Ma’at Shines Through My Body

I often view bodies like cars. They are vehicles that allow our non-physical bits to participate in this thing called life on earth. They carry us around and let us do things with one another, and instead of pumping gasoline as a means to fuel the body, we instead nourish ourselves with food, sleep and other such things.

And if bodies are like cars, I’ve got a bit of a lemon.

I’ve got the kind of body that mimicks the car you probably had in college. The kind that you have to do a special wiggle dance with the key in order to get the door to unlock. The kind of car whose gas gauge isn’t reliable. The kind of car that makes weird noises when you accelerate and threatens to stop working when you come to a complete stop at a light.

That’s the kind of body I have. And I’m sure that there are many others out there who have similar (or worse) bodies to mine.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the nature of having a fixer-upper body. The nature of having spoon based illnesses where you are constantly working to keep things together. Or hell, even the nature of just living in such a situation where nothing is ever stable. How do we cope with that? What is even the point if everything you build up is only to maintain some semblance of ‘breaking even’? Why bother if you’re never going to get ahead?

I remember breaking down one evening at Osiris’ place and crying the ugliest cry you ever saw as I poured my heart out about how I didn’t understand the point behind all of it. Why do you keep trying when you’re never going to get ahead?

And he reminded me that ma’at is much like that.

Back in antiquity, it was believed that ma’at had to be established every day, because existence and creation always lived on the brink of annihilation. Every day the barque would travel across the sky, and the gods would look down upon the world below and watch its machinations. Every evening, the barque would slip into the underworld, the realm of the dead. And every night, Set would have to fight a/pep to keep everything safe. Every night Ra needs to rejoin with Osiris to recharge himself. Every day the gods fight against a/pep and isfet to maintain their existence and the existence of all of creation.

Every. Single. Day.

Without pause, without stop. All the time ma’at and isfet clash together, and it is only through sheer perseverance and dedication that ma’at triumphs as it currently does (generally speaking, I mean, we’re all still here at least). In many ways you might be able to argue that ma’at will never ‘get ahead’. There will always be isfet. There will always be trouble looming over the edge of the horizon. And yet the gods continue with it anyways.

I mulled on this for a couple of weeks. My initial response was that of utter desperation. If the gods could never get ahead, how the hell did I expect to find some peace of mind in this life, with this body of mine? But as I thought on it more and more, I actually felt that viewing my self-care as a means of establishing ma’at within myself made me want to do more self-care.

In a way, I am the center of my universe, which isn’t to be mistaken as being the center of the universe. But I am the center of my universe because everywhere you go, there you are. The scenery around me may change, but I am always there, at the center of my existence, because I can not escape myself. And if I were to treat my universe the way that the gods treat the Created universe, then I realized I would need to be more diligent in maintaining ma’at through my body and how I treat it.

This may involve a shift in how I perceive spending money on myself, spending money on treatment to keep myself healthy, or spending more time on helping my body keep its spoons. I don’t usually scowl when the gods ask me to get them something- I always look at it as a means to help our relationship stay stable, and as a means to help keep them in the world around me. And yet I’m ready and willing to scowl when I need to spend money on something that helps me to have a slightly better existence? It seems hypocritical (because it is). And looking through the lens of ma’at and my body being the center of my universe, I realize those mentalities need to change.

As much as I may wish to be a completely normal, healthy person with minimal health problems, I know that I will never be that. And as much as I wish I were made of money, I also know that that will not likely be the case (or at least, not for a long long while). This is the same as the gods realizing that they are stuck in a form of Creation that is what it is, and that their role within that Creation has to be what it is, lest the Creation cease to Be. It’s not ideal, but it’s what they have, and so they make it work.

As a new layer to my shadow work, I’m going to begin realizing that my body is a vehicle for ma’at. Not necessarily in the sense of writing for this blog, or doing things for others in life. But more in the sense that ma’at flows through my veins, makes up my muscles and tissues, and is bound up in the center that is my universe. And in understanding that, to start viewing the actions that I take to help support the center of my universe as a means of maintaining ma’at and keeping the balance that is the Creation that is me.

When I wrote about unconditional love, I stated that that included loving yourself. So too with ma’at. In order to bring ma’at out into the world, you have to first start with yourself. With the vehicle that is your body, the center of your universe. Your universe which, too, requires persistent dedication to uphold its own ma’at.

What role does self-care play in your practice, if at all? Do you view your body as a means of maintaining ma’at?

Relevant Posts:

• An Alternate View to Ma’at
• The Case for Love
• Worshiping Yourself

 

What Makes a “Devout” Polytheist?

I laid down on my bed in an attempt to rest my brain after a few hours of bad blogging. As I laid there, I stared up at my kar shrine, which hangs on the wall opposite of my bed (which means the gods can stare at me while I sleep) and realized that I haven’t opened my kar shrine in months. Literally. Months. The last active bit of ritual I did was for the Mysteries- which occurs around December/January.

So it’s been a hot minute since I’ve done anything.

The cup that normally holds water for the gods is likely bone dry- with a thin layer of salt and mineral in the bottom, because that’s what happens to water in the dry Arizonan air. I’m sure my re-ment and icons both have a thin layer of dust on them, because even with the doors closed, dust has a way of getting into everything.

Additionally to this, I’ve got a stack of books that need to be read. I’ve got lots of topics that need further research so that I can write more in-depth on them. I haven’t started my imywt project for Osiris which I was going to do last fall. I haven’t done a lot of things.

And on the surface, it may appear that I am a fluffy, arm chair Kemetic who does nothing but spout “what everyone could or should be doing to be a proper Kemetic” without actually having done it myself. And if last year’s explosion is any indication, I probably should be spending more time offline and less time online because, well:

Facebook is a monumental time-suck and therefore a hazard for people who have actual spiritual Work to do. I agree that some of the most important practitioners are not online at all, and we would do well to think about why that might be.

But I beg to differ. I beg to differ because there is more than one way to be religious. There is more than one way to be devout.

Just so we’re clear on what I mean by devout, let’s pull out a definition. Google defines it as:

1. Having or showing deep religious feeling or commitment.
2. Totally committed to a cause or belief.

And to many polytheists, devout seems to mean that you live your life for the gods. You live your life in shrine, giving the gods devotion, singing their praises, giving them their “fair” due (whatever that is) and performing what would really be considered priestly functions on a daily basis. And while that may be the definition for some people’s form of devout, it’s not the definition or criteria that everyone uses, nor should it be.

Some of us are going to find that our roles are within the shrine, but some of us are being pushed out there (by the gods themselves!) to make this community thing work better (which, for the record, means a lot of time spent online). Some of us show our devotion via writing online, others show devotion through crafts and creations which they sell online (or offline), and some of us get into really deep discussions about religion via Facebook (blasphemy!) because the internet allows us to educate, exchange ideas, and organize in a way that in-person methods currently can’t even touch. Each religious practice and each practitioner is different- and so each person’s application of ‘devout’ is going to be different. Being deeply committed to your religion can take many forms, and how “deep” we all need to be is going to vary. Not everyone is going to fit into the role of priest. Some people are laymen- and that’s okay. It takes all sorts to make a community and religion really run.

We modern pagans and polytheists seem to forget that even in ancient times, you had laymen. You had folks who didn’t pay any mind to the gods except when they needed something, thought they might have pissed one of them off (aka their life when to shit), or when it was time to feast and party. And in the case of Kemetics, priests spent a large portion of their year out of the temple- living like an average person.

So why is it that a large chunk of the modern pagan and polytheist movement seems to be so hell bent on telling every single person that they must spend every single ounce of time that they can focused on the gods?

Why?

I mean, isn’t there more to life than bowing in a shrine? And to a degree, isn’t there more to your religion than the shrine you bow in front of? Isn’t there more than one way to show your devotion to the gods and the religion that they are a part of?

Which brings me to the second point of this post- that life is for living. Even religious life is for living.

Once upon a time, someone once asked me what life is for. I think it’s a pretty common question, usually phrased as “why are we here?” or “what is the point of life?” I remember it pretty distinctly, as I looked back at them and said very mundanely, as though the answer were as plain as day to me, “Life is for living.”

Novel concept, that. That you are alive so that you may live.

I think a lot of people forget this. We get caught up in our day to day crap, saddled down with stress and jobs and kids and and and. And then one day, we wake up and find that we’re old and dieing.

But I also think that many of us forget this in terms of our religious practice, too: Life is for living, and in my opinion- your religion should fit into that. I think this is especially true for Kemetics, considering the whole “point” to this religion thing is to “live in ma’at”.

You will notice the first word in that statement is live. And the final word in that statement – ma’at – doesn’t occur in a vacuum.

Ma’at includes all of us. Every. Single. One. Of. Us. Ma’at encompasses and touches all of creation. You, me, the tv. I read a lot of posts that seem to take a holier than thou approach to being “proper” in your practice, and these posts seem to imply that the only correct point to anything in the polytheist community is the gods. You live them, you breath them, they are your everything. And while I will agree that the gods can be important, there is more to this whole religion thing than just the gods.

And for us Kemetics, the “more” portion would be ma’at. Ma’at trumps everything, because without it, none of us survive – gods included. And if you’re not living your life in all of the capacity than it can be lived (shortcomings and spoons taken into consideration, of course), then you’re not really balanced, which means you’re not really living within ma’at.

Or perhaps, that you’re just not really living. And if you’re not really living, what good does that do anyone?

You can be devout and not ever sit in front of a shrine.
You can be a good Kemetic and not have read every single academic book on the planet.
You can be a good polytheist and still be on the internet daily.
You can be a devout polytheist and have a life that is tangential to the gods.

And don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

 

An Alternate View to Ma’at

The more I dig into astral work, shadow work and crack in general, the more abstract my view on people (and all entities) becomes. My experiences have shown me that most, if not all of us have another “us” inside of ourselves. Sometimes this person looks just like us, sometimes they look entirely different. Sometimes we’re really good at hearing this person, other times we are completely oblivious.

But generally speaking, this part of us is usually a lot more well adjusted and big picture oriented than we are.

Some people might experience this part of themselves as a voice of reason in the back of their heads. Maybe some of us mistake our inner selves as the gods we worship (or perhaps the gods are screaming for our inner selves because we’re too deaf to hear our own voices). And in some cases, some people consider this inner portion of ourselves as being the divine within us (which I disagree with- everything is divine), or perhaps our ‘soul’. In FlameKeeping, this might actually be our inner flame- our inner guiding light that keeps us out of trouble and nourishes us.

Warning: Astral Crack ahead

To illustrate this point, allow me to relay my own experience. I recently stumbled across some other portion of myself in my astral/inner work. For our intents and purposes, let’s call her Chi. She looks nothing like my exterior appearance, and she acts almost nothing like me. Well, sorta- she does have that same ginger spark within her. However, she’s calmer. She doesn’t get as upset as I do over stupid things. She has good spoon management and knows how to stir a pot just so. She doesn’t stress over things that aren’t worth stressing over. She gives pretty sound advice, isn’t afraid to call me on my shit and many of her words have been along the lines of “simmer down, quit worrying so much”.

This part of me is so much older (and bigger) than I am- it’s probably a lot easier for her to say that. That’s probably why the gods are so much better at saying such things as well. I would imagine after watching a bunch of me’s running around like chickens with heads cut off you learn a few things. You really get an idea of what the larger picture is, and what you really need in order to survive or be happy.

It is my personal belief that it’s this part of ourselves that we should strive to touch, to hear. In the case for Kemetics, I think that this inner us is really our own ma’at.

We hum and haw about what ma’at is. Many of us can only narrow it down to “balance”. But we all know that balance is different for each of us. Even in terms of physical nature- we hold our center of gravity differently, and the way one person walks would make another topple over. This is also true of ethics and lifestyle. What works for me might not work for you. A person with 1,564,377,287 spoons is going to have a lot more energy to get things done than someone who starts off the day with 5 spoons. And at the end of the day- who is going to know the most about your own particular balance than yourself?

Perhaps we should focus on finding ourselves and focusing on figuring out what ma’at means for each of us, instead of getting into debates over what ma’at means to someone else you hardly even know. Much like with the concept of FlameKeeping- if you take the time to get in touch with your inner you (and of course, discernment comes into play here- make sure you’re tapping into the right voice), and you work on developing that- you become more balanced, more healthy (literally and metaphorically). If you’re healthier and happier because you’re able to live within your own version of ma’at, you’re more likely to have more spoons to use- your religious and/or spiritual practice can begin to flourish more. We become more productive, and the cosmos as a whole is better for it. They say that charity starts at home- and perhaps the gods are running many of their followers through so much shadow work because they know that we need to become sound and whole ourselves before we can build larger, better things.

They know that ma’at starts at home, within ourselves. We just have to dig a little bit to find it.