2003 NOTE: Kemetic Orthodoxy is a living religion, and the definitions of terms and practices mentioned in this document and their applications in our faith may have changed or evolved since this document's original writing in 1999. Please refer to more recent documents for clarification on any information that is unclear. This letter will be updated to reflect changes in our practice as soon as possible.

Now that I have gone through the results of my research on what the term Shemsu truly means, I can address my second important issue, which is the need for meaningful terminology among the practitioners of various traditions of Kemetic religion, including Kemetic Orthodoxy. Let me give an anecdote to start us out.

Many years ago, I visited Canada on a trip. In a restaurant, I ordered something for dinner and as a drink, told the waitress I wanted "a Coke." She went away and returned with an orange soda.

"I asked for a Coke," I said, expecting her to say she'd brought the orange to the wrong table. She looked at me rather oddly and said, "What kind of Coke?", then, seeing my puzzled look, asked if I was from the U.S. When I responded positively, she proceeded to explain that "Coke" in that particular part of Canada meant whatever carbonated beverage was on hand, and the specific brand-name cola called by that name. If I wanted a "Coca-Cola," she'd see if they had one; otherwise, what they had was "orange Coke," a term that brought a grimace to my face as, where I come from, an "orange Coke" would probably be rather difficult to stomach.

The point of the analogy? Some terms become so easily and universally used as to be rendered useless. "Coke" in that part of Canada meant nothing other than "carbonated beverage," and was not of any help to me in trying to get what I wanted. More terms had to be used to get my point across. So, I believe, it is with general comprehension of some terms associated with ancient Egypt and its religion in particular.

Shemsu is a word touched on at length at the beginning of this essay. I believe it has a much more specific meaning than has been put forth previously, and intend to use it in this sense from here on out. Additionally, I propose both a rethinking and redefinition of the term "Kemetic" as regards ancient Egyptian religion and culture, as this word has also become so meaningless it is almost more confusing than enlightening at this point in time.

"Kemetic" is an English word, using the word Kemet (romanization of km.t, "black land," the name of ancient Egypt to its own people), with the suffix -ic, meaning "of" or "pertaining to." Kemet-ic, then, on the surface and at its most basic definition, would mean "of Kemet" or "pertaining to Kemet." I think everyone using this term can agree on that.

But given this essentially meaningless foundation to work from, we have to define in more detail. If a Kemetic is "of Kemet," what is Kemet? And what makes a Kemetic so?

Kemet is a geographical place; a name for a physical land. Additionally, in the idiomatic phrase remetj en Kemet (or Remenkemi, as defined in the previous section on Shemsu), it's an ethnic marker. This word has cultural meaning. It means a place, and a real place, not a philosophical or legendary one. It belongs to a particular piece of land just like the English term Japan (and its concurrent form, Japanese) pertain to a particular chain of islands in Pacific Asia.

I have a Bachelor of Arts degree with a minor in Asian Studies, a concentration one course short of a second major, specifically in Japanese. I had 16 courses in Japanese language over four years, and I studied the history, culture, language, philosophy and religions of this country four years formally and many more informally. If I went to Japan right now, I would probably be able to get along rather well, to speak to its people, eat and appreciate its food, respect its cultural ways and its religions. In short, I could probably fit into Japanese culture if I tried.

Given this knowledge, respect and understanding, would I think to call myself Japanese or tell other people, especially ethnic Japanese, that I, too, am Japanese? Not on your life. Why? Because I am not Japanese. I do not embrace Japanese culture, even though I believe I understand it fairly well, and I have no interest in doing so. I have my own culture, my own values and my own interests, even though that does not mean I think the "real" Japanese have any less.

I believe we have to put our money where our mouth is in terminology. If you want to be Kemetic, to really be Kemetic in the same sense as those who originally called themselves such millennia ago, you have to do more than appreciate or have knowledge of Kemetic culture. I believe you have to embrace it, to become part of it; to be adopted into it. This is what Kemetic Orthodoxy seeks to do: to adopt Kemetic mindset and culture fully, to leave behind our previous place in favor of this one; "be Kemetic," rather than just "being in Kemet."

Saying you are Kemetic without embracing Kemetic culture would be sort of like moving to Saudi Arabia, refusing to learn Arabic because it was too hard, and eating ham sandwiches in public, yet expecting everyone to treat you well because by virtue of your residence, you were just as "Saudi" as they were. Plenty of foreigners moved into and out of Kemet. They remained foreigners until they changed their culture (the whole thing, not just learning the language and picking up Kemetic religious habits).

Another misconception of terms often results for moderns because of the essentially Aristotelian (and post-Kemetic) notion that because a thing is A, it can never be B. Many say Kemetic culture is dead because Kemet is dead. This is first of all wrong because Egypt (as it is now called, thanks to that old "we are better than you are so you must change to suit our superiority" concept) still exists quite well, and anyone who familiarity with Kemetic culture can see it still being practiced in modern Egypt even if most of her people do not retain the original religion in its entirety or aren't 100 percent Egyptian in ancestry.

Kemet has changed, not died. Additionally, just because Kemet as a geography has changed, does not mean her culture has to for every person who chooses, whether through act of birth or conscious choice, to embrace it. It is not written anywhere in Kemetic texts that Kemetic culture would not continue through hard times or times of disunion; if anything, those texts say that if people only remember and emulate the traditions of their ancestors, Kemetic ideals can be replenished.

It is necessary then, in my opinion, to be in a Kemetic culture mindset 100 percent, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, not just lift up a few nice pieces of ancient mythology and philosophy and graft them on to my personal experience, if I truly want to be Kemetic. Anything else is about as specific and descriptive as that Canadian Coke. How do I know what I'm getting if there's no way to differentiate? If everything's "Kemetic," why have terminology at all?

It is important for me to make a clarification here. Back to that "A can never be B" line of thinking — there will be those who read this letter and say, "what an arrogant #@&$*! She's saying anybody who doesn't do it her way is wrong!"

The only wrong I see here, and the same wrong I believe any person who sits down and really thinks about it will conclude, is calling yourself "Kemetic" if you do not have a level of cultural devotion to the term. There is nothing wrong with having an interest in Kemetic spirituality, and in fact I know people who find great spiritual worth in taking Kemetic-oriented principles and applying them to their own faith structures. What they do is positive and important, and I support it fully. It's just not Kemetic, and calling it Kemetic confuses the term for them and for me.

Calling oneself "Kemetic" when one really means "influenced by Kemetic thought" is not only confusing and disrespectful to those who gave the term tremendous cultural and religious significance. That then sets up the possibility that you will be misunderstood as belonging to a culture you do not consider yours.

Back to my previous analogy: if you called yourself "Saudi" and then acted in the ways I wrote above, real Saudis would be dumbfounded and insulted that you would refer to yourself as part of their culture when obviously you either didn't know or didn't care about the culture before you lumped yourself in. On the flip side, if you weren't really Saudi, yet called yourself such, then you might also be dumbfounded and insulted, say, when your neighbor threw dinner back in your face because you dared serve him pork, which for him would be a perfectly understandable response.

Another big reason for my belief in meaningful terminology when dealing with words like "Shemsu" and "Kemetic" (and a few other terms that could use reconsideration) is respect for the culture from whence both originally arise, and to which at least some people in the world are still willing to commit themselves: respect that comes from embracing the ancient mindset fully and honoring its principles without alteration.

One of the most important concepts in Kemetic philosophy (originally, as well as today) is the equation of words with the realities they describe. Everywhere in Kemetic texts, a word is given the same pride of place and identity as the real things it labels. Words are not spoken lightly; they are the heka, or authoritative utterances, given to us by the gods and goddesses in order to order our very lives.

A phrase in Kemetic is always going to be more than a mere label; it has meaning and purpose, and I do not believe that time has (or should have) changed this. Being Kemetic meant something to the ancients, and it should mean something to us, too; as should all the other terms we use to define ourselves, Kemetic or not.

I am certain there are people in the world who believe in spiritual tenets very similar to the ones I do. I am certain there are people who sincerely love Netjer but are members of other religions and other cultures to which they have added a Kemetic element. I believe this is their right and I believe these can be very positive and rewarding spiritual paths for those persons who are called to those paths.

I believe their religions should be called by their own names, just as I call my religion by its own name (Kemetic, unfortunately having to be changed to Kemetic Orthodox because of the previous issue of so many people using the phrase as to render it meaningless). I would not wish myself to be confused with one of them, and I would think they would not wish to be confused with me; we are all doing important, yet different things. My only complaint in this discussion of terms, as it were, is that we moderns allow ourselves to over-rationalize and over-explain terminology out of a politically correct fear of offending someone through being different. By not allowing our words to be what they are, we take the power out of them to be words. We must give power back to the word, and I can start, I believe, with these terms.

Kemetic is not to religion as vanilla is to ice cream. Kemetic is to religion as ice cream is to desserts -- its own thing, valuable and important in its own right, no better or no worse than any other. As it would not make sense to call cookies "ice cream," I ask that we think about our usage of the phrases "Kemetic" and "Shemsu" — to mean the things they really mean, the things they meant in antiquity, when they were coined and by the persons for whom they were intended, rather than putting meaningless spins upon them until they become about as palatable as an orange Coke.