More theology -- aspects and Parents.

[kiya]

Because this whole getting work done thing isn't actually functioning.

Some of the seeds of this were set in an earlier, locked entry, and I'm not sure how I feel about the etiquette of posting a link to it that some people might not be able to follow, so I won't. :P


One of the things that makes Kemeticism very straightforward to me is the way the gods interact and syncretise. The sense of distinct, complete personality that nonetheless may also be a completely different distinct, complete personality -- or combine with a third to form a fourth, aggregate one is very intuitive to me, because it's how I am.

These days I think of myself -- the consciousness that's here, writing -- as white light. I can pass myself through a prism and find distinct other lights, other selves, that combine and flow through each other to make myself up; other times I am only one colour, a limited range of my total wavelength range.

I've seen a lot of sturm und drang in various places about who one's Parent is, and finding the Parent through divination or soul-searching or any of the other ways that people find their Parents, the ntjr they resonate with most strongly. I don't particularly want to start in with that sort of angsting or messing about, but being as I am a one-woman coven (thirteen of me) I do ponder at this a little.

The aggregate me, the white light, is a daughter of Het-Herw and Khnum, and Set is my beloved. Those three influences are dominant over the aggregate, and my syncretised self resonates with them very strongly: 'creator' is one of my inner vibrancies.

One of my aspects, though, considered pure in her own wavelengths, is a Set kid. Which I'm shifted so she's dominant (or in exclusive control of the body), I get His energies most strongly, not the creative core that's the usual rest-point. As far as I can tell, my rest state shifts when I'm Stormwolf, and there are memories made when she was ascendant that I can't bring into focus from anywhere else. The essence of Stormy is red, and I can't unpack 'red' at all; this is one of those places where I just have to wave my hands and point at passions and perhaps the ex-hole in my wall where she put our hand through it and teinedreugan fixed the plaster.

Which leaves me pondering at the weird question: do all of me have a Parent? Stormy's a Set kid. Darkhawk -- who's generally a large part of my normal public front -- I wonder about, wonder if the hawks in her imagery associate her somewhere with the Herws. (It's hard to ask her about that sort of thing, because she's a skeptic bordering on an atheist and thinks I'm a little flaky.) I think I'm convinced that Bonfire is a Sekhmet kid, and that his issues with reality are that he's resonating with the Destruction of Man Sekhmet, not Sekhmet after Djehuty sent Her on a bender. (And I wonder if that's an angle I can use to get him actually working with the system rather than undermining it. Hmm. "Who in here wants to go get Bonfire's Madness drunk?" isn't exactly producing a great deal of enthusiasm, though.)

I ponder at this every so often. If I knew who everyone's Parent was, I think I'd have a pretty good selection of netjerw to work with on a regular basis, that's for sure. If everyone has a Parent, that is; the flaw in the ponder is the potential for going off on infinite loops of "Who's my Parent" rumination to no purpose.

It's an interesting sort of thing to play with at times, though.


I think I'll use Darkhawk's rune for the icon on this, because it's far more geekery than spirituality at the moment, all analysis. And then back to the staring uselessly at the work.

Comments

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Interesting to read all this.

I don't have many distinct personalities in that way, but I have wound up with my various Gods as speaking to major oppositional aspects of my one self.

Lug speaks to my rational and creative side: anything that involves being well-spoken, anything that involves making, issues of rational mind or scholarship, any kind of mastery.

Angus Og is for the emotional side, for relationships, for being in search of one knows-not-what. Anything to do with love, and anything to do with being in a childlike state. At the start of things.

And I seem to occasionally have run-ins with other divine beings that aren't gelled in my life quite yet. Still working/waiting on that.

I very rarely get to where I feel these forces in my life are in any kind of balance. They don't get on. But they're both major, unremovable parts of who I am. So I have to do the best I can.

[kiya]

That sounds to me like you've got an Apollonian/Dionysian synergy thing going.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. I have occasionally thought of it in those terms.

There are some weird overlaps in the Celtic system that don't line up, but that's the basic idea.

[fyrekat.livejournal.com]

This is a great discussion.^_^ I think that the various parts and nuances within us do resonate strongly with various different ntjrw- which is why I feel that it is so important, in my own life at least, to work with and learn about as many of Them as possible. In exploring Them I also explore myself, and in learning about myself through Them I learn more about how I relate to the world which They have created.

I don't think that I have several distinct personalities within myself all at one time per se- I've come to believe that my personality is simply contradictory in nature, tends towards major shifts about every 5 years, and I let it go at that. But I have definitely noticed that different ntjrw take precedence in my life at different times, and at this point I find myself communing with and loving ntjrw Whom I would have sworn I'd have nothing to do with just a few years back.

The concept of a "Parent" ntjr(t) is a bit misleading. All ntjrw are logically our Parents in that They are all a part of Ntjr which created us and the world in which we live. Many folks seem to have an idea that each of us has only one, or perhaps two, Parent names Whom we must worship and no others. In my experience and from my training I have found that is simply not the case. We may have one (or perhaps two) ntjrw(t) with Whom we resonate most closely- Who embody our most precious ideals or model our own perception of the world around us in such a way that it is easier for us to interact with Him/Her/Them than any other ntjrw, and we may call these ntjrw "Parents" for lack of a better term. But that bond is by no means restrictive- it can grow and expand with us as we change and develop through life, and it does not prohibit us from reaching out to other ntjrw and learning to see the world through other viewpoints or to value other virtues and ideals.

Learning Who your "Parent" names are at any given time is simply a by-product of living a Kemetic life, and not nearly as important or exclusive as some believe it to be. Learning about other people's "Parent" names can teach you something about them, but it can also be deceptive. It's too easy to stamp people with a Name and assume they fit the mold of a model < Insert Ntjr Here > kid rather than getting to know the individual him- or herself. (Which is not to say that you personally do this- I've just seen it done and have even done it myself on occasion)

The role I play in this world is summed up by only one name- my own name, not the name of any ntjr. But each new Name that I explore is a prism, to use your own analogy, that showcases different wavelengths of my spirit for my own study and benefit.^_^

[kiya]

I find the idea of the "one must find and worship one's Parent(s) and one's Parent(s)" alone a little weird, myself, for the reasons I mentioned in a (the?) previous entry: when I dropped the whole Wiccan Goddess and God approach, of a sudden I was surrounded by Names, who wanted to talk to me.

I wonder how different it is for someone who has to expend effort to make contact with the divine, who might need to find one relationship to develop with all their energies to get to a point of spiritual satisfaction. For me, finding the divine isn't a problem; as a friend of mine puts it, my head is full of gods. I can see the restrictive usage of "Parent" possibly being of use for someone like that: find whichever Name is most resonant, that one's most likely to be able to reach, and build up that relationship as strongly as possible.

[fyrekat.livejournal.com]

I can see that approach, but I tend to see that approach as a possible starting point. Of course, many folks may have entirely satisfying spiritual lives working with one Name and exploring the many, many different aspects and approaches which that Name possesses. One can never be bored where the ntjrw are concerned.^_~ But I worry about folks allowing the concept to forbid them all but one Name or a certain family of Names. We are never shut off from the ntjrw- as Bast once told me (when I expressed a desire to know the ntjrt Ma'at but felt unworthy of such a bond), "None who love Her are turned away."

I don't consider myself especially skilled in meditation or any sort of divine communication- I'm a very practical, logical, down-to-earth sort of person. When I can't translate an experience coherently into a process bounded by some set of dependable laws or philosophy of physics, I'm overwhelmed. If anything has helped me to break through the cement boots which seem to keep me firmly grounded in my own body and reality, it's that I'm fond of thinking in terms of metaphor and puns. I had a very difficult time establishing contact with Bast, and I still don't usually get the visions and direct links some other folks seem to have all the time. I started out with Bast- and pretty much limited it to just Bast- but through Her and on my way I've met many others and it has struck me how much these other encounters have enriched my experience of Bast, Who is still my main focus.

*shrugs* I do not speak lightly of those who have chosen to dedicate their entire life to one ntjr. But it is a choice that they have made, and not a thing carved in stone.

[kiya]

One can never be bored where the ntjrw are concerned.

I find reality in general is a lot like that. (Born-men like fractal patterns.)

I find the idea of being forbidden to make varied contacts really odd. There's a thread on KOL that's another Orthodox recovery discussion; I'm not sure how to characterise it briefly without the risk of misrepresenting some of what's been said. Someone's feeling sad/angry, I think, about the fact that a KO friend isn't recognising her affiliation and resonance with Asar because she hasn't been divined as an Asar kid. I look at that, and I shake my head in a bit of bafflement.

It's . . . sad, to me, I guess. There is such wealth in the divine.

I do not speak lightly of those who have chosen to dedicate their entire life to one ntjr. But it is a choice that they have made, and not a thing carved in stone.

I know a fair number of people who are devoted to a Parent (or plural) and that Parent alone (not all of them Kemetic, but in at least one case the 'Parent' conceptualisation translates very well indeed).

I think I think of it as being sort of like monogamy. For those people for whom it works, it can be a transcendent, empowering experience of devotion; for those people for whom it doesn't work, it doesn't work, sometimes in really spectacularly ugly ways.

If we were all the same, there'd be nothing to talk about, and then who would say all our names?