This is the second in my series of lorica prayers. I had just finished composing my prayer to Sekhmet on September 18 and just as I capped my ballpoint pen, Her spouse, Ptah, the Unbegotten Creator God of ancient Egypt, spoke to me with a gentle “not so fast!” So I uncapped my pen and wrote this in less than 5 minutes; the words just flew out of me!
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Calloo, callay! I beaded 7 gemstone devotional Polytheist and Elder Futhark runic magic necklaces for sale yesterday! One of them, a stunning amber necklace featuring a show-stopping solid Polish amber Mjöllnír/Thor’s Hammer pendant, is something I am selling directly. The description with photos will be below; email me at jackalmoondesigns@gmail.com if you’re seriously interested in it. The remaining necklaces are all actively listed as of this morning on my Etsy shop, JackalMoonDesigns. Let’s survey my goodies, shall we?
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One of my closest friends and trusted spiritual confidantes and I recently formed a book group to discuss Morpheus Ravenna’s excellent new book of extreme relevance to Polytheists and spirit workers, The Magic of the Otherworld: Modern Sorcery from the Wellspring of Celtic Traditions (Llewellyn, 2023). In chapter 2, which delves into apotropaic magic, Morpheus provides examples of lorica prayers, a form of “poetic spiritual armor” (p.50) that makes use of verbalized incantation to invoke Divine aid; the specificity of protection even catalogs parts of the petitioner’s body. Much of the extant literary texts of these prayers from Celtic countries dating from the Middle Ages onward (most notably, the Carmina Gadelica) are Christian in theme, but it’s certainly possible to adapt the structure of these prayers to any Deity or spirit, including your own ancestors.
As a fun “homework” assignment, I tasked the group with composing their own lorica prayers to be shared at our next meeting. That meeting was held earlier today and I want to share the first of my lorica prayers; it is in honor of the mighty Kemetic Goddess, Sekhmet, One of my Patron Deities.
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Even though it somewhat feels, where I live, like we’re stuck in the Fimbulwinter due to the annoying late-April snow showers and frigid temps, I know that the Sun is transiting Taurus, one of my favorite periods of the year. This is the time of awakening Earth and the reign of various Goddesses, bestowing Their gifts of renewal, health, and fertility as Life Force energy channels Itself into manifestation during the Sun’s annual transit in the Fixed Earth Sign of the Bull. Taurus energy gets me working with my hands, whether that’s pruning in the garden (I don’t dare plant any seedlings just yet) or crafting beaded necklaces set with specific intentions of honoring given Deities.
At Paganicon last month in Minnesota, I had a poignant conversation with a Senior Druid in the ADF about our shared love of having tangible devotional and ritual aids that help us connect to the Gods and spirits we serve. We appreciate material things because we’re tactile people: it’s spiritually comforting to reach for a set of prayer beads, press a thumb into the groove of a worry stone nestled in a pocket, and light a candle before a hand-carved wooden statue of, say, Veles. (This Druid, like me, is of hearty Slavic stock and Veles is the Deity cited in the tenth-century CE Russian Primary Chronicle he immediately gravitated towards most.) Neither he nor I could comprehend what it must be like to be an adherent of a faith that entertains a solely abstract and transcendent notion of Deity. Perish the thought!
I think that sensibility lies at the heart of the tremendous emotional satisfaction I obtain from making pieces of jewelry that help a devotee create some sort of an energetic link with the Deity or spirit they serve and adore. I’d like to share with all of you some of the pieces I have made in recent weeks up until yesterday; most are listed on my Etsy site, Jackal Moon Designs, but due to the fact that Etsy is in litigation with a customer involving amber beads as an infant choking hazard(!), I am selling my pieces with miniscule amber accent beads on my own initiative. I am actually looking to migrate from Etsy to my own e-commerce platform, so stay tuned for news of that! But for now, I hope you enjoy looking at the pretty pieces I’ve made! I’ll go through them by Pantheon/Cultural Affiliation first and then Pagan “denomination,” if applicable.
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It’s very fitting that on this fifth and final of the ancient Egyptian Epagomenal Days (according to my reckoning of the Cairo Calendar), this liminal time between the year that is ending and the one that is beginning, that we celebrate the birth of the Great Goddess Nebet-Het (Nephthys), Wife of Set, Sister to Auset and Ausar, Mother of Anpu (Anubis). She is “the Lady of the House,” i.e., the embalming tent, the mourning kite and funerary goddess, the One Who Welcomes Those Who Enter Amenti.
I truly do believe in my heart that She Wyrdly marked me, to borrow the words of Edgar Allan Poe, “from childhood’s hour.” The parade of funerals in my own blood family starting from my early childhood (and shocking deaths too, I might add, such as my being the first person to surprisingly discover my maternal grandfather’s body after he had hung himself; I was 8 years old at the time) were, in hindsight, an Ordeal Path that ultimately baptized me into Her service. Her eerily-lit Underworld pathways are not for everyone but I look back on none of those profound episodes of loss with self-pity. Nephthys is absolutely my heart’s delight, and the Chief Power to Whom I dedicated myself for lifelong service when I became ordained as a Priestess in the Fellowship of Isis nine years ago. She is also the Patroness of my Death Midwife work.
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According to the way I reckon the old Cairo Calendar, today is the Third of the Five Epagomenal Days, sacred days set aside as certain Gods’ (the Children of Geb and Nut) birthdays during the liminal period of the old year ending but the new year (Wep Ronpet) not having yet begun. (The New Year in ancient Egypt was calculated by the heliacal rising of the star Sirius, which usually takes place between what we know now as August 1-3.) Day Three of the Epagomenal Days commemorates the birth of my most cherished Kemetic Holy Power: red-hot, ultra-dynamic, take-no-bullshit SET!
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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.
The reality is that grief from pet loss is not as easily ‘fixed’ as some would have us believe. It’s hard to live in grief that’s judged as unworthy. Grief is about love, and our animal companions often show us some of the most unconditional love we could ever experience. How often, despite our best efforts, do we absorb some of society’s judgments and think, I shouldn’t be grieving this much? Yet when we let these thoughts in, we betray our genuine feelings.
—Dr. David Kessler, You Can Heal Your Heart: Finding Peace After a Breakup, Divorce, or Death (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House Publishing, 2014), p. 136.
My role as cat midwife/cat mother has come full circle for my beloved Grendel: On September 21, 2007, I midwifed his feral birth in the woods behind my parents’ house; last night, June 11, 2019, I served as the death midwife who ushered him into the Spirit World after I made the heart-wrenching choice (given his Stage IV stomach cancer diagnosis less than 3 weeks ago) to have him euthanized at home sooner than I was expecting to. Continue reading
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.
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide Sea!
And Christ would take no pity on
My soul in agony.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, In Seven Parts” (1798), Part IV, lines 224-227
In my last post, I wrote about the beauty and the power of prayer and how it forms the core of my contemporary Polytheist devotional practice. But I certainly have had my challenges over the years in sustaining my practice, like any other religious person committed to devotional piety. Whether the span lasted for weeks or even months on end, the spiritual crisis known as the “dark nights of the soul,” a term first coined by the sixteenth-century Spanish Counter-Reformation mystic known as St. John of the Cross, was a dreadful phenomenon I’ve endured many times. Continue reading
amor et mortem 