Akhet Hwt-Hrw An Educational Resoruce for Ancient Egyptian Religion & Esoteric Studies www.Hwt-Hrw.com Heru@Hwt-Hrw.com P.O. Box 652 Hudson, NH 03051 U.S.A.

Khru Akhet
Newsletter of Akhet Hwt-Hrw
Volume IV, Issue 1, Page 2, Shomu 2004

Copyright 2004, all rights reserved.

Creating Meaningful Kemetic Festival Social Gatherings
Cristina Rizen

As Kemetic Reconstructionists, ritual is the backbone of our religious lives. We perform our daily rites as daily as possible and we celebrate the major festivals and those of Neteru who are most important to us throughout the year. This is good and deeply important to our spiritual growth and understanding of our religion, but it's not the only thing we can do. Unless you are fortunate enough to live with others who share your religion, you may find yourself constantly celebrating alone. Our rituals are great for those of us who have an abiding love of ancient Egypt and its religion and have dedicated ourselves to study of this faith, but may not be so easy to get into for others who aren't already Egyptomaniacs or specifically interested in the diverse practices of pagan faiths. So if we can't just bring our friends and relatives to our altars, what can we do to make our religion as socially connected as it once was? The answer is to throw a party.

Of course, it's not as simple as setting out beer and pretzels and leaving the front door open on a Friday night. The first thing to figure out is when you're going to host a given soiree. Obvious choices are the major festivals: Wep Renpet, the Mysteries of Aset and Ausir, the Beautiful Embrace, and the Inebriation of Hwt-Hrw. Any number of other festivals could also be incorporated into less formal celebratory settings. Our ritual celebrations are very specifically timed; if you miss a festival date that is pretty much it. You can't reschedule for a more convenient time. Social festival celebrations on the other hand have the potential for being a little less structured as far as timing is concerned. Our ritual celebrations should be our focus; allowing more casual affairs, no matter how religiously oriented they may be, to interfere with one's attendance to ritual is discouraged. This is especially true in the case of individuals with very little free time on their hands. Deeper ritual celebrations should always take precedence as they are the means by which we experience the Neteru and continue out spiritual development. While social events can be more flexible, it should not be assumed that they can be scheduled with complete disregard to the ritual calendar. Events happen at certain times for very good reasons. While you might be able to have your New Year dinner party a day or so later (such as waiting for a weekend) it is quite another thing to try to put off a celebration for a week. It is far preferable to have a small, family celebration as close to the actual date of the festival as possible than it is to throw a huge party nine days late.

The core of any truly meaningful social celebration should be directly derived from whatever your ritual celebration typically involves. Prayers can be read or created on the spot, incense burned, and litanies recited. Reading appropriate myths aloud is another element you should consider bringing into the social setting. Decorations, too, can take their inspiration from your altar, but in this less formal situation can be a bit nontraditional. Those of us with limited room for our temple spaces can finally take over larger rooms and fill them with seasonal Kemetic decorations (such as green potted plants for the Mysteries of Ausir-including those plants being grown as part of the ritual observations-or small waterfalls and greenery for Wep Renpet) as well as more general holiday adornments like paper garlands, fresh flowers, and colored lights. Foods can be served that were previously offered to the Neteru in rite.

Activities for such occasions should honor the spirit of the day, but need not be specifically tied to known ancient Egyptian practices and literature. Modern love poems can be read aloud, plays can be written featuring contemporary parallels to ancient stories, memories of deceased loved ones can be shared, resolutions can be made for the upcoming year. One thing I would caution against is being too literal in the celebration of the Inebriety of Hwt-Hrw. It should go without saying that binge drinking honors no one, especially not oneself, and should never be encouraged. That said, a wine party for adults would not be an unreasonable way to observe the day, provided that the myths and reasons behind the festival were also discussed.

One very valuable effect opening up your celebrations is acquainting your children or those of agreeable friends and family to Kemetic Reconstructionist holidays. Some holidays that are overtly sexual in nature cannot be "watered down" for our ritual observations as they would lose so much of their significance and would create a sharp divide between ourselves and the energies we seek to connect with on the occasion. In this case, what adults can and should understand and honor is not the best thing for children who at best would be struggling with such strange new concepts and at worst would be confused or scared by all that is entailed in sexual interactions. However, outside the strict ritual setting there are more opportunities to explain fertility and reproduction in terms children can more easily grasp without losing too much of the significance of the occasion.

Such celebrations, as stated above, cannot and should not take the place of regular ritual work. These social festivals can help establish an understanding and appreciation of ancient Egyptian holidays for our friends and families outside the faith. It can provide a helpful window into the basis for our religious beliefs and allow us to more easily share this aspect of our lives with those we love. Family celebration of religious holidays spans centuries and religions. As modern adherents to this ancient faith, we owe it to the reconstruction effort and to ourselves to devise ways to create ways for religion to intersect our daily lives outside of ritual space more easily and with the ideals of the ancients firmly in mind. Don't give up on your ritual practice, but also don't be afraid to bring your celebrations out among family and friends.

About the Author
Cristina Rizen has been a student and member of Akhet Hwt-Hrw for several years. She has been insturmental in the formation and continuing success of the International Network of Kemetics:

The International Network of Kemetics (INK) is an organization dedicated to the networking and sharing of knowledge among the practitioners of the Kemetic Faith, and to helping facilitate the reconstruction of the Ancient Egyptian religious practices and culture.

INK defines Kemeticism as a re–creation of the religion of Ancient Egypt, which includes the revival of its belief systems, its spirituality and other relevant aspects of its culture, such as literature and art. It is a belief in the Neteru (gods). We believe it is a way of living in harmony with and upholding ma’at, which is balance in all things: the cosmos, the natural world, and human society. Kemeticism is a reconstructionist religion which utilizes scholarly methods to recreate the structures and practices of the ancient religion, and apply these to contemporary times. It bases its religious practices on modern scholarly and academic research. It is not a modern "New Age" interpretation of the beliefs of Ancient Egypt, nor is it an extrapolation based on any Western religio–magickal traditions such as Wicca or Ceremonial Magic, but rather the actual religious practices as recorded by the Ancient Egyptians. As Kemeticism can be considered one of the African Traditional Religions, which come from similar geographic and sociological sources, many Kemetics share styles and approaches to religious experience, rituals, and life with such religions.

INK maintains a web site, a general announcement list, and a public discussion board.

Other Pages in the Newsletter
Return to Page One
Go to Page Three, "Astrology in Ancient Egypt"
Go to Page Four. "The Litany of Ra and its use in Riutal Today"
Go to Page Five, "Festival of the Victory of Horus"