Embahra Maat's Blog, page 2

Anedge er ek Nebt-Het

Homage to you, Mastress of the House.

Over the past three years, I have developed a deep and intense relationship with Nebt-Het. My love for her is evident in how I embraced the duty to tell her story and speak with her voice. She is my mother, and I have matured under her watchful gaze, and while this phase of my evolution is over, my love for and connection to her shall never end.

In this time I've learned that Nebt-Het is ambitious and determined. She is someone who wants to feel appreciated and be seen. Nebt-Het has suffered from years of being in the shadows, being her sister's double, being in the background. She is more than just the twin of Auset, more than just the mother of Anpu, more than just the wife of Setesh. She is a woman unto herself.

Any of you who are the youngest in your family might relate to this. I recently went through family photos and found an abundance of baby pictures of me, the eldest child, and very few of my youngest brother. With three older siblings I can understand why my parents were less impressed by spit-up and diapers by the time he came along, but the consequences of this can make a person feel ignored, forgotten. Just as a wife may suffer by feeling as if her husband no longer appreciates her housekeeping, her cooking, her contribution. Just as a mother may long for the days when people laud her career achievements, or wish that she could spend time indulging in other passions, the ones set aside in favor of her children.

This is a part of the dilemma of Nebt-Het: accepting what she has while wanting something more. Nebt-Het understands that who she is and what she does is essential, just like every wife does, just like every mother. But every person wants to know that other people see their contributions as essential. Every person wants to be embraced and accepted and appreciated by someone else.

Mastering the house is about embracing and accepting and appreciating yourself, and not waiting for someone else to see you, complete you, celebrate you. Nebt-Het had to grow into seeing herself, as do we, and because we are insecure human beings, we may feel completely secure and strong today and fall apart at the seams tomorrow. And that's okay, as long as we remain determined to put and keep ourselves back together. When you master yourself, you do not allow a slip to become a tumble. You recover quickly and respond with wisdom; you root out the source of your insecurity and expose the false evidence appearing real. When you are self-mastered, you understand your emotions but you refused to be ruled by them. When you are self-mastered, you choose how to respond.

Nebt-Het being in the shadows is not the best thing for our personal self-development. If we are to live and act from a place of divinity, it is essential that we master ourselves: our fears, our insecurities, our lust and greed and jealousy. Our demons. Our ambitions. Our entire selves. We must have self-control if we are to create the lives that we want. We must have dominion over ourselves before we can have dominion over the world around us. Nebt-Het has taught me that we can have great power at our disposal and be unable to access or appreciate it if we lack the discipline to think, speak, and act with wisdom.

Learn from the example of Nebt-Het and strive to master yourself. Strive to know your deepest fears and your deepest desires. Consider what you must do to put the former aside and make the latter a priority. Live honestly, not just with others, but with yourself. And understand that no matter what your place is in this world, all contributions, gifts, and positions are necessary to the creation and maintenance of harmonious balance.

See yourself clearly, even when no one else sees you at all.

Writing: The Great Trauma

My first great trauma in life was my parents’ divorce. In their desire to protect their children, my parents tried to keep the truth from us and show none of the despair that they were experiencing. This thrust me deep into my own mistrust and melancholy, and I began to write as a way to sort through those feelings. It was no wonder that my first two pieces, stage plays, centered on the title themes of Deception and Secrets and Lies, my clear attempt to make sense of what was happening around me and within.

Writing continues to be an opportunity for me to explore my feelings and make sense of the world. It is said that all great art stems from passion and pain, and my writing has felt no different over the years. I am a thriving writer when I am troubled in romance, finances, and family, and a lesser artist when all things are harmonious. I find great tranquility from my writing during the times when I need it most. It is a healing balm and yet a torturous master which beckons me to relive the depth of my sorrows and bleed them for the consumption of others.

I love to write, and I loathe it simultaneously. I fear the vulnerability inherent in each word that I type and crave the satisfaction of a positive review. I want everything I write to be well received yet I write for no one but myself. I feel consumed by whatever I am working on and as DaVinci noted, “art is never finished, only abandoned.” I must let it go because if I don’t it will take me over completely. I will never know if it is perfect and I will never know if I can perfect it. Writing causes me to suffer just as it eases all of my pains, and still I crawl back to it, no matter how long I stay away or go without it.

I realize this sounds dramatic, and perhaps that is by design. My writing style has evolved as I have, and with the completion of my first novel I am in the midst of a jubilant high and a terrible low. Writing Hidden By Moonlight is easily the thing I am most proud of thus far. Getting it onto to page and the process of self-publishing has taken me through the gamut of human emotions, and I would not have it any other way. I am terrified for the public to read it, and I will never forget the moment that I held the first copy in my hands and turned its pages one by one. I have known for some time what I was capable of, but could not truly understand it until I saw the fruit of my labor made manifest before me.

Eventually I will tear myself away from Hidden By Moonlight and open my heart for the next project, starting the process from the beginning. I am more ready for that than I thought I would be, and anticipating it greatly. I do not simply write. I am a writer. I may not be brilliant, legendary, or wise, but it devours me, and I am a willing feast.

Approaching the Neteru

For they are very approachable. The Neteru are simply waiting for us to gather the courage to walk beside them and reach for their hands.

The Neteru are called the forces of Nature, but they are much more than that. Yes, they are the wind, the rain, the thunder, the lightning. The Neteru are also the breath, the heartbeat, the hunger pangs, the tears. They are elation, gratitude, fear, doubt, and the muddled infinity of all the emotions that exist in between. 

The Neteru are the forces of our nature.

The Neteru are the individual expressions of NTR that allow us accessibility to a force that is greater than our imagination and beyond our ability to perceive. We might not ever be able to get close to NTR if not for the Neteru, who take us under their wings as if we were tiny baby birds, to be fed from their mouths, giving us the little that our humanity can handle in third dimension sized doses. Would we be able to understand the scope of our inner divinity were it not for the Neteru; would we be able to tap into the NTR that exists within us and expresses itself as us?

Women and men alike hold the capacity to know the Neteru by immersing themselves into each manifestation, one by one. It takes vulnerability and freedom to carry a power such as this within you, and to feel it resonate in every cell, every atom. We shy away because it overwhelms us, and at full strength it is too much. We are never vulnerable enough; we are never free.

The distance that we place between ourselves and the Neteru is meant to protect us but it restricts us as well, and so we lose access to the greatest source of our power, because we are incapable of being power-full.

Who we are and who we can be is as infinite and expansive and divine as we are able to allow it to be. As we are able to imagine ourselves being. As we go into our meditations, we are charged to begin to release the binds that hold us, to let down our guard, to tear down the walls. To be vulnerable and unrestricted. To be free. To be one with all of Creation.

To be a Neteru.

 

A Published Author

I should be asleep now, I know. I have been running on empty for many moons now. And yet, that is what it feels like when one is driven by passion. The fire in the belly ignites, and stopping is not an option. Despite knowing all you know about the benefits of rest. Despite having a sincere desire to relax. You cannot relax. You have been called and you have chosen to answer.

I am excited today, not just because of my own personal accomplishment. I recognize this as an accomplishment of the Neteru, who tapped me on the shoulder and guided me in the direction that They would have me to go. The Neteru whisper to me, day in and day out, and I humble myself to a force greater than myself, and I listen. This happened because they wanted it to. Everything that happens is in accordance with the Divine will, ab en NTR.

I recognize this as an accomplishment of my Ancestors, who protect me, walk with me, encourage me, and remind me of who I am and who I can be. Who I will be. My Ancestors who left behind a wealthy tradition filled with wisdom just waiting for us to come along and reclaim it. My Ancestors who talked of the world and life and Spirit through story and song. My Ancestors who knew that one day we would find what we'd lost.

I am a published author today.

What is the thing that you have been called to do? What is the stirring in your spirit, the voice that you cannot ignore, the order of your steps, the direction of your path? What awaits you when you choose to answer that call? What awaits you when you choose not to?

Passion is a tricky, true thing. It is a fire that must be kept burning, cultivated so that it does not scorch the earth, tended so it does not die. It is a wave that will continue to crash, relentless until it breaks down the rocks that resist it, gently smoothing the edges of stone. It is a breath of fresh air when you turn your face to the sky, sun breathing on your neck, grass tickling your toes. It is the essence of all existence. It is the reason why anything exists. Embracing passion allows you to become a god/dess in the flesh. You are the creator. You are the most high.

There is a song on the breeze; the Neteru speak with a voice as light as a feather. Respond.