continuing exploration of ancient Egyptian religion
I’ve been writing about Jackal’s Eve, the fictional Kemetic holiday in which Wepwawet and Yinepu deliver gifts on the Night Before Moomas. Moomas is, of course, based on “The Establishment of the Celestial Cow,” which was a relatively unimportant holiday in ancient Egypt. The Rev. Siuda has written a blog entry about Moomas, which she…
I‘ve written several times on creation, A is for Atum being the most recent. For a wider view, Kiya (Darkhawk on eCaludron) has written another excellent post on Kemetic creation, bringing Zep-Tepi into our lives: Genesis. Congratulations to her on the publication of her new book: The Traveller’s Guide to the Duat – Amenti on…
There are many creation myths from Ancient Egypt. The interesting thing is that ‘competing’ ones seem to have coexisted quite well. Ptah created everything. The goddess Mut did as well. So did Atum. There’s a nice little comic by Temwa on that subject. It’s wonderful, because right from the start it short-circuits any attempt to be literal…
Geb and Nut.. and Shu, Ra, Ma’at, Duat, and Heka One of the striking things about Kemetic rituals is that it’s common to declare yourself as one of the netjeru. It’s difficult for us to wrap our minds around that and to actually say it. “I am Sekhmet!” “I am Djehuty!” Somehow you expect a…
Heru and Sutekh I often get the idea that people don’t understand Balance, and the roles of Heru (Horus) and Sutekh (Set). One of the reasons is undoubtedly that due to the Christian influence on Western civilization we tend to see things in Good/Bad polarities. It’s interesting that most of us can wrap our minds…
Here’s an interesting re-telling and synthesis of many of the Kemetic creation stories by the Rev. Sonia Miller. It’s Tameran in outlook, but it’s still a great example of how you can take personal lessons from the ancient myths. Faster Than a Cat Can Wink His Eye (part 1) and That’ll do me…. (part 2)…
People The Egyptian word for people used in creation texts with a picture of a man and a woman following the phonetic part of the word. Humanity seems to have been divided into two genders from the beginning. This is in contrast to other ancient mythologies that made woman an afterthought or offshoot of the…
The Kemetic Orthodox Devotional Calendar lists today (Shomu 5) as “Geb and Nut are judged before the Netjeru” (Beautiful Feast of the Valley, Day 2). “Spend some of the day contemplating Geb and Nut.” So, inspired by Naydler’s Temple of the Cosmos, here we go: Let’s review the Heliopolitan creation story: Atum is the self-created one. …