Find me at Polytheist.com!

This morning, a new website for interreligious education and community, Polytheist.com , went live.

I am honored to report that I am among the first ten contributors to this new venture, and that Kemet Today will be hosted at Polytheist.com from now on. As a result of the community encouragement (read: outside pressure to meet posting deadlines), I also expect that I'll be posting on a much more regular basis than I have managed here. This is an excellent thing and I'm very excited for it.

I encourage you to check out the entire website, but if you want to link directly to my personal page, you can do so via this link:

http://polytheist.com/kemet-today/

Hoping that this is a Zep Tepi and a new beginning for cooperation and understanding between the various polytheists online, and continues to spread to offline and real world interaction as it already started to do this summer. It's about time we began such a journey.

Polytheist Leadership Conference, July 11-13, 2014

So, this happened....

I will be the keynote speaker at the very first Polytheist Leadership Conference this summer in upstate New York, just a few weekends before Kemetic New Year and our annual retreat in Chicago.

You can read more about the conference at the official website, and about my presentation on organized modern polytheism here.

Book reviews available

I recently learned that two of my books were reviewed (and more than once!). You can check them out here: Ser's review of The Ancient Egyptian Prayerbook Devo's review of The Ancient Egyptian Prayerbook Ser's review of Nebt-het: Lady of the House I was a bit surprised to read that the Prayerbook was interpreted by both reviewers as somehow intended solely for a Kemetic Orthodox audience, as I never intended for it to be just for them. Perhaps that just shows that you can never control how people interpret your work, once it leaves your head. I suppose that it is also easy to mistake me for the religion I founded, though the latter has quite a life of its own. It is very good, however, to get some feedback and review of the books in the larger world. Many writers don't read their reviews. I understand that motivation; it's not always easy to read negative reactions or be on the receiving end of internet disdain. But I think it's important, if you actually do write for people other than yourself, to have some idea of what interests them, what they respond to, and how. It's not so much to write in a way that caters to them. Unless, of course, that's why you write. The intention of receiving that feedback is to make your next work that much more useful/better/accessible. Or maybe I'm just a masochist. Who knows? In any case, I am grateful for the reviews, and for any reviews, of my work.

Blogsolidation - Join me at tamarasiuda.com !

Most of the people who will read this, and who know me, are aware that I am involved in a lot more things than just Kemetic Orthodoxy. Some might suggest I'm a polymath; others would say I just have too many curiosities, and both are right.

I'll be posting from here on out on a new blog at tamarasiuda.com. Join me there if you like; I'll be talking about more than Kemetic Orthodoxy and Egypt but you can just click on the categories links if you'd rather not read about the other things I ponder.

Thanks for reading!

Egypt Links and Various News, 30 Jan 2011 UPDATED 31 Jan 2011

So much is happening. Please forgive the information dump but I hope it will be of use. Note: January 31's updates are all in BOLDFACE. If you have any information you'd like me to post please feel free to send it along to nisut at kemet dot org or hit the reply/comment button at the bottom of this post and link it up.

There are some excellent websites out there collecting and distributing the news from Egypt. I'm watching everything I can and also collecting material and putting it out via my Twitter feed, which will also pick up anything I post on Facebook as it's set to do that. In the meantime, here are some updates along with links so you can follow yourself.

For news inside Egypt live: Al Jazeera is still broadcasting as it can, despite being shut down by the Mubarak government. You can follow a live stream in English here: http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/  UPDATE 31 Jan 2011, 8:30pm Chicago time: Al Jazeera has been banned and shut down inside Egypt and a media blackout is happening sporadically; you may not be able to view this but keep trying.

Some excellent blogging by my colleagues, some of whom are in Egypt right now and are telephoning outside the Internet blockade to get the news out:

Ancient Egypt Online - news out of Egypt. Sunday, a map of damaged Museum areas: http://ancientegyptonline.org/egyptnews/
UPDATE: Now there is a listing of sites and their known conditions: http://ancientegyptonline.org/egyptnews/p/mapofantiquitiestheft

Egyptology News (Andie, Kat and Kate) http://egyptology.blogspot.com/
UPDATE: Kate now has a special update site especially to gather and confirm/deny looting reports: http://egyptopaedia.com/2011/

Jane Akhshar's Luxor News http://luxor-news.blogspot.com/

The Eloquent Peasant (Margaret Maitland) - many photos of damaged Cairo Museum items:
http://www.eloquentpeasant.com/

News from the Valley of the Kings (Kate Phizackerley): http://www.kv64.info/

Sarah Carr's excellent blog about conditions in Egypt, which may be disabled sporadically: http://www.inanities.org (note strong language and photos).

An excellent website (again, note strong language) about how NOT to talk about Egypt, discussing racist, political and other tropes that are really NOT helpful:
http://sarthanapalos.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/a-guide-how-not-to-say-stupid-stuff-about-egypt/

The Coptic Orthodox Church in North America has declared the next three days to be days of fasting and prayers for the people of Egypt. For those of you who feel compelled to join them in solidarity I encourage you to do so. Many protests have occurred and continue to occur in larger cities in the USA; I have observed footage from events in New York, Toronto, Chicago and LA so far. There are a number of Facebook "groups" that have been created to get news out of Egypt and the #Jan25 hashtag on Twitter as well as the #Egypt hashtag will also supply much news and real-time information.


In other news I can substantiate as being first-hand and/or confirmed by experts in the field:

M'ap rele pou Ayiti (Calling out for Haiti)

I made my first trip to Haiti in July 2001, and I've been back twice since (2002 and 2006). The country and its people have always remained with me, and at least since 2006 I have been part of a family, an adopted child of a Vodou house in Port-au-Prince. While Egypt always has the best part of my heart, Haiti probably has the most earnest part, as it is a place equal in its beauty and its terror: the most bittersweet place I have ever loved.

Yesterday as you all already know a major earthquake hit just outside of the city, on the side where my Haitian family is. I'm using my Facebook fan page to distribute news from the family and the extended family as fast as I can since it's set to also send that information directly from Twitter. For the most part we still can't get through to anyone but we're scared. The lakou (compound) where most of them are living is a block from the palace...that palace that is completely broken now.

I'll update as I get news. Right now - Haitians need help.

Ancient Egyptian Prayerbook re-released!

Em hotep!

And yes, here's the big news I was hinting about on Twitter earlier....

I'm really excited today. Finally, after a great deal of effort and all the help of our friend Jordan at Azrael Press, The Ancient Egyptian Prayerbook has been republished. It will be available in any bookstore in a couple of weeks using its ISBN number (978-0-578-03071-5), but for now it is available at the website, egyptianprayers.com.

The new format is larger (6x9 inches) and so the text is a little bit bigger for easier reading. Other than a new cover and an expanded index, it's the same as the original version. Please spread the word that the book is back in print. I know that we had a lot of members in the temple who were waiting for it to come back so they could purchase one.

And now that the big project is out of the way, other projects will be following.

Back to work!

News, New Shemsu and the podcast has returned!

We've entered the "crunch time" before Wep Ronpet, the Kemetic New Year and the busiest time of the year for me. I'm going to do my best to make sure this blog and the Twitter and Facebook fan page stay updated for you, but if they should slip behind, know that it's just because I'll be spending a lot of the next 30 days offline getting ready for the week when 45 of our members will be meeting to celebrate the new year at our 12th annual retreat.

It's hard for me to believe it's been 12 years since we started getting together to celebrate Wep Ronpet as a temple. We've come a long way from eight people sharing a very tiny room at a hostel; now our workshops take place in two conference rooms at the biggest hotel in town and we actually get to hold the rituals in our own temple. If you'd told me twelve years ago this would've been happening I think I would've been rather shocked. Where will we be in another 12 years?

As I'd mentioned in a previous Twitter post, the state finally finished dealing with our challenge to the property tax zoning, and has upheld its original ruling in 1994 that we are indeed a tax-exempt religious organization. We still have some legal bills to deal with but mostly the 14-month fight is over. Dua-Netjer (thank you) to the gods and to the people of this faith for holding us together, and even more thanks to Valerie, our legal counsel, who worked really long hours right up until she left for her maternity leave to make sure that our paperwork was exact and everything would work out.

In late May we added seven more Shemsu to the rolls, bringing the grand total of named Shemsu in the faith to 364 (wow!). Nekhtet for the naming of Ta'iawepwawet of Scotland, Pekhretwepwawet of Argentina, Tahaibast of Pennsylvania, Udja'nyinepu of Canada, Emhatiaset of Washington state, A'aburaheruakhety of Pennsylvania, and Parudjyinepu of Massachusetts.

And last but certainly not least on the news front for today, the Kemet This Week podcast that Rev. Craig put together last year has returned with much better sound quality. If you check the website at kemetthisweek.libsyn.org, you'll find two new podcasts, the first being Craig's response to current events in Iraq and the second an interview with me about next week's Aset Luminous holiday, as well as the archives from last year's podcast attempt. Now that we have hardware that will work expect the podcast to return to its namesake weekly delivery format.

The future of Luxor

Dr. Ray Johnson's update on the city of Luxor's continuing effort to modernize its tourism facilities without destroying what makes people want to go to Luxor in the first place can be read here.