KRT: The Perks of Kemeticism

What parts of Kemeticism do you enjoy the most? How has Kemeticism enriched your life?

Despite the fact that my life pretty much revolves around Kemeticism, I actually found this topic to be very very difficult.

You see, I never went looking for religion. I was raised fairly religion-free, and I had no intention of ever becoming religious in any capacity, because I didn’t really need it in my life. I don’t feel like I chose Kemeticism, I feel like it chose me. In many ways, I became Kemetic because it already fit my world view, and because I couldn’t shake the feeling of “you need to be doing something with this”. But I never really intended on using it as a means to enrich my life. I wasn’t really looking for anything when I found it, and I’m still unsure about how I ended up neck-deep in it.

I think that when you combine that with the fact that my mental health turns everything into a bland shade of beige, and then mix it with the fact that I consider my role within the community more like a job and less like a hobby, well… I think it becomes a little bit clearer as to why I find it difficult to craft an answer for this prompt that won’t leave people feeling like crud after reading it. Because while there are many things that Kemeticism has introduced into my life that has made a positive impact on my life, the truth of the matter is- most of these things have very little to do with Kemeticism itself.

So here is the warning: this post may be more blunt than people are expecting. This post may also be more depressing than some people are prepared for. Please proceed with caution.

I will start with how Kemeticism has enriched my life first because it is the easiest for me to answer. The religion itself has not really been enriching, it is my relationship with the gods, and what they have pushed me to do that has enriched my life. Set and Osiris run a tight ship. They have pushed me to figure out how to cope with a lot of my mental health quirks. They’ve pushed me to address my health and past traumas. They’ve forced me to change my world view and to heal things that I probably wouldn’t have bothered with otherwise. Their actions have pushed me to make myself more complete, more whole, and more stable in the process. I am incredibly grateful for their direction and assistance in getting my shit together.

Set’s persistence with my work in the community has also opened up a lot of doorways to meeting new people and learning new things. Because of my community work, I am better at helping people, better at understanding people and I have way better people skills than I did when I first came into Kemeticism. This has effected my performance at my day job and has influenced my ability to manage my working relationships a lot better than I used to, and I feel like my community work has made me more well-rounded and more open minded than I was 5 or 6 years ago.

These things alone are worth their weight in gold in my life. I still don’t feel well most of the time, but I still feel so much better and so much more capable than I did 5 years ago when I first stumbled into the Pit with Set. I think that Kemeticism has played a huge role in getting me here.

But you’ll note that that has very little to do with the religion itself. It really comes down to my own personal work with the gods and my willingness to do their bidding. It technically doesn’t need to exist within the confines of Kemeticism itself, which can be seen by many people who work with various NTRW and aren’t Kemetic. Because of this, I’m not entirely sure whether my answer is valid or relevant, however, it is there for consideration.

It is the other part of the question, the “what do you enjoy about Kemeticism” that I really have a hard time with. I can list off things that I enjoy about what I’ve done for Kemeticism or the impact the Kemetic community is starting to make on the wider Pagan community, but that isn’t really answering the question. I don’t really have a daily practice anymore because I didn’t find it overly helpful or fulfilling. I’d rather be reading, astral tripping or working out in the community than sitting in a shrine. I make a horrible priest, and I know it.

So if I’m ambivalent about the rituals, and I was already attempting at living in ma’at anyways… what else is there?

The more I mulled on this, the more I was reminded of the modern notion that you can’t be good at your job unless you love what you do. Our modern society has this sort of… fixation upon feelings and life, and seems to believe that you are worthless if you’re not constantly filled with happiness, awe, and love for anything and everything. Unfortunately, this is not the reality for many of us, especially those who are marginalized within our society, and/or who have mental illness or physical illness that makes day to day living very challenging. Love and happiness are things that not everyone is afforded, unfortunately.

So I suppose I will end this post with this: I can’t think of anything in particular that I love about the religion that is Kemeticism. I spend most of my life working with the community and learning about about the religion as it was practiced in antiquity so that I can spread that information out to everyone else. I love working with the community and helping people find ways to make their lives better. I enjoy the gods’ company (usually) and am thankful for the changes that my work has brought in my life. Above all, I’m glad that my work has given me something to focus on so that I am not constantly staring at the metaphorical “exit door”.

However, despite the passion I may have for my work, I don’t believe that that equates to being in love with the religion itself, and I don’t think there is necessarily anything wrong with that. I am good at what I do, and I feel as though I am helping others learn how to practice Kemeticism, which in turn helps them to find meaning in their own lives, and that is enough for me.

I am in love with helping the community and the people on this planet, not with the religion. And if the gods are okay with that, then I am okay with that, and hopefully everyone else is, too.

To read other responses to this topic, check out the KRT Master List