Only subtle differences in the layout, but the ritual was quite different. Since this was a critical day, I decided to adapt the Djehuty ritual from Reidy’s Eternal Egypt. This was quite a jump from the simpler rituals I’ve been doing. The Christian equivalent might be going from “Now I lay me down to sleep” to performing Bach’s b-minor mass!
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| New arrangement for the oil lamps, and dragonfly plates. |
The empty set of dragonfly plates in the back held natron and water that I used during the ritual. The arrangement of lamps around the incense burner was… less than successful. They encircled the burner with a fiery wall, making it rather difficult to place and adjust the incense sticks! Fire burns (and so does my hand!) and incense shines. I also added a guinea feather as a durable offering/stand-in for an icon. I also added beans to the sandwich, to create a link to the desired destination.
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| Yes, those flower petals are burned! |
With the length of the ritual and the proximity of the lamps to the peonies, some of the petals actually burned!
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| Close-up of the feather.
Overall, quite an involved ritual, though it did take a bit of adaptation to do it as an individual. Having just finished reading Naydler’s Temple of the Cosmos, and being partway through Pinch’s Handbook of Ancient Egyptian Mythology, many of the statements felt charged with power. Whooomph!
I heard the interviews went quite well. I did have to apologize to Wepwawet for not having an equivalent ritual for him. That needs to be done anyway, and I know just who to ask for help on that!
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