. 😀

30 Days of Sobek: Day 22 – Some writing that resonates strongly with Sobek

This is not as easy as you might imagine to find some sort of quote, poem or other piece of writing that Sobek resonates strongly with. The dearth of material around when I was starting out 17 years ago trained me to write things myself, so I never spent much time looking for devotional things other people had written or other pieces of writing Sobek resonated with. What was the point? There was nothing out there.

Even now, even in the past few years when there are more devotees out there, I haven’t gone collecting material. This is the problem being a writer. I can just write things myself, and not worry so much about trying to find pieces of writing others have written that Sobek resonates with. But then I am His scribe, so He sort of expects me to write for Him. So that’s what I mostly end up doing, rather than looking for what others have written.

Take this as your little divine nudge to write some more things for Him, so it’s not just me turning up in google searches. XD

Happy Solstice!

I hope you’ve all had a wonderful Solstice, and that your celebrations have been filled with joy and peace. ❤ We had our Yule Feast tonight, and I thought I’d be ~innovative~ and take a video of the decorations before dinner started. So Enjoy our festive winter decorations. ❤

30 Days of Sobek Meme will be back tomorrow, now that the Yule Feast is done. Also, I actually need to find something for day 23, and write something for today. So give me a few hours tomorrow, and I might come up with something half-decent.

ALSO ALSO. This is your ONE WEEK TO GO PSA. The Sobek Devotional opens for submissions in ONE WEEK. 8D I hope you have all been preparing things for me, because I am ready to receive them, and begin making this devotional a reality. 😀 😀 😀