I am the sea. I am the forest.

Kemetic Orthodox Shemsu and Luciferian -- I am a child of Set-as-Ash and Wepwawet-Yinepu, Beloved of Heru-wer and Aset-Serqet -- Please call me Erkhet main blog: xenlith

[worship-of-the-gods]

Commissions - Open - Updated Pricing

Prices range - $80-180

Specialize in realistic animals

Details and complexity ups the price

Send email if interested to [email protected]

Please provide what you are interested in. I will ask you for references

Commission examples below

[breelandwalker]

Recipe Roundup in Review

Last year, I posted a two-month series of recipes suitable for the autumn season, which everyone seemed to enjoy very much. I’ve been too busy this year to make up a new queue, so I thought I’d compile a big long list of links for anyone who’s looking for recipe ideas this fall.

Appetizers, Sides, & Snacks

A Pair of Stuffing Recipes

Asparagus Salad

Baked Apples

Beets with Cloves and Cinnamon

Bree’s Cheddar-Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Bree’s Homemade Colcannon

Carrot Fritters

Cheese & Bacon Pinwheels

Cheese Toasties

Cranberry-Orange Sauce

Fish Cakes

Irish Stout Apple Fritters

Oatmeal & Potato Bread

Parsnip & Apples

Pumpkin Seeds

Sprouts au Gratin

Soups

Butternut Squash and Pear Pottage

Cheese Soup & Dumplings

Chestnut Soup

Garlic Soup

Gingered Pumpkin Soup with Molasses Cream

King’s Arms Tavern Cream of Peanut Soup

Mashed Potato Soup

Mushroom Soup

Entrees

Acorn Squash with Cinnamon and Honey

Bree’s Baked Ziti

Bree’s Crockpot/One-pot Chili

Bree’s Fried Chicken Parmesan

Bree’s Honey Baked Salmon

Bree’s Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole

Bree’s Roast Chicken with Apples and Potatoes

Bree’s Sesame Ginger Chicken

Bree’s Turkey Hash Casserole

Dill-Crusted Salmon

Irish Stew

Meat Patties in Crust

Michaelmas Goose with Sage & Onion Stuffing

Pan Haggerty

Pumpkin Plenty

Roast Pork Tenderloin with Orange & Onion Sauce

Rosemary-Orange Beef

Spiced Pot Roast

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Stuffed Braised Beef

Surry Sausage, Squash, & Apple Bake with Savory Streusel Topping

Welsh Potato Pie

Welsh Trout in Bacon

Baked Goods

Applesauce Buttermilk Biscuits

Barm Brack

Beer-Bacon-Onion Muffins

Caerphilly Scones

Christiana Campbell’s Tavern Sweet Potato Muffins

Drop Scones

Gingered Pumpkin Muffins

King’s Arms Tavern Apple Cheddar Muffins

Tea Table Goodies

Apple & Potato Cake

Apple Raisin Cider Teabread

Bree’s Cranberry Pumpkin Bread

Irish Apple Cake

Irish Apple Teabread

Irish Whiskey Cake

Isle of Wight Farmhouse Cake

Marmalade Loaf

Porter Cake

Seed Cake

Welsh Crumpets

Desserts

Bramble Dessert

Bree’s Easy-Peasy Molten Chocolate Cake

Bree’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Chocolate Liquer Glaze

Beverages, Jams, and Sauces

Mulled Cider

Samhain Wine Cup

Wassail

Blackberry & Apple Jam

Bree’s Dad’s Sauce Recipes

Delectable Dressings

Irish Whiskey Marmalade

Sources

Celtic Folklore Cooking (Asala)

A Kitchen Witch’s Cookbook (Telesco)

A Witch’s Brew (Telesco)

Kitchen WItch’s Guide to Brews and Potions (Telesco)

The Kitchen Witch (Soraya)

Witch in the Kitchen (Johnson)

The Colonial Williamsburg Tavern Cookbook (Gonzalez)

Favorite Meals from Williamsburg (Turgeon)

Holiday Fare: Favorite Williamsburg Meals (Gonzalez)

The Very Best of Irish Traditional Cooking (Lennon and Campbell)

An Irish Country Cookbook (Taylor)

[michaelnordeman]

Red squirrel/ekorre. Värmland, Sweden (September 14, 2022).

[thetwistedrope]

When researching holidays as a kemetic practitioner, what types of things are important to know about before hand?

I would say that the most salient points to keep in mind are:

There are more holidays in our calendar than a single person could possibly be expected to do. You don't have to do all of them or even most of them if you don't want to.

Egypt technically had 3 calendars. The solar calendar (where holidays align exactly with natural events), solar civil calendar (where standard days are picked to celebrate the holiday even if the natural event happens at a different time), and the lunar calendar. Both of the solar calendars align with Wep Ronpet, whose event date shifts yearly.

Many Kemetics use a civil calendar because it's much easier to not fuss with when Sirius rises in the summer.

It's fine to make new holidays. You don't have to use historical holidays if you don't want to.

We have little-to-no information on a ton of our holidays. Be prepared to connect dots and make stabs in the dark on how to celebrate.

There is no right or wrong way to celebrate.

We're all just making shit up here.

Welcome to the struggle.

[egypt-museum-deactivated2021071]

Amulets representing gods seated Thoth, Horus and Anubis, from the Tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62). New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Tutankhamun, ca. 1332-1323 BC. Valley of the Kings, West Thebes. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Photo: Sandro Vannini

[the-lost-kemetic]

The Conception of the Soul

Ancient Egyptian have eight different parts of the soul.

The Khet, representing the physical body.

The Sah, representing the spiritual body.

The Ren, representing the name or identity.

The Ba, representing the personality.

The Ka, representing the "double".

The Ib, representing the heart.

The Sheut, representing the shadow.

The Sekhem, representing the power.

These eight parts are what make up your soul.

Khet

The Khet represents the physical body, which had to exist for the rest of the soul to have intelligence and the chance to be judged by the guardians of the underworld. This is the reason why bodies in Ancient Egypt were preserved the way they were. In the Old Kingdom period (circa. 2700-2200 BC) only the pharaoh were given the ability to be mummified, although all dead were given the honor during the Middle Kingdom period (circa. 2040-1782 BC).

Before you were allowed to be judged by the Netjer, your Khet needed to be "awakened". This manifested itself in the various funerary rites designed to reanimate the corpses in the afterlife. These rites were described in various texts, such as the Pyramid Texts, the Book of the Dead, and the Coffin Texts.

Sah

If every funerary rite was successful and Wasir finds the deceased person worthy, the Sah is formed. This spiritual body is your own body, but able to interact with the various beings in the afterlife.

The Sah was sometimes considered to also be a vengeful spirit, seeking revenge against those who wronged them during life.

Ib

Considered the most important part in Ancient Egypt, your Ib (heart) is the key to the afterlife. Without it, you wouldn't be able to survive death in the underworld. Ancient Egyptians didn't distinguish between the mind and the heart when it came to emotion or thought: the heart was the throne of emotion, thought, will, and intention.

The Ib would be examined by Anpu and the 42 Assessors of Ma'at after crossing the Duat. To gain entrance to the Kingdom of Wasir (Aaru), you would address each of the Assessors by name and recite each of the 42 Divine Confessions, and that you did not break them. Then your heart would be weighed against the feather of Ma'at. If your heart balanced with the feather, you would be able to continue to Aaru. If it was heavier, it was then devoured by Ammit, and your soul would be either eternally restless, or permanently destroyed.

More on the Weighing of the Heart ceremony later.

Ka

Your Ka is what distinguishes between a living person and a dead person, also called your "essence". When Khnum creates the bodies of children and places them in the mother's womb, either Heqet or Meskhenet gifted the baby with their Ka upon their birth, making them alive. Ancient Egyptians believed that you were truly alive after your birth, when either goddess breathed your Ka into you.

Your Ka is sustained through food and drink. This is why many coffins often have food and drink offerings.

Ba

Your Ba is your personality, and it takes the form of a bird with a human head. Not only is the Ba your personality, it is everything that makes an individual unique (in this sense, inanimate objects could also have a Ba).

Sheut

This is your shadow. Because your Sheut always follows you around, it is said to represent something important about you. Because of this, statues of people or the Netjer were referred to as their Sheut.

Sekhem

There isn't much known about the Sekhem. Scholars sometimes define it as the life-force of the soul that exists in the afterlife after all judgement has taken place. But the Book of the Dead describes the Sekhem as the "power", and also as a place where Heru and Wasir dwell in the underworld.

Ren

Your name was given to you at birth, and the Egyptians believed it would live for as long as it was spoken. This is why there was so much effort to preserve names in writing

The Ren is a person's identity, experiences, and an entire life's worth of memories. A part of the Book of the Dead was a means to make sure the name survived. Cartouches (more coming in Important Kemetic Objects) often surrounded names to protect them from harm. On the opposite side, the names of enemies were hacked from monuments and had their recordings destroyed.

Akh

Although not mentioned before, the Akh is a belief that varied throughout the years of the Egyptian Empire. It was associated with thought. Not as an action of the mind, but as intellect as a living entity. The Akh also played a role in the afterlife: following the death of the Khet, the Ba and Ka would reunite to form the Akh. The reanimation of the Akh was only possible if all the proper funeral rites were executed and followed by constant offerings.

[numenna]

Anpu. Because I love Him. No other reason needed.

[ryan-sometimes]

The amount of time that the Ancient Egyptian civilisation lasted is just so mind boggling. It lasted over 3000 years. That's such an insane amount of time. It ended around 30BC meaning that it will only be extinct for as long as it existed in around 950 years. Cleopatra lived closer to the invention of bitcoin than the building of the pyramids of Giza. They were already ancient to her. What the fuck

[crazy-pages]

We have a records from the time of Ramses II of ancient Egyptians doing archeology on monuments that were already a thousand years old to them.

[weaselle]

ancient egyptian archeologists. ancient egyptian archeologists. excuse me i have to go lay down and think about things

[thatlittleegyptologist]

If we take Egypt from the Pre-Dynastic period, before the Unification occurred, then their history dates back to c.6000 BCE, which puts the start of Egyptian civilisation about 5970 years before the death of Cleopatra. Even as an Egyptologist it can be sometimes hard to fathom.

The records mentioned are even cooler than simply being from the time of Ramesses II. It was his fourth son Khaemwaset who became what we know as the 'first Egyptologist'.

Since he originally wasn't supposed to be the Crown Prince, and that's a whole other story, Khaemwaset became the Overseer of Architects (sometimes referred to as Chief of Directing Artisans, if I remember rightly) and undertook expeditions across Egypt to restore various monuments and tombs.

One such monument was a statue of Prince Kawab, who was the son of King Khufu; the man who had the Great Pyramid built. We're talking about roughly 1216 years between the two of them, which is the same amount of time as between me, sitting typing this in England in 2022, and King Ælfwald defeating Eardwulf in 806 CE. Next to this monument, Khaemwaset had inscribed:

"It is the Chief Directing Artisans and Sem-Priest, the King's Son, Khaemweset, who was glad over this statue of the King's Son Kawab, and who took it from what was cast (away) for debris (?), in [...] .. of his father, the King of South and North Egypt Khufu. Then the S[em-Priest and King's Son, Kha]em[waset] decreed that [it be given] a place of favor of the Gods in company with the excellent Blessed Spirits at the Head of the Spirit (Ka) chapel of Ro-Setjau, – so greatly did he love antiquity and the noble folk who were aforetime, along with the excellence (of) all that they had made, so well, and repeatedly ("a million times").

These (things) shall be for (for) all life, stability and prosperity, enduring upon earth, [for the Chief Directing Artisans and Sem-Priest, the King's Son, Khaemwaset, after he has (re)established all their cult procedures of this temple, which had fallen into oblivion [in the remembrance] of men.

He has dug a pool before the noble sanctuary (?), in work (agreeing) with his wishes, while pure channels existed, for purity, and to bring libations from (?) the reservoir (?) of Khafre, that he may attain (the status of) "given life"

He also restored the Pyramid of Djoser, better known today as the Step Pyramid, and erected a similar stela to the inscription he used for Prince Kawab's statue to inform people of his actions. The Pyramid of Djoser was built 1300 years before Prince Khaemwaset was born. Putting it in a modern framework again, that's me typing this in England in 2022, and someone writing an accounts of history in England in 449 CE during the Plague of Justinian... No, wait that's...that's pretty similar actually. Shout out to my bro Procopius of Caesarea who was also just absolutely going through it.

Anyway, all jokes of living in plague times aside, the Egyptians having the care and forethought to monitor and repair monuments from their own civilisation that were as ancient to them as the Romans are to us now demonstrates a fundamental human trait; the need to preserve, repair, and record what's left of those who came before us.

In the end, what else better demonstrates human connection to the past than repairing and caring for fragments of our past to say 'hey friend, you were here, and you left this as a marker to say you were here and you mattered. I acknowledge you and I'll take care of what you left to make sure everyone else knows you were here and that you mattered too.' We are strongest when we can recognise ourselves in the past, and Ancient Egyptian Archaeologists are something that call to us from across the millennia like a beacon.

[satsekhem]

Remember to uphold ma'at and that the ma'at of ancient Egypt was playing the puppet to what the government demanded and claimed but the ma'at of our diaspora is protecting everyone's rights to bodily autonomy, marriage equality, and fighting against millennia of ingrained racial injustice.

[ptah-ikemi-ka]

Think Ma'at. Do Ma'at. Be Ma'at.

[vargakona]

In their leadership of the Wild Hunt Percht and Holda are brought into relation with the woodland beasts, though as hunter rather than as guardian. We know that such a transformation often takes place in the development of the demons of wild nature. Cats and dogs, goats or grunting pigs sometimes belong with the Wild Host itself and show the Lady to be surrounded by her animals - the image pointing, possibly, to her more ancient role of guardian. Dogs especially are noted in the retinue; since dogs are closely related to wolves we might understand the alliance of the Lady with her pack as a vestige of her more archaic form as Wolfshirt ('shepherd of wolves'), a figure of Germanic and non-Germanic tradition

[…] Wolves and wolf disguises are especially prominent in midwinter. The Wolfshirt, mentioned earlier, gathers his 'flock' at the time of the midnight mass to tell each of the wolves what he is allowed to seize and devour in the coming year. Olaus Magnus informs us that in the Baltic regions men are transformed into wolves in the twelve nights of Christmas; the turning of a man into a werewolf belongs in many areas of Germany to this time of year. A wolf mask, called Isengrind, haunts some towns of Switzerland on New Year's Eve. In some areas of Germany the name of the wolf is not to be pronounced in December, while in others December is designated as Wolfsmonat - month of the wolf.

- The Winter Goddess: Percht, Holda, and Related Figures, Lotte Motz

[russianfolklore]

Wolves by Ivan Bilibin.

[rudjedet]

Hi I have a feeling Set is reaching out to me but how do I Interact with him?

I'm not a kemetic practitioner, so I cannot answer this from that perspective.

Speaking as an Egyptologist and resident Sethxpert, I'd hide your lettuce and run. In seriousness, I can guarantee you that my professional opinion on this won't align with your personal piety. But regardless of that I think you will benefit from learning more about Seth so I'll link you a few papers about Seth for further Egyptological reading:

Anat, Seth, and the Seed of P'Re by Jac. van Dijk

Seth, God of Confusion by H. te Velde (seriously, if you read nothing else, read this)

The Egyptian God Seth as a Trickster by H. te Velde

Horus und Seth by H. te Velde

Seth (entry in Lexikon der Ägyptologie) by H. te Velde

Seth (entry in Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt) by H. te Velde

Seth, a misrepresented god in the Ancient Egyptian pantheon? by P. Turner

Thoughts on Seth the con-man (from Mummies, Medicine and Magic; Google Books excerpt that should contain the whole chapter) by P. Turner

Deconstructing the Iconography of Seth by I.R. Taylor

[fantasticwolfpenguin]

Please as a kemetic or as one interested in spiritual not ask Egyptologists for help. They could only provide literary sources about the deity.

The blogs that I would suggest you not to bother about this is @/rudjet above, @/somecunttookmyurl, and @/thatlittleegyptologist

If you even look it up on @/rudjet’s blog for “kemetic” there’s even a post falsely claiming in 2018 that our whole thing is based on some kind of Victorian era history and we agree with strict patriarchal systems, NO most of us are actually what are considered “fringes of society” (queer, disabled, people of color).

Please I wish you the best on your path. For most kemetic basics guide I suggest @thetwistedrope and @smarmykemetic

By the gods, do not bother Egyptologists for spiritual information.

[reina-morada]

Old commission of Wepwawet that I found, man this one was awhile back. Anyway, thought his headdress looked cool here. 

[californiaquail]

the relationship between a person and the native flora and fauna of where they grew up is something that can actually be so personal

[inkyami]

A harmless child can trap even the scariest nightmare If they know how

[inkyami]

Zagоvory (with zagovor as a singular form), in Eastern Slavic mythology are a form of verbal folk magic. Users of zagovory could enchant objects or people with these words. Having arisen from pagan prayers and incantations, zagovory were initially based on belief in the power of the human word. That is why the exact pronunciation of words (whispered or sung) and performance of the accompanying rites were considered as significant (for instance, zagovory practitioner should have either a full set of teeth or a knife as a symbolic substitute of lacking ones). Zagovory tradition survived until 20th century in popular folk culture, often under guise of a Christian “noncanonical prayer”.

[fair-is-foul]

Polunochnitsa po nocham ne khodi bedy ne privedi vot tebe rabota businy dlya scheta

Lady Midnight, Don’t walk at night, Don’t bring troubles. Here’s a job for you: Some beads to count.

[mirthalia]

Kotodama or kototama (言霊, lit. ‘word spirit/soul’) refers to the Japanese belief that mystical powers dwell in words and names. English translations include “soul of language”, “spirit of language”, “power of language”, “power word”, “magic word”, and “sacred sound”. The notion of kotodama presupposes that sounds can magically affect objects, and that ritual word usages can influence our environment, body, mind, and soul.

- wikipedia

[merricatsgarden]

reminds me of the rhyme to deter nøkken, “nykk, nykk, nål i vatn, jomfru Maria kasta stål i vatn, du søkk, eg flyt” involving invoking the virgin Mary, naming the entity, and the use of steel.

yes, I say this whenever I have to go close to water in the forest. Better safe than sorry.

[lostsometime]

Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) also ascribes spiritual dimensions to words and language and even the accents on words.  Also, some Jews refer to G-d as “HaShem”  (השם), which translates literally to “The Name.”

I cannot express how much I love that so many vastly disparate cultures have looked at the concept of language and human communication and said “Yes, that.  That’s magic.”

[inkyami]

Cultural infodump under my drawing and I loOove it

[thatlittleegyptologist]

@somecunttookmyurl thanks Rhys for the question! I'm not sure the presence of a flamingo hieroglyph would entirely make up for there being so many goddamn bird hieroglyphs, but it would be cool and for that position solely I want it to exist.

Bird hieroglyphs for the uninitiated:

Those aren't even all of them, and there's a whole sub-section for 'parts of birds' too.

[maureen2musings]

…

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