I must say the Temple is going well.  The active students are working on a ritual to perform at the Solstice, incorporating not only creating the ritual, but studying the various netjer that will be represented in the ritual.

I've got a lot to do this weekend before the class on Sunday, to have a basic form for the ritual in place. For some, the ritual experience is new or relatively new, although it is nice to have some participating who have more ritual experience.

I need to prepare the Temple to.  The floor could really use a new coat of paint, but I probably won't have time for that, so I guess i will be mopping!

Em Hotep!

An original poem

Lady of the Moon
By Rose

Lady of the Moon whisper how the dark night sleeps
Silent in your shell, betrayed by wings of chimney sweeps
Silver crescent smile across a face, reflected shine
Oceans dance and rise, foaming froth of salty brine

Lady of the Moon, supernal mother of my dreams
Barren, wasted land, above a din of soulless screams
Call me to your shores; two pillars stand, a threshold dare
Daughter of the Dark, midnight lily blooming fair

I am but a child in this faceless vast expanse
A little star unborn within the cosmic circle dance
Guided by the hallows of a timeless lunar queen
Alighting to the darkness beyond the veil of The Unseen.

Lady of the Moon, the winter yearns for your embrace
Lustrous in the brilliance of an endless crystal lace
Frozen burning fire, hidden depths of endless light
Genesis desired, giving birth unto the night.

Lady of the Moon, priestess of deepest mysteries
Fractal sprite of lover's gaze, like woven branches of the trees
Upon my heart's abiding, your throne the respite of my soul
Blissful waking moment, dripping honey cauldron bowl

I am but a child in this faceless vast expanse
A little star unborn within the cosmic circle dance
Guided by the hallows of a timeless lunar queen
Clinging to the darkness beyond the veil of The Unseen

Lady of the Moon, you are the Mistress of the Night
Paramour of sweet desire, the Sun's true and hidden light
Fertile in your Fullness, Dianic pearl of luxury
Virgin Maiden huntress, sacred sexuality

Lady of the Moon, I am yours forever more
Waiting on the sands of your spiral silver shore
Elegant enchantress, adorn me in your astral breath
Enfold me in your waiting arms upon my stellar death

My Totem

I'm a water and air creature.  I don't consider the 4 elements either masculine or feminine exclusively...I think Air and Earth have different qualities, non-related to gender

Water - Feminine

Fire - Masculine

Air - Equilibrator (A Synthesis or the Hermaphrodite)

Earth - The manifestation of all 3 other elements combined.

These relationships are integral to the Quarter workings in most Ceremonial Work, and are influenced to some degree by Alchemy, but I see these same relationships mirrored in the Heliopolitan Cosmology of Ancient Egypt as well.  Horus was not part of the Ennead, but the manifestation of the 9. The Pharoah, as his embodiment more directly represented the physicality of the process of manifestation.

Shu And Tefnut (Heat and Moisture) are primal to the concepts of Fire and Water, but are not, yet, in their state, elemental.  Geb and Nuit more represent the Earth and the Firmament (ruach, air, heavens), but once again, are more conceptual, the prototype of the elements of Earth and Air.

It breaks down sort of like this.

Atum-Ra is the Primal Source

Shu and Tefnut are the primal duality of active and receptive, and are like the cosmic soup, with Shu being the motion of the primal source and Tefnut being the substance of the primal source.  They establish the polarity of two opposite sides of the circle, always connected, but in opposing/complementary states. 

Geb and Nut establish the polarity of Above and Below, or Internal and External, Esoteric and Exoteric.

With the 4 children of Geb and Nut, we have established the denser forms of these two polarities:

Aset and Asar represent Feminine Light and Masculine Light

Nebt-Het and Set represent the Feminine Dark and the Masculine Dark

so in this quarternary we have represented the polarity of Light and Dark, as well as Feminine and Masculine.

It is not hard to follow that the Egyptian religion relied heavily on Dualities, but not in the same manner as monotheistic religions, where the division is altered by the concept of Good and Evil.  This was a more natural appropriation of the cosmic polarity that is responsible for creation, but always empowered by the One.

It was not until about the Middle Kingdom that intellectual development began to actively verbalize and record the philosophy of the One Source, embodied as Amun, but this was simply a revelation of the non-verbal assumption of an original Creator.  For one to be a devotee of Amun, one had to only carry Amun in your Heart, in other words to acknowledge Amun.  Had the priests not gotten so powerful, and threatened the power of the King, the foundation would not have been created for Aten, and a brutal dictatorship.  The original solar hymns were to Amun, not Aten, and later solar hymns to Aten were based solidly in the former.  You can find some of them word for word in Psalms in the Tanakh.

It was not until the heresy of Akhenaten that one was either a worshipper of Aten, or a 'sinner' or evil.  His worship was enforced with great brutality, no doubt because of the unnatural representation of Divinity that it forced upon a people who saw the Divine in the complexity of Nature, and were used to a freedom of representation that allowed definition of spiritual principles.  While it did not last, there is a great deal of scholarship offering strong circumstantial evidence for a relationship with the worship of Aten with the early Hebrew religion.

I prefer Egyptian, excluding Aten worship, because of the interactive manner in which the people woshipped the Divine.  They did not have a word for "god" because that particular concept as we know it does not apply to the manner in which they perceived the Divine.  They called the Netjer (neecher) and this term more closely translates to "essence" or "principle".  It is easy to assign a spiritual power an animal form when you think of all creation as sacred.  I disagree with any scholarship that defines the early worship as strictly 'animism'.  I believe it is a little more complex.  Animism basically is a process by which the animal is elevated spiritually to embrace a specific power, but my argument is the original mindset already conceived of the animal as sacred, and the manner of worship simply reflected the natural abilities of that animal as the earthly representation of a correlating universal or cosmic energy.  The relationship was reciprocal, and elevation of the animal as something it was already was unnecessary.

Just some thoughts....

The online class is going quite well.  There a few active students taking advantage of the monthly practicums, and I assume the rest are studying at their own pace.  I anticipate having a Solstice party for all who are participating in the online study group.

This next class we are planning on exploring both Auras and Tattwas and techniques for scrying and astral projection.

Em Hotep!

Kauket

I hail from Knoxville, TN and run the Temple of Ma'at, which currently offers online courses.  It's a self-designed system synthesizing Egyptian/Kemetic teachings with the Tree of Life as a hermeneutic device, and with intense study of Kabbalah.  Traditional topics associated with the Western Mystery tradition are included.  Temple ritual is carefully incorporated to include ancient practices used in such ceremonies as the "Opening of the Mouth", funerary rites and coronation ceremonies.

I've been studying Western Mystery tradition for over 20 years, and have received initiation in the lineage of William Gray, as well as 2 branches of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.  While I respect those teachings, the Temple of Ma'at has a quite specific and different curriculum.  We do incorporate some of the more common practices, but the paradigm utilized is holistic with emphasis applied on a more universal understanding of all religious expression and the tolerance that engenders.

Em Hotep!