![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nyykiSo, first the recipe, it's simple. Pour a beer in an appropriate glass, a single serving, whatever that means to you. Add pomegranate juice or Grenadine until the color is that of blood. Drink it down. Congratulations, you have just honored the saving of humanity from utter destruction.
Besides being the day many neo-pagans celebrate as Lammas (the Catholic term, but let's steal back from them since they stole so much from our ancestors) or Lughnasahd, August 2nd is also the celebration of the Disinebriation of Hathor, Sekhmet, or Tefnut. Each of the thre neturt show up in legends about this incident, though the most common one is Sekhmet, which makes sense since she is one of the eyes of Ra. Hathor, as the wife of Ra, is the second choice, though this kind of aggression is a bit uncommon for her. The Tefnut legend seems to come from Nubia.
Lammas is the beginning of the harvest. Several big sticks to the head have made me view it as something more than just a holiday. It's the start of a three month cycle where that which has been put into place in prior efforts can come to fruition and require dealing with, or to be a bit more metaphorical, reaping the harvest of what was sown before. I go into it with some trepidation, as there's no easy way to know what's growing there under the surface of the fertile ground waiting to spring up and require dealing with. And since it covers a quarter of the year there's going to be a Mercury retrograde period in there to add extra cayenne to the recipe.
Which brings us back to the disinebriation. That was a reaping of a different matter. For those unfamiliar, the goddess in question got angered by the lack of respect shown to the neteru, and especially Ra, so she went on the warpath, killing every human she could get her bloodied hands on and leaving a wash of blood on the land. Ra realized that with no humans left there would be no worshippers and by extension no worshiped, set to divert the bloodthirsty (not a metaphor in this case) goddess. He colored all the beer he could get with pomegranate juice and placed it before her, so she drank it, got bombed, and passed out. And the world was saved from oblivion. (not quite a cultural reset button, more a goddess reset button) This is a legend of redemption and a saving of the world, and I find this useful to pair it with the harvest. What we harvest doesn't have to be kept, some of it can be discarded or repurposed. So we have some control of what we do and what we keep. Maybe some harvests need to be burned, plowed under, or given to someone who could better use it or benefit from it. And some may be best stored for future use.
So a productive and wise harvest to all of you, and may the beer be sweet as you contemplate our continued existance.
Nyyki (she/her/Miss)
Besides being the day many neo-pagans celebrate as Lammas (the Catholic term, but let's steal back from them since they stole so much from our ancestors) or Lughnasahd, August 2nd is also the celebration of the Disinebriation of Hathor, Sekhmet, or Tefnut. Each of the thre neturt show up in legends about this incident, though the most common one is Sekhmet, which makes sense since she is one of the eyes of Ra. Hathor, as the wife of Ra, is the second choice, though this kind of aggression is a bit uncommon for her. The Tefnut legend seems to come from Nubia.
Lammas is the beginning of the harvest. Several big sticks to the head have made me view it as something more than just a holiday. It's the start of a three month cycle where that which has been put into place in prior efforts can come to fruition and require dealing with, or to be a bit more metaphorical, reaping the harvest of what was sown before. I go into it with some trepidation, as there's no easy way to know what's growing there under the surface of the fertile ground waiting to spring up and require dealing with. And since it covers a quarter of the year there's going to be a Mercury retrograde period in there to add extra cayenne to the recipe.
Which brings us back to the disinebriation. That was a reaping of a different matter. For those unfamiliar, the goddess in question got angered by the lack of respect shown to the neteru, and especially Ra, so she went on the warpath, killing every human she could get her bloodied hands on and leaving a wash of blood on the land. Ra realized that with no humans left there would be no worshippers and by extension no worshiped, set to divert the bloodthirsty (not a metaphor in this case) goddess. He colored all the beer he could get with pomegranate juice and placed it before her, so she drank it, got bombed, and passed out. And the world was saved from oblivion. (not quite a cultural reset button, more a goddess reset button) This is a legend of redemption and a saving of the world, and I find this useful to pair it with the harvest. What we harvest doesn't have to be kept, some of it can be discarded or repurposed. So we have some control of what we do and what we keep. Maybe some harvests need to be burned, plowed under, or given to someone who could better use it or benefit from it. And some may be best stored for future use.
So a productive and wise harvest to all of you, and may the beer be sweet as you contemplate our continued existance.
Nyyki (she/her/Miss)
no subject
Date: 2021-08-04 02:16 pm (UTC)And enter the cltic ledgends to pair the games with that of the goddess pasing out to celebrate the continued existence of humas. xd
(No, on a serious note, louck up the legend of Lugh and his part in Lugnasad, it's fascinating. Especially if you are a mythology nird.)
This is a really awesome post, since I just hapen to *be* a mythology nird. :p
-T~
no subject
Date: 2021-08-04 04:49 pm (UTC)Thank you. I'm in a deep emersion into Egyptology and the history thanks to a friend who buys all kinds of lectures about it. I was doing a goddess a year for a while, starting with Bridget, (Hey, back in 2002-2003 I wrote a full orchestral mass for her) Hestia, Artemis, and then I got scared, because I was told I'd work with a love goddess next. Aphrodite scares me deep down to my center, because she's very picky about her worship and it's a lot harder to handle all those details when you can't see. After all, Phaedra slipped up on one of the ritual observances and Aphrodite destroyed her marriage and created a situation where Phaedra's stepson was killed. I wasn't in for a year of that kind of stress. Then I caught a lecture and meditation by Nicki Scully and poof, there was my answer. So I've been working with Hathor now for I don't know how many years, and before that I wouldn't have dreamed I'd have a big interest in ancient Egypt. Life is interesting sometimes.
Nyyki (she/her/Miss)
Sent from my HAL 9000 in transit to Jupiter