Happy 48th Anniversary, Fellowship of Isis!

On March 20, 1976, the Fellowship of Isis was founded in Ireland by former Anglican bishop Lawrence-Durdin Robertson, his wife Pamela, and his sister, Lady Olivia Robertson. In the week prior, so the story has been told to me, Lawrence heard and saw the goddess Isis / Aset manifest in his vicarage whilst he was holding service! The rest, as they say, is history.

I am very grateful to be celebrating my 12th year as a legally ordained priestess within the Fellowship and having a teaching temple that I might bring awareness of the realities of the ancient and powerful, engaging and loving Kemetic Deities to modern devotees. You can learn more about the FOI by reading its Manifesto. If you find yourself in alignment with it, you can consider yourself a member!

Happy 48th Anniversary, Fellowship of Isis! Hail the resplendent Akhu of Rt. Rev. Olivia Robertson, Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, Pamela Durdin Robertson, Rt. Rev. Loreon Vigné (who ordained me), and the Rt. Rev. Deena Butta (my mentor in the Chicago chapter via the Lyceum of Eleusis)!

Come Check Out My Workshop on Ancient Egyptian Magic at the 2019 Chicago Pagan Pride!

This year, Chicago Pagan Pride will take place on Saturday, September 28. It’s being held at a new venue in the city: Que4 Studios, 2643 W. Chicago Avenue in the Wicker Park neighborhood. At the magical time of noon, I’ll be leading my “Hands-On HEKA” workshop on magic in ancient Egypt. Are you local? Come and say hello and sit for a (Greek Magical Papyri) spell, ha ha! 😉

The sacred talisman of the Tyet Knot, also called the Girdle of Isis.

I’m excited to be joining fellow Windy City Pagans, Polytheists, and Witches for a day of shared learning and networking! And the following weekend, the Chicago Fellowship of Isis community is having its 26th Annual Goddess Festival & Conference at Prop Thtr: a three-day event! Learn more on our Facebook page.

Announcing the 26th Annual Fellowship of Isis Goddess Conference and Festival in Chicago!

Calling all Kemetic and Sumerian Polytheists, Reconstructionists, Polytheist Pagans, Tameran Wiccans, ceremonial magicians, Fellowship of Isis (FOI) members worldwide, devotees of the Gods of the Fertile Crescent, and friends! All are welcome to the 26th Annual Fellowship of Isis Goddess Conference and Festival in Chicago! I’m very excited to announce that, for the first time in our FOI Chicago community’s history, the event will span multiple days: Thursday, October 3, 2019 through Friday, October 5, and will feature a Pagan Cabaret! The location this year is the city’s acclaimed Prop Thtr, located at 3502 North Elston Avenue on the city’s north side.

Join the FOI Chicago Community for a Matronalia/Junonalia Ritual

One of the origins of our modern Mother’s Day, Matronalia was celebrated in ancient Rome as the New Year and as the time for matrons to perform rites to Juno Lucina at Her temple on the Esquiline Hill. This festival was also known as “the women’s Saturnalia.”

“Tending to the Ancestors”: The Winter 2018-2019 Issue of Isis-Seshat Journal Is Now Available!

It gives me great pleasure to announce, after several days of intensive copy editing and graphical layout, that the 48-page, full-color Winter 2018-2019 issue of Isis-Seshat journal has officially been released! With its theme of “Tending to the Ancestors,” the issue features various Polytheists’, Pagans’, and Witches’ perspectives on the importance of  cultivating and maintaining ancestor veneration in their daily devotional practices, how they do it, or why they abstain. Hailing from no less than 3 different continents, this issue’s contributors reflect a world of culturally contextualized traditions, from the Heathenry/Teutonic Polytheism of Northern and Central Europe to West African and Afro-Cuban Diaspora religions. I’m so deeply thankful to the gorgeous and deeply personal original works of art, poetry, and essays that were sent to me as submissions! This issue would not have been possible without so many peoples’ support.

TENDING TO THE ANCESTORS: A CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR THE WINTER 2018-2019 ISSUE OF ISIS-SESHAT JOURNAL

Seeking Submissions for the 2018-2019 Winter Issue of Isis-Seshat Journal on the Theme of “Tending to the Ancestors, Propitiating the Dead”—Deadline: Friday, January 18, 2019

“Iba se Eggun.”
(“I pay homage to the spirits of the ancestors.”) — Start of a Yoruba prayer recited in Ifá at the outset of certain rituals

I paid a visit to my Oluwo (Godfather in Ifá) last night and we had a chance to catch up on the whirlwind of life events I’ve been experiencing since my father’s cancer diagnosis two months ago. We consulted Ifá, and the voices of my own Orí (Destiny/True Will) and my Eggun (Ancestors) resonated strongly in the oracle’s spiritual prescriptions. The restless spirits of the dead, teeming hordes of the Eggun Buruku, were also vying for my attention, a fact confirmed by my lived experience of increased spirit activity at both my home and my parents’ house, where I recently (and totally by happenstance, and during a thunderstorm, no less!) made contact with the spirits of a young woman and children that had drowned in the river marking the northernmost boundary of my parents’ property. By their clothing, they appeared to have lived during the mid-nineteenth century. The children (blond-haired fraternal twins aged about seven or eight years old), unrelated to the young woman, were lost and crying out for their parents. The sight of them made my heart ache. But I couldn’t focus on them as I quickly realized the other spirit posed actual danger.

Allyships and Familiar Spirits: The Summer 2018 Issue of Isis-Seshat Journal Is Now Available!

Tending to my cancer-stricken father has definitely pushed me way behind in my production schedule for the Summer 2018 issue of Isis-Seshat journal, a quarterly journal of the worldwide Fellowship of Isis for which I serve as the Executive Editor, but I’m pleased to announce that I’ve just launched it and PDF copies are available for immediate download on my Etsy site, JackalMoonDesigns.

Selqet: Ancient Egypt’s Scorpion Goddess

Editorial Note: This is the transcript of the presentation I gave on Saturday at the 25th Annual Fellowship of Isis in Chicago Goddess Convention. I added photos from my PowerPoint presentation and my references list.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for this historic 25^th anniversary Goddess Festival commemorated by the Chicago FOI Community! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Anna Applegate, I’m an ordained Priestess, and as a Polytheist primarily dedicated to the Kemetic or Egyptian Pantheon of Gods in my personal spiritual practice, I am very excited to be talking to you about the mysterious and powerful Scorpion Goddess, Selqet. I love Her very much. She features prominently in my ancestor devotionals and in the Spirit Work that I do, and I am deeply honored to ritually invoke Her in our Main Liturgy this evening, “The Mystical Awakening of Scorpio and Kundalini.”  

Check Out My New Devotional Jewelry Listings on JackalMoonDesigns!

The Fall Equinox is almost upon us and tomorrow will also the biggest day of my public Priestessing schedule in the year, as the Chicago Fellowship of Isis community presents its 25th Anniversary Goddess Convention. The day-long event, featuring a Tibetan Singing Bowl Sound Healing Concert and workshops on every subject from Contemporary Western Tantra to accessing the Akashic Records to the Astrology of Fixed Stars and my own presentation on the ancient Egyptian Goddess Selqet, will culminate in the late Lady Olivia Robertson’s gorgeously composed Divine Liturgy of “The Mystical Awakening of Scorpio and Kundalini.” As a devotee of the Goddess Selqet, it thrills me to no end to have the honor of my ecclesiastical role in the Liturgy be that of Her Priestess. When I recite the invocation, I get goose bumps every time. That’s the sign of heka at work, friends! And yes, I’m going to bring with me from my home temple space my giant, four-foot-tall replica statue of the Goddess.

I’m not just going to be a workshop presenter during the day and one of the officiating clergy for the Divine Liturgy in the evening; I’m also going to be a vendor, selling my Polytheist devotional jewelry pieces from my business, Jackal Moon Designs. I’ve had a spate of creativity in the past week and have made a bunch of new pieces that I’m selling online. Some of them have Eastern religious motifs of ties to Hinduism and Buddhism; others are Kemetic. Our Divine Liturgy this year honors Deities from India and Egypt.

The 25th Annual FOI Chicago Autumn Equinox Goddess Convention Is Less Than a Month Away!

On Saturday, September 22, the 25th Annual Fellowship of Isis Chicago Autumn Equinox Goddess Convention will convene, for the second straight year, at the Holiday Inn Chicago North Shore (Skokie) in the Skokie Banquet Room. On-site registration begins at 9:00 a.m., the doors officially open at 9:30, and several hours of workshops (details below) precede the performance of the Main Liturgy, set to begin at 5:45 p.m. CDT. This year’s Main Liturgy is “The Mystical Awakening of Scorpio and Kundalini,” honoring the Divine Shakti and Shiva, the Egyptian Goddess Selket, and the fixed stars in the constellation of Scorpio.

The scorpion-headed Selket, One of the Powers honored in this year’s Main Liturgy for the annual Fellowship of Isis Chicago Goddess Convention.

 

The Day’s Workshops and Performances

The $50 registration fee (if paid by September 8; it’s $60 at the door) treats one to a slew of workshops that precede the late afternoon’s Main Liturgy. Currently, this is the roster of speakers and topics:

Rev. Demetria Nanos: “Ma’at and Kundalini: Star Lore, Serpents, and Magic of Scorpio, Libra, Ophiuchus,” “Kundalini and Gods of Yoga in American History and Culture,” and “Mantra, Vidya, and Sound in Spiritual/Magical Practices”

Rev. Vincent Hawkins: “The Mystery of Evil,” “Prosperity Magic”

Aura Chapa: “Polytheistic Influences in ‘Steven Universe'” and “Hellenic Intersex Mysteries: The Mysteries of Agdistis and Hermaphroditus”

Martin Barba: “Western Tantra”

Tantra puja, (c) Martin Barba 2018. Used with permission. Visit martinbarba.com to learn more about Martin’s decades-long history of teaching Tantra.

Edward Farnham: “Himalayan Singing Bowls: A Cascade of Healing Sound”

Christine Zenino: “Healing the Past, Present, and Future with the Akashic Records”

I’m giving a talk and leading a mini ritual dedicated to the goddess Selket. Additionally, there will be a group Ancestor Shrine activity and a group talisman-making workshop, where participants can choose from making Vedic tattwa-based, ancient Egyptian hieroglyph-based, or Norse bind rune-based talismans.

The workshops run from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., with a lunch break that lasts from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Workshops resume at 2 and last until 5:30, giving FOI Main Liturgy officiants (c’est moi) a chance to garb themselves accordingly before the rite begins.

 

Vendors and Silent Auction Items Too!

Fellowship of Isis Chicago is pleased to welcome the following metaphysical vendors and groups and artistic organizations supporting our 25th Annual Autumn Equinox Goddess Convention:

• Alchemy Arts Bookstore, Chicago
• Aum-Ha O.T.O Chicago
• Astrology by Victoria Martin
• Crystal Remedies by Steven Blaine Adams
• Life Force Arts Center, Chicago
• Harem of Oddities
• And my very own Etsy shop, JackalMoonDesigns

 

There will be dozens of unique, esoterically themed items (Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist ritual paraphernalia in particular) up for grabs in our Silent Auction, all of which are new and have been kindly donated by vendors and conference participants. From phurbas to bronze Deity statues to jewelry, there’s going to be something for everyone!

Brass phurba with dorje, featuring inlaid red coral and turquoise. Tibetan.

Tibetan clay statue of a Wrathful Deity slaying a demon.

 

Save $10 off Registration Now Thru Sept. 8 via PayPal

Early registration can be accommodated via PayPal: email $50 to Demetria Nanos at hail_isis@yahoo.com using “FOI Convention” in the Notes field. Alternatively, you can mail her a check in the amount of $50 with “Goddess Convention Registration” in the Memo field to:

Demetria Nanos, FOI Chicago, 1465 N. Leavitt Street, Chicago, IL 60622.

Questions? Call or leave a message at 773.684.9219.

 

Champagne and Chocolates Reception at the Hotel, Friday, September 21

All Goddess Convention participants who are available are welcome to meet at the hotel at 8 p.m. the night before the Convention for sparkling wine and conversation. We’re calling it our “Sweet Reunion with Health and Wealth.” We’ll also be having a guided meditation and oracle session.

 

Meet Us at Chicago Pagan Pride in Oak Park on September 9!

If the end of September is too long to wait to come say hello, stop by our Fellowship of Isis Chicago booth at Chicago Pagan Pride, which is held Sunday, September 9, at the lovely and historic (and, I might add, haunted) Pleasant Home in Oak Park. Pagan Pride runs from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Chicago Pagan Pride, 2013, when I co-led the Main Ritual with my friend and ritual partner, John Harness. Photo (c) Tomas Griddle, 2013. Used with permission.

 

Let’s Make It a September to Remember!

From my birthday on the 8th to Chicago Pagan Pride the following day to the 25th Anniversary Fellowship of Isis Chicago Goddess Convention on the 22nd, September is going to be an action-packed and wonderfully memorable month! Come join me in Sacred Space to help celebrate!

Blessings! / Seneb-ti!