• “Eye of Horus” is the cultic expression for every offering item, not just water. Every offering item was thus represented as a substance that restored something that had been lost, that returned something that had been stolen, that renewed something that had been used up, that replenished something that had been reduced, that put together something that had fallen apart – in short, it was the symbol of a reversibility that could heal everything, even death. Jan Assmann
    Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt

Other Blogs

  • Someday I Will Be Doing Research Again
    Until that point apparently I will just pop in once a year or so and remind people that it is the Opet season, a time when we show civic support for our broader communities here at Peaceful Awakenings’ Take On Kemetic Social Values. If anyone wants to join me, The Emboatening Crew on Kiva is […]
  • Opet Again
    Just popping in to remind everyone that with the Opet season upon us again, the Emboatening Crew is still rolling to support Kiva loans. (My office renovations are going well if slowly, so who knows if that means I’ll get more work done when they’re done.)
  • CowOfGold Moving
    An update on my previous post: Cow of Gold will have a new home here when the maintainer has a chance to put up the site again (with some revisions, apparently).
  • Hills of the Horizon: The Past is Another Country
    The problem with extrapolation from history is that nothing is testable. The evolution of a religion over time is not a predictable and easily comprehensible thing, where we can look at a point in time and say, "It was like this then, so it would be like that now." The process of deciding what needs […]

Today’s Thing I Don’t Know How To Say

Reconstruction is a waste of my time.

Not just my time. Everyone’s time.

All of this research and digging and putting pieces together and all of this work, it would be a better world, better for us, if we didn’t have to do it. If we could just get on with doing the thing.

If […]

Gods are Stories that are Alive

My oldest kid has been expressing some interest in studying witchcrafty stuff, which leaves me with the puzzle of how to start laying some groundwork. But I started today with “Gods are stories that are alive,” and then pointed out that not all stories that are alive are gods, and that there is magic there […]

Scope of Discourse

I see a lot of conversations about echo chambers, sometimes. People surrounding themselves only with people who agree with them and reinforce their worldview. And I’m well aware that I do that too – I get my news, and a lot of my interpretations, from people I know. And I don’t spend a lot of […]

Pop Goes The Culture

The thing I find most difficult to talk about in what I do, a lot of the time, is the pop cultural stuff.

Some of that is that 99% of the pop cultural paganism stuff I’ve seen out there has been pop cultural magic and magical practice is not terribly interesting to me in the […]

Sma

U N I T E Let me tell you the Hollow place Secret, Child: Behind your heart You have a void That fills your mouth To hold your life With power A place Speaks To keep your breath In hidden names The space To hold For creating The sky […]