This year I decided it was time to bring back ye olde Wep Ronpet execration. I put out an offer for folks to send in anything they’d like to have thrown into my execration pot like I always did, and then put off planning anything for the actual event until the day before. Even though I had decided I wanted to do this, and I knew it was important to actually think ahead to plan for things, my brain absolutely refused to work on anything directly until the deadline was on my front doorstep.
Compared to years prior, there were only a small number of requests sent in, so that meant I could focus on the individual petitions more directly. I was originally thinking I would create a snake that was stuffed with petitions, but due to the quantity, every single petition was turned into a snake instead.
For this year I opted to do three rituals to create heka that was hopefully more potent. While setting up for my first ritual, I was hit with a wave of nostalgia as I opened up my shrine storage box and saw all of these items that I used to use on the regular laid before me. Everything had been put away with such care, and I had thought ahead to think through where I’d instinctively look for stuff, so finding things was easier than I expected. Doing the Year of Rites made it to where I could actually put rites together without a lot of effort, because the most common rites I perform now have a rubric that I can pull, and all of the items that I would need are stored somewhere that is hard to forget.
On the first day, I did a rite for Set, calling him to the space and reading each petition to him, explaining the context behind what was going on and what was needed (where applicable) to transform the situation into something better. Because I wanted to read everything to him, I decided that I would fold each of the petitions during the ritual, and this proved to be a questionable choice. It took me so long to fold these, I had to use two incense sticks because I am just not that skilled at folding origami snakes :’)
After each petition was read and snake-ified, I threw them into the execration pot. Once all of the petitions were read, I sealed them up to be burned the next day.
The next day I pulled an execration rite from the fourth quarter of my Year of Rites fiasco. After cutting each snake into pieces, I took them outside to be burned. Turns out that tracing paper takes to flame easily, and I barely had to do any work to make sure everything caught fire and turned to ash. Afterwards, I turned out the contents of the execration pot and ground it into the dirt so that you’d never even know these snakes existed. Truly wiping out the isfet from the world.
For the final ritual, I decided to do a “Making Ma’at” rite (also from the Year of Rites) to help fill the void left by destroying the isfet with ma’at. For those of you who are new to execrations, destroying a/pep is only one half of the equation for creating balance. Not only must you remove isfet, but you must work to fill that empty space with ma’at. I had had the idea of creating a new amulet that involved an opening lotus, and it was serendipitous that KO’s god of the year for this year is Nefertem, a deity tied to the lotus. Unfortunately, my gold pens are not working, so the piece isn’t finished. I offered it to the NTRW anyways.
Overall, I think I like doing the three-rite version of the yearly execration. It keeps everything small enough that I don’t run out of energy doing the rites (as opposed to having one long ritual where I offer the petitions, burn the petitions, then create ma’at), and I enjoyed being able to focus on individual petitions for once. Every time I’ve done this, each petition gets read to Set, but it’s never been ritualized like this year.
A big thank you to everyone who participated. I hope ma’at is proliferated for all of us in the year ahead.
Over my years of being in the Kemetic community, there is one particular saga that has persisted year after year, and that is the appearance of people who want to worship a/pep. In response to this consistent flow of questioning, I thought it prudent to create an informational post for such questions that goes over what a/pep is and isn’t, and what it means to place a/pep at the center of your Kemetic practice.
Foundations: Key Concepts, Terms, and Definitions
In order to really understand what a/pep is, you will first need to understand both isfet and ma’at, as well as what these concepts do within our religious structure. While it’s easy to use very basic definitions of the concepts: ma’at is justice, truth, or balance; isfet is disorder or chaos; these definitions really don’t get into the workings of or scope of what these concepts actually are.
Most Kemetics would agree that ma’at is the tenet that all of Kemeticism revolves around. In the ancient Egyptian worldview, gods and humans alike exist within a sphere of creation. Ma’at is what allows said creation to continue to exist. Ma’at is in the air we and the gods breathe, it’s manifested in the food that we eat, and in the natural cycles that allow us to successfully live within this world. To the Egyptians, if you maintained ma’at properly, you would have successful harvests, the Nile would flood to the right degree–not too much or too little, and everyone more or less prospered. Ma’at is the ideal that we all strive to embody because it is vital to, if not synonymous with, our very existence.
Then there’s isfet. Isfet is a natural force within the universe that works against creation in every aspect. Many people like to use the word “entropy” to describe isfet in a succinct way. In so many ways, isfet is everything we are not. Creation is very noisy and active and isfet is not about that. The bubble of creation mentioned above exists within the Nun. The Nun is often referred to as a “watery abyss” or a “void”. It’s essentially the ocean that creation was borne out of. Everything could exist or ever will exist exists in the nun, and that includes isfet. The Egyptians often viewed the gods riding a boat along the edge of this bubble of creation, pushing away isfet as much as possible, so that creation can be preserved. Another way to view it is how our atmosphere protects us from the solar radiation that bombards our planet every day. The atmosphere is the ma’at that allows us to live and blocks the caustic, isfetian solar radiation from reaching us.
Now you may be thinking “solar radiation is an inherently neutral thing, how can we label it as isfet?” and that’s where the trickiness of these two concepts comes into focus. Sometimes the only difference between labeling something as isfet or ma’at within a situation depends purely upon who you are focusing on within the situation. To use the old phrase “what is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly,” so too can go isfet and ma’at. In order to sustain ourselves, we must partake in food. We must ultimately commit isfet (kill something, whether plant or animal) to survive, which ultimately creates more ma’at.
In most instances, the only time that isfet is allowed to be remotely revered within the Kemetic paradigm is if it is used to create more ma’at. We’ll come back to this.
Finally, I wanted to explain where a/pep actually fits into all of this. Many people use a/pep and isfet interchangeably, but the truth is that they’re not exactly the same. Isfet is the natural destructive force that flows through the universe. a/pep is giving that force a particular form that can be destroyed. Ancient Egyptians loved to execrate isfet so that ma’at could be maintained, but it’s quite hard to direct your execration at something so formless. To bypass this problem, they gave isfet a form that could be directly attacked — a/pep. So when you’re talking about a/pep, you’re talking about giving physical form to the inherent energy that is working to unmake everything. a/pep isn’t an entity in its own right, its merely a catch-all term to serve as a point of focus for execration.
Historical Considerations
Now that you have an understanding of what these concepts are and do, let’s take a look at the historical context of these concepts within our religion. Even if we don’t want to utilize much history in our practice, I think that it is always beneficial to consider what the Egyptians thought and did with their own religion before embarking into new territory. While the Egyptians did a lot of stuff that was questionable, and therefore should be left in the past, the central idea of certain key concepts within Kemeticism should remain intact to some degree, otherwise you’re not really practicing Kemeticism– you’re practicing something entirely different.
One thing that is important to understand when viewing the historical applications of ma’at is that the ideological tenets of ma’at did not always shake out in practice. On paper, ma’at is about sustaining existence and creating a world where everyone prospers and looks out for one another. But in practice, Egypt utilized the concept of ma’at to enforce a rigid social hierarchy that pooled all of the power with a handful of people that existed at the top of the societal food chain. To the Egyptian state, ma’at meant maintaining the crown and the bureaucracy that supported it.
This means that ma’at underpinned all aspects of how the state/crown ran the country, including justifications for colonialism to how temples handled their daily affairs to how the legal system operated and doled out punishments. This led to extensive abuses of power and oppression of people throughout all of Egyptian history. By extension, the pharoahs framed and wielded ma’at in ways that ultimately generated extensive amounts of isfetian energy.
And as the following examples will show, if the pharaoh is always the sole arbiter of ma’at, then anything he doesn’t like is bound to be isfetian.
I think the most commonly cited example of daily maintenance of ma’at is how temples did daily execration rituals where a/pep was identified by name and ritually slaughtered as a means of reaffirming the Order that the pharaoh, Horus, and Re upheld. I make sure to specify that some of those destroyed were mentioned “by name” because it wasn’t uncommon for known peoples and enemies of the State/Egypt to be listed on the execration effigy or mentioned in the rubric as someone for their heka to destroy. Anything that was viewed as a threat to the pharaoh’s power was fair game to be thrown into the execration pot.
It is also worth mentioning that we do have at least some historical records showing that those destroyed weren’t always effigies, but actual living beings. This may sound extreme to some, but when you view how Egypt’s legal system operated, I really think that you’ll start to see how this isn’t really abnormal for their culture.
…the ideological reasoning behind sanctioned killing seems to have remained the same. By far, the most prevalent reason for engaging in sanctioned killing was the perception of rebellious acts. Certain actions – and as noted those actions did not remain temporally static – caused one to be characterized as a rebel. Rebellious acts lifted one from the temporal sphere to the mythological. In the mythological realm, the destruction of the forces of Isfet was necessary to maintain Ma ‘at, and once one was mythologically identified with Isfet, sanctioned killing was necessary. This violence served to reestablish order.
Violence in the Service of Order, Kerry Miles Muhlestein pg. xxi-xxii
When you skim through various court documents and cases from ancient Egypt, you will find that even remotely threatening the crown would result in harsh punishments. If you stole state-owned copper? Death. Rob a tomb? Impalement. Desecrate any site that is viewed as sacred? Also dead.
There are even cases where not only were the culprits of crimes sentenced to death, but so too were those who neglected to stop them (x). To the Egyptian legal system, anyone who dared to let isfet pass without regard was just as culpable as those committing the isfetian act. Usually anyone that was found to have helped perpetuate isfet was condemned to die. The state had literally no room for anyone who would dare to think of shaking up their monarchy.
From this perspective, I feel like I understand why someone may be drawn to worshiping a/pep. If your only exposure of ma’at is through how the crown of Egypt interpreted it, there is a lot left to be desired. It may not matter to you that a/pep wasn’t worshiped historically when considering what the crown viewed to be isfetian.
What’s sad is that the amount of isfetian tomfoolery that the Egyptian state engaged in wasn’t even restricted to matters of killing those who would harm the crown. Egypt has even been known to wreak havoc on local ecology as they sent certain species to the brink of extinction and beyond to fuel their temple-based animal mummification industry. All of this so that people could purchase rituals where these votives were offered to the gods in the hopes of a better afterlife experience. In many ways, Egypt’s interpretation and implementation of ma’at was short-sited to say the least.
This has always been a point of contention among modern Kemetics, as some believe that ma’at should be interpreted in the way that the Egyptian state did, including replications of both monarchy and hierarchy. But there is definitely a growing number of Kemetics that lean towards interpreting ma’at as its described in its more ideal form, where it’s removed from the power grabs of humans and gods alike. The Kemetics in the second category would argue that the actions of the state of Egypt were often actions of isfet, made to maintain a structure that is isfetian at its core. This is also why Set is such an important figure for a lot of modern Kemetics within this camp, as he is the voice of those steamrolled by the ma’at that was enforced by the crown. I will be covering both of these aspects more in-depth below.
When Isfet Begets Ma’at
It’s at this point that I think it is useful to address one of the largest friction points I see when discussing worshiping a/pep, and that is the matter of when isfetian events/occurrences/acts could be considered ma’atian in nature.
For example, death is considered a form of isfet. When Osiris is felled, he is attacked by forces of isfet in such a horrible way that the Egyptians refused to outright say that he had died. The act of death is so heinous that it is only referred to indirectly such as “put on his side” or “felled” or “laid down.” Death is unequivocally associated with isfet.
But as seen in the examples above, the pharaoh had no problems committing acts of isfet when its to maintain his vision of ma’at. Similarly, killing animals for consumption — an act that is mandatory to sustain life (an inherently ma’atian thing) — is simultaneously viewed as both isfetian and ma’atian in nature. Going back to the Osirian myth, even though a horrible act of isfet has been committed against him in the form of death, it’s also stated multiple times that his corpse breeds new ma’at. His exudations create fertile ground for growing, his back is the fields upon which life is sustained. From isfet, ma’at was born again because sometimes isfet begets ma’at. Isfet performed for the right reasons can help perpetuate ma’at. The whole part of ma’at being about balance is that its really easy to shift from “I’m committing this singular, unavoidable act of violence to further ma’at” to “I’m colonizing entire nations because ma’at.”
You can see this clearly in the myth where Re sends Sekhmet to destroy mankind for not worshiping him in the way he wanted to be worshiped. In his anger, he wields Hathor/Sekhmet, an embodiment of ma’at in its most protective and loving form, and sends them out to kill his enemies — enemies that have been labeled as rebels against him. As she commits violence in service of ma’at, he comes to realize he’s made an error and has to do substantial work to bring a halt to the isfet he has wrought. In so doing, he loses his standing with the humans on earth and retreats to the sky in defeat. He also does significant damage to his relationship with some of the most intimate parts of himself — Sekhmet and Hathor. The damage is so bad that Sekhmet leaves and must be cajoled back into the fold later on.
When the gods go beyond the point of balance, they are almost always punished for it. There is a line between committing isfet in the service of ma’at and committing isfet for isfet’s sake. The context and wider scope of your actions matters in determining which is occurring.
Since isfet is sometimes warranted to create ma’at, many of the people who have shown an interest in worshiping a/pep argue that they’re honoring these parts of isfet, where its nature helps to beget more ma’at. However, those aspects of isfet are arguably already contained within our gods. Many of our gods are known for having the capacity to be both beneficial and violent. As much as Sekhmet is said to heal people, she is also the one who releases plague upon this world, particularly during the dry seasons of summer. These curses are argued to be isfetian to humans, which places Sekhmet in a position of being a goddess of ma’at, but also a goddess that could send out isfet to wreck your day.
This is why each god was to be propitiated as much as possible to keep their benevolent face forward, to keep people safe from their ire. Despite their dependency on ma’at, isfet sometimes came from them all the same. This brings up an important distinction that needs to be made when discussing isfet.
Man-Made Isfet vs. Naturally-Occurring Isfet
Isfet can be said to come in two flavors – naturally-occurring and human-created. Natural isfet is like dying of natural causes, unforeseen accidents that cause harm, natural disasters, black holes, etc. These sorts of isfet are generally regarded as unavoidable natural parts of creation, and are part of the give and take of existing within creation. They are types of isfet that are to be overcome and moved past. This is generally regarded as the only sort of isfet that may be wrought by our deities, and is often framed as leaving room for ma’at to grow from what has occurred, as with Osiris’ body being fertile ground for crops.
Man-made isfet, though? That’s a completely different ball game.
Man-made isfet is usually unnecessary strife, struggle, or oppression that’s generated by humans onto the world around them. Man-made isfet is when pharaohs did basically anything that was mentioned in the historical section above. Man-made isfet is when rich humans decide to exploit the planet and destroy several ecosystems all at once. Man-made isfet is when people abuse, manipulate, and destroy those around them. Man-made isfet is completely avoidable and yet becomes nearly inevitable whenever people or deities accumulate too much power into too few hands, and then wield it in self-serving ways.
All monarchies strive to keep the largest amount of power in the smallest amount of hands, and Egypt was no exception. When power is pooled in this way, those of lower status are forced to bow to the whims of those in power. The whims of the powerful end up determining the living conditions of an ever-growing number of people and ecological systems, and a whole isfet-making machine is born.
When Kemetics work to execrate isfet and a/pep, we are generally working to destroy man-made isfet because man-made isfet is the most toxic kind there is. You need only look at the state of the world you live in to understand how far-reaching and devastating this sort of isfet can become. We are all staring down the barrel of multiple global extinction events in our lifetimes because of man-made isfet.
It is considered an incredibly bad idea to support or fuel this sort of isfet because no one in their right mind would want to support the very forces that will cause creation to collapse. When Kemetics express concern or mistrust over people wanting to worship a/pep, it’s because no Kemetic in their right mind would want to fuel the very things trying to destroy us.
Because of the nature of isfet and a/pep, there is no getting around this problem. There isn’t a way to only worship the a/pep that may lead to better things, and at that point, you’d be better off fueling the ma’atian outcome you’re hoping for, not the face of the isfet that is occurring. Our gods are beings that are capable of reforming isfet into ma’at, so there isn’t really a solid reason to fixate on a/pep.
“Chaotic events which would lead to the need for an Isfet-destroying killing would generally not be portrayed or preserved textually. When they were, it could only be done within certain genres and presented in careful, indefeasible ways – ways which insured that the chaos was not recreated, or was at least perpetually overcome. The Egyptian reticence towards preserving vitiating events touched with lsfet must be continually kept in mind”
Violence in the Service of Order, Muhlenstein pg 39-40
A Pot Full of Unrest
I would argue that there is a god within our pantheon that has the most intimate experience of being intertwined with isfet, and by extension, a/pep. He is one of the best in the pantheon at killing a/pep, as he does so for Re every night in the Duat. He is also one of the only gods in our pantheon to be repeatedly and directly execrated as a/pep. It is his confederates that are set ablaze in the execration pot, it is his very form that is held in the hands of nearly every god in the pantheon. A sign that is considered a form of dominion because the gods were incredibly concerned about keeping his power within their control.
Despite being a pre-dynastic god, Set’s position within the Egyptian pantheon has always been precarious. Both as the god of foreigners and the god who killed that other god, Egypt had plenty of opportunities to put Set to use as an agent of isfet that could be controlled and coerced back into their structural idea of ma’at.
If a/pep is the catch-all label applied to anything aligned with isfet, then Set is the catch-all label applied to anything isfet that the crown needs to transmute into ma’at.
In the earliest parts of Egyptian history, Set played a role with Horus in teaching the king how to be a good king. But as the Osirian myth really began to take hold, Set’s role within the pantheon became increasingly aligned with a/pep. So much so that by the Greco Roman Period, he was practically synonymous with a/pep in most places. Most Egyptologists believe that his slow descent into disfavor largely due to the influx of foreigners and multiple foreign invasions that occurred in the latter half of Egyptian history. But before he became reviled outright, he played a crucial role in maintaining ma’at. Unlike a/pep, Set’s chaos and disorder served a purpose.
There is a reason that Set is the one who felled Osiris, for that’s a major part of Set’s function within the pantheon: whenever something is disrupting the gods’ dominion, they grasp ahold of Set and bring isfet to heel. To try and summarize succinctly, when early mummification practices were getting started, there was a need to justify the level of intimacy and destruction to the body that came along with the mummification process. It’s theorized that forming the Osirian myth in that fashion was a way to mythologize and justify the process that was occurring. From that perspective, it’s no wonder that he is associated the adze that mutilates the corpse for mummification and burial. He is the one who carries the coffin across the river to the necropolis. He is the rebel whose confederates are punished and banished before he himself is refolded back into the pantheon. It’s his violently removed foreleg that serves as the perfect offering to the Foremost of the Westerners and the akhu.
Even though Set has been used as execration fodder many, many times, the Egyptians and the gods both considered him their protection, and it was through his strength that order could be maintained to the degree that it was. Just like the people that were killed by the crown so that ma’at could be “upheld,” Set was also destroyed in much the same way, and as a byproduct he has become synonymous with oppressed and marginalized people.
To me, it seems that Set is the better option if you’re actually interested in worshiping someone who supports the oppressed and undoes isfet where possible.
Conclusions
So back to the original question that started this post: if you were to place a/pep at the center of your practice, what would it look like?
Essentially, you would be putting your energy and time into the physical manifestation of a force that wants to erode the things that allows you to live well. Given that a/pep is a label or mantle and not an entity in its own right, I think it would be very hard to bypass all of the awful man-made, destructive isfet to only venerate the aspects of a/pep that relates to people who were wrongfully labeled a/pepian. Epithets and mantles often work that way — where utilizing the label impacts and encompasses all of the entities/beings that have held that label/mantle/title, not just the specific one you’re referring to. As such, I think it begs to ask whether this is something worth doing given the other options within our pantheon.
Further, when people say that a/pep has talked to them or responded to them, I think it begs the question of who is behind that label, because a/pep as its own entity doesn’t really exist. Anytime I hear people say that a/pep is an entity that is said to be supportive or needing of support because they have been cast out unfairly, I can only think that this more accurately describes Set as a/pep, and I can’t help but question whether many of the people hearing from a/pep are actually hearing from him. Since placing the mantle of a/pep at the center of your practice would only continue to fuel isfet, it seems like worshiping Set or a ma’atian being that can transfigure isfet into ma’at would be the better choice.
To you who would worship a/pep I would ask: we already have so much rampant isfet in this world and better ma’atian beings to choose from, why should anyone place there veneration at a/pep’s feet.
For anyone who has been in the community for any length of time, you’ll know that the name “Ed Butler” has been a as bit of a jaw clencher. He is the person who runs the henadology site, and while his information about the ntrw has always been great, the company he’s kept has been questionable at best for a while now. Originally aligning himself with the Piety Posse, including the likes of Krasskova and Sannion, he’s always had a tendency of not caring how awful his colleagues are, so long as the ~polytheists~ are able to band together.
Tl;dr: his problematic track record continues. This post is incredibly long and details about his current love affair with Hindu nationalism. There are two much shorter posts detailing this here and here. There is another post that goes into much more detail about the history of hindutva as it relates to Indica here.
Background Information
Butler is currently acting as the director of the Center for Global Polytheist & Indigenous Traditions with a group called Indic Academy. Indic Academy is one of several branches that exists under the umbrella group ‘Indica.’ If you ask Butler about Indic Academy, he will tell you that it’s a “non-political educational group.” However, you only need to take a quick look under the hood to see that this is an incredibly inaccurate take, which I’ll get to momentarily.
When people began to question his affiliation with said group that seems to have clear ties to Hindu Nationalism, plenty of folks came to his aid to say that foreigners have no place discussing India’s politics because it is “complex” and “emotionally charged,” including Butler himself:
Now, I don’t see why foreigners don’t seemingly have the brain capacity to learn about the politics of another country and draw conclusions about the situation. Nor do I understand why each of these people is so quick to say “I don’t know anything about this” and then go “but I’m super duper sure Butler has done nothing wrong, and I refuse to educate myself to make sure.” But one thing I will say is that the rhetoric of “foreigners wouldn’t understand” feels like a cop out at best, or being a fascist apologist at worst.
ETA (2): Rhyd Wildermuth has also released a post on it. CW: subtle racism, transphobia, general stupidity. If you didn’t know that Rhyd was garbage, well, now you do.
In response to this, Butler released a WP post where he attempted to defend his actions of participating in a group that has links to Hindu nationalism. However, his post was incredibly vague and is completely unhelpful for those who know nothing about the organization he works for or of the concept of “hindutva” that he mentions specifically in his post. Instead, the post talks about how he definitely isn’t a bigot, and that Indica (and subsequently, Indic Academy) doesn’t have any political motivation/affiliation, and that it shouldn’t be held responsible for “every wrongful tendency in contemporary Indian life, the cycle of violence, than any similar Christian or Muslim educational organization is made to answer for the worst actions or ideologies of any of their co-religionists.” This post is aimed to thoroughly explain to everyone what is going on, and why we really need to have a community discussion about issues such as this.
The Nature of Hindutva
At the center of this discussion is the concept of “hindutva.” Hindutva translates into “hinduness,” and on the surface, it doesn’t seem like it would be anything bad. In Butler’s post, he calls hindutva “elastic” and claims that it gets thrown at “Any celebration of Hinduism, and every affirmation of its value and articulation of its values” as a form of attack. This seems strange to me, because hindutva isn’t really an elastic term whatsoever. One only need to search “Hindu Nationalism” and find that hindutva has a very specific meaning and intention in our current era:
Hindutva (transl. Hinduness) is the predominant form of Hindu nationalism in India.[1] As a political ideology, the term Hindutva was articulated by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923.[2] It is championed by the Hindu Nationalist volunteer organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)[3][4] and other organisations, collectively called the Sangh Parivar.
The Hindutva movement has been described as a variant of “right-wing extremism”[5] and as “almost fascist in the classical sense”, adhering to a concept of homogenised majority and cultural hegemony.[6][7] Some analysts dispute the identification of Hindutva with fascism, and suggest Hindutva is an extreme form of conservatism or “ethnic absolutism”. (x)(x)
Hinduism is the name given to the most ancient and persistent religion on the Indian subcontinent, and Hindutva is the name by which the ideology of the Hindu right, represented by the political party Bharatiya Janata Party, or Indian People’s Party (BJP), is known. It is also the ideology of the cultural body known as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or National Volunteer Core (RSS), which was founded in 1925 and with which the BJP has strong links. Ever since the rise of the BJP on the Indian political scene from 1990 onward, and its recent successes in national elections in India in 2014 and 2019, the question of the relationship between Hinduism as a religion and Hindutva as a political ideology has come to the fore, because the word “Hindu” is common to both.1 The exploration of the relationship between Hinduism as a religion and Hindutva as a political philosophy has become a virtual academic cottage industry that shows no signs of slowing down.2 In popular writings on the subject, Hindutva has been variously described as “Hinduism on steroids,” as “Hinduism which resists,” or as “an illegitimate child of Hinduism.” A preliminary way of understanding the difference between Hinduism and Hindutva would be to recognise that Hinduism is a religion (however defined) while Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, is a political ideology, whose relation to the religion of Hinduism could be considered analogous to the relationship between Christianity and Christian fundamentalism or Islam and Islamic fundamentalism. There is, however, one key difference. Hinduism is a plural tradition, as compared to Christianity and Islam which possess well defined universal creedal formulations that are largely absent in Hinduism according to most observers. Therefore, Hindu “fundamentalism” is remarkably thin in terms of religious content as compared to Christianity and Islam. (x)
Or another quote: Hindutva, also called Hindu nationalism, is a right-wing political ideology that guides the current ruling party in India, the BJP, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sometimes, people will argue that Hindutva is “a way of life,” or that Hindutva simply means “Hindu-ness,” synonymous with Hinduism. However, Hindutva is a modern, political ideology that is barely more than a hundred years old. […] Hindu nationalist groups in India like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were inspired not by Hindu teachings, but by Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s fascists in Italy. “The idea of fascism vividly brings out the conception of unity amongst people… India and particularly Hindu India need some such institution for the military regeneration of the Hindus… Our institution of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh of Nagpur under Dr. Hedgewar is of this kind.”
So, to put it succinctly: hindutva is a right-wing ideology in India. Its goals are to create an India that is de-secularized, where Hindu tradition is the guiding metric for the entirety of the government and law. As the excerpt above mentions, its got similar ideologies to Christian Evangelism/fundamentalism here in the U.S. They want India and Hindu to become synonymous with one another, that Indian culture is inherently Hindu because to be Indian is to be Hindu. And that the only way to be truly Indian is to exclusively adhere to Hindu rules and traditions.
How Butler thinks hindutva is “elastic” is beyond me. It’s pretty concretely associated with fascism, and despite the clear distinction between hindutva and Hindu (they are not the same), Butler continues to misconstrue the two as being the same. He wants to rebrand what hindutva means, and I suppose its from that perspective that he considers it “elastic.”
Note that this is from Indica Today, the commentary branch of Indica.
To be 100% clear, hindutva is not an elastic term. It is associated with Hindu nationalism. The sources above say the exact same thing. Its the inherent fascism present in the hindutva movement that strives to make these two words mean the same thing. When trying to point out that they’re not the same, he refuses to accept that answer.
Have you ever seen a conservative try to tell you that not everyone that voted for Trump was a bigot? Have you ever watched their apologists try to tell you that Trump’s administration wasn’t promoting fascism by appealing to Evangelical Christians? This is basically the same thing.
In general, Hindutva seems to view monotheism as being the ultimate predator, with a special disdain for Islam in particular. After Hindu, Islam is the largest religious group in the country with approximately 14% of the population practicing the religion. According to most of the hindutva content I’ve flipped through, they view their religion (Hinduism) being under threat from Islam, as such, its not uncommon for Muslims (and other monotheists, such as Christians) to be lynched by hindutva mobs in India.
From that perspective, it certainly makes me feel like Butler’s post is echoing at least some hindutva rhetoric:
This isn’t an entirely new take for Butler. The entire Piety Posse seemed to share rhetoric about how monotheism was some boogey man that was going to get our polytheisms. From 2019:
Now to cover my ass and make sure I clarify the obvious, that doesn’t mean that indigenous religions and cultures have not been under attack by Christianity in the past (with some being under threat now due to missionary work and modern colonialism), but I doubt that the third-to-fourth largest religion in the world (Hinduism) really needs to fear being snuffed out. Nor do most of us living in America really have any real basis to act like our religious practices are actively being snuffed out. I think we can all agree that religiously-driven colonialism is bad and should be stopped, but at the same time, not every monotheist in existence is actively trying to convert everyone they know. The fact that this distinction is not present in most of these conversations is troublesome.
I just really want to point out the fact that this mindset that Butler has always had really lines up nicely with hindutva’s disdain for monotheists as well. And of course, there are other parts of Indic Academy that mirror this rhetoric, so with this wider context in mind, let’s discuss Indic Academy’s place in all of this.
Indic Academy
According to Butler, Indic Academy has no political agenda whatsoever, and I’m not sure how one would draw that conclusion given that most think tanks are not apolitical. But even more than that, once you start looking at the specifics of what the various branches of Indica appear to endorse, the blatant nationalism just starts to flow out.
Indica was founded by an entrepreneur named Hari Kiran Vadlamani as a “not-for-profit think tank that aims to nurture and nourish scholarship in Indology, arm and groom public intellectuals in developing a Dharmic narrative.” Butler somehow interprets this as being “non-political” and goes on to state that Indic Academy “is no more required to answer for every wrongful tendency in contemporary Indian life, the cycle of violence, than any similar Christian or Muslim educational organization is made to answer for the worst actions or ideologies of any of their co-religionists.”
This would suggest that Indic Academy is getting blame for issues that are occurring within Indian culture that are not affiliated with Indic Academy. Further, it suggests that there are no signs of hindutva within Indica’s ranks. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Hindu nationalism amongst team members
Let’s first talk about some of the figures present on their “team” page.
Their trustees of Indica involve Kiran, mentioned above, Dr. Aravinda Rao, Vishal Agarwal, and Avatans Kumar.
Kiran doesn’t have much available online about his politics, but the fact that he’s started a think tank with the specific intent to “groom” people, I’m not super inclined to consider him apolitical and without agenda given the rest of the content of the page. Dr. K Aravinda Rao was a top-ranking police officer who oversaw eradicating “left-wing extremism” in Andhra Pradesh. Who wants to bet that Dr. Rao leans towards the rightwing side?
The third trustee is Vishal Agarwall. I admit he was hard to find a lot of information on, but his author bio on Indica’s commentary site says that he’s received the Hindu American Foundation’s Dharma Seva Award, and the HAF is directly tied to Hindu nationalism.
The most remarkable aspect of India’s immunization program has been the absence of governmental threats, coercion, mandates, and manipulations. This feat is a testament to India’s Pradhan Mantri (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi’s relentless and determined hard work and honest and trustworthy leadership.
Their Academic Council is filled with all sorts of great characters.
There’s Meenakshi Jain, a historical revisionist who has been known to rewrite Indian history with a hindutva bent. Many of her works appear to foster mistrust and othering of Islam within Indian history, and you can see in this article here, she supports other books that reinforce this revisionist history. Including a book by Munshi, the person who chaired the meeting for the formation of Vishva Hindu Parishad, a Hindu nationalist group.
There is also Michel Danino, a French-born Indian who has been criticized of supporting historical revisionism in his works, which ultimately links back up to hindutva.
There’s also Subhash Kak, a revisionist historian. There is a relatively lengthy list of things he’s written that have been disproven scientifically, and most of his theories are not well regarded. With one of the more damning quotes being:
“In a critique of faulty scientific reasoning in Hindutva ideologies and theories, Alan Sokal sarcastically criticized Kak as “one of the leading intellectual luminaries of the Hindu-nationalist diaspora“[38] Koertge as well as Meera Nanda have remarked that Kak’s work advances a Hindutva-based esoteric pseudoscience narrative that seeks to find relatively advanced abstract physics in Vedic texts and assign Indian indigenousness to the Sanskrit-speaking Indic Aryans in a bid to prove the superiority of the ancient Hindu civilization.[23][24]“
As a little easter egg, he and the founder of Indica are also advisors with Takshashila Institute of India Studies, and there are other members of Indica’s team that are present within this organization.
Prof M.D. Srinivas has been featured on the “Friends of the RSS” Twitter page for a book he co-authored about Ghandi. The RSS is a RW paramilitary group that is fueled by Hindu nationalism.
In their Environment, Social, Governance section, you’ll find even more signs of Hindu nationalism.
First on the list is Aditi Banerjee. When you scroll through her twitter account, you eventually come across posts featuring “HinduIsHindutva” hashtags and posts that claim that people criticizing hindutva are being “Hinduphobic.” The post specifically calls for a protest on the day that the AHA had its Dismantling Hindutva Globally conference.
Next to her is Sumedha Verma Ojha. She writes for Indica’s commentary site as well. An article she wrote that is quite telling of her views on leftist ideas:
In the Indian context it will also mean strings of “learned” articles on how the Indic/Hindu traditions regarding women must be abandoned if society is to move forward and women to achieve their potential. Leave the past behind, these learned intellectuals (or ignorant film actors as the case may be), will say, adopt the “feminist” point of view and the future will be in safe hands. The Marxist-Feminist viewpoint is deemed to be even more useful in the forward march of the female gender. In these approaches and definitions there is absolutely no space for an Indic perspective.
Now I could keep going, but do I really need to? I’ve been through the top four rungs of their team structure, and out of 22 people listed, I have found that at least 9 people who have clear ties to Hindu nationalism. I emphasize clear, because I didn’t include people who I couldn’t establish an obvious tie for. Given that I can’t read the language of much of the content that I sifted through, and that many posts on social media are blocked for me, I expect that there could very well be more for someone who can actually access the content. And I guarantee that there are more people affiliated with Hindu nationalism in other team groups/rungs as well, but I was trying not to make this post be too long.
Of course, if the team dynamics are not enough for you, let’s take a look at some of the content Indica advocates for.
Hindu nationalism in book curation/lists
Another place of interest is their post about their Indic Book Club activities for 2020-2021. On this page is a list of books that they “sent out more than 2200 copies of the following books to the members of the 1000 Reviewers Club and Curators’ list of Influencers.” (bolding theirs). Their book club essentially sends people free books in exchange for a selfie with the book where they tag Indic Academy, as well as making sure to “Post an original review on http://www.indicbookclub.com, Goodreads/Amazon (200 words or longer) of the book and share it on social media.”
They basically want you to promote these books for free, which is not uncommon for hindutva purveyors to do. Let’s take a look at some of the books on this list:
First you have this gem, a book called “Because India Comes First: Reflections on Nationalism, Identity and Culture” which was written by a former general secretary of the BJP, the political arm of the RSS paramilitary group. The blurb on the book states: “Madhav enquires into Indian policymaking and asserts that, going ahead, it must put India first. He calls out liberal fascism, deconstructs our understanding of terrorism in India, argues that opposition to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act is intellectually dishonest…” For those unaware, the Citizenship Act was meant to help provide a pathway to Indian citizenship for certain persecuted religious minorities, of which Muslims are specifically forbidden to partake. He also invokes the same dog whistles that American right-wing pundits do with phrases like “liberal fascists.”
Another book on this list covers the history of Savarkar, a man who played a pivotal role in establishing hindutva in the early 1900’s. This book has been criticized for its research, there are multiple claims that the book reads more like a euologizing biography than anything else. When criticisms of his work first showed up after publication, the author bemoaned about how leftists were “abusing” them (x). Here is another piece talking about how Sampath purposefully frames Hindu dominion concepts in such a way to appear inclusive on the surface. This article specifically cites the use of the word “Indic” to appear inclusive (interesting that this group also heavily uses the word “indic”.)
There is another book on this list that was written by Shrikant Talageri titled “Genetics and the Aryan debate: “Early Indians” Tony Joseph’s Latest Assault.” This author has been featured on the Hindutva Watch website (the author acknowledged it here,) and is a big proponent of the “Out of India” theory. The Out of India theory is also known as the Indigenous Aryan theory, which is heavily aligned with hindutva and right-wing ideology within India.
Are you sensing a trend yet?
Another book on the list titled “Who Killed Sashtri, the Tashkent Files” is both a book and a movie. When reading about the movie, you come across reviews such as this:
“Writing for Scroll.in, Nandini Ramnath noted it to be a politically motivated film that did not have any rigor and failed to be an effective conspiracy thriller.[25]“
“A review over The Hindu noted it to be an ideological slideshow that exploited Shastri’s death to attack left, secular and socialist ideologies and institutions and though based on an engaging topic, was a ‘hotch-potch of hearsay, juvenile arguments’ that ultimately lend to utter confusion rather than any conviction.[28] “
“Jyoti Sharma Bawa, reviewing for The Hindustan Times rated it one out of five stars whilst noting it to be disgusting political propaganda that hardly contained any truth and presented nothing new beyond the realms of an internet-crawl.[33]”
“A review over Arre.co criticized the film as an endless cycle of whataboutery, directed by a dedicated by a historical revisionist, which was nothing but an assault on common sense.[35] “
If Indic is not politically aligned, why are so many of the books they support written by Hindu nationalists? Why would they willfully curate a book list that incorporates so many harmful books, and then ask people to publicly share such works?
It doesn’t get much better once you start looking into the books that Indic has worked to release through their own platform. One of the first things to note is that one of their books initiative is being headed/directed by Jay Jina, a guy who likes to whinge about “liberals” and how secularism is destroying Hindu over on IndiaFacts. Sounds like a really unbiased guy to be working a large initiative.
One of the first coffee table books that Indic has published was written by two right-wing authors: Gurpreet Chopra and Bahat. Oh Bahat’s twitter account, you will find him retweeting posts calling Twitter’s support team “fascist” for blocking right-wing content. And Chopra is a self-identified right-wing person, so need I say more. The book also features a forward by Meenakshi Jain, the historical revisionist mentioned above.
For the record, with regards to historical revisionism, Butler doesn’t see a problem with it.
Hindu nationalism in initiatives
While flipping through Indic Academy’s events, I came across one that featured Koenraad Elst, an islamaphobic hindutva supporter who also supports the Out of India theory mentioned above. The text on the event page mentions how important Elst’s work is for the “Hindu revival movement”, which is a bit of a dog whistle for Hindu nationalism. Given that the founder of Indica is a speaker at this event, it seems pretty obvious that he doesn’t have an issue with Hindu nationalism. Given his desire to create a “Hindu renaissance”, I think its quite absurd to claim that he doesn’t have some political direction for all of this.
Their Conference on Hindu Arts, Architecture & Artisan Traditions also features speakers who show signs of supporting Hindu nationalist ideas on their social media. Things ranging from “No Bindi No Business” in their twitter profiles to posts congratulating BJP members for getting one million followers.
Another place to see hindutva rhetoric being used is the info page for Indica Polytheist. When you read the announcement post for the launch of this initiative, you get this sense that all polytheisms are at risk from the imminent danger of monotheism. There are plenty of attempts to make polytheism sound more legitimate than monotheism, and overall, reeks of the same rhetoric shown in Butler’s post about this whole mess.
So far, Indica Polytheist is mostly filled with people that Butler associates with, and has similar vibes to the failed polytheist.com movement a few years back.
The Path Forward
I feel like at this point I have sufficiently shown that there is a significant amount of evidence that Indica and its various branches have more hindutva influence than anyone who is against fascism would like. While Butler is correct that Indica can’t be held responsible for every horrible thing done in the name of Hindu nationalism, Indica can definitely be held responsible for the Hindu nationalists it courts in order to spread its agenda.
When I initially went looking for information about hindutva within the group, I expected it to be a challenge, but the truth of the matter is that most of this information is out in the open and easy to see. So it’s hard to believe that no one else could ascertain whether Hindu nationalism was actually a theme within Indica’s ranks.
When it comes to Butler, I think that we must admit that at bare minimum: playing with fascists doesn’t bother him. In fact, he believes that we need to find a way to “live together”
For those unaware, you don’t just tolerate fascist movements. Fascism is a lot like isfet (it is isfetian, imo), you can’t just ignore it and expect it to not eat at things. The gods must battle isfet daily to allow creation to continue to exist, and so too must we. Wherever fascism crops up, it must be swiftly and thoroughly destroyed. Allowing it to fester causes genocide and other human atrocities. See the Paradox of Intolerance to learn more.
He also doesn’t believe that Indica’s affiliation with Hindu nationalism is going to cause any harm:
“Thin end of the wedge” refers to “an action or procedure of little importance in itself, but likely to lead to more serious developments.” Which is to say that Butler doesn’t see how promoting the voices of people associated with fascist/nationalist movements will promote fascism. And I guess by his line of thinking, I’m acting in “bad faith” because I abide by the paradox of intolerance. Anyone who has lived in the U.S. within the past two decades will know that little allowances lead to full blown movements that destroy social safety nets and get people killed.
I will admit that this line of thinking reminds me of many conservatives who try to assert that they’re not promoting fascism while also calling for the extermination of minorities within their country. That’s essentially what hindutvas are trying to do. I will also add that Butler believes Hindus to be a minority because on a global scale, they are not the top religion. The fact that Hindus are a majority in India and that hindutvas are using that majority to oppress the marginalized religions within India doesn’t matter?
To be clear, the idea that Indica is not advocating for violence is outright incorrect. You do not invite fascists to speak or publish works that promote fascist ideas unless you’re advocating for violence on some level. Allowing fascists to have a platform is to advocate for violence. Asking people to tolerate fascists is also to advocate for violence.
This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, given his previous willingness to support other pagans who were obviously racist during the heyday of the Piety Posse, but if it wasn’t apparent then, its glaringly obvious now. For the record, he saw both Sannion and Krasskova to be “moral and kind” people who “never endorsed views like folkism” or anything else that he “regaded as harmful to the community.” I guess telling people they’re not practicing correctly and constantly relying on racist tropes to bully people into practicing better doesn’t count. You can see Krasskova’s dealings here and here.
As far as I’m concerned, Butler’s resources should be scrubbed from all of our documents and we should no longer recommend him or his works as a resource, because to continue to place him in our resources is to ultimately lift up the voice of someone who is actively choosing to align himself with fascists, and you know what they say about that
Back in 2018, when I was prepping for Year of Rites, I wrote on FB that I was “about 90% sure that TTR’s next chapter is gonna be Kemeticism without gods at the center.” And while I’m not entirely sure what I thought I had seen in that moment in terms of what O’s “big plan” was, I question if this was what he had in mind.
I have probably written hundreds of versions of this post in my head. I’ve been putting it off for months over a year, hoping that one day the words may fumble together into something coherent. I’ve worried that talking about this might make people upset; I’ve also worried that no one would even notice or care. But like most posts that end up on the blog, this post just will not rest, and so here we are: fumbling until something finally sticks.
There are so many things that have happened — little bits of shrapnel coming together to form something much larger. Every attempt to include all of these little things has left me feeling as though the point ultimately gets lost. I worry that by pouring over the details of what led me here, it will sow discomfort in others, or cause other people’s practices to unravel, which is never my intent. Ultimately, I’ve begun to believe that the details aren’t necessarily relevant at this moment — though a long post details the specifics could be made if people were interested.
Instead, I think I’ll focus on where I currently am, and where this blog could potentially go.
I have no idea how much I should preface this, ease people into it, or phrase any of this, but at the moment I can safely say that I no longer feel like a polytheist. For the past year or so, I’ve mostly been calling myself an atheist because it seems more accurate than any other label that I can really find. I don’t really know that atheist works either, because I wouldn’t say gods can’t exist or that I know for a fact that they don’t exist. I do believe the entities that we call gods are real in a sense, yes. But not in a way that I formerly did, and not in a way that many polytheists seem to. So even though “atheist” feels not entirely right, it currently fits better than polytheism (for me).
As mentioned above, many many things have happened in the past 5 years. I was plunged into a set of circumstances, and I was irreversibly changed by those circumstances. That’s the easiest way to sum all of the “shrapnel” up.
The changes and shifts started small, little feelings here or there, but then it turned into a deafening roar. I was heavily questioning whether anything I had experienced existed beyond my mind in a concrete way that really matters. In so many ways it began to feel so much more likely that all of the stuff that I had experienced was nothing more than my mind trying to cope with trauma. But of course, I also worry that this atheism is equally a reaction brought on by prior experiences/trauma.
At the end of the day, I may never know.
But what I do know is that running towards a reconsideration of everything that I thought I knew felt inescapable, dare I say necessary. I originally wanted to blame it entirely on my OCD, but at the heart of it, I knew I wanted to be free of the burdens I had collected over all these years. I needed to find or create a version of myself that was able to exist peacefully without constantly worrying about the Unseen and its existence. The only way to is through.
It would have been incredibly freeing if not for the anxiety that gripped me at that point. In time, I’ve found the process of reevaluating and re-contextualizing everything to be a worthwhile venture. I’ve learned about myself, about possibilities of how I may have perpetuated my own trauma, and I’ve found other ways to interpret our religion that doesn’t require someone’s belief in the gods. I always said that I felt Kemeticism could be practiced this way, and I guess I’m putting that theory to the test now.
So if its not clear, I’ve not left the religion, but I’m practicing it from a different perspective right now. As such, any future posts will also likely be from this perspective, and I felt like everyone should know. Ultimately, I think that a lot of what I’ve been doing this past year could be valuable even for theists, since it can be just as easily applied to that paradigm/worldview, and no pesky “godphone” or ability to communicate with the Unseen would ever be required. But at the same time, I wanted to make sure that it was clear why the tone might change, why what I focus on my shift.
If there is anything you’d want me to clarify or expand upon in terms of practicing from this perspective, feel free to leave a comment. Otherwise, I will continue to write when the mood strikes me, or when I find a topic worth discussing.
For years now I’ve wanted to try and create some sort of ritual that would call the rain to me. After reading a paper by Jorgensen, which discusses the ways in which mythology symbolism can be layered into ritual/heka, I finally reached a point where I felt like I could finally wrap my mind around what such a ritual would entail. This post is basically about said ritual.
If you’re not interested in any of the peripheral discussion around it, and only want the rubric, jump to the bottom of the post to find it.
Ritual Concept
I knew that I wanted to incorporate some sort of myth/story structure into this ritual, but I had never found anything that really felt correct for me. As luck would have it, I was reading about different NTRW around the same time I was working on this and found that there is a particular NTR, Anhur, whose name essentially means “Bringer of the Distant One.” If there is something that has been distant where I live, it’s rain. My entire state is under a “exceptional” drought right now, which means that even our native species of plants are starting to succumb to the lack of water. At the time of creating this ritual, we hadn’t had rain of any quantity above 0.1″ since April 2020.
Yep.
And so when I saw that this particular deity brings back the distant one, I felt like this would be a great myth structure to use in creating a rain ritual. Further, Anhur has direct associations with the four winds, which I thought could be utilized to carry weather to wherever Anhur directs it. There is a tradition in my family that I felt would be useful for this endeavor: wind chime clappers. If you’re interested in seeing a bit more about it, I wrote about this once over here.
The Distant Goddess myth exists in many forms within Egyptian stories/literature, and so I could choose a whole host of different deities to invoke for it, but I aimed most of my attention at utilizing Menhyt as the goddess we are attracting. Her name has associations with green and greening, and I felt that she would be an ideal choice.
Ritual Experience
It just so happened that about the time I was thinking of creating this ritual, there was a storm front coming through. This was one of the only opportunities we’ve had for rain in months, and I didn’t want to miss my chance to be able to try this rubric out. When I first started working on this project, the chance of rain for 1″ was about 1%. By the time I performed the ritual, our chance had gone up to 10%.
In preparation for the ritual, I and my partner created clappers to hang on our wind chimes out of watercolor paper. I recommend a thicker paper for these, to allow them to have some amount of resilience against weather, but you could use whatever you have on hand. We chose to make five clappers because we have five chimes, but you could make as many or as few as you prefer (I think an ideal might be four – one for each wind direction.) There isn’t really a particular rule for creating these, I mostly just focus on attracting beneficial things to my area while painting them. I would say to let your gut/intuition guide you for this section, as I’m not particularly structured in how I create these.
I performed the ritual about a week before the weather was to officially arrive. I felt that it would make sense to do this a few days in advance to allow the weather to shift course, to build, etc. Compared to other rituals I’ve written, this one felt a little less clunky in my mouth. I feel like this ritual was written more in my way of speaking, and it felt less like I had taken chunks of various texts and cobbled them together into a rite. Perhaps it meant that was the direction I need to be going on for future rubrics?
After the ritual had been performed, I placed the chimes with their new clappers outside and waited to see what would happen. A few days later I had the urge to perform the rite a second time, and in this format I didn’t offer clappers, but shifted the verbiage to establish that the clappers (and therefore the wind’s voices) had been established by my hands (see more in ritual notes below). I didn’t originally intend on the ritual needing to be performed twice, but it felt right and so I went with it. After that, it was a lot of sitting on my hands waiting for the days to pass.
The rain here ended up being spread out across two-three days. The first day, we were gifted with a really bright and really close rainbow. I’ve yet to see anything this close to our house before.
In the evening we had very vivid clouds that traveled across the mountain range. They were often lit up by the setting sun into vibrant colors, and their forms reminded me of long snakes slinking over the mountains. It was interesting to be able to see how the wind would shift directions, carrying the clouds with it.
The next day we got a lot of rain. A large part of the state actually got a lot of snow. Throughout most of the afternoon, you couldn’t see very much for all of the clouds hanging across the mountain range. But when they finally broke for a short period in the evening, I could see that the entire rim of the Colorado plateau to the north of us was covered in snow. There were mountains that had more snow on them in that moment than I had seen in decades.
I remember thinking in that moment that I felt seen or heard. That it felt like someone had painted a beautiful picture for me. And while I know that there is no way to prove for a fact that doing this ritual caused any of this, its such a rarity for anything tied to religion to bring forth any such kinds of feelings within me that it was worth noting and writing down.
All in all, we had about .75″ of rain where I am at, which is a fair amount in a year like this. Up north, there were snowfalls ranging from 6″ to 20″, and there was a subsequent flash flood warning a few days later for the snow melt that would be rushing down to the valley floor. By the final day of rain, all of the clappers had been ripped off of their chimes, which signals to me that the heka has been used up, and I will need to create new ones to attract another storm.
Below are my notes on how to modify this rubric for your needs, along with the rubric itself. If you end up using this rubric, let me know how your experience goes!
Rubric Notes
This rubric calls forth and names the four directional winds in the opening section. The names of the north and south wind have been named based off of what function they serve where I live, as such, you may wish to change what they are called before performing this ritual. The east and west winds could stay as they are, as they are named after the path of the sun — which is unchanging for all of us. However, you may wish to take note of what the north and south winds do in your location and name them accordingly.
Also, this rubric is currently made to be done when first offering the wind clappers that you will hang on your wind chimes. If you would like to perform this ritual again after the clappers have been hanged (as I did), you would change the verbiage in that section from “I provide you with a voice” to “I have provided you with a voice.”
I’ve noted the sections that can be changed with a *
Approaching the Altar
See me great gods. See me and hear me on this day as I step out into the sunlight. I call to you great gods. Hear me with both of your ears. Turn your beneficent gaze my way. Do not repulse me upon your path. Do not impede me for I am Equipped, and my seat is firm. I am the lord of the four winds, and I have dominion over that which I desire. *I call out to the north-wind, the bringer of winter storms. I call out to the east-wind, where Re’s path is born. I call out to the west-wind, where mother embraces me every night. *I call out to the south-wind, which brings summer water, growth and life. Oh you winds that respond to me, Oh you bulls of the sky, go forth and establish the four pillars of the sky. Truly the four pillars are established, and the firmament is made secure. I set forth upon the path made for me to bring close to me what was once distant, for I am he who brings the distant one back.
Offering Light
I bring forward the radiant light of Horus. It’s brightness on the horizon fills your eyes. I bring forward the radiant light of Horus. It’s brightness on the horizon fills your heart. The eye of Horus calls out to you, take its light to yourself and be filled with it. The eye of Horus calls out to you, take this light to yourself and be made whole by it. Come to that eye which makes you whole. Come to that which calls to you. Come to that eye which makes you sound. Come to that which calls to you.
Offering Incense
I bring you the fire to alight your incense. I bring you the fire to fashion what you enjoy. I bring you the fire to alight your sweetness. I bring you the fire to fashion what you enjoy. Incense approaches, like the north wind, who sails toward the nose of her brother. Incense approaches, its sweetness permeates your nostrils, it fills your chapel with its perfume. Come to this sweetness which you enjoy. Come to this sweetness which envelops you. Come to this sweetness which you enjoy. Come to this sweetness which I have created for you.
Offering Water
I bring to you the primordial waters to sate your thirst. I bring to you what flows from you. I bring to you the primordial waters to make you pure. I bring to you what flows from you. Feel the coolness of the libation filling your cup. Feel the coolness upon your throat. Feel the sweetness upon your lips. Feel the pure water upon your skin. Come to these waters and take them to your countenance. I have poured them just for you. Come to these waters and quench your thirst. I have brought you what you desire.
Offering Food
I bring you nourishment to fill your belly. Take this eye to yourself and fill your stomach. I bring you nourishment to appease your heart. Take this eye to yourself and appease your heart. I provide the offering of food in your presence. Take this eye to yourself, take this eye and be full. I provide the offering of wholeness at your feet. Take this eye to yourself and be whole. Come to this fullness that fills your stomach. Come to this sustenance that I have made for you. Come to this fullness that fills your heart. Take to this fullness that I have provided with my hands.
Offering Ma’at
I bring to you your beloved sister. She who opens the nose of the living. I bring to you your beloved ma’at, she who protects the two lands. Ma’at comes to you, she rests at your feet and fills your heart, she is with you. Ma’at comes to you, she resides within you at all times, she is with you. Come to the sweet embrace of ma’at, allow her to rest upon your brow. Come to the sweet embrace of ma’at, come to what you desire.
Offering Chimes/Clappers/Ritual Object
O venerable goddess, I call out to you, turn your beneficent gaze upon this place. See these parched land, this dry ground. The land yearns for the embrace of ma’at See how the earth contracts, how nothing will grow. The land yearns for the embrace of your touch.
I call to you, I reach out to you my twin, you who rides aloft the arms of Shu. I provide you with that which sustains you. I provide you with that which calls to you. Hear my calling to you. Know that I want you close to me. I call to you, I reach out to you my twin, you who protects regeneration. I know you and know what you desire. I provide you with that which calls to you. Hear my calling to you. Feel the attraction that grows between us.
Come to me my twin, provide me with that which sustains me. Do not impede yourself, come to me. Come to this place my twin, provide this place with that which sustains it. Do not impede yourself, come to this place. O green and beneficent goddess, do not be far from me. Come to me in this place, provide us with that which sustains us. O green and beneficent goddess, do not be distant from me, do not withdraw. Just as ma’at returns to her father, so too shall you return to these parched lands. For I am he who returns the distant one, and you cannot ignore my call.
*I call out to the north wind, I provide you with a voice to spread the magnificence of your name and of ma’at throughout the land. [place clapper/chime on alter, or hang it above altar] *I call out to the east wind, I provide you with a voice to spread the magnificence of your name and of ma’at throughout the land. [place clapper/chime on alter, or hang it above altar] *I call out to the west wind, I provide you with a voice to spread the magnificence of your name and of ma’at throughout the land. [place clapper/chime on alter, or hang it above altar] *I call out to the south wind, I provide you with a voice to spread the magnificence of your name and of ma’at throughout the land. [place clapper/chime on alter, or hang it above altar] O you four winds, you bulls in the sky, use your voice which is filled with ma’at and bring to me what I desire. O you four winds, you bulls in the sky, use your voice which is filled with ma’at and bring to me that which sustains this place.
Oh you great gods, see that I have set aright the north wind, the east wind, the west wind, the south wind. Oh you great gods, see that all four winds are as they should be to bring ma’at into this place. Oh great gods, see that she has returned, that goddess that was once distant from us. Oh great gods, see the ma’at that shines brightly through the work of our hands.
Reversion
O Great NTRW, your enemies withdraw from you. Horus has turned himself to his Eye in its name of Reversion-of-Offerings. These your divine offerings revert; They revert to your servant for life, stability, health and joy. So that you may flourish for eternity.
Welcome to the yearly “when tf is Wep Ronpet” post. This year’s post uses a new method that was detailed out by Bright Falcon, using a completely different website and format than what has been used in the past. This new method is really great because it’s way less work than I’ve had to do in the past, and I expect it’ll be a lot easier for people to track down their dates if they don’t want to wait for me. So a special thank you to them for sending me their post. I’ve also added this information to the big ol Wep Ronpet info post.
The below list is categorized by continent, and in the case of North America, by country, with everything being in alphabetical order. I tried to choose a variety of cities across the world that would help to cover map. This is so that if your city isn’t listed, you can hopefully find something on a similar latitude to where you’re located (for example: Phoenix, Atlanta, and Los Angeles all have the same date, and are on a similar latitude line), and you can use that for your date. In other words, if two cities were pretty close together, I probably only mapped one, since the date difference on two close locations would be marginal, and so all locations were largely chosen for practicality reasons.
You’ll notice that the dates get later in the year the closer you get to the North Pole, so you can basically figure that if you’re down in Australia, your Wep Ronpet will begin sometime in mid June. And if you’re up in the northern parts of Canada or Finland, you’re probably not going to have Wep Ronpet until late August.
These dates are for Wep Ronpet itself, so your epagomenal days will occur the 5 days prior to whatever date is listed below.
Now that we’ve gone over the basics of how to set up a calendar, I wanted to try and bring everything together by showing you my calendar. Throughout this series, I’ve tried to use various examples that aren’t just from my region, in a hopes of showcasing different ways these ideas can be applied, but the problem is that I don’t know any other region on earth like I know AZ. And so some of my information, in my opinion, gets lost in trying to make it applicable to everyone. So to try and fix that, and show you how the ideas laid out in the past four posts come together, we’re going to go over what I’ve got going so far.
Please keep in mind this calendar is still a work in progress, so some sections may still be incomplete, but hopefully this gives everyone a better idea of what a relatively complete calendar could look like. For where I live, at least.
Direction, Background, Context
There are two things that brought me to want to make a calendar that better reflected my local area. The first is that I’m rubbish at actively planning out my gardening projects. When you’re gardening as a means to try and feed yourself, there are a lot of things that need to be done at regular intervals if you want to be successful. And if there is one thing I’ve found I’m not great at — its being diligent and timely in gardening tasks. My original hope was that maybe I could create holidays or rites or something that would help me to better plan and participate in my gardening adventures.
As such, you’re going to notice that a lot of my holidays and days of importance are tied to gardening, and all of the extra tasks that come along with it. And since the weather isn’t always consistent year to year, you’ll find that a lot of my holidays are more generalized in their placement, since things may vary year to year.
The second reason that I wanted to make a calendar is because our weather is changing every year. I think part of me hoped that by participating in the cycles of weather, trying to perform rites that help to encourage the weather to be as it’s always been might help to ease the discomfort of losing the predictability that comes with not having climate change. From a Kemetic perspective, it was the job of humans to help keep things moving smoothly and regularly. Our participation helped the gods be timely, helped to ensure successful inundations, helped to ensure survival. And while I’m not saying that doing rituals to bring the weather where it needs to be will solve anything, I can’t help but wonder how it may effect me all the same.
As I tried to combine both of these needs/wants, I found that the basic information you use for site assessment in permaculture could translate into making a calendar and eventually sat down to write the process out for everyone here. Ultimately, I think the end goal for all of us is to end up having a sense of place. A sense of being from a location, existing in a particular region or space, and not constantly feeling like we’re dragging something from somewhere else into a land that is ultimately not ours. While also not disregarding the past that led so many of us to be on land that is ultimately not ours.
It’s due to trying to find that sense of place that my calendar doesn’t have a lot of really in-depth ritual work. I’ve had this really bad problem for most of my “Kemetic career” where I seem to believe that if I make something Important and Detailed and Ornate and Involved, I will be more inclined to Get It Done. But if the Year of Rites taught me anything, its that people are what bring me to Get Things Done. The only times I’ve ever been able to genuinely participate in ritual work is when others were involved, even if only indirectly. As such, my calendar is less about ritual, and more about how to find ways to Be Present in my natural surroundings, and also how to get other people to participate in stuff with me. It’s less about sitting in front of a shrine case, and more about doing yard work outside with someone else.
I bring this up to really drive home that your priorities don’t need to be the same as mine, and your methods of celebrating don’t need to look like mine. However, I really wanted everyone reading to have an understanding of the context behind the choices I’ve made in what to include or exclude from my calendar.
And with that, let’s (finally) get started.
List of Holidays
Just to make it easier, here is my calendar without all of the additional information tied to it:
January 1: Wep Ronpet the Second
Feb – April: The Smiting of Stinknet, weekly to daily
First day of 100F, usually late April, early May: The Great Farewell, The Long Dry Begins
May 5: Winnowing and Sorting
May 15: Seeking Out and Spreading Ma’at through the Land
May 20: Gazing Upon the White Crowns
June 15: Feasting Upon the Red Crowns
June 30: Collecting of the Beans
July 1: Enticing the Monsoon
Monsoon Season: Greeting the Storm (floating)
First week of humidity: The Great Relief, Monsoon season begins
First weekend in August: Wep Ronpet
Sept 25: Gathering and Drying
October: Transition month
October 5: Preparing the fields for growth
October 10: Winnowing and Sorting
October 15: Sowing the Seeds for Ma’at
November 20: The Short Mild Begins
November-December: Celebrating the First Rain (floating)
Dec 15: Sowing the Seeds for Ma’at
I wasn’t sure how to organize the information for this calendar, so I’ve decided to walk you through our seasons, and discuss the holidays as they come up within their seasons. There are a series of holidays listed above that occur multiple times per year. I’ll cover those in the “Transitions” section after the seasons.
A Place of Two Seasons: The Long Dry
The Long Dry usually begins in early May, with a month of transition starting in late March. During a bad year, the Long Dry will start in early April (yes). You’ll know when the Long Dry is here, because our evaporation rate will sky rocket, and everything needs to be watered more regularly. As dry as the Short Mild might be, the Long Dry is, by far, dryer yet. Days are above 90F every day, and during peak season, your nights will be in the 90’s.
The transition to this season is marked by the Great Farewell, which is usually the first day that is over 100F. We call it the Great Farewell because you’re saying farewell to your comfort for the next several months. This day is spent making sure everything is prepared for the heat that’s about to set in; including things like sun shades for plants and animals, extra water bowls for the outside critters, mulch to protect the roots of our plants, etc.
The Long Dry begins with a bang, because everything will be yellow. The short span of transition that leads us into this season is filled to the brim with active life and changes. Things come into flower, bees are everywhere, lizards, vultures, and moths all begin to reappear, and you have to actively watch out for snakes again. The first holiday of the season, Seeking Out and Spreading Ma’at through the Land, is about foraging for local seeds, and dispersing them in the more denuded parts of our area. These seeds are the remnants of the Short Mild, and the first casualties of the Long Dry. As the season progresses, all of our plants slowly begin to die back or hibernate, and only the hardiest desert plants tend to survive without human assistance. One of the first things that is available to harvest and eat are Palo Verde beans and Saguaro fruit.
This brings us to Gazing Upon the White Crowns and Feasting Upon the Red Crowns — the next two holidays that occur during the Long Dry.
The Saguaro is a big deal in AZ. It only grows in the Sonoran desert, and it’s sacred to the indigenous people who live here. Every year, the older saguaros around the state will produce flowers that then turn into edible fruits. These white flowers usually form something of a “crown” on the top of the saguaro, and they can be hard to spot, since they are often open for only 24 hours or so. The first half of this holiday involves simply paying attention to these crowns, noticing which cacti are producing flowers this year, and giving homage to what they provide to our ecosystem.
The second half of this holiday is about collecting the fruits, which are a nice red color. Now, I have the benefit of being able to refer to the indigenous traditions relating to collecting fruit, but I honestly don’t want to appropriate or overstep onto something that isn’t mine to utilize. So for our purposes, it will likely be only a household thing, as I wouldn’t want to attract too many people and overtax our local ecosystem. A lot of animals rely on these fruits for sustenance throughout the Long Dry, and so we won’t be removing too many, just in case. I’m also fairly certain that none of the saguaro around here are claimed or utilized by any indigenous people, so we’ll stick to what is local so that we don’t accidentally take from someone.
Very likely, this will end up being a ritualized form of foraging, where we will utilize our saguaro ribs, go out and look for some pods that are ripe and that we can reach. And then take these home to celebrate and eat as part of a fancier meal. Ideally, I think I would like to find a way to give to the saguaro itself, or the various pollinators that help create these fruits, but I’m not entirely sure what that will look like yet.
The next holiday is the Collecting of Beans, which are the result of the yellow flowers that dot the landscape in April. These bean trees are vital to sustaining virtually everyone through the Long Dry. The beans can be eaten green, or stored indefinitely. They can be eaten whole as a bean, or ground into a flour that has a sugary flavor. There are often milling parties in the summer for people to bring their collected beans and have them ground up.
There is a micro season that occurs in the Long Dry: monsoon season, which is marked by the Great Relief.
Traditionally, monsoon season began in mid-June, but more and more it’s started in late July. You’ll know when monsoon season is here because it’ll be humid (for here), and the dew point will be above 50% daily. This is the only rain you’ll usually get during the Long Dry season (usually half of our yearly average), but with climate change, we’re getting less and less rain. Last year barely even got humid. This is a problem for us, because without this humidity, there is no growing anything outside (easily) until October. Even though humidity is awful, it is a huge relief when the humidity shows up, as it allows both plants and animals to cope a little bit better with the scorching summer sun.
Enticing the Monsoon is meant to be a series of rites that helps to encourage the monsoon upwards to our area. Traditionally, I would create new windchime clappers that go onto a certain set of chimes that only ring when a storm front is coming in (usually). I’m hoping to expand it so that once the Great Relief shows up (if it does,) we celebrate by planting monsoon crops and digging some basins to help make sure they get as much water as possible. I would like to potentially utilize some of the concepts present in the Beautiful Reunion, but I’m still working out details.
Monsoon season usually ends around the second week of September, and the Long Dry will recommence until sometime in November.
A Place of Two Seasons: The Short Mild
The Short Mild is also called snowbird season down here, and it’s when stuff is actually green and you can go outside without dying. Most Kemetics will note that the Mysteries happens during this season, and while most of you get to experience Osiris as nothing but death and coldness, I actually have nothing but greenness and growth occurring during this period. The Short Mild is a respite in every sense of the word, and is one of the main reasons many Arizonans choose to live here: “because the winter is mild.”
The Short Mild is a heavy planting season for us, and most earth moving projects come to a halt to allow as much growth as possible to occur. Traditionally, we would have a spike in cold temperatures between the last week of December and the second week of January, but this isn’t always holding true anymore. We typically have winter rains that help to make up for the other half of our annual water, and I would like to celebrate that first rain whenever it occurs, and potentially every time it occurs, because it allows us to save so much water (and money) because nature waters our plants for us.
The second half of the Short Mild is full of growth, which makes it prime invasive-killing time, since the goal is to pull the plants up before they go to flower in March. Currently, AZ is having a huge problem with Stinknet. This plant was categorized as merely a “noxious weed” two years ago, but after last year’s Super Bloom, there has been a huge push to cull Stinknet wherever we can. In the past year, my property went from having only two plants on it, to having a third of an acre covered in it. As such, it will now be a yearly “thing” to go out and clear out the Stinknet before it sets in.
At the peak of this season, I usually go out twice per day to remove as much as possible. I’ve learned to create something of a ritual out of it, as my household is quite allergic to the pollen, so I keep a separate set of clothes and gloves specifically for this purpose. There are also elements of learning how to lean into “doing what you can”, since its very challenging to remove every instance of an invasive species across multiple acres of land. Next year, we’d like to turn this into a community celebration, where people can come help us pull it out, and we can all have a big meal together.
Basking in the Greenness exists in the heart of the most growth during the Short Mild. This is when almost everything is at it’s prime before the heat and chinch bugs of March kick in. So this is the best time to really enjoy nature’s splendor, and eat from our local area.
Transitions: The Busiest Times of Year
The transitory months that exist between the two dominant seasons in our area are the busiest times of year for us as we harvest and process all of the growth from the past 4 months, and prepare for the changes that will be arriving once the seasons shift. Both of these periods include holidays with similar themes, which I’ve gathered together here.
Preparing the fields for growth | Sowing the Seeds for Ma’at | Gathering and Drying | Winnowing and Sorting
All of these holidays are part of the cycles of growing food. Preparing the Fields for Growth is exactly as it sounds — going out and preparing all of our beds for new seeds and new plants. This would involve adding amendments to the soil, if necessary, setting up new planters when possible, and gathering needed supplies for when we do the next holiday: Sowing the Seeds for Ma’at.
To me, seeds are very much ma’atian in nature. They contain aspects of the Nun: formless creation, the ability to become a thing, but not having embarked on that transition/journey yet. Seeds are the way in which nature helps to take care of us, and by spreading seeds and growing plants, we in turn help take care of nature. By aligning these with ma’at, you create a nice feedback loop wherein you grow ma’at, and then harvest ma’at, offer and eat the ma’at, and then gather it and save it for the next cycle next year.
Gathering and Drying and Winnowing and Sorting are both parts of the harvesting process in our house. I’m not sure how readily known this is, but a lot of the time you can do one of two things with a plant: you can eat its fruit (or vegetables,) or you can collect its seeds. It can either feed you now, or produce seeds that will feed you later. We always let at least a few plants go to seed because we’re always trying to make sure that we’re accounting for future needs. This is also because getting seeds from a plant that is grown in your area means the plant is more accustomed to your climate, and will be more hardy the more generations exist in the same climate. Since most places that produce seeds are not in the desert, its up to us to make sure that we acclimatize our seeds as best as possible. Part of this process also involves giving seeds back to the land. We always leave at least a few seeds/seed pods outside to see how they fare, and to feed the local wildlife.
All aspects of these holidays can be ritualized and involve offerings of the seeds and food harvested to the land or gods. Ideally, the harvesting and processing portions of these holidays will involve other people, and we can have a big meal and seed share to commemorate the changing of a season.
And that is currently what I have for my calendar. It’s not perfect, and there are still a lot of holes in it, but I’m sure that as the years pass, I will notice new things in the area around me, and be able to create more robust holidays that hopefully involve more people.
If you end up creating and posting your own calendar, let me know! I’d love to see how other people interpret these ideas and apply them to their local regions.
So we’ve finally made it to the last post in the “tutorial” portion of this series on how to go about setting up a region-specific calendar. We’ve gone over what sorts of information to gather for this process, how to determine your seasons and come up with a basic starting point for your calendar, and how to begin to create associations to help flesh out your holiday celebrations. In this post, we’re going to talk about how to fold in elements from pre-existing religious practices, concepts, and mythologies.
Now, even if you don’t have any religious elements that you want to incorporate into your calendar, I would still recommend browsing this post, because I feel that some of the information I’m going to discuss would still be applicable to anyone embarking in this process. And, as always, this post will be written largely from a Kemetic perspective because that is what I know in terms of religions and mythology. If anyone else ends up writing info pages on this from their religious perspective, let me know and I can link it here.
Deity Associations: A Starting Point
I think one of the easiest places to start this topic from is drawing direct natural associations between the elements in your calendar/region and your deities. It seems that most polytheistic religions have deities that are tied to the sun, tied to harvest, tied to water features; and so these deities could easily be incorporated into any local/seasonal aspects that correspond to their domain. For Kemetics, that means you could focus on Re during the summer, maybe Kephri during the spring, when the sun is more “new” and fresh, and perhaps Atum-Re for the fall as the sun becomes less prominent during the winter. You could also incorporate Aten during your solar season, if your location has one.
If you have a season that’s known for having an abundance of growth in terms of either plants or fauna, you may find that you could incorporate deities tied to fecundity or farming/agriculture. Whether you’re growing these plants that you can eat, or going and foraging for things to eat, you could invoke deities on either end of either process. Asking the gods for assistance with a good growing season or good luck with foraging, and then thanking them after you’ve brought in lots of good things to eat. Folding in additional aspects of what allows this growth to happen would be another way to create new groupings of deities that aren’t specific to antiquity.
This also applies to local fauna and flora. For example, if you’ve got geese that migrate through your area, perhaps you could incorporate Geb into celebrations that occur during that “season.” Hathor has associations with oaks, so incorporating her into acorn collecting or processing might be worth considering. Wenut is tied to rabbits, which often have their own roles in local ecology that could be played into. It seems that nearly every deity collects a bunch of associations with both plants and animals, and so those could be used pretty much the same way that the seasonal associations would work.
To create an example that incorporates the last two paragraphs, if you were going to do the acorn gathering above: you could fold in Osiris for his exudations that allow for excellent soil that fosters good growth, Re for his solar properties that allows the trees to grow, Shu for the air that brings the rains to the area where these trees grow, and Hathor for her association with acorns, perhaps overlapping her joy with the joy that acorns bring to your belly when properly processed.
Of course, there are some other more nuanced ways to align these associations. For example, we’ve got something called the Ironwood tree down here in AZ. It’s a keystone species, which means its already something of a sacred plant to begin with, but there are qualities of the tree that really remind me of my gods.
First is the use of the word “iron” in its name. This often comes from two aspects of the tree’s wood: its ashen color that is similar to iron in nature, and the fact that the wood is considered very hard and very durable. There are trees that have been dead for over a century, but their remains still dot the landscape due to the high poison content that is present within the wood. Literally, the poison is what makes the wood last forever.
Second is that this tree is vital to the survival of many plants and animals throughout the desert. Each tree is said to support and play a role in the survival of over 500 other species in the desert. This tree is both a survivor and a source of sustenance. To me, this tree is a culmination of both Setian and Osirian properties. The iron associations, the ability to survive even better than other desert plants during the harshest conditions, and the use of literal poison to create a means of existing indefinitely all seem like Setian traits. The fact that the tree is responsible for the survival of many species during the worst parts of the year in AZ, the sustenance that it provides for the desert, plus its capacity to endure for literal centuries after death all feel very Osirian in nature.
What I’m trying to get at is that your associations needn’t be super direct to be applicable. Always be willing to dig deeper to find your gods in places you wouldn’t expect. There are lots of ways to see our gods in the world around us, and the more we learn about the plants and fauna that live around us, the easier it becomes to find our deities in our local area.
Once you’ve found an association that resonates with you, you could then find ways to weave it into any current practices you have. For example, I could potentially do rites for Set or Osiris under or around one of our local Ironwoods. I could also reverse that and involve Set or Osiris in any celebrations centered around Ironwood trees. Or perhaps I could find a piece of wood or seed pods to offer to the deities in question. It would also make sense to utilize the seeds as part of a food offering as well. In this way, I would be bringing a small part of where I live to each ritual that I do, thereby closing the gap between the traditional location-based practices and my local area.
Religious Symbols and Concepts
Pretty much every religious tradition has symbols, themes, and concepts that infiltrate the mythology and living practices of anyone who participates in the religion. For Kemetics, we’ve got ma’at and isfet, we’ve got trees that give life, benben mounds that herald transformation and birth, just to name a few. When you’re trying to fold your religion into your calendar, I feel that using these symbols and concepts is a good way to begin to bridge the gap.
Solar Bathing
Something that seems to have been done with some regularity in antiquity is the idea of bathing icons in sunlight. In some locations, this can be done almost anytime of the year (like Egypt,) but for those who live in places where the sun isn’t constantly visible, it may be worthwhile to pay special attention during the solar season that is present within your region. During this time, it may be beneficial to plan to take any important amulets, icons, or other religious paraphernalia outside where it can soak up some rays.
Rejuvenation and Rebirth
There were many parts of the natural world that the ancient Egyptians decided to embody in their religious symbolism in the form of rejuvenation and rebirth. There were flowers that rose and fell with the sun, blooming once the rays hit the water; that were incorporated into the mythology surrounding Nefertem, and by extension, Re. Re, of course, living a non-stop cycle of rebirth and rejuvenation that is embodied by the sun. There is also the annual cycling of the river that sustained ancient Egypt, often embodied in the mythology surrounding Osiris (at least by the later periods of Egyptian history,) and to a lesser degree, involves aspects of Sekhmet, as plague was more likely to set in when the river was running low (or completely gone.)
Most of us will have our own examples of plants that rise and set with the sun, of animals that come out to greet the sun, of plants that die back during one season only to be rejuvenated once the weather shifts later in the year. Looking for these examples in the world around us, and then seeing where they might dovetail nicely with our pre-existing stories regarding this theme will allow us to see our gods in our immediate surroundings, and provides opportunities to find new ways to celebrate the rebirth that is occurring.
Battling Isfet, Instilling Ma’at
For Kemetics, one of the biggest directives in our religion is to maintain ma’at and get rid of isfet. And if there is one thing that we could do that would help our local ecology (and therefore ma’at) probably more than anything else, its by pushing back invasive species. In a sort of juxtaposition against keystone species, invasive species are plants and fauna that actively destroy and degrade a particular ecosystem. These are usually species that existed in balance within a given ecological system, but were moved into a foreign space that they then began to take over.
Most places try to have “round ups” where people will gather and work to pull out and remove invasive plants that occur at specific times in the year (timed to the cycles of the species that are being removed, usually.) For those of us who are interested in this work, it wouldn’t be hard to create an annual holiday where you go out and join these groups of people to help push back isfet (by removing the invasive species) and help restore ma’at (because you’ll usually replace what you removed with new plants or new seeds.)
And if invasive species are not your thing, there is always trash collecting and cleaning that occurs in many places across the globe. Another way of instilling ma’at would be to learn restorative gardening and land-keeping practices, this is particularly if you happen to own or oversee any property. That way you can make sure you’re not accidentally adding to isfet by mismanaging what happens to the land that you live on.
This is, of course, not an exhaustive list, but I hope that it gives you something of an idea of how you can begin to bring your local areas and your pre-existing religious practices closer without being appropriative. In the final post of this series, I will go over some of the holidays that I’ve created for my area, and how I’m starting to work on folding religious practices into my calendar.
So while we have the backbone of our calendar that was generated in the last post, you’ll note that many of these holidays lack any real direction for how to exactly celebrate them or participate in the natural shifts around you. This post and the next are here to help you flesh out your calendar by exploring ideas, themes, and associations you can link up with your holidays.
The backbone we made in the last post is meant to give you a basic framework to build around. From here, we’re going to utilize all of the information we still haven’t touched from the first post to refine what the yearly cycle in your area really looks like to you. It’s one thing to know when your summer starts and ends, or how much snow you get in the winter, but its another to know how these seasons actually play out where you live. Ideally, we will want to incorporate these elements into our yearly celebrations so that we’re genuinely connecting with the region we live in — not just a cardboard cutout that is generalized for ease of use.
Meeting Your Neighbors: Local Landforms
One of the first areas I wanted to start our layering process with is the concept of landforms. Landforms is a pretty generic term that encompasses pretty much every geological feature you’ve ever seen. This includes mountains, rock formations, lakes, valleys, etc. Taking stock of the landforms around you is essentially taking stock of the topography in which you live. Do you happen to live in a valley? on the edge of a valley? Are there any mountains nearby? Do you have any rivers or lakes that influence your area? What does the land look like where you live?
There are a couple of reasons why having this information can be useful, and which of these reasons applies to you will depend on what is most important to your individual practice.
Landforms Define Your Local Weather
First is that your local weather will be heavily influenced by the landforms closest to you. To use an example that is close to my heart, Phoenix, AZ is in the bottom of a valley that lies at the base of the Colorado Plateau. You’d think that since I’m an hour from Phoenix that my weather would be the exact same, but that’s not entirely true. I live on the southern ridge of this valley, on the north face of a series of small mountains. These mountainous landforms change the weather for me pretty dramatically. Being 600 feet higher in elevation means that my temperatures are often a few degrees cooler than Phoenix, and are about 5 degrees cooler than the closest town that is at the base of the mountains, about 20 minutes away.
Which is to say that looking at your local landforms will help to give you a better idea of how the weather works specifically where you’re at. Most of the weather information that you can pull will be from city centers and airports, and not all of us live in those specific locations where the weather data is pulled from. In order to tailor-fit your calendar, it’s best to observe whether landforms could be playing a role in your weather, and how that effects your yearly calendar.
Also keep in mind that man-made objects can also alter your weather, and if these structures are benefiting your weather patterns and systems, they may be worth incorporating into your calendar.
Landforms as Foci of Veneration
The second role that landforms can play in your calendar is to be a focus of veneration or adoration. For example, the mountain range that exists directly to the west and south of where I live often protects us from the worst monsoon storms. I have lived on both sides of what I call the “south ridge,” and I can attest that living south of this ridge means that your power will go out a lot more, and you’re more likely to have your house destroyed from the harsh weather that comes at us from across the dry river bed.
Knowing this means that I could always give thanks and attention to these mountains as we go into the monsoon season. Perhaps acknowledging that these mountains deflect the worst from us, and provide us with some amount of protection and stability in an inherently unstable season.
As another example, if you live near a large body of water, you may find that this body of water keeps your climate more temperate, as large lakes and oceans tend to take the edge off of the hottest and coldest parts of the year. Maybe you really love that your summer is nice and balmy, and would want to give thanks to this body of water for making that happen. This could involve having your celebrations at this body of water, or perhaps engaging in more direct action to protect or preserve it (whether through community action or volunteering to clean up the area, etc.)
From another angle, you may have learned that this large body of water serves as the main source of water for your local area. Knowing this, you may choose to incorporate this vital landform into your holidays, perhaps even creating a holiday that acknowledges your reliance on this water source existing. Some places where this might make sense would be in the springtime, as the snowpack begins to melt and begins to fill all of the waterways below, or to honor it during the summer, when your water supply is likely to be the most taxed for survival.
Nesting Local Ecology into Global Patterns
As you could potentially tell after reading about landforms, it becomes really easy to continue to shift the scope of your weather into a larger and bigger scale. The mountains that protect me come in contact with storm systems that are generated from the equator, and suddenly I’m looking at weather that’s happening in parts of the world I’ve never seen. To me, it helps to be able to place my local weather phenomena onto a larger scale to be able to see where my weather actually comes from, and by extension, to better understand what’s going on when my weather doesn’t behave as it normally does.
To use an example that’s familiar to some of my readership, in ancient Egypt, they knew that the inundation of the Nile was vital to their existence, but they didn’t have a full and solid understanding as to where that water actually came from. They believed it to bubble up out from the Duat in a cavern at the base of the river, but in truth, the answer is a lot more complicated and involves monsoon storms and snow packs in other parts of the continent. So in their frame of reference, you would cajole the deities that oversaw those caverns to ensure that you got enough water for the year. Where as under this model, you might cajole the monsoon rains to fall and the winter storms to bring a decent amount of snow so that there would be enough to fill your river later on.
This is also why I had you look into watershed maps. These maps will inform where your water comes from, and where you should focus your intent if you want to help ensure an appropriate amount of water comes to your area. For example, if you live somewhere whose water source relies on an aquifer being filled by a snow pack in a mountain range a few counties north of you, then it may be worth considering creating some sort of holiday that honors the role these mountains play in your survival.
Creating Associations
Part of fleshing out your calendar is having the ability to make associations between your holidays and the world around you. In this section, we’ll talk about a few ways to develop various associations in your area.
Seasonal Markers
Anything that helps to bring you to a particular time within the year would fall under this category. Put another way, these are the things that help you to notice that something is shifting around you. Usually, this would be seasonal shifts and changes, but it could also encompass other natural phenomena. Some examples of what these could be are:
the first flowers that pop up in spring
a particular type of wind that indicates that snow is coming
migratory animals that are only in your region for brief periods of time throughout a given year
the most-available natively-grown food item during your region’s “dead period” (most of you know it as winter)
the first things that are edible in spring, or after the “dead period”
the first leaves that change color during the fall
If you see it, and it lets you know that stuff around you is changing, it belongs in this category.
You could utilize these markers with the seasons they are associated with. For example, if you’re celebrating the beginning of a season, it might make sense to utilize the things that let you know this season is beginning in your holiday goings on.
Sustainers
The sustainer category is made up of anything that essentially helps to sustain your ecosystem in a particularly large way. These are essentially the keystone species that exist within your area, and would include both fauna and flora. This could also include landforms and larger ecological systems that help maintain the characteristics of your region such as a large reservoir that maintains the potable water for your area, or a particular forest that brings your seasonal rains down to where you live, or even a large tree that shades your porch in the summer.
In many ways, I would argue that this category would qualify as a sort of means of figuring out what is sacred in an area. Keystone species in particular leave a huge impact on the environment around them, so much that they are often used to gauge how healthy an ecological system is. When keystone species are removed from an ecosystem, the ecosystem is almost guaranteed to degrade and suffer until the balance is restored. As such, these species are worth protecting as much as possible, and to me, deserve sacred status where they natively occur.
Given that these species help to maintain the ecology of your region, I would argue that these species (or representations thereof, or potentially things associated with them) could be utilized in any holiday at any season. However, I also think there could be some potency in celebrating certain key times in the life cycle of the species within this category. For example, if there is a tree that is a keystone species, and it bears fruit, it might be worth celebrating when the fruit comes into season.
The Power of Observation
As a final note, we always say in permaculture that the most important skill that you can have is the skill of observation. Every year, I observe my surroundings, and every year, I discover new things. I notice new patterns that emerge, new ideas for holidays, new plant associations that form. By watching the world around you, and taking note of what you experience and when, you open up the possibility to incorporate an ever growing number of associations for your calendar.
For me, the calendar is about actively choosing to participate in the world around me. Sometimes, this means big displays of celebration or ritual. But sometimes, its nothing more than baring witness to what is going on around me. Not everything needs to be elaborate or large, and just by observing and paying attention, you are still participating in the natural patterns that occur around you. When we are not sure, or are lost on how to proceed, observation should be our fallback tool for coming up with new ideas and inspiration.
Hopefully this post has helped you to start thinking about ways you can begin to flesh out meaning and associations with your local natural settings. In the next post, we’ll discuss some ways in which religious practices can begin to be incorporated to your calendar.
In my last post, I discussed the various pieces of information that might be useful for creating a region-specific calendar based off of your local ecology. In this post, we’re going to take all of that information and begin to extract the beginnings of a calendar that we can then work with.
How to Utilize Your Weather Info
Your weather information will provide you the backbone of your calendar. Analyzing the information should give you a general idea of what weather happens when in your region. And generally speaking, when weather happens, you have holidays.
The most important thing to get out of all of your weather information is a solid understanding of how your local weather works, and by extension, when your seasons actually occur. Don’t be afraid to move away from our standard, wrote ideas of the standard four seasons that are exactly the same length of time every year. In my experience, there are a lot of small shifts and changes that occur in every region throughout the yearly cycle, and to me, it feels worth honoring these changes as they occur, which might lead you away from a basic four equinoxes and four solstices.
To get this started, I’m going to show you some charts of the weather in Pueblo, CO (a place I chose at random) to illustrate how to parse information out and translate it into holidays or seasons.
In the chart above, you can see that the hottest parts of the year start around June 2, and wind down around Sept 13. You could make this your summer, with a celebration of the average hottest day of the year on July 8. If you wanted, you could also add in another holiday to celebrate the middle of the summer season, which would be around July 22. Your winter season generally starts on November 20 and ends around Feb 24, with the coldest day being on Dec 29. Just like with summer, you could also add in a holiday celebrating the middle of the season if you felt the need. That would then leave your spring to potentially be from Feb 24 to June 2, and your fall to be from Sept 13 to November 20.
To summarize, you now have the following dates/holidays of note for this region so far:
June 2: spring end, summer start
July 8: hottest day of the year
July 22: summer midpoint
Sept 13: summer end, fall start
Oct 17: fall midpoint
November 20: fall end, winter start
Dec 29: coldest day of the year
Jan 6: winter midpoint
Feb 24: winter end, spring begin
April 12: spring midpoint
You can use solar maps to determine when you have the most and least amounts of sunlight within a given year, which can be useful for people who happen to have interest in “light and dark” juxtaposition, or have solar-related practices/deities. Now despite the summer being from early June to mid-Sept, the solar map below shows that your sunniest time of the year in Pueblo actually begins on April 29 and ends on July 31. This often occurs out of sync with summer due to cloud cover. So this is less about how much your region of the world is exposed to the sun, but more about how much of that solar energy actually makes it to the ground.
So in this situation, you could create an entire “solar season” that has its own reoccurring rites, or you could potentially just have a singular holiday on June 10, which typically has the most sun out of the year. The same goes for the darkest parts of the year — you could have a season that exists from Nov 3 to Feb 10, and you could have a singular holiday on the darkest day of the year: Dec 20. I will expand on these ideas more in the “Adding Layers” and “Folding in Religion” posts.
Another two seasons to consider adding to your calendar are your rainy and snowy season (if applicable.)
You can see that the full rainy season for Pueblo runs March 16 to October 16, with two peaks in between. Depending on what is most important to you, you could have a holiday at the beginning and/or end of the season, and you could have two days of note for each of the peaks that exist within the rainy season. Since the rain appears to die back at the start of summer, it might also be worth making a nod to the reduced rain in your summer holiday setup.
Snowfall in Pueblo seems to run from October to May, but you could start and end the season at the 0.1″ mark as this website did, which would make the dates December 10 to Feb 15. You also could consider creating an impromptu celebration each year for the first day that it snows, regardless of your yearly averages.
And while I’m not sure if someone in Pueblo cares too much about the wind, the windy season for this part of the world runs from November to June. Down in Arizona, the shifting trade winds dictate a lot about how our weather is running, and often marks the changing of the seasons. So for me, wind patterns play a significant role. However, you may find through observation that the winds don’t seem to correlate to anything where you live, and may choose to omit this information.
So after having done this basic analysis, you get the following basic holiday/seasonal structure for Pueblo:
April 29: solar season begin
May/June: snow disappears (floating holiday)
June 2: summer start
June 10: brightest day of the year
July 8: hottest day of the year
July 22: summer midpoint
July 31: solar season end
Sept 13: summer end, fall start
Oct: first day of snow (floating holiday)
Oct 16: rainy season end
Oct 17: fall midpoint
Nov 3: dark season begin
November 20: fall end, winter start
Dec 10: snow season begin (Alt: Oct 1)
Dec 20: darkest day of the year
Dec 29: coldest day of the year
Jan 6: winter midpoint
Feb 15: snow season end (Alt: May 1)
Feb 24: winter end, spring begin
March 16: rainy season begin
April 12: spring midpoint
Of course, you don’t have to utilize every single holiday listed. You could easily just pick a handful to start with, and work your way from there. But if nothing else, this should allow you to see how you can extrapolate any number of natural events that occur seasonally within your region — and then make holidays out of them. Now, these holidays have very little character or specifics to them, and that can be challenging to work with. In the next post, we’ll go over some ways to flesh these holidays out by using other local information that we gathered in step one.
The Twisted Rope 