Thursday was a good day.
It was a Divine Holy Day and I got up at 4:00 AM to make sure that I had time to make it into the City and the Earth Center. It takes a while for me to do my morning internal cleansing and such. We do group Zem-Zem every Divine Holy Day promptly at 8:00 AM.
On this day, I made it on time. I got out of the house at about 7:00. The traffic was heavy as usual, but I got to the Earth Center at about 7:50. When I arrived, none of the other students were there as yet. I walked into the common room and the lights were off. Master Naba was asleep on his sleeping mat in the far corner just outside of the healing room. His snores were not particularly irritating. They were more like a soft periodic buzzing, loud enough to be heard, but not so loud as to be disturbing.
Bouneith was preparing the urn and candle that we use for our sacrifices. Since I had already done my ablutions before arriving, I did not speak or touch anyone. It seemed that Bikdeni was in the bathroom performing his ablutions. I saw his car parked outside the building when I arrived. Soon the other students began to enter. Bikdeni came out of the bathroom. Nehez and Hefira walked in. I found a spot facing the urn with my back to the door and thought about the fact that I had not brought anything to pad the hard wooden floor beneath my knees. I was anticipating a significant amount of pain in the next half hour or so.
I really like Baheru.
As I kneeled on the floor and began to calm myself, he appeared on my left and offered me a mat to place under me. He then went to retrieve another one for himself. I recognized that others had also joined us; Zemonita had brought her baby. I think Marhu and Ma-Awa were there as well.
We began our Zem-Zem and soon the common room was filling with the smoke from the incense that we all had placed in the urn as our sacrifices to the Neteru.
Zem-Zem is something that we do at least twice a day every day except for the days of rest. On the Divine holy days we do something special in that we make offerings to the Neteru. On ancestor holy days we make offerings to our ancestors.
The Zem-Zem is the only place where I can consistently find inner peace.
Today I stayed afterwards to spend some time talking with Bouneith. Bouneith is master Naba’s wife and one of his oldest students here in the US. She has known him for more than seven years. She is also the mother of four of his seventeen children, B’Dal, Ineza, Zemira and baby Ramez.
I have spoken to Bouneith on several occasions. If many see Master Naba as a Father Figure, many also see her as a Mother figure. As for me, I have always been more comfortable around women. I have a close relationship with my own Mother and was always able to talk to her, so it was easy for me to feel comfortable with Bouneith.
We went to the back of the loft where the Earth Center is located and sat in the area near her computer workstation. This space is divided off from the rest of the center by filing cabinets toward the common room and book cases and a couch toward the very back of the space. Towards the healing room and sleeping quarters there is a table and a divider that makes a hallway.
“How are you Bouneith?” I asked.
“I’m fine.” She said as she sat in her chair in front of her workstation and turned toward me. Baby Ramez was in his chair on the floor between us. B’Dal had on his Ray Mysterio mask and was playing with his toy championship belt. Ineza had on a mask too and was following around behind him.
I looked over and smiled at them. I always tease Ineza by calling him Flava Flave, since his front teeth are filled and he has a shiny rack. Both he and his brother are going to grow up to be a couple of handsome young men some day. The ladies are going to fall all over them.
Bouneith shooed them away but warned them not to go up front and wake their father. Cute little Zamira came up to me and demanded “Milk!” I just looked at her calmly. She then turned to her mother and did the same.
“Is that how you ask?” Said Bouneith in a slightly scolding voice.
“You all go and play, I’ll fix your breakfast shortly, Ray and I are talking. Now go.
So how are you?” she asked.
“Well… not to good actually. I don’t like feeling this way. How do I deal with these feelings?”
“How are you feeling exactly?”
“Kind of depressed, and a bit ashamed of myself.”
“You know, in the healing class, we teach that the cause of depression is the destruction of the illusions that we hold on to in life. This is why depression is a common thing for people in middle age. Have you had any medicine for the depression?”
“Yes, Master Naba gave me some but it is all gone now.”
“Good, how did it work?”
“I couldn’t really tell if it was working,” I said. “Until I stopped using it. Then I realized that it was making a big difference.”
“OK, so then you do not have to worry about any spiritual depression issues.” She said.
I had not realized at the time that this medicine had spiritual characteristics. I thought that it was just a natural form of anti-depressant.
“So now you are just dealing with the reality issues, but you have to be careful. You don’t have to be ashamed of something that you didn’t have any control over. It is very easy to get caught up in the feeling itself.”
“Yea, I don’t want to just wallow in the pain. I want it to end. I want it to go away. How do I keep the wisdom of my mistakes while leaving the pain behind?
In the past I used to pick up a good fantasy or science fiction book. It would distract me from the pain, but I don’t think that is something I should be doing now.
Sometimes, I would think about technical things or physics to take my mind off of it.”
“Yes, you should stay away from the fantasy for now. Working is a good way to cope. That is always good.” She said.
I did not comment on this. I really don’t work when I think about technical stuff. It’s just another form of escapism. I’m just trying to think my way into the magical world when I do this. I have come to realize that thinking is not the way to get there.
“You should really be careful here though. Remember, a monkey should not be ashamed because he cannot fly.” She said.
This didn’t make much sense at all to me. I began to wonder if I should be insulted, but seeing as how she had no real reason to insult me, I let it slide.
We wrapped up the conversation and I went off to work.
Later that evening I returned to the EC for Ka-at Ibi class (Kemetic meditation). We had been spending the last couple of sessions concentrating on a couple of riddles.
My classmates Mark and Matt were there before me. I joined the class and sat down on a mat between the two of them.
Mark, on my left, is of European decent. He is about six foot two or so, and thin, with relatively short dark blond, almost reddish hair and a full beard. He seems a quiet guy. I always feel comfortable around him.
Matt, on my right is about the same height as Mark but seems a lot younger. He is of mixed decent and very light. He is in his early twenties and also quite thin. He has long light brown dreds about shoulder length. He’s a kind of happy-go-lucky type, though sometimes he seems quite sad. I like him. The kid has potential.
The class went well. I figured out the riddle that had been posed to us the week before.
Nehez, who was teaching the class along with Baheru, reminded us that we should not let our heads get too big. That kind of attitude is a good invitation for evil to enter our lives. I felt taken down a notch in any case when we began to do our breathing exercises. I still have trouble kneeling in first position. It was particularly difficult this evening.
After the class I questioned Bouneith about a comment she had left on my previous blog about shame. She said that I should be careful
that I do not get caught up in “Illegitimate shame”.
So I asked her “What do you mean by illegitimate shame? I don’t understand.”
“A monkey should not be ashamed because it cannot fly.” She said with a broad smile.
Obviously, I needed to meditate on this for a while.
So, over the past couple of days I have been thinking about this. “What could I possibly get out of being ashamed of something that I
am not responsible for?” I asked myself.
It finally came to me that the benefit is safety.
If I take responsibility for everything that happens to me, even the things that I could not possibly have had any control over, then that means that I have power over them. It becomes my fault because I did not use my power effectively, hence the shame. If however, I acknowledge that I am not responsible, I must also accept my own powerlessness in the face of my troubles.
This is obviously not something that I have wanted to face. I really don’t like feeling vulnerable and weak. In fact, the most shameful moments in my memory all have to do with physical weakness. I can’t stand the idea of being helpless; it leaves me paralyzed with self-disgust.
Kind of a weird situation for a guy six foot five and 400 pounds, I’m pretty strong too. Still, I have often felt weak and helpless. Instead of becoming a bully like some might have, I retreated into my fantasies. I really can’t stand the idea of hurting anyone, yet I know that I have lost control before. We all have our moments, but for me, I realize that I could really hurt someone unintentionally.
But I digress…
Our initiation teaches that, as human beings, we are born weak in the same way that Heru was born weak. Due to the circumstances of his conception, he was born immature and helpless. We are also born this way. We are the product of our upbringing and the destiny that was chosen for us. We have no power over the evil within the world; we can only contain the evil within ourselves.
It is by virtue of following the divine code of conduct and doing our spiritual practices that we can contain the evil and advance the development of our souls for the brief time that we have in any incarnation.
The time we spend in the afterlife is vast in comparison to incarnate life. Incarnate life is like a dream in the night, brief and ephemeral in the context of the night itself, let alone in the context of a whole day.
The first real illusion that we must face is the significance of our life in the context of true reality. Though our lives have significance to us, we must realize that our purpose here is to take actions that will affect us in the after life. Our lives do not belong to us; our lives belong to the after life.
How can a single man, born so vulnerable and weak, be responsible for all of the evil that he has come across in his life? How can I be responsible?
Surely, this is the height of arrogance.
For this arrogance, I feel shame, and perhaps that is legitimate.
We all must live for the purpose of perfecting our own lives. The divine code of conduct sets the pattern for this. Now that I am aware of the code, I have the responsibility to understand it and to keep it, not for the world, but for myself, for my own soul.
This is my responsibility.
I can no longer feel shame for my ignorance. I can no longer feel shame for my weakness. For those times that I acted with malice or stupidity, I can legitimately feel shame. For those times that I acted from the basis of my self-created illusions, I can feel shame. For those times that I practiced self-delusion solely for the purpose of hiding from realities that I could not face, I can feel shame.
I pray that I can capture the wisdom of these actions and avoid the shame of them in the future.
I pray that I can learn and recognize shameful situations before they come upon me, and act accordingly.
I pray that I have the courage and the determination to do what I must to become a complete human being.