Daily Devotions from Her Holiness
Nisut Hekatawy I (ankh udja seneb)
April 14-15, 2001

Bless all the children of Netjer, known and unknown!
May your coming be peaceful.

Our Nisut's lessons on the 42 Purifications will resume on Monday.

Enjoy the weekend. Make offering to your Akhu and god or goddess so that we might return refreshed and renewed to our meditations upon purifications after the weekend.

Dua Netjer! Nekhtet!

Thought for the Weekend:
"The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden."
Goethe

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Daily Devotions from Her Holiness
Nisut Hekatawy I (ankh udja seneb)
April 13, 2001

Bless all the children of Netjer, known and unknown!
May your coming be peaceful.

Purification 2

For an explanation/introduction to this lesson, click here.

Hail Hept-seshet, coming from Kher-aha, I do not steal (literally, "there is no stealing [in] me.")

Our second purification invokes the local spirit ("Flame-embracer") of Kher-aha, moving outward from Iunu and toward the city of Mennefer (Memphis), a district called later in antiquity Babylon and today associated with Old Cairo.

Robbery as mentioned in the second purification (using the word a'awau), is literally the taking of something for oneself which belongs to someone else. As there is literally "no instance of robbery" being declared in this purification, one could read into the line that it is not talking simply about literal theft but perhaps even mental forms of theft: plagiarism, misrepresentation, jealousy, exaggeration -- taking knowledge or thoughts without permission from others. We will however see theft again in these purifications, and even in forms that cover mental theft in addition to the physical forms.

There would not be a prescription against property theft if it was not believed that people were entitled to own something. This is in spite of common assumptions that in ancient Egypt everything "belonged to the king," and modern religions where material possessions are not valued; if you're not supposed to have any goods, why would you have to worry about telling God you didn't steal any? For the Kemetic Orthodox prosperity, so long as it does not come at the expense of others -- or here, at the expense of stealing it from someone else -- is then considered to be a good thing.

Last night in our biweekly Dua worship service, we prayed to Hethert for prosperity this month. May She bring us what we need, and even more, without it being stolen from another.

Dua Netjer! Nekhtet!

I invite your discussion and participation in this teaching in the Devotions boards.

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Daily Devotions from Her Holiness
Nisut Hekatawy I (ankh udja seneb)
April 12, 2001

Bless all the children of Netjer, known and unknown!
May your coming be peaceful.

Purification 1

For an explanation/introduction to this lesson, click here.

Hail Strider coming from Iunu (Heliopolis), I am not doing (making) Isfet.

Our first purification invokes the local spirit of Iunu, the city which for much of Kemet's history served as its religious capital, home of the Great Nine Gods. This might assume that the first purification is the most important, or that it, like the religious teachings of Iunu, influence all the rest. It is indeed a very important statement.

It's interesting to note that while most translations of Chapter 125 of the Pert put the purifications into past tense (one is, after all, recalling the story of one's life before the assessors, so in English, the "narrative past tense" is quite appropriate), the lines in Egyptian really are not in a past tense. They are rather written in a continuative tense, suggesting that the thing the person states is ongoing. This is not something a person did, but rather does and is continuing to do.

Also, Isfet, the opposite of Ma'at, is being done or made (or in this case, not being done/made). It is understood as an action or a behavior. This is a very important point, and brings us back to the idea that a person's being is not to be confused with his or her behavior -- you are not what you do. We may through this purification, in effect, love the sinner yet hate the sin. Just because a person does Isfet does not make his or her being part of it necessarily.

Contemplate how you can avoid doing or making Isfet on this day when we celebrate Shu and Tefnut's birthday and the festivals of Het-hert and Heru.

Dua Shu! Dua Tefnut Dua Heru! Nekhtet!

I invite your discussion and participation in this teaching in the Devotions boards.

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Daily Devotions from Her Holiness
Nisut Hekatawy I (ankh udja seneb)
April 11, 2001

Bless all the children of Netjer, known and unknown!
May your coming be peaceful.

Over the next month or so, I hope to spend some time in the Devotions meditating with you on the ethical precepts given to us from antiquity within funerary documents called Pert-em-Hru or "Chapters of Coming Forth by Day," most commonly referred to as the "Egyptian Book of the Dead." I'll be using my own translations of the ancient texts, and talking about their meanings. Today, I'll introduce what we're talking about and why.

Some people have likened the precepts I have chosen to focus on, from Chapter 125 (a modern designation) of the Pert, to the "Ten Commandments" of Judaism and Christianity. They are referred to as the "Negative Confessions" or the "42 Laws," yet they are really neither. What each of the 42 lines consists of is a prayer and a purification. Beginning with the invocation of a local god for each of the 42 provinces of Kemet, and ending with a recitation of a thing which a person did not do (as opposed to reciting what a person did do, an interesting declaration of innocence rather than of guilt in itself), the 42 lines were actually priestly requirements, from a list of things that priests in life were required to perform (or in this case not) perform, immediately before serving before Netjer in a temple. As the deceased is about to enter the presence of Wesir, it makes sense that he or she must be "purified" in the same way as a priest and prove it to "the 42 assessors," symbolic of the entire land and people of Kemet.

This being said, the 42 purifications also give us some idea of what the people of Kemet considered appropriate behavior, and even the living person who is not a priest cannot help but benefit from that study.

Tomorrow we'll begin with the declarations. I invite your discussion and participation in this teaching in the Devotions boards.

Celebrate Het-hert's ongoing festival today and rejoice!

Dua Het-hert! Nekhtet!

Thought for the Day:
"I have brought Ma'at to you; I have done away with Isfet for you."
from the Introduction to Chapter 125 of the Pert

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Daily Devotions from Her Holiness
Nisut Hekatawy I (ankh udja seneb)
April 10, 2001

Bless all the children of Netjer, known and unknown!
May your coming be peaceful.

So what is this all about, anyway?

What does it mean to have a daily devotion? What does it mean to honor Netjer in the calendar of a people who have not practiced their religion in this way for nearly 2,000 years, by many people who aren't even descended from those people?

Devotion, according to the dictionary, means:
1 a : religious fervor : PIETY b : an act of prayer or private worship -- usually used in plural c : a religious exercise or practice other than the regular corporate worship of a congregation
2 a : the act of devoting b : the fact or state of being ardently dedicated and loyal (as to an idea or person)
3 obsolete : the object of one's devotion

So devotion is an act of piety, prayer or private worship separate from official religious practices. It sounds like something that could be done anywhere, by anyone. It sounds like it doesn't even have to take any specific form, other than to be religious. The second meaning sheds some light on its purpose, perhaps: "to be ardently dedicated and loyal."

I am ardently dedicated and loyal to Netjer. You may say many things about me but no one could say I do not love Netjer, and particularly Heru-wer and Nebt-het my spiritual Mother and Father. I love Them so much it is impossible to express in words, although I do try. I am also, as it turns out, ardently dedicated and loyal to each of you, the children of the gods and goddesses, who approach Netjer with a sincere heart. I love you, too -- and so my devotion to Netjer is also a devotion to you. It is a powerful thing to say, yet it is not any less true.

I hope that you enjoy these devotions, and that you will continue to teach me as I teach you, to permit me to share with you my love for Netjer so that we can all worship together, this divine Entity Who is many gods and goddesses, Beings beyond imagination Who permitted us to know Them, even though we are far removed from Their first home in time and sometimes also in space. What a blessing this is to share. Devotion. A small word that says so much!

Dua Netjer! Nekhtet!

Thought for the Day:
"God is a great eye. He sees everything in the world."
Sudanese proverb

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Daily Devotions from Her Holiness
Nisut Hekatawy I (ankh udja seneb)
April 9, 2001

Bless all the children of Netjer, known and unknown!
May your coming be peaceful.

It is an honor to stand in my shrine and pray for each of you every day. Most of my day now is spent in these private moments, I find, even when I am not in the shrine itself, asking Netjer to watch out for each person who asks me to pray for him or her. I pray also for those who don't have prayers to send me. I pray for every child of Netjer I know of, to each of the gods and goddesses. Every day is a mixture of prayers and praises, of saying thank you for this or that blessing, or asking special attention for this or that problem.

Life is this mixture of prayers and praises, of thank you and please help. Each of my days reflects each of our lives, I find. There is a richness in the love of it, in being able to address serious problems in one breath and give thanks for other problems solved in the next, in knowing that Netjer is paying attention and does care. You can pray these prayers, too. You can turn your life into an outward expression of your personal and intimate relation with the god or goddess of your ka. It is one of the easiest things to do, which ironically for some people makes it very hard.

Thinking is a form of action, too. Spend just as much time thinking as you do any other action, and you will find a good balance in your inner and outer lives. Be contented in yourself and express this contentment outward. Live in contentment (hotep), the word in Kemetic which means to be content or at peace, but is also the name of our most common offering.

Dua Netjer! Nekhtet!

Thought for the Day:
"We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right."
Nelson Mandela

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Daily Devotions from Her Holiness
Nisut Hekatawy I (ankh udja seneb)
April 8, 2001

Bless all the children of Netjer, known and unknown!
May your coming be peaceful.

In the final season of the year we have less festivals than in the previous seasons. Partially this is due to ancient convention related to climate: it was often too hot to don heavy robes and carry sacred barges through town, food and beverages were more expensive as the harvest wasn't quite finished yet and supplies were low, and people were busy performing that harvest.

Today we aren't tied to this ancient calendar in a geographical or weather related way, so what are we to make of the shift away from community festivals, at least not on a daily basis? I believe a harvest time doesn't just have to be celebrated with armfulls of grain. Harvest can mean any gathering of produce, whether it is the results of one's behaviors or conscious effort. A harvest, like any other creation, doesn't have to be tangible to be real. We are bringing in the sheaves, not just of emmer and barley, grapes and figs, but of past experiences and relationships, goals and work.

At the beginning of this time we separate the wheat from the chaff: we sort out what we've accomplished, letting those things that no longer serve us fall to the wayside as we bring the results we choose to keep back home from the threshing-grounds. As you separate out your own accomplishments, may you find true seeds of future growth and gifts of Netjer hiding amongst the things that are now past. I pray to Wesir, the Lord of Hidden Growth, that all the seeds you have planted in the past have borne fruit, and that you are able to use what you have grown to feed yourself and others.

Dua Netjer! Nekhtet!

Thought for the Day:
"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."
Alexander Graham Bell

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