A visitor during Senut
Halfway through the offering formula this morning, I heard the cat flap. My own cat was asleep on my pillow at the time.¹
The neighbor's grey tabby, who has never once come inside in two years, walked past me, sat directly in front of Bast's statue on the bookshelf shrine, blinked at her slowly, then turned around and blinked at me.
I finished the rite with a guest. Water, bread, incense (cone, ceramic dish, window cracked). When I reverted the offerings afterwards she accepted a small corner of the bread and left the way she came.
¹ I checked twice. Mine slept through the entire visit, which I am choosing to read as professional courtesy between cats.
Dua Bast.
Senut at the bookshelf, with citations
My shrine is a bookshelf with little cabinet doors, and every weekday morning it opens like a tiny shop. Wash hands and face, light a battery tealight (I work in an archive, real flame near paper makes me itch), and offer cool water and a slice of bread to Bast and Djehuty. I greet them in clumsy Middle Egyptian, then in English, because I'm fairly sure they prefer sincerity to grammar.
After ten minutes I revert the offerings, which just means I thank them and eat the bread myself. Nothing is wasted in this house. Bast gets first look at the sardines on Fridays; the cat gets the sardines.
Fifteen minutes a day. It has kept me steady through two job changes and one very long winter.
Sopdet before dawn
Up at 5 to feed the cat (Bast's representative on earth, as she would remind you), and Sopdet was blazing over the neighbor's roof. Sirius, to most people. In ancient Egypt her return to the dawn sky announced the flood and the new year; this time of year she's just a bright, flickering companion for insomniacs and cat owners.
The Egyptians tracked 36 decan stars rising through the night, ten days each, and some Middle Kingdom coffins have star clocks painted on the inside of the lid. Possibly so the dead could tell the hour (the purpose is debated; I like this reading). I saw one in a museum years ago and still think about it: someone wanted their beloved to never lose track of time.
Poured a little water on the balcony for her and went back to bed.
Karkade for Bast
Karkade is hibiscus tea, and in Egypt it's everywhere, cold in summer and hot in winter. I cold-steep mine: a big handful of dried hibiscus in a jug of water in the fridge overnight, then a spoonful of honey stirred in the next morning. It comes out the deepest garnet, which feels right for a lioness.
The first small glass goes on the shrine for Bast, who receives it with what I imagine is polite feline indifference. I drink the rest over the week. My partner calls it "goddess juice" and steals it constantly.
(Footnote, because I can't help myself: I don't claim this as reconstruction. It's a modern Egyptian drink and a modern devotion, and I think she's fine with that.)
Lapis for Djehuty, carnelian for Bast (with footnotes)
Updated the shrine stones this week: a small lapis lazuli on Djehuty's side, a carnelian on Bast's.
Footnote 1: lapis didn't come from Egypt at all. It was traded all the way from the mountains of Badakhshan, in what's now Afghanistan, which tells you how much it was prized. Some texts describe the gods' hair as made of lapis.
Footnote 2: carnelian turns up everywhere in Egyptian jewellery and amulets. Its warm red-orange felt right for Bast, who is fierce and cozy in equal measure, rather like the cat currently asleep on my keyboard.
Footnote 3: I paid $14 for both. The pharaohs would weep.