Shrine space

Me in the Akhu shrine (blessed dead). Seshat is to my right.

It is now a new year, the year of Heru-sa-Aset (Horus). We've kissed the face of Ra, turned the dangers of the year, ate a feast of offerings, danced pseudo-belly-dancing to, get this, "Walk Like An Egyptian", had auctions, took various group photos, and ate another ton of food at a buffet. I do feel better than I did yesterday, especially after a coffee run. My hair is extra-bright today for some reason. I added stars for two people to the Akhu shrine wall to honor people who have passed to the unseen world- my friend's brother who committed suicide last year, and David Rakoff, a writer who was on NPR a lot who died of cancer. Of course my brother has a star up on the wall. I felt his presence yesterday when I was in the room. I enjoy spending time with the shrine. It includes Seshat, who is not usually considered a funerary goddess, but is triple-aspected with Nit (creatrix goddess) and Nebt-het (Nephthys). Nebt-het is the Egyptian goddess who appears when you're dying. So Nit, Seshat, and Nebt-het are like the three fates- Nit is there at the beginning of your life, Seshat measures out your life, and Nebt-het is there at the end. I am a spiritual child of Seshat, who is also the goddess of accounting and measuring the foundations of buildings, educating the king, and keeping the Kings List, which is how Ancient Egyptians recorded their history.

Tomorrow we are having the healing baths. I was also hoping to get some Reiki from one of the women here, but I think we'll run out of time. Hopefully she can work on me after the baths. The baths are amazing. I didn't do them the first time I came to retreat. They are an extra, and some people leave early and skip them. So this will be my third. The hardest decision to make with regards to the bath has to do with the Serqet (or Serket) bath. By the way, I'm usually using the translated Egyptian name for the gods and goddesses, and including the Greek/Roman version of the name in parenthesis. Serqet is an Egyptian goddess who wears a scorpion on her head and protects against poison. In her bath, you have to chose between the reductive bath, which washes away trauma, and the additive bath, which gives you extra sight. People swear by the powers of the additive bath, and the reductive bath is another tear-jerker since trauma passes through you as it is washed out. Yet, when you've had a bad year, or decade, or life, being able to wash some of that away is huge. The first year I did the reductive bath since I've had trauma for as long as I can remember. The next year I tried the additive bath, because who doesn't want clairvoyant sight. This year, I'm going back to the reductive bath. I need a serious cleanse. My lip is still just as bad, by the way. This new year hasn't fixed that.