Calling the Four Winds

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.

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How to Build a Heart: Creating a Base

If there’s one thing I can say about this entire process that I’ve gone through, it’s that you can’t and shouldn’t underestimate the power that physical items can have on the Unseen. I usually felt like a lot of physical items were there to mainly help myself visually make connections with what I was doing. But that ultimately, a lot of the power was coming entirely from me. However, as I’ve gone through the process of trying to heal Father-Lover, and upon failing that, pushing Father-Lover out of my life, I’ve found that items can definitely do a lot more than I had originally given them credit.

The more I looked through comparisons between what was going on astrally and the items that laid around my house that were connected to astral people, I found that moving items in the house could have an effect on what was going on Over There. So as I began to move forward with rebuilding myself, I knew that I needed to be particularly careful about what I did with the items that I was attaching to myself and to my purpose/goal. To treat the items carelessly could very well undo a lot of the work we were undertaking.

When I first decided that I was going to rebuild my heart, I was pretty excited. I thought the notion of being able to rebuild myself into whoever or whatever I wanted to be was pretty cool, and I looked forward to tailoring who I was into someone more like what I wanted to be. However, I found very fast that this is an incredibly daunting task, and once my health tanked a month after starting this project, I found myself bitterly hating even coming up with this thing.

The first thing that I did was work to establish my ib jar in some capacity. Since it still smelled of weird cherries, I decided that the scent was the first part I needed to work on. Smells are important in Kemeticism, after all. The fine scent of incense is what draws the gods close to us, and I felt that having a nice-smelling heart might help to attract my inner divinity back in.

So first I placed a bunch of coffee beans in the bottom. I was hopeful that they would help to neutralize any remaining cherry smell that was in the jar. I then ground up several flavors of incense and placed them in the bottom of the jar as my base. On top of that, I added some salt for purity purposes, and some of my MMJ tea to help keep myself calm on all levels. I let this steep for a week or so and eventually added another kind of tea that reminds me of my family and considered the scent portion good.

I also added a ma’at feather, to keep myself balanced, and I placed my Ptah pendant in the bottom. I felt that both of these items could help to keep myself more balanced, and to help drive myself to become better at handling my various moods and emotions.

But then I was stuck.

On the astral, we had run into hiccups with my healing. There were several reasons for this, most of which are irrelevant, but the main takeaway was that I should have either woken up and “resurfaced” into my body by this point. Or I should have been able to create an interior space for myself where I could begin to heal. I was still sitting in a black void, though, which meant something wasn’t quite right.

I was urged to embody myself in some capacity. Take a form (whatever I’d like!); create a space to call my own (it can look like whatever you want!); or make some sort of item that reminded me of myself (any shape! any size!). But in every attempt to do these things, I found that I couldn’t. The more I tried to figure out who or what I was “supposed” to be, the more upset I got. The notion of trying to create a space that was all to myself sent me into a panicked frenzy, and it got to a point that even bringing it up made my chest tighten. For someone who knows themself so well on the physical, I apparently don’t know much about myself on the astral. Trying to recreate myself after eons of being merged with someone else was causing me a lot of mental hell.

And I stayed in that hell until the middle of May.

I got so frustrated with my project that I had to put my ib jar away for a while. The simple act of looking at it would make me so upset that I couldn’t stand it. So I thought that some space would be helpful. I still couldn’t see anyone in the Unseen, either, and that was not helping. Usually when I get stuck, I go and talk with the gods or converse with one of my menz or contacts to see what they’d suggest on the matter. But I was still locked in the darkness with everything cut off from me. I would have to figure it out on my own somehow.

Some how.

I would love to tell you that I pushed myself until I really got a deep understanding of who I was or what I wanted to be, but that’s not really how everything went down. It happened very suddenly one day without a whole lot of explanation, when I was kicking around ideas about how to proceed with all of this. At first, I was telling myself that creating my own space wasn’t really that bad, and that I should look at it like being moved from a cubicle jungle to my own office. It’s really not that scary, and nothing says that I have to spend the rest of my time alone because I’ve made my own space (a huge fear I seemed to carry was that I’d be all alone). So think of it like a new office! I just need to figure out what I want my desk to look like.

I continued to kick this idea around until I could suddenly find myself standing in the darkness. Once there, I almost forced myself to envision what I thought my core might look like, and I fine tuned it until I could at least tolerate what I was looking at. And when I finished, I was pulled into that item into an interior space. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

I also got very lucky while out shopping one day, in that I found a piece of jewelry that screamed “this is it” to me. And by this is it, I mean: this is the piece that will represent yourself. I wasn’t sure if it was correct, and I worried and stressed that I was picking up the wrong thing. However, I was pushed to get it anyways, and so I did. While I still wasn’t sure what exactly I was doing, I at least had enough to get going.

And so the building actually began.

For this project, I decided to take a multi-pronged approach to rebuilding myself. First was to create a sort of “trap” jar that would capture anything harmful that was coming after me. I was in a period of instability, and I wanted to make sure that I protected myself during this time. This involved taking a black jar and filling it with grounding materials and a magnet, and then placing an item inside of the jar that is “like me, but isn’t me”. I then placed it in a safe spot to attract all of the negativity away from me. This way, I wouldn’t have to worry about dodging punches while I healed.

I then made another container that allowed me to let go of some of the negative stuff that was happening around me and stressing me out. I used some of the basic ideas in the post that I got the idea from, but modified it a bit. I chose to use salt and rice as my base, as I consider both to be soothing. This would hopefully allow me to stay calm while I worked on letting go. I used hematite beads that I had laying around in a craft bin, and then I wrote things that I wanted to let go of on paper strips. This included things like the names of people whose negative words needed to leave my mind, bad anon-hate, negative things I tell myself, doubts I had, etc. I left this out in an open place so that I could shake it whenever I felt these things taking hold of me.

Through making both of these items, I felt like I had made a level base to get started on the real work at hand.

I took out my ib jar and added several more things to my scent and ma’at base. I added in pieces of paper that had phrases and sayings on them that I wanted to keep in mind as I moved forward. Things like “You exist beyond someone’s perception of you” or “I am able to connect with myself and those around me”. Things that I felt would help keep the negative self-talk down, and allow me to better exist in the world around me. I also added origami stars to my jar that had dreams and things I’d like to achieve written on them. And for a final touch, I added in a small (fake) fish to eat any negativity that happened to slip in.

I then created a shrine for the jar to rest upon. Everyone needs a place to rest and to recover, and that’s what the shrine was meant to embody. As such, I was careful in what I chose to place in the area, trying to keep in mind that everything here could have some sort of unforeseen effect on the work I was doing.

And with that, the first phase of recreating my heart had begun. But how far would it actually carry me?

 

How to Build a Heart: The Curious Case of Father-Lover

This is a series that I have been working on since 2016. Some of the parts of this series were written back in 2016, and other parts were written here in 2018. This series will focus on astral work and the heka I’ve been experimenting in tandem with said work. Abuse will be discussed, as such, viewer discretion is advised.

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There is a saying about times and measures and desperation. In the astral, it seems like rocks and hard places are always the norm. This is a story of when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, and the aftermath that comes with it.

This story is long, and so I am breaking this into a series of posts for your ease of reading. This work is still ongoing, and as such, it may be a while before I am able to draw any heavy or final conclusions about certain aspects of what will be discussed and its possible that there will be long breaks in between posts in this series as I wait for things to develop/happen. In many ways, you can consider this series to be similar to my Mysteries and Cycle series back in the day.

Late in the summer of 2015, I wrote about losing an astral partner that was close (and yet oh, so, far) to me. I bring this up, because as it turns out, there was another part of this person running around on the astral at the same time. Lo, this other shard had been around just about as long as the person I lost (about ten years our time), and was still hanging around when my partner finally passed on. The biggest issue was that I didn’t realize what or who he was until after the other piece had passed on. I didn’t realize a lot of things until after that person passed on.

Nothing brings families together or tears them apart quite like death.

I had learned that my mentor was not only a shard of the person who had passed, but was in fact the creator and source of that person. To say that the man we eventually called “Father-Lover” was a shard of the person who had passed was technically incorrect–the man who had passed was actually a shard of Father-Lover.

As I began to sift through the history between all of us, I found that this goes deeper than just that. The mentor that I had been working with since college was far more than just a father-figure to me once upon a time. Oh no, just being a mentor is not enough for this dog and pony show. We call him Father-Lover for a reason, for he was more than just my “father.” He had been a lover of mine once upon a time, too.

But wait, there’s more!

It turns out that he and I used to be one, except at the time, he was whole and complete and looked like someone else entirely. But after he lost too much of himself, he changed. The problem being that we were still attached at the hip and technically have been ever since. My musings about my heart feeling literally broken after Rosetjau suddenly made sense to me: when I had “reset” my mentor, I had inadvertently reset part of myself. Killing him meant killing a part of myself.

There are many take-away lessons that I could pass on to you from trying to heal Father-Lover.

One is that you should never place your most important bits into someone else. It’s a surefire way to be screwed over. If not by you, by someone else. Ultimately, you need to be responsible for your own well being. No one else should do it for you because eventually that someone else will be compromised, and its just easier to keep track of yourself when you contain your most-important pieces.

Similarly, cutting yourself off from yourself doesn’t work, either. Like magnets, eventually you will attract yourself back into yourself, and if you’ve been trying avoid that scenario, the results are usually pretty catastrophic when the inevitable comes to pass. For those of us who can’t literally cut ourselves into smaller beings that are separate, the equivalent would be ignoring parts of yourself that need addressing. Repressing feelings and issues that need to be worked on only works until it doesn’t anymore. And by the time that it doesn’t work, things are usually going to be in shambles.

Another lesson is that you should never put all of your eggs into one basket. Trying to push off the work because it’s too painful only goes so far. As I found out, Father-Lover had been banking on my partner to “succeed” him, but when my partner firmly refused because he didn’t feel it was his place (him being a shard, he felt it was more proper for the source to have that honor), two wills clashed and my partner’s won out. Father-Lover had spent so much time banking on this other person doing the heavy lifting that he was nearly crushed by the weight of his choices.

And keep in mind that if he is crushed, I get crushed, too. Being one person will do that to you. His actions not only affected himself, but myself and others that are contained within me or attached to me. That’s a lesson, too: things rarely just affect you. There is always collateral damage. You should be considerate of who you are screwing over in the process of saving your skin or avoiding work. The main reason my partner could never heal is partially because his source refused to heal. None of our attempts ever took because we were treating symptoms, but never addressing the source. Separating himself (my partner) from himself (Father-Lover) wasn’t stopping the bleed-through from occurring. If anything, it just made the healing process more difficult.

Once I knew who Father-Lover actually was, and what role he played in all of this, I set out to finish what I had started with my partner. To an extent, my partner’s death didn’t change anything–we still needed to fix the source of the problem in order to un-knot all of the threads keeping us here. My partner dying didn’t relieve Father-Lover of his duty. Instead, it forced it upon him.

I began working on him at the end of 2015. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to suddenly learn that someone you’ve thought of as a father was actually your lover before Things Happened, but it makes for awkward situations and tension. Even if Father-Lover had been intent on fixing himself (he wasn’t), I think we would have had issues doing the work simply because his facade had been destroyed. He could no longer hide who he was, or what we were “supposed” to be. It’s like when Christine pulls the mask off of the Phantom. By removing his veneer, I had changed the relationship permanently.

While our relationship as mentor-mentee was pretty smooth and drama-free, as soon as we began to shift into whatever-this-is-supposed-be, I found that he became drastically more and more unstable. As he worked to take up his “proper” role (that is to say–as an equal, and not so much as a mentor–the lover stuff was only as relevant as we wanted it to be), I found that he began to bleed into every other area of my relationships. He’d co-opt songs and symbols that had already been claimed by other menz. He’d infect, claim, and overlay onto others bond lines without consent. He’d have bouts of jealousy and anger where he lashed out at my other menz for being around me, or at me for being around them.

For all intents and purposes, the act of healing him was doing the exact opposite. But as I’ve mentioned before, if you don’t want to heal, odds are you won’t.

As the weeks began to span into months, his actions got worse and worse. I soon found myself locked in a black space where I couldn’t get out and no one else could get in. His being a part of myself was becoming my downfall as he had access to every part of me. It wasn’t hard for him to control things from a deeper level because he had his hands in nearly everything, and to a degree, knew my innards better than I did.

By the time that April 2016 rolled around, I knew that something needed to give. I just wasn’t sure how it was going to give. This is that rock and hard place, those desperate times and measures. In the same way that the unstoppable will of my now-dead partner collided with the immovable will of Father-Lover in 2015, my unstoppable will to survive this was about to collide with Father-Lover’s immovable will to heal or let go.

I took actions into my own hands. Well, asleep me took action into my own hands.

I went to bed on Saturday night, and everything was fine (as fine as being locked in an endless vat of black can be), but by the time Sunday morning rolled around, I had found that I had had some sort of altercation while asleep. There were Taint stains on my hands and shirt, and it was obvious to me that something had happened.

It would take most of the day for me to figure out what exactly, though. The short version was that I was tired of Father-Lover’s waffling on the issues at hand, and in order to force a change, I removed all of his pieces from myself. Now, for those of you who don’t know much about bonding, this process is usually not easy or fun. After my partner died, I had to go and have everything removed from my person for safety reasons, and it was a thoroughly-planned week-long affair. This, on the other hand, was done very haphazardly, and it wasn’t just bond lines. As I had mentioned above, we were merged on a core level. Which means that removing him from my person involved removing the bulk of my core and giving it back to him.

I had essentially ripped the heart out of my chest and given it to him. That way, he had everything that was “his” (what truly is “his” or “mine” when you are technically one being…) and I was no longer liable to fix his problems. And before I even hit the floor from the pain, he had left.

Ultimately he never came back. He drew his final breaths a few months later when things truly drew to a close for us.

This, of course, left me wondering what to do about my missing core-bits. Losing small chunks of yourself is not a huge deal, but this was probably well over 3/4th’s of my core that I had forked over in a possible fit of spite. I had people who could help me on the astral for stabilizing myself out, but the bulk of the work would fall to me. You can’t rely on someone else to make you, after all.

It was on the very same day that I had woken up a complete Taint-stained mess that my partner (in the physical) had found an old jar in the cupboard. When I looked at it, I knew that I wanted to use it for an ib project of some kind. And by the end of the day when I had figured out what all had transpired, I knew that which ib project I would be relegating it to. Now I just had to figure out how to actually make it happen.

 

 

Devo Magix: Spoon Heka

Ever since I learned about Spoon Theory, I have had a thing for spoons. I think this is because it gave me an image to latch on to that represented so much of what I was going through, and in the process, I have collected quite a number of spoons.

Most of these spoons sit in a special cup on my personal shrine at home. Because there is no discreet or easy way to carry spoons with me, I am forced to leave my spoons at home in their cup and go on with my day without them. It has always been my hope that I could find spoons that I could hang on a necklace, or put on a key chain or spoons that would be small enough to carry on my person. It just so happens that I finally found some.

My partner found a set of teapot spoons online, and decided to get them for me on a whim. They suit me in a lot of ways- I love tea and the rhinestone on the handle is really up my alley. And the best part about these spoons is that they are small and have a loop in the handle, which can be strung up on a necklace.

My original intent was to get some thin satin cording, however my attempts at finding a color that suited my needs was proving difficult. I could find a ton of rainbow colors, as well as a bunch of really boring, washed out colors. But there wasn’t anything that really worked for me.

In my despair, I meandered around the Micheal’s and tried find something else that would work for my needs. I came across this really nice “yarn” that I felt I could use. And I was in luck because it was on sale, and there were two sets of colors that suited the gods I worked with- the red reminding me of Set, and the blue cording reminded me waaaay too much of the River and Big O. I felt like it was a win-win for me all around.

So I sat down with all of my supplies and decided what to do with the spoons. Due to the thickness of the cording, I could no longer string beads onto the necklace like I had originally hoped. However, I decided to play off of the netting that existed within this “yarn” and I worked with knots and numbers instead.

For the red cord, I chose to place two knots above the spoon. Two was a number of duality in ancient Egypt, and I have come to associate two with not only creation, but balance. Harkening back to balancing my two halves and making them whole, I can no longer look at the number two and not think about this. The same way that Ptah balances chaos and stability, I balance my work with Set and Osiris, and I balance my internal self with my external life. Balance is incredibly important to me, and so I felt that having two knots suited this need well.

The blue cording was a slightly different story, though. I decided to try and make a more complicated knot for this piece, which is perhaps a reflection on the complicated nature of mine and Osiris’ relationship. I opted to look online for something that would translate well into this thicker “yarn”, and I found this. And so I decided to give it a shot. After I created the more complicated knot, I added two smaller knots to either side of the main piece. The number 4 represented completeness and totality in ancient Egyptian symbolism, and I felt that I could use some completeness and stability in my self-care. This also mirrors Osiris himself, who is known to be the djed pillar- a beacon of stability and endurance.

Although the necklaces probably look more home made than some people would prefer, I liked the informality of each of these pieces. I also like that I could take the spoons off of the current cording, and switch them out for something else. So if I decided that I wanted to change the focus of the cord, I could either untie them, and redo them in a more suitable format. Or, I could destroy the current cording, and replace it with entirely new cording that suits my needs. Either way, there is a lot of flexibility in what I could do with these pieces, and I like that.

I am super happy that I can finally take a spoon with me to work or to family gatherings or what have you. It feels nice to be able to look down and see the cording, or to rub the spoon between my fingers when I’m stressed and know that I am not alone. And because the cording ties back to my gods, it’s another way to have them in my day to day life in a not-so-obvious way. I can’t wait to be able to take these spoons with me, and see how they influence my ability to cope with day to day life, as well as how many learning opportunities they will provide when someone asks me “Why are you wearing a spoon?”.

Have you ever performed any spoon heka? If so, how did you go about it?

Relevant Posts:

• Amulets, Talismans and Protective Items
• Spoon Magix
• Caring About Self-Care
• Ma’at Shines Through My Body

 

The Price of Rebirth

The thing about being reborn is this: In order to be reborn, you must die.
Everyone wants to be reborn, but nobody wants to die for it. (x)

In a little under a week from now I will be performing an execration for a number of people. It’s one of the first full-out public rites that I have ever done (I don’t really feel like my All Souls petitions really count). I used to do magic workings for individual people a long time ago, back when I first got into witchcraft and Kemeticism, and I learned quickly how difficult such workings can be. People often want really difficult things or they have unrealistic expectations about what the magic will do for them. I got out of performing magic for people because it became really stressful for me. When the magic didn’t perform as I thought it should I felt like a failure and that’s really part of why I put magic away for such a long time, too. I never felt like anything I did took.

All of these past experiences feed into my anxieties regarding this execration I’ll be performing. What do I do if things don’t change for people? What if I fail? What if I find out that I really suck at all of this? Should I even bother? If it doesn’t work, does that make me a hack?

However, I’ve learned over the years that magic isn’t under an obligation to act as we think it should, and there are many reasons why it may or may not appear to be working. To add to that, many times we shut our own magic down.

To me, an execration is an awful lot like a rebirth. When you execrate, you are essentially destroying something- a part of yourself, a habit, a piece of your life – and when you destroy something successfully, it is like a small (or large) rebirth, a zep tepi within your existence. And the thing about being reborn is that it isn’t always easy or pleasant.

I’ve had the fortune or misfortune of bearing witness to and participating in a number of rebirths in the astral. There are plenty of times when I have signed on to help someone be reborn (which usually involves a bit of dieing myself) only to get halfway through the process and decide that I must be the dumbest person on the planet. Many times, the destroying and subsequent healing process that is involved in these rites is very taxing and draining. And there are many times when I question if it’s all worth it in the end (the answer is usually yes, though it can take some time to see/feel it). In order for these rites to be successful, they require participation on both sides of the equation. I have to help the person rebirth, but they have to be willing to help me help them. You can not force an unwilling subject to be reborn, and if you force them, the rebirth will likely have unforeseen consequences and side effects.

Execration and other forms of changing magic are often the same way. You’re submitting something to the universe or gods to be destroyed. You are asking for change in some capacity. You’re asking them to help you die so that you can be reborn. And yet, how many of us actually think in these terms when we do our magics? How many of us are prepared for the routes the magic may take upon hearing our requests (or demands)? Rebirth requires a death, a price.

How far are you willing to go to see the change that you want become manifest? What price is too high for you?

In retrospect, I feel like a lot of the magics that I saw people requesting failed because people were not willing to pay the price for their rebirth. They wanted to fix the foundations of their life, but they were unwilling to raze the walls to get to the foundation for fixing. They want to get into college, but never submit an application. They want a new job, but feel their magics are failing because they lost their job, and were forced to move somewhere else instead (where a new job was waiting for them). They want their rebirth without paying the price of death.

Magic doesn’t always work on our timelines or how we expect. It works how it wants or needs to. Sometimes the path of least resistance is not the long term solution you actually need. When we perform these kinds of workings in our lives (or have someone perform on our behalf) we need to be prepared to take action ourselves to make the end goal a reality. Sometimes, you’ll be lucky and the blockages in your life will clear right up and you’ll land right where you wanted to be. But a lot of times, you’ll be forced to climb up some steep mountains in the rain in order to make your dream happen. That doesn’t mean that your magics didn’t work, though. It just means that it sometimes takes multiple things to make the magic manifest. Taking mundane steps to better your life situation can make your magic more potent. Sometimes the best answer to a magic request is practical application in your daily life.

So in the future when you’re considering performing a magical request (whether an execration or otherwise) I recommend being prepared and open for the possibilities that the magic can take. Don’t limit yourself to a certain preconceived notion or expectation about how the magic should play out. Be aware that sometimes the road to success is not a straight line, but a bumpy, obnoxiously tumultuous line, and that magic (or deities) can only do so much about it.

And remember that rebirth almost always has a price.

Sometimes on the way to where you’re going, you might think “this is the worst time in my life”. But you know what, at the end of the road through all the adversity, if you can get where you wanted to be, you remember that whatever don’t kill you make you stronger, and that all the adversity was worth it.

 

 

Devo Magix: Impaling Magix

This technique is a byproduct of my work with Osiris last fall. As I was preparing for the Mysteries, Osiris showed me a way to help people heal through stabbing them. However, I can’t run around stabbing people here in the physical, so I created this method as an alternative for physical workings. The concept behind this practice is that you are essentially pinning down a person, problem or situation so that it can’t run away. You are forcing the issue and forcing those involved to handle the situation and fix it. Usually, fixing it will result in healing- at least in the Unseen. Results on the physical side can vary and I don’t recommend trying this technique unless you’re willing and ready to face potentially hard choices and have potentially unforeseen results (as can be the case with any magix). This method of magix is not recommended if you want a smooth and easy ride.

Supplies:

For this magix you will need a few supplies:

• A container such as a bowl or dish
• Paper
• Writing instruments
• Something you can pour into the dish such as sand, rice, flour or salt
• A stabbing implement such as a needle, knife, fork, chopstick, etc.

 The Method:

As stated above, the basic idea here is that you’re going to be taking something that you want to change- a situation, a problem, whatever, and pinning it down so that it can be addressed. You can do this in a lot of different ways, but I’m going to be discussing the most basic method that I have employed over the past few months to start off with. As with any magix, feel free to experiment with your own ideas and try new things!

The first step (after you decide what you’re going to be fixing) is to get three pieces of paper that will fit inside of your dish. The dish I used in this example is a small circular dish, so I cut my pieces into circles. Essentially, the top and bottom sheets of paper will be marked with sigils that direct energy into the middle sheet of paper which is where you will write what you want to “pin down” to be changed.

In this situation, the middle sheet of paper was related to my workplace, so I stated that I wanted the workplace to improve. Both sheets of paper have directional arrows on them to push energy into the middle paper, into the petition. As you can see in the photo above, you will be stabbing these pages in this order. Make sure whatever paper you use, that your stabbing implement can actually pierce all of the sheets.

And this is where it gets tricky!

You’ll want to slowly pour your sand, rice, flour, salt, etc. into the dish that you’ll be using. I recommend pouring a fair amount in before you stick your impaled papers into the bowl, that way they will stand up properly. If you put the impaled papers in too quickly, they’ll fall over, or possibly slide off of the impaling implement. After some finagling, mine looked like this:

You can technically do this method without a dish, if you prefer (images at the bottom), but I like to use the dish as a means of stabilizing out what is going on. For this particular spell, I wanted something to keep things clean and (hopefully) calm. So I went with a lot of salt and a little bit of sand. In another version of this spell that I did, I went with rice and natron because I felt it would be calming and soothing for the situation. Use your judgement with what you think will work best.

I then placed some local plants onto the sand before I covered them up entirely. I did this in an effort to get local land spirits to help my cause, since it would be to their benefit if I were able to keep a steady and stable job.

And lastly, I tied some red thread through the eye of the needle as a means of doing some knot magix. I wanted the red to be eye catching as well as help with funneling more energy into my cause. I also added a piece of paper into the end of the needle that further explained my petition to any entities that wished to help. The whole notion is that everything is funneling and propelling energy down the needle and into the situation at the base of the needle. The whole point is to drive everything and everyone to work on the issue so that it can be resolved.

But does it work?

My answer is: I think so! I wanted to test this spell out before I made it live. I made this original container at the end of last year in hopes of making my job situation better. At first, I wasn’t sure that it was working. However, by the end of December, I could definitely see changes that were starting to roll through my office. As of writing this post at the beginning of April, we’ve had at least one major shift in the personnel in our office, and I still have the bowl sitting outside doing its job. So for all I know, more changes will come in the future.

As you can see, the paper that sat on top of the needle blew away in a winter storm and the needle has sorta fallen over. However, I do believe the petition was heard and that things did get moving because of this. However, it was not a smooth ride, and I did have a lot of times where I questioned what I should do and whether I had taken the right course of action. This seems to be one of the downsides to using this method- the results aren’t always what you expect them to be, and the results getting there are not always easy.

Another example of this type of magix is this piece here, which I made for a friend who was heavily injured:

This particular dish was made to be like an imiut fetish. Many imiut have a lily at the end, and I wanted to emphasize healing and growth, so I chose a lily (typically called a lotus) for growth and a Sa for protection during the transformation. Unfortunately, this one did not seem to work and my friend lost his battle against his injuries, may he travel safely to the West.

For my last example, I wanted to show how this may work without a needle or a dish. As stated above, you can use virtually anything that can stab or impale the sheets of paper. You also don’t necessarily need a dish to contain the papers- it just depends on what type of method and result you’re aiming for.

For this spell I chose to use a fork. That is because the sentiment behind this working was “I hope you eat your words” and the fork seemed fitting for that. Like the other spells, the intent and petition is written on the paper which I pierced through. I then wrapped red and black cording around the rest of the fork as a means to bind the person to the words that they had spoken and to prevent them from saying anything else. So again, there are many applications and methods that you can use.

Impaling magix can be used to heal, to transform, or to curse. If you try any of the methods above, please let me know how they work out for you!

 

Other Devo Magix Posts:

• Cleansing
• Amulets, Talismans and Protective Items
• Sigils
• Execrations
• Container Magix

 

Devo Magix: Car Magix

I spend a lot of time in the car. And I mean a lot. In fact, most of us probably do- it seems you can’t live these days without a car. But despite the fact that many of us spend an hour (or more) per day in our vehicles, there is little to no tutorials out there on car magix. I’ve decided that I’d list a few of the things I do regularly to my car and hopefully you’ll be able to take some of these ideas and apply them to your own!

Protective Items and Amulets

One of the easiest things to do is to create a protective item for your car (or purchase one, such as a driving omamori). These items can be stashed in a variety of places in your car such as:

• Glove box
• Car remote/garage remote
• Under your visor
• Key ring
• Console (usually btwn the seats)
• Trunk/spare tire pit
• Undercarriage of your car (be careful what you put down there!)
• Underside of your hood
• Rear view mirror
• The pouches on the back of your front seats
• Underneath the front seats

These items can be in just about any form. They can be sigils scrawled on paper, or on the backs of keychains, hub caps, and car jars. They can be enchanted pennies and other change that lives in your cup holder. You could charge your bottle of emergency water that you keep in the trunk to help keep you safe. You could easily take any stone or other talisman that calls to you, charge it up for protection, and place it in a location that works well for you. It doesn’t have to be fancy or flashy to get the job done. Remember that sometimes the best magix hides in plain sight.

Using the Exterior of Your Car

One of the methods I like to use for protecting my car is through drawing sigils on the exterior. I often will physically draw sigils in the dust on my car (or you could use some type of writing utensil that is suitable for the exterior.. or just draw with your finger). Once I’ve got the sigils plastered all over it, I will wash the dust away. The sigils remain in tact, though invisible to the naked eye, and the car has been cleansed- removing any bad stuff from it.

You can also anoint your car with oils or special waters to help cleanse, consecrate or protect it. You could even do the sigil work above (with your fingers, or with an oil/water), cleanse the car, and then anoint with oils or special water.

And for some slightly more crack induced ideas:

One of the more obscure things that I do is magix while driving. I don’t really know how it started or why I started doing it, but one day I noticed that I saw another me standing on the roof of the car. This part of me would do random things while I would drive, and eventually it began to be something I’d slightly do consciously. Many times, this version of me will do magix stuff while I am driving if the need arises.

If I suddenly see a cop, or I am worrying about getting pulled over, ‘magix me’ will often throw a ‘sheet’ over my car. In this case, it’s black, to match the car and pavement color. This sheet is essentially an invisibility cloak. As the sheet settles over my vehicle, I visualize my car becoming invisible- blending into the road and traffic.

Another thing I have done is while driving on slippery roads, I will visualize yellow/gold energy (I don’t know why) around each of my tires that can lead up to my hands/arms. This energy is geared to help grip the road. To keep my car steady, and to help me brake faster if needed.

I have no clue if anyone else does anything like this, but I’m placing them here for consideration all the same.

More mundane solutions:

I feel like a post on car magix and car protections wouldn’t be complete without a section on mundane stuff. For those of us who spend a lot of time on the road, I think its important that you consider having some essentials in your car as well. These items could be magixed in their own right, if you wanted:

• Things that keep your car running well such as jumper cables and tire gauges
• Things that keep you safe when your car breaks down such as blankets, emergency water and food and reflectors
• Things that help keep you alive in emergency situations such as fire starters, window breaking tools and multi-tool knives

As with all things regarding cars, I advise you to keep your car in good working order, as magix will only take you so far. Please be sure to drive safely and responsibly.

 

 

Modern Mythology: I <3 Balls Day

Gather around the camp fire once again as we delve into the myths and stories of our religion!

During the ongoing battle for the Kingship of Egypt, Set and Horus found themselves in a large predicament. You see, each deity had been damaged from this battle – one losing his eye, and the other his testicles. It’s very painful to lose your testicles, you know! Through a series of wiley tricks and maneuvers, however, both were able to get their missing pieces restored to their former glory.

What Set didn’t know at the time, however, is that Thoth – “Astute in His Plans Who Fashioned All Things, Including Set’s Nuts” – gave him an even better set of balls as a way of saying thank you for taking the bad rap for the whole “felling Osiris” thing. When Set received his new shiny set of testicles, he was amazed at their awesomeness. It was like having a disco in his pants.

He was so ecstatic about his new hardware that Set ran to the highest point of Egypt and yelled out across the land “These are the best balls ever! Look at how amazing they are! I will surely be able to use them to smite apep every day!” Everyone was so happy for his new shiny testicles that a festival was proclaimed in their honor. And in our modern calendar, that day is February 14th- the day of <3-ing Your Balls.

You can see the effects of this festival almost everywhere you look! There are stands of balls in grocery stores. Ball shaped candies and candy containers. Ball shaped jewelry. Ball shaped everything! All as glorious and magnificent as Set’s newborn testicles.

When celebrating this holiday, it is customary to deck out your shrine is as many ball-shaped items as possible. Set loves the color red, so the redder, the better. However, he does has a soft side and can appreciate balls of other colors. Be sure to spend some time reflecting on your own personal badassery and taking the time to remember just how great you really are. You can also use this time to ask Set and Thoth in assistance in making your own balls better- as a means of seizing your potential and making tough choices that require balls to make!

With the proper heka, Thoth can assist you in creating a disco in your pants, too!

___________________

Every year around February we see nearly every grocery store in America fill up with tons of pink and red Valentine’s Day stuff. Usually, this is a holiday I don’t participate in at all. I’ve never cared for the concept behind it, and I’ve just never really gotten into the habit of doing anything for V-Day.

However, my foray into Kemeticism has changed my perspective on this holiday. Set’s main symbol is his balls. For most of us, we take a standard heart and turn it upside down to make it into a set of balls (which may not be too far off of what the heart used to mean). So now the second half of January and the first half of February is nothing but balls for me. It’s turned from a holiday about romance into a holiday about Set.

And his balls.

I feel like this can be shifted into a modern festival or rite that we can use within our community for seizing the day, taking hold of our courage and reminding ourselves of our greatness (in the same way that Set reminds me of his greatness all the time). If you’d like to give it a shot, there are two methods for this particular heka. One version, which involves a large chocolate heart, can be found here. The second, which involves good old fashions paper, is below:

• Sheet of paper- 8.5″x11″. Any color will do, I recommend red or purple.
• Writing utensils of whatever color you’d like.
• A situation or trait you need to find some courage to tackle.
• This tutorial about folding.

Start with your paper- figure out what situation you need some courage with. On the inside of your paper, write the situation down. You can be as specific or generalized as you need to be. Feel free to use sigils or different colors for different things. Get as creative as you want.

Then, fold up your paper into the shape of the balls using the tutorial above. If possible, place your balls in a location where you can see them regularly. If your situation is at work, perhaps leave them on your desk. If it is something to do with money, maybe leave it in your wallet. If you’re unsure, leave them on your shrine for the gods to keep an eye on.

Hopefully the heka provided in this post can help you to gain some courage and celebrate your awesomeness this Valentine’s Day! If you have any questions regarding these rites, or try these rites out for yourself- please let me know!

Other Modern Mythology Posts:

• A Very Merry Moomas!
• The True Meaning of Moomas
• Santa Min (nsfw)

 

Devo Magix: A Sa for Protection

The Sa was a commonly used amulet in the Middle Kingdom of ancient Egypt and literally represented “protection”. We’re not entirely sure what the Sa was exactly- some people think it was a life-preserver of sorts, others think that it was a rolled up herdsman’s shelter (Wilkinson, Reading Egyptian Art, 197). Regardless of what the Sa actually was, it became a symbol used largely for protective purposes- and that protection could range from childbirth to traveling and was often held by deities such as Tawaret and Bes.

For this project, we’re going to create a Sa out of fabric that you can use to protect yourself, your family, or whatever you want. The supplies you’ll need are:

• Scissors
• Fabric (I chose red)
• Cordage or yarn in whatever color you’d like
• Markers (I chose black)

You will want to start by cutting your fabric into a rectangular shape. Make sure that you have enough space to write your petition onto the fabric and keep in mind how tall you’ll want your Sa to be- because you’ll want to cut the fabric to about double that length.

Once the fabric is cut, decide what you’d like protection over or from. The fabric will serve as a vehicle of protection- so you’ll want to imbue it with your needs. You could anoint your fabric with oils, cleanse it with salt or natron, leave it outside to soak up solar or lunar juju, or you could leave it in your shrine case for a predetermined amount of time- whatever will help your situation and needs.

For my particular situation, I chose to write a series of sigils onto the fabric. Like with any amuletic practices, I mentally focused while writing and made sure to keep my mind on the task at hand.

The cordage is the next step. You can choose whatever colors or numbers you prefer. I would recommend not making your braids too thick, or it could cause problems with rolling up the Sa later. If braiding isn’t your thing, you could easily take a few cords and tie a series of knots into the threads with numbers that correspond to your needs.

In this case, I chose colors and numbers that corresponded to various members of my family. I braided up the the cords and knotted each end. Like with the fabric, you could choose to anoint each cord with oil or allow them to soak up energies as you see fit. Feel free to get creative with preparing the materials that you’ll be using to make your Sa.

Then, you will want to lay your braid/cordage onto the edge of the fabric like so:

And you will slowly wrap the braid up into the fabric like this:

It can take a few tries to get the fabric tightly wound around the braid inside. Once the fabric is fully wrapped around the braid, I held it like this:

You will take another section of cordage and tightly wrap it around the joint of the Sa. You can use whatever colors you like, tie as many knots as you like, or create bows if that works best for you. In the end, I ended up with this:

You could also wrap the cordage around the body of the Sa, if you wanted. Many traditional representations do have multiple knots tied around the loop of the amulet. Alternatively, you could tie another loop at the top of your Sa so that you could wear it on a necklace.

Place the Sa wherever you will feel its benefits. If it’s for protection while traveling- place it in the car. If its for your child, perhaps placing it in their pocket or backpack would work well. If its for your house, you could place it on the hearth, or a central location where the family gathers and mingles.

If anyone out there makes their own Sa, I’d love to hear how it turns out!

Other examples of this in action:

• msarano
• thejackalsdance

Other Devo Magix Posts:

• Cleansing
• Amulets, Talismans and Protective Items
• Sigils

 

 

KRT: Execrations, Curses and Ethics

Execrations and Curses: Can you perform them? What are the ethics behind them, if any? How and when can you perform them?

For this round of the Kemetic Round Table, we are discussing the nuances of casting curses and utilizing execrations. Curses are a sticky subject amongst certain groups of the Pagan umbrella due to perceived ethical implications of performing magic with the intent of harming someone, and since execrations are very similar, we lumped them together for this post.

In short, the answer is yes, you can perform curses and execrations (as not to be redundant, I recommend looking at this post for execration basics). It was not uncommon for the ancient Egyptians to perform execrations daily (by priests in temples and by laity) and we’ve got records of curses and other hexes being performed as well.

The ethics doing such is less than clear, and I personally believe that the ethical implications of what you are and are not willing to perform or do in regards to magix is a completely personal thing. Much like morality in general, I don’t think that it is a topic that anyone but yourself can truly dictate for yourself. In antiquity, it seems that many people were okay with doing all sorts of curses and love spells and other “questionable” magical acts in order to get what they wanted. I touched on this briefly in my last KRT post about threatening and bribing gods. The ethics of what was okay magically then doesn’t necessarily reflect how many Kemetics feel about ethics now. You can look to the past as an indication of what is okay and what isn’t, but I think that you have to consider that times change and our ethical systems can change with it.

Basically: You have to sleep with yourself at night. If you’re uncomfortable performing any particular type of magix, you probably shouldn’t perform it until you feel secure in what you are doing. Being unsure about your magical acts will only serve to weaken your magix.

I personally try not to sling curses left and right, but I’m not above cursing in the least. I tend to execrate and bind things before I curse them. But again, my ethics are not your ethics. I can’t hold you to my ethical standards, nor should I.

The logistics of when and where you should perform such magix is also up to you. I perform execrations regularly because I feel that they help to keep me balanced and remove blockages before they get too large. Much like someone that cleanses regularly- I feel like execrations help to keep the metaphorical “ball” rolling in my life. I do perform larger, more elaborate execrations when I get the feeling that I should. And on occasion, one of the gods will tell me that I need to perform an execration- at which point I normally do.

Curses are less common for me. I usually only curse someone if I am completely and utterly fed up with a person, persons, or a situation. However, I do know of people who curse regularly, or at the drop of a hat. Different strokes for different folks, as they say. There is no right or wrong time to perform these acts. It is a matter of personal preference.

If you wish to get some ideas about what you can do with curses and execrations, here is a list of resources to get you started!

Magix and heka in antiquity:

• The Mechanics of AE Magical Practice: Ritner
• Magic in AE: Pinch
• Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts: Borghouts

Resources and examples for modern Execrations and Curses:

• Devo Magix: Execrations
• Shoe execrations
• Formal Execrations
• Spell ya Later
• Eternal Egypt
• A Tale of Two Magix
• Aggressive Spell Crafting
• Heka for everyone

To read the other entries for this topic, visit the master list here.