And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.

[kiya]

I pour cool water for the akhu, shining in the vault of Nut.

We are stars that circle from life to death to birth.

On New Year's Day, after seeing brooksmoses and suzimoses off at Dulles, teinedreugan and I went to Arlington National Cemetery. My grandparents, my mother's parents, are buried there.

William Gerard Harrington, CM-3, USN; Jadwiga J. Harrington, TEC-5, USA.

We walked to the columbarium talking about various things, and found the place in the building. I had not been able to get any water to make proper offerings, and the fountain was still and dry. I promised them that I would come back another time and bring water.

I talked for a while, about family, about time; I traced the letters on the inscription with my fingers, marking the names; names remembered. Names preserved.

I read a book recently that talked about the ka energy as being within the domain of the ancestors; the bond between the glorified dead and the living is reciprocal, which is only reasonable, so many relationships are. Life, vital energy, shared out to the living and corporeal by the akhu; the akhu preserved and supported by the singing of their names.

In the workshop with yezida, in addition to the calling of the elements, the gods, and the liminal creatures that are the fae in the casting of the circle, there was the calling of the ancestors and of the descendants.

There is this interesting place in the flow of time, the awareness of past and future flowing through the here, the now, the resting in the hands. Born from the corpses of elder stars, I said yesterday. I find myself keenly aware of this shape of time, the birth from the past and the giving birth to the future in each breath -- literally, figuratively, whatever. Restoring some of the damage to my family was brought about in the memories of unborn children.

On the way back from the shrine, I told teinedreugan stories about them, what I knew about them; mostly my grandfather, who I knew better, to the extent I could know at all. The memories flow, the knowledge flows, the name persists.

My father gave us an etching done by my great-great-grandfather. Hand to hand to hand to hand, down the generations. It continues to flow.

Addendum: The glyph spelling of "to be pregnant" contains the ka symbol. (bkA, fourth from the bottom.) This is as it should be. (Yes, I did find that at complete random at quarter past three in the morning. This is normal.)

Comments

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

Thought of you last night as I was in the Trident Cafe and they had the current issue of KMT magazine in there (strangely enough, on the New Age/Buddhist magazine shelf). There was a short article about "Set, Lord of Chaos." The text was nothing much but there were several *gorgeous* photos of depictions of His Darkness, many from the NK. I had only ever seen one or two of the images before. It's so difficult to find photographs of statues of Set!

I just wanted to give you a heads-up about this... the mag is costly so I didn't purchase it myself.

[kiya]

I've actually been thinking about picking that up -- I actually learned it existed as a result of a couple of my Set-loving friends commenting on it. (setsightings probably was one of them.)