On June 22nd, the Kemetic Orthodox group celebrated the Feast of the Beautiful Reunion.
In the original festival, the statue of Hethert took a 100-mile, four-day boat journey from Dendera to Edfu, to be reunited with Heru-Behdety. Descriptions of the historic processions are here and here.
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| Beautiful Reunion Dua |
Music is one of Hethert’s spheres, so those attending were supposed to have brought a sistrum or other musical instrument to play. However, nobody attending had heard about that, so we all had to go looking for something to play. Luckily I had a lot of instruments nearby. I grabbed a gourd rattle I had grown and made (and will eventually decorate.) At two parts of the festival, participants were encouraged to play, clap, etc. Since it was a text ritual, we didn’t hear what the others were doing. During one of them, I also got out one of my one-key wooden flutes, and played a hornpipe. Not particularly Kemetic, but joyful. There was also a section in which the Nisut got the wedding vestments for the couple, and processed them around, and we chanted and played during that.
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| Beautiful Reunion Dua Offerings |
Offerings this time around included lemon yogurt, blueberry juice, rum, amaretto, wine, coffee liquor, cool water, incense, graham crackers, dried cranberries, two kinds of chocolate, chai tea, multi-grain bread I had baked fresh, with goat cheese, some olives, and a hot Mexican pickle.
A very enjoyable event, attended by more than twenty members. Afterwards, several of us met in the “fellowship” chat room. I learned that one of the members decided to start teaching himself flute after seeing that I was playing one for the festival.
