Another year begins

So, it’s been. A weird – but brilliant – start to the year. January and the last month of my Kemetic year was A Slog, and not just bc I spent most of it decluttering my room to a ridiculous extent. It was just one of those Big Years where I could tell Big Changes were coming. Personal stuff, as much as anything else. The thing that didn’t happen was rituals for Wep Ronpet, for a number of reasons, but that’s okay. That wasn’t necessarily the big priority this time, so.

I’m still figuring out a lot of what’s been going on, but one thing that is, is that I’m back on the House of Netjer forums, and intend to rejoin the House, which might come as a surprise to some of you, bc it sure as shit was to me too, but talking to another Sobek kid, Temi, reassured me that this was what Sobek wanted, so that’s where I am now.

It’s weird to feel like I can stop wandering now. Because that’s really all I’ve done for a decade. Wandered through Hekatean witchcraft, druidry, Buddhism, and god knows what else, following where Sobek led me, because that’s what I do. I never know the destination, just where I’ve been. This meandering encapsulated itself in an image I got during meditation of simply lying on His crocodilian back as He wades through the mud, forging the river in His wake, so I can see the path of the river, but not where we’re going. But I trust Him, so I let Him keep going.

But now I get to be still. No more wandering. My State of the Shrines post that’s coming up next will show you just how stable my path is at the moment. All I have to show now is my main Kemetic shrine, and my little Hellenic shrine. They’re the only two shrines I have up right now. I’ll also post my daily rites, because I have three versions that I’m using now, for various levels of ritual purity and time, and that more than anything helps me be consistent. I might not do the same thing every day, but I always turn up every day, and that’s what’s more important right now. Because I really haven’t had much of a daily practice for about two years, so it’s nice to be getting back to shrine every day.

I’m also going back to uni to do post-grad work and retrain as a librarian. Why? Because I’ve always wanted to, but it was never as much as a priority as it is now, and it might help me actually get a job and not just drift through life not getting anywhere. This definitely feels like a year of Doing Things, so I’m hoping that energy will carry through and things will genuinely change. I’m 36 now. I’m halfway through my life potentially. It’s time to get moving.

The other big life-changing news is that, after many years of being single, I am now in a relationship, thanks to Aphrodite. It’s still very new, even though we’ve been friends for a year now, because we were being Thick Oblivious Queers who were the last to figure out that we were in love, but if this is what the gods want, then I have to trust that it’s going to work out. I don’t want to write more on this yet, bc again, it’s very new and neither of us know what the fuck we’re doing, and also it’s long-distance bc ofc it is, so. But speaking as someone who had come to accept that I was going to be single for the rest of my life and I was okay with that, this is taking some time to adjust to. But they make me so happy that it’s worth it. ❤

So yeah. That’s my life right now. Big Changes. Also there are some things I can’t mention bc they are oathbound Sau things, but that’s the main gist of it. It’s been . A Time, and I’m so excited to see where this year takes me. Expect more posts as I get back into a more stable path.

ok I’m an idiot

So I’ve been neglecting my religious stuff for most of the past 12 months or so, bc I’ll be honest, I thought I had just crashed after redoing the bedroom and then got Obsessed with Fandom Stuff and thought I was just On A Break.

Nope. Turns out the big problem was one I just didn’t see, and that was that I’d set up my Sobek shrine wrong. I made it pretty, rather than functional, and I need a shrine to be functional or I don’t use it. And it has legit taken me a year to realise how much I’d fucked it up. That the way I thought I was going to use it turned out to be completely wrong for the way I work. So of coruse nothing ever stuck because I didn’t see how it wasn’t working for me.

Also, I didn’t realise how much I needed daily rituals until I stopped doing them. I mean, I meditated for 45 minutes tonight, and I kept a fairly good focus on Sobek as He repeatedly poured sea water over my head (I am terrible at cleansing, apparently, so I need to start working on that). I haven’t had focus like that for about a year, I think. Maybe less than that, but that feels about right. Like, I’d try to go to Bakhu, and get maybe five mins in and lose focus entirely. That was just my life. I didn’t realise what I was missing was the ritual aspect of it.

I think I have been complicating my practice for a very long time, if I’m honest. Trying to do things that I probably didn’t need to do. All I need to do is go to shrine every night. Doesn’t matter if I use a ritual script. Doesn’t matter if I speak or just say it in my head. Just turn up and be present. That’s all I need to do. Everything else is a bonus. I’d forgotten that. I’d forgotten the peace that comes from standing before my shrine, and really being able to feel the energy from it because it’s a living shrine, rather than a shelf for statues to sit and look pretty.

There’s a lot that He said that I’m still processing, but that’s where I am right now.

Lord of the Carnelian Temple is now published!

After almost a year of hard work, and some wonderful amazing contributors, we have finally got the Sobek Devotional published! ❤

It is now available to purchase here: https://neosalexandria.org/bibliotheca-alexandrina/current-titles/devotionals/lord-of-the-carnelian-temple-a-devotional-in-honor-of-sobek/

Please go and support this amazing book, and see what a wonderful devotional we’ve created for Sobek. ❤

Share this far and wide, and spread this to any Sobek devotees you know. ❤

Dua Sobek! Nekhtet! 😀

Lord of the Carnelian Temple cover reveal!

Lookit this beautiful cover omg. ❤ Getting closer and closer to being done. ❤ More news when I have it, like when I get the proof copy omg. ❤

#dailyshrine Challenge and Wep Ronpet Eve

Hello! It is nearly Wep Ronpet! Bwee! 😀 I finally got time to clean out all my altars and shrines, because I had been meaning to do that all week. But if the Days Upon The Year have been anything this year, it’s been very Days Upon The Year-y. Very chaotic and things not happening how they planned, etc. And then the Super Blue Blood Moon Eclipse has just thrown everything out of whack. Still! I did see it tonight, and wished very much I’d had a telescope. D:

Anyway. So. I will do Wep Ronpet things tomorrow, but for now, I wanted to post about the #dailyshrine challenge Rev Jan Avende is running over at ADF. Because if you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you might have noticed that I like building shrines. 😀 So this is right up my alley. I plan to post every day over at instagram, and then write up the posts here each week, so you can see them all and have a bit more writing about why I did them the way I did.

So if you’re interested in following along, my instagram is sashataakheru. Feel free to follow me for shrine pics and cat pics, since that is basically 90% of what I post over there. 😀

Behind the cut, please see my current shrines as they are. I have video to upload tomorrow, and may post more detailed photos then, if anyone’s interested. Also, enjoy the shrines while you can, because by April, they will be totally different, because my room will be totally different. Which is why I’ll do a proper State of the Shrines when that’s all done, so you can see the new set-up then. 😀

Sobek Devotional Update: Last Minute Submission Requests

Okay, since I meant to do this a couple of weeks ago, but Life etc, and I’ve had a couple of queries today about submissions, I just wanted to let you know that, yes, the book is going ahead, and I am still working on it. I haven’t quite decided on the cover art yet, and there’s a couple of little things I need to fix up, but it’s going ahead.

I am currently compiling the manuscript, so if you still have any last-minute submissions, you’ve got til Jan 31st to get them in. I might be able to extend that by a couple of weeks if you really need it, but I would like to finalise the manuscript by Feb 14, so I can’t guarantee anything I get past that date will make it in. It probably won’t. So don’t hang about if you still want to submit something!

Anyone wanting to make late submissions, please email sobekdevotionalATgmail.com to let me know I need to wait on you, and what you are planning to submit, so I can pencil in where it might fit as I work on finishing the manuscript. This is absolutely your last chance to get something included in the devotional, so please get in touch sooner rather than later.

Here, have an entry that’s not about the Sobek Devotional

Gods, it’s been a good, but crazy year. A lot’s happened. Like A LOT. I guess this is what I get for picking ‘courage’ as my word of the year. I can’t remember the last thing I talked about, but it’s been a relatively quiet end of the year, in terms of spiritual stuff. There’s a lot of ongoing internal work, and a lot of plans and other things that are taking time to develop and grow.

Things I have been focusing on lately are self-love and self-care. I don’t know if this would’ve come up had I not been shifting into a femme mood all year, but perhaps. Perhaps this is just the mindset I need to really dig into this work and make it happen. See, the problem with being a well-adjusted and functioning human being is that you don’t think you need self-care because what the hell, you just get by. I’m resilient. I can handle this. And yeah, most of the time, I can. But this is something that goes deeper, and in a lot of ways, it’s hard to express. But it’s part of that thing, you can’t love others if you don’t love yourself, yeah? It’s to do with that.

PSA: Sobek Devotional – LAST DAY TO SUBMIT

Okay, so technically, it’s nearly 2018 here in Australia, but I’ll be a bit wobbly with the timing because time zones. BUT STILL.

If you have sent something in and haven’t received a reply (or you asked about something and I never got back to you), let me know!

If you know you are definitely going to submit something but it’s not quite done, send me an email to let me know I need to wait on you!

sobekdevotional@gmail.com <— I will 100% stop nagging once 2018 hits, but until then, SEND ME THINGS. 😀

I have received so many amazing submissions, and I can’t wait to begin to put this all together for you all, so you can see how amazing it is too. Thank you to everyone who shared and spread the word and sent me things, and helped make this go better than I could have imagined. ❤

PSA: Last few days to get your Sobek Devotional submissions in!

That’s right, we’re down to the last four days! If you’ve got anything at all you want to submit to the devotional, SEND IT IN NOW –> sobekdevotional@gmail.com

DO IT.

Submissions close on Dec 31st, that’s your last chance to get your work included in the anthology! Spread this far and wide, and get your submissions in now!

Wisdom from Sobek

“If you do not go out and see the world, you will not know what to bring back to the temple.”

This was part of a longer conversation about priesting roles and How To Temple. I’ve been diving back into the Book of the Faiyum recently, and pondering what all of that means, and how to make sense of it when I don’t have a full translation. And how the Ogdoad is really caught up in all that mythology in a way I hadn’t really appreciated before, and I find that very intriguing.

And so tonight I was pondering the old temples and priesthoods, and how to do that work today. He showed me one of the temples, and we stayed in the outer courtyard. There were a lot of people milling around, making their own prayers. Sobek said it was no good mysticing my way too high into the sanctuary if it meant I forgot what ordinary people brought to Him. And He reminded me that priests back then weren’t full time priests, and that neither should we be, as modern priests. If you need a day job, so be it. And He suggested spending one season a year doing work outside the temple. Do your magic for others, do community-building work, do volunteering, do whatever work comes to you. And then take that back to the temple.

So that’s giving me a lot to chew on right now as I ponder how to wrangle this priesting thing into order and make it fit with everything else I’m being called to do. And I don’t think this is a terrible idea, either. I think it’s a good idea to spend some time each year doing more practical out-in-the-community work for a while to focus on others and see what needs doing, and not just spend all your time up in your head. It’s a grounding thing. So I might have to look at how to make that work for me, because I can see real value in that, if I do it right. But I thought I’d share in case it causes anyone else to have a ponder, too.