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

30 Days of Sobek: Day 21 – Music that reminds me of Sobek

Okay, I said this might be a hard decision, but almost as soon as I’d posted Day 20, this earwormed its way into my brain, so that’s that problem solved. Enjoy. \m/

 

30 Days of Sobek: Day 20 – My Favourite Sobek Art

I’m going to go with my favourite piece of Sobek art, rather than art that reminds me of Him, since that seems more fun somehow. And I feel like if you just went and looked at this post, you’d see all the ‘Sobek is a Pokémon’ related art, and so I feel like I’ve already done the ‘art that reminds me of $deity’ stuff. So I’ll do this instead.

30 Days of Sobek: Day 19 – Sobek’s admirable and troubling qualities

You’d think this would be an easy post to write, it basically just asks me to ramble about what qualities I most admire about Sobek, and what qualities I find most troubling. But 1) ‘most troubling’ I am pretty sure I would not use that term myself in regards to Sobek, because while He has some reputation for violence, theft, and a huge sexual appetite, I mean, I … don’t find that troubling? It’s just part of His history. Every god has history, and no god has ever been a fucking angel, yeah? They’d been angels, otherwise. Every god has done bad shit, or stuff we might not necessarily celebrate or love or relate to or stuff we find problematic. That’s gods for you. You don’t like it? Find another god. There are millions out there, I’m sure you’ll find one you like better, if Sobek isn’t for you. And I really hope you find Them, and love Them as much as I love Sobek.

I know this sounds … ranty and not very nice of me, but that’s really how I feel about it. Yes, Sobek has a history some might call problematic, and maybe He’s not a god for everyone. But that’s okay. I just see it as all part of the history that makes Him Sobek. There’s precious little left as it is, I’m not going to just ignore the bits I might not be comfortable with.

Because if you just concentrate on the problematic bits, you will 100% miss a god who is kind, and compassionate, and strong, and protective, a god who cares for His own, and for those who have no one else to care for them. You’ll miss a god who is patient, and forgiving, who will sit and chill with you at metal gigs, or have a drink with you while you play video games.

30 Days of Sobek: Day 18 – Sobek’s queer nature

So today’s prompt asks where Sobek stands in terms of gender and sexuality, historical or UPG-wise. I’ll try to keep this short, because I could speak about this a lot if you let me get away with it. I’m sneaking in a little late today, but that’s okay. I need time to revise tomorrow’s anyway. What I’ve currently written is a mess of idk! So. On to today’s prompt.

Sobek has always been considered to be Very Masculine. He has a very fecund sexuality, and His epithets attest to this, and His appetite for women. He is never shown as anything other than male, and has a great generative power within Him. This generally matches up with how I have come to see Him, too.

That said, His mother is queer af. Nit was historically seen as both male and female, or two thirds female, one third male. The few experiences I’ve had with Her have supported this assessment, and She is fabulously, and unapologetically queer, at least to me.

30 Days of Sobek: Day 17 – How Sobek Relates To Other Gods and Pantheons

Well, Sobek did foster me off to Hekate for a year, so…

Which turned into five years and counting and oh, look, you’re Hekate’s witch now, so this is fine. But I digress.

Foreign Gods

Sobek’s connections to other pantheons are mostly through the Roman pantheon, iirc. Oh, and the Greek. He was seen as Helios by the Greeks, and I believe the Romans equated Him with Mars, but don’t quote me on that. Those are the connections I’m most aware of right now.

As for modern times, He seems to get on well with other gods. Mars, I can attest to, and Hekate. Sobek and Mars tend to have a similar sort of energy, and to be honest, that historical connection makes more sense to me than Sobek=Helios, but perhaps those who know Sobek-Ra can see Sobek=Helios more easily than I can.

Sobek’s a very laid-back sort of god, and I’d argue He’d get on well with many gods, though I haven’t tried this to find out. I get the impression that if it’s a god who’s going to help you, He’ll go along with it. This is basically why He gave me to Hekate, there were things only She could teach me.

Egyptian Gods

This feels like a repeat of the gods they’re related to question, but honestly, I’ve not yet had any experiences with Him and other Egyptian gods that didn’t go well. If anything, my aversion to Hethert is on me, not Him, so that’s something I need to work on. But yeah, even with Set, things seem to be fine. He’s a pretty chill god, so He tends to get on with other gods pretty well. But this is just my limited experience, so others might have a different experience of Him and other gods that I don’t have.

But anyway. I think that’s about it for this one. I’d be interested to know what other devotees have experienced in terms of His relationships with other gods.