Day 5 of the Five Day Feast of the Victory of Horus ~ Meditations on Forgiveness

 

 

“Finally Seth is beaten and Horus wins,

But will that turn an enemy into a friend?”

• Kotipelto, “Battle of the Gods”

In the aftermath of the battles between Set and Horus, Set was given the desert, and two more consorts, the foreign Goddesses Anat and Astarte, as consolation for His loss. Not a bad deal overall. I like to think Nebet-Het returned to Set after it was all over too, but that’s just my preferred version I guess, in which Set has this big polyamorous relationship with all His consorts. Set and Horus would patch things up later in most versions of the story from before Set’s demonization in later times; enough to become the two-headed synchronized God Antewy. A God that to me symbolizes reconciliation and forgiveness. But I don’t think Set’s sister Aset ever forgave Him, even though they will work together against bigger foes like the Chaos Serpent, and I don’t think They don’t want their followers at odds with one another either. Nor is She really under any obligation to forgive Him, truth be told. This teaches us a lesson on forgiveness. Forgiveness isn’t an obligation. You don’t have to forgive anyone, even if they’re sorry. It’s your choice.

The Buddha said that that to hold a grudge is like holding onto a hot coal with the intent to throw it at someone. You’re not hurting anyone but yourself. Maybe that’s why I’m not a Buddhist. There’s definitely something to that quote, of course. Sitting there and stewing over someone’s wrongdoing isn’t going to do you any good. But can you let go of the hot coal without forgiveness? Maybe put it in a heat-proof container and store it away in the back of your closet? I think you can reach the acceptance stage of grief without forgiveness. 

I took an ethics class back in college, where I read the book “The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness” by Simon Wiesenthal. In it, Wiesenthal, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, recounts the time when he was working at a hospital and a German soldier on his death bed asked him for forgiveness for the atrocities that he committed during the Second World War. Wiesenthal concludes, if I recall correctly, that he was in no place to forgive this soldier just because he happened to share an ethnicity with the soldier’s victims. Some things are indeed unforgivable. The book invites you to think about what you would do in that situation, and the teacher had us write an essay with our answer. Some people actually said they would have forgiven the soldier. Not me though. This soldier’s victims weren’t alive to offer forgiveness, no one else should offer it on their behalf. I also think people like that deserve to spend their final moments of consciousness thinking about all the people they harmed. I don’t care if they were just following orders. Let Ammit the Devourer feast on heavy hearts like his. I guess I can be a bit vindictive. But it was an interesting book, and it was after reading it that I started to build my own ethics of forgiveness. 

I can think of a couple times in my life where my ethics of forgiveness were put to the test. For instance, my first girlfriend. I was in my early 20s and part of a Wiccan coven, where I met her. It only lasted four months. She had a crush on me for about five minutes and then didn’t know how to break up with me. A lot of her problems with me I later found were symptoms of undiagnosed autism and ADHD. Things about myself that I couldn’t change. But she was always demanding I change, wanting to mold me into whatever her image of a perfect boyfriend was in her mind. I wasn’t picking up on her hints, and on my birthday she was very cold toward me and said some cruel things. My best friend ended up confiding in me that she wanted to break up with me, I didn’t even hear it from her because she couldn’t do it herself, she just hoped if she was mean enough to me I would break up with her. I took it hard. Worst birthday ever, suffice it to say. Months later she attempted to make amends with me, trying to buy my forgiveness with gifts. She wanted to remain friends, and she said she was sorry. I couldn’t forgive her, and I never did. I said it would take some time. Perhaps that time could be measured in centuries. We did remain “friends” for a time, because I still had other friends in the coven and didn’t want to make things awkward, but eventually I cut her out of my life, because even as just friends all she wanted was for me to change, she couldn’t accept me for who I was. I don’t really feel guilty about not forgiving her. We were both young and dumb, I guess. Perhaps she’s matured by now, but I wouldn’t know.

Another person who tested my ethics of forgiveness is a certain toxic family member. In fact, he’s the one who brought me closer to Set, when I asked for Him to repell this toxic person in exchange for an offering of beer. Not that I haven’t had to see this guy’s face at all since then, but I saw less of him after that, and he’s supposed to be going to jail soon, so that’s a plus. He’s an addict, into the hardest kinds of drugs and alcohol. Any time he does something wrong, like steal our stuff or blow up at us or even get physically violent, he just expects everyone to forget about it five minutes later. We’re supposed to just forget it because “he’s family”. Never once heard him sincerely apologize, ever. Even when he is forced to apologize, he doesn’t change his behavior. His mother defends him and insists he come over for all the holidays, even though she takes the most abuse from him. 

I can’t forgive someone who not only isn’t actually sorry but has no plans on stopping what they’re apologizing for. For me to actually forgive someone, they need to be sincere in their apology, and they need to stop the behavior they’re apologizing for. And like I said before, you can’t accept an apology on behalf of someone else. I don’t believe in “forgive and forget” either. I might forgive, but I never forget. I’ll just put that hot coal away for later, maybe it will cool eventually. 

Hope you all enjoyed these writing prompts. I think “Defeat” was my favorite one. Tomorrow I will have another Feast of Sutekh; not an official holiday on the Kemetic calendar, of course. 

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀

Սիամանթօ Օտարը

Day 4 of the Feast of the Victory of Horus ~ Meditations on Comprises

 Day 4 of the Feast of the Victory of Horus ~ Meditations on Compromise

Art by Yoshi Yoshitani

Compromise, it’s the ideal outcome of a disagreement, but at the same time it’s not always possible, or even wise. I try to compromise as a first resort to a disagreement. It is the Ma’at thing to do. 

There are as many versions of Egyptian mythology as there were cities and towns in ancient Egypt for over 3,000 years, so I’m not about to claim the one I ascribe to is the one true canon version. There are many truths, you can think of it like multiverse theory. But in one version, during the 80 year battle between Set and Horus, there was a point where they reached a compromise. Set was to rule Upper Egypt (that is, southern Egypt), while Horus would rule Lower Egypt. This corresponds to where most of their followers lived. But one fiesty Netjeret wasn’t at all pleased with this compromise; Isis. Now I get it, it sucks having your husband killed and having to go hide out in the marshes while raising your kid, while searching for your husband’s missing body parts. I argued on the first day of the feast that the story was a lot more nuanced than “Set bad, evil, jealous”, but I recognize that this must have devastated Her. But She didn’t have make everybody else suffer because of it, first and foremost Her own son. Anyway, She thought that Horus deserved all of Egypt, and Set needed to be punished. So, the battle raged on for a few more decades. Had She been willing to compromise, the whole thing could have ended a lot sooner, a lot of suffering could have been avoided. She did get what She wanted in the end, Horus got the whole of Egypt. So what is the moral we’re supposed to get from this part of the story? Don’t ever compromise until you completely defeat your opponent? Violence is the answer, might makes right?

I can think of a lot of instances where compromise was a bad idea. I hate talking about it, but have one look at the state of US politics. It got to where it is, at the brink of fascism, because of Democrats trying to pull that “reach across the aisle” crap with people who want anyone different from them dead, or enslaved (that’s assuming the two main parties weren’t in cahoots all along, since they all answer to the same billionaires). You can’t and you shouldn’t compromise with far-right bigots. It’s like the paradox of tolerance. Tolerate people different from yourself, but don’t tolerate intolerant people. “So much for the tolerant left” they’ll whine. They all deserve a punch in the face. I can look at the history of Armenia too. Uninformed outsiders might say “Why doesn’t Armenia just compromise with Turkey and Azerbaijan, the genocide was over a century ago, why don’t they get over it.” Firstly they refuse to admit the genocide happened, and I’ve realized after watching Azerbaijan commit genocide in Artsakh that the number one reason for someone to deny a genocide is because they’re not done yet. Their leaders often say the quiet part out loud, they want Armenia wiped off the map, and erased from existence. You can’t compromise with people like that. 

I can think of at least one historical example where compromise would have been a good idea but wasn’t done; the punishment of Germany after the First World War. Yes, I can see why the allies wanted to punish them, millions died, I don’t think Germany was the good guy in that war (it was a war of light grey vs dark grey morality; other than the Ottoman Empire which of course was purely evil in my opinion). But punishing them so severely and making their money worthless just created the conditions for the Nazis to rise to power. I don’t know what the solution should have been honestly, I’m no expert on that part of history. It made sense to punish them but it seems to me they went too far.

I’ve heard it said that a good compromise leaves neither side completely satisfied. Perhaps that’s how it should be if you want to keep the peace. 

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀

Սիամանթօ Օտարը

Day 3 of the Feast of the Victory of Horus ~ Meditations on Defeat

 Day 3 of the Feast of the Victory of Horus: Defeat

I said yesterday that defeat can be reversed just as victory can. This is true, at least from a certain perspective. Using my chess metaphor, as long as you still have pieces on the board there’s always a chance you can pull a victory. But there comes a point where you will face a checkmate. No one stays undefeated forever, unless they quit while they’re ahead. In sports like boxing or wrestling, no one gets to hold onto their world championship title belt forever. Someone who is a 10-time world champion has faced nine defeats. 

Lord Sutekh can teach us much about how to accept a crippling defeat, and still stand tall and keep fighting. He was robbed of His crown, demonized, His statues and temples destroyed, even had entire month-long festivals dedicated to His dismemberment; and then, like the rest of the Gods, He faded into obscurity for the better part of 2,000 years. But He is still here. He still fights that Chaos Serpent every night, and wins. He doesn’t need anybody’s validation. He doesn’t care if people call Him Satan or anything. Saving the world from a chaotic cosmic entity every night is a thankless job, but He’s not out to impress anybody. He doesn’t need to be universally loved. As long as His consorts and followers love Him, that’s enough. Because He knows whose opinions matter to Him.

There was a time when I tried to conform, tried to play by society’s rules, only to find out that it’s a rigged game. Built to keep regular people in their place and the ruling class on top. Imagine, being forced to play a game of Monopoly right after graduating High School, but no one explained the rules to you beforehand, and maybe you just aren’t that good with numbers, or you’re just not that competitive. Then society tries to convince you that you’re a total failure for not being good at this one game, for not being able to rack up enough imaginary numbers called “money”. But why beat yourself up over not being good at a game you never even asked to play? It’s like shaming a fish for not being able to climb a tree as well as a monkey. Poverty is never a personal failure, it’s a systemic failure, and laziness is a myth. For there to be winners in this game, there has to be losers. 

In those dark moments, when the world tells you you’re nothing, you’re worthless, when your dreams and aspirations evaporate before you and you hit rock bottom, that’s when you find out who you really are. You either crack and give up, or you collect all those shattered pieces of your ego and forge something new. Something stronger. You can only get to that point by experiencing defeat. As Nebet-Het teaches us, it’s okay to cry, to mourn, to grieve. There is no shame in it. But, if you don’t pick up the broken pieces of yourself and reach some kind of acceptance, you’ll be forever defined by your defeat.

However, that said, don’t keep trying to prove yourself to others either. That’s a dead-end path; you’re never going to please everybody, and no matter how great your achievements, people only really care about what you’ve done lately, or how you’re going to top your previous achievements. You need to redefine what success means to you, not what society considers success. Fame, money, sports cards, fancy houses, none of that matters by the time you’re on your death bed, or getting your heart weighed on the Scales of Truth in Duat. As Mark Twain once said, “Fame is a vapor; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.” Don’t throw away finite hours of your life slaving away at a dead-end job to afford expensive status symbols that don’t really make you happy. Give yourself attainable dreams and aspirations. Live within your means. Make sure those victories in your future are ones you actually want to have, not something you’ve been told you’re supposed to want. This is something I had to learn, and I had to taste defeat to learn it. Above all, defeat is a lesson. Pick yourself up after a defeat, but do it for yourself. You’re stronger than you think. 

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀

Սիամանթօ Օտարը

Day 2 of the Feast of the Victory of Horus: Meditation on Victory

 Day 2 of the Feast of the Victory of Horus: 

Meditation on Victory

This statue of Horus is interesting to me, if a bit sad. He is clad in Roman armor, the garb of Egypt’s colonizers, and the ones who would eventually ban Egypt’s religion. Even a sad look on His face. Yes, He emerged victorious against Set, and ruled the pantheon for centuries. But eventually, the victory was undone, reaching a certain experation date. 

People act like victory is something permanent. You work hard, and you earn your happily ever after. But it can be undone, stripped away at any moment. Lest that sound too pessimistic, defeat can be undone in a similar manner. An Olympic gold medalist can still have their medal stripped from them years down the line if it was found that they somehow cheated. Armenia’s victory against Azerbaijan in the Artsakh war in the 1990s was undone in 2020 when Azerbaijan invaded and successfully ethnically cleansed the region, while no one in the international community lifted a finger to stop it (I’m still not over it). The decision of Roe vs Wade was a victory for women everywhere, and seemed ironclad in US law, but it was overturned the minute the ruling class started to worry they weren’t getting enough human livestock to serve them in wage slavery. Any victory can be undone. You see, it all depends on the way the pendulum swings. Nothing lasts forever. This can be an optimistic or a pessimistic statement, but that is subjective. 

Set gaining the crown may have seemed like a victory for a while, until Horus came along. Was Horus’ victory really permanent though? Horus represented the kingship, first of Lower Egypt, then all of Egypt. What did He do when the foreign powers took over Egypt? The position of Nisut, aka pharaoh, was vacant for centuries even before Rome banned the Kemetic faith. But even this defeat wasn’t permanent. Kemetic Orthodoxy has a Nisut, but is between Nisuts at the moment, although that hopefully won’t be the case for too long. And in your independent practice, you can be your own Nisut.

Just like victory isn’t permanent, neither is defeat. I like to call the time between the banning of the Kemetic faith and the decoding of the Rosetta Stone the “Long Night”. For a long time, the old Gods were forgotten. But when the Medu Netjer, the divine writing of hieroglyphs was decoded, the Netjeru came back, although perhaps They never really left. Horus’ and the Netjeru’s defeat was not permanent, they may not have Egypt but their number of followers is growing. And the victory of monotheism won’t be permant either. When you gain a victory, the work isn’t over. Don’t ever get cocky. You have to work to maintain that victory, or eventually someone might swipe it from you. And if suffering defeat, don’t give up hope because you may be able to turn it into a victory in an unexpected way. Like a game of chase, the game isn’t over until you lose your King. You could be down to just a king and a pawn, but that pawn could still make it across the board and become a queen.

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀

Սիամանթօ Օտարը

On the Five-Day “Victory of Horus” Feast

 

The above comic is terrible, I just find it funny how enthusiastic his follower is.

Today is Day 1 of the five day feast of the “Victory of Horus”. Obviously I’m going to be celebrating it very differently. Last year I tried to rebrand the feast by meditating on a different aspect of the story each day. Today is the day where I reread the story of the Osirian Cycle and give my own thoughts about it. I plan to eventually write my own account of the story from Set’s point of view as a novelization, but of course that’s going to take some time to do. 

I preface this essay to say that I mean no disrespect to any of the Netjeru (that’s Egypt’s Gods, to the uninitiated). Nor do I mean to disrespect or offend their followers. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with following any or all of these Gods. They can be a very beneficial and helpful presence in the lives of their followers. They all aid in the fight against isfet and the Chaos Serpent. When the chips are down, they put aside their differences and fight for what’s right. 

I grew up reading Plutarch’s version, in which Set is a complete villain, nothing much ever being said about His motivations for killing His Brother. A lot of people come to Set via Satanism or the Left Hand Path, but I came to Set mostly through Kemeticism and Tamaran Wicca to a lesser extent, after a long detour with my ancestral deities. I took a good honest look at other materials besides the mainstream ones, and the more I saw, the more it was looking like neither side was completely in the right. And I just stopped and pondered certain aspects of the story, like the Lettuce Incident, as we’ll call it, where Isis severs the hands of Her own son and throws them into the Nile before concocting this cruel prank on Set, or the boat race where Horus cheated but suffered no consequences, and it seemed like they were being really unfair to Set. Then come to find out the story was largely rewritten after the cult of Osiris gained dominance in Egypt, and you start to see the cracks in the whole narrative. I started looking at the Pyramid Texts and other older sources that painted Set in a more positive light. And I gradually came over to His side. I didn’t even go out looking for anything that justifies Set, the information just kept turning up randomly. Even the Greek Magical Papyri gives us a little tidbit about the story that paints Isis in a negative light, when She cursed Her sister Nephthys out of jealousy for Her sleeping with Osiris. Another resource that tells things a bit differently is the book “Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods” by Dimitri and Christine Meeks, wherein we get an account of the shady, underhanded way Osiris assumed the throne by rebelling against and nearly killing His father Geb. The couple really scratched, clawed and backstabbed their way to the top. These varying retellings sometimes are more neutral than the rigidly pro-Horus version we always hear. 

Pictured: The Spell from the Greek Magical Papyri wherein Isis curses Her sister Nephthys

Not to excuse or justify murder, but Set definitely had His reasons for killing Osiris, and it wasn’t just because he was jealous and evil. Nephthys sleeping with Osiris to produce Anubis may have been one major driving factor, but another big one that doesn’t get discussed much is that Isis stole Ra’s secret name by nearly killing him with poison. This caused humanity to question Ra’s power after seeing him at death’s door, leading to the debacle of Ra unleashing Sekhmet as revenge and nearly losing control of Her and causing humanity’s extinction, resulting in Ra having to abdicate the throne, which passed from a few different Gods before going to Osiris. Set, being very protective of Ra, may have seen Osiris’ rule as illegitimate and a result of Isis’ clever trickery. This is probably also why Ra was the only Netjer who stood up for Set when everyone else wanted Him to abdicate his throne.

I also sympathize with Horus to a degree, having been born for the sole purpose of avenging His father, growing up with stories about how evil his big bad uncle is, being forced to fulfill His mother’s aspirations and not His own. I don’t think Horus is the villain of the story, merely a tool used to fulfill his mother’s ambitions. 

At any rate, I’ll have more to write in the coming days as I go through my meditations. 

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀

Սիամանթօ Օտարը

Opinions on AI, and Social Media These Days

So starting January 1st, Facebook will be amping up mining data for their AI, and creating fake AI accounts for whatever evil scheme the Zuck has planned, probably to fuel the culture wars and redirect people’s anger at rich people to minorities. Over the past year I’ve enjoyed being on Facebook less and less, as it is already polluted with stolen AI “art” (aka slop), not to mention 2024 being an election year which always sucks to be on the internet for, and Tangerine Hitler won, so things are probably going to be even worse this year. I hate politics. We live in a dystopian oligarchy, in a country where the majority of people are brainwashed morons. Voting doesn’t change a damn thing, at least not on a fundamental level. What can one do but either seethe over issues beyond your control, and let it take a toll on your mental health without having the power to do anything about it, or stick your head in the sand and embrace escapism. I try to stay somewhere in the middle, but it really requires deciding what and what not to care about. Selective apathy is the only way I hold myself together. 

During and after the disastrous Artsakh War in 2020 I had to decide to either follow Armenian news and be an emotional wreck and never sleep, or, unsubscribe from all Armenian news Facebook pages and YouTube channels, and leave the r/Armenia subreddit. I’m not proud of it, but I chose the latter, for my own mental wellbeing. I know the refugees don’t have that luxury. Before the war I was glued to Armenian news. The loss of Artsakh emotionally destroyed me at the time. I was hurt that nobody seemed to know about it or care. Then the Palestine genocide began, and I came to the sad realization that no matter how many people care about something like that, it’s not going to do anything to stop it. No one talks about that US soldier who set himself on fire for Palestine last year anymore, and the genocide resumes. It’s a cold comfort, that the results of the Artsakh war probably would have been the same regardless if non-Armenians cared about it or not. Social media doesn’t have an influence on that. Doomscrolling all just amounts to pointless self-torment.

It’s a lot harder to shut out the news in a country you live in, however. And in the US, your choices are to be either misinformed or uninformed. The other news channels besides Fox are centrist at best. No matter how “left” they might seem they’re all owned by corporations and they will never bite the hand that feeds them. And they profit off fear and rage. I’m not giving them that. I haven’t trusted the US media since they lied about weapons of mass destruction as an excuse to invade Iraq. But the people in this country have goldfish memory, or assume that was just a one-time goof up or something. “Oopsie daisy, there weren’t any weapons after all and millions of people died for nothing, but you can continue to trust us!” And it’s been nonstop Trump for almost ten years, and I am really sick of seeing “honorary president” Elon Musk’s punchable face on every other post, he seems even more ubiquitous than Trump these days. I don’t even care if it’s a post making fun of the guy, they’re still giving him the attention he so craves. I am just so sick of seeing his ugly mug. Something about him just makes me want to beat his ass. I’m not even on Twitter and I still have to see the fucking human Scrooge McDuck everywhere. So whenever I see him at all I leave the Facebook group or the subreddit. This is my litmus test, because I want to see less political crap on my feed. I won’t go as far as to unfriend people over it, unless of course they’re in support of the guy. 

Now these were just my problems with social media before all this AI nonsense began. As an artist, I have to decide how I am going to coexist with AI going forward. I have been uploading my artwork to Facebook since beginning my webcomic Alcatraz High School. When I heard about AI stealing people’s art, my only hope was that my art really isn’t “good” enough to steal, I know that sounds self-deprecating. I wasn’t expecting to make money off my art anyway, but now that AI is around it’s even less likely. Do I want to continue posting my art on this website so that the Zuck can steal it? I need to answer that question for myself. This all seems like a big scheme to force anyone actually making a living off their art to get a “real” job and go be slaves to the system, along with being some kind of overly-complex psy op to keep the working class at each other’s throats. And I don’t know why it takes a nuclear reactor to generate a stupid picture where the people have 12 fingers. In the beginning, when people were just using it to generate silly images, have funny conversations with the chat bots and make new Nirvana songs with Kurt Cobain’s voice, I admit I liked the novelty. This was before I understood the ramifictions of AI. The novelty was short-lived, because of course, the technology quickly was used for evil. The oligarchs at the top of the hierarchy have always hated artists for not being bootlicking slaves. They’ve been trying to figure out how to get rid of them for a while now. But I’m going to keep drawing, writing, and living life on my own terms regardless. I know I am privileged to be able to do that. Even some professional artists are having to work at fast food joints because of this. 

I have to ask myself, why do I even bother with Facebook and social media at all? Well, it’s to stay connected to family, meet like-minded people and make friends, follow some educational pages and show off my creativity. So my plan is to use it only for those things. No more doomscrolling. I need to get back to how I was before Facebook. I used to read books, play video games, write and draw more. I waste too much time on social media. Not posting my art anywhere isn’t going to stop AI. So I suppose I will keep doing it, if only due to the fact that I wasn’t trying to make a living off it anyway. I was thinking about making the leap to BlueSky too, maybe for the audience. Like I said I was never on Twitter anyway so I don’t need a replacement for it, I may just use it to post my art and blogs and such. That’s my plan for now, subject to change if things get even worse.

Armeno-Kemetic Holidays for January

Above: Vahagn fights a vishap

 Em hotep! Welcome to the month of the Swelling of the Emmer. Emmer is an ancient variety of wheat, so this would have been the month of the wheat harvest. It is sacred to the Netjer Min. Swelling of the Emmer started yesterday, so the brief two-month synchronicity between the Kemetic and Gregorian calendars has ended. I think it will be another 28 months or so before we see that again. I could be wrong though, I would have to sit and do the math, with all the leap years and other weird stuff in the Gregorian calendar. 

And I know one calendar is just as arbitrary as another in the grand scheme of things, but January 1st is just a weird day to start a year. Sopdet/Sirius is at Her zenith this time of year, but if you look at pretty much any night of the year you’ll find at least one significant astronomical event going on, so it’s rather a coincidence. Something to look for if you feel like celebrating something at all spiritual on Gregorian New Years. It’s not even the anniversary of something, like the ancient Armenian calendar, or the start of a harvest season, like the Kemetic calendar. I don’t think Pope Gregory chose it because of the swelling of emmer wheat in Egypt. I know it used to be April 1st before they changed it to January and made everyone who celebrated the old date an “April fool”, but that’s the same amount of days after the Spring equinox, so it still doesn’t make sense. Perhaps starting the year on a solstice or equinox like almost every other ancient calendar would have led too much credence to pagan beliefs for old Pope Gregory’s liking. 

I don’t know about you but that winter solstice really was a difficult one to get through. It changes people’s behavior, being without Ra’s sunlight. It put me, and many people I know, in some emotionally dark places. Not everyone has Seasonal Affective Disorder, but maybe everyone is affected by the seasons to some degree, whether it becomes a disorder for them or not. When you take yourself out of it and just observe, people get weird around this time of year for sure. And from here on, the nights will be shortening. I feel bittersweet about that, as I know within a few months the heat will make it painful to stand outside, but I will try to enjoy the cool weather while it lasts. As for darkness and the resulting isfet, we’re not out of the woods yet by any means.

Here’s a list of the holidays I will be observing this month, subject to change of course, I always seem to be learning about new holidays to add.  I recently ordered Amentet Neferet’s 2025 calendar book, but it will come in a few days. I had been waiting for that one to come out. Maybe these posts will get quite a bit longer after I’ve read through it. First we have the date on the ancient Armenian calendar (the days have names instead of numbers), and then the standard Gregorian date.

𓋹֍֎𓋹

Քաղոց Կորդուիք/December 31 ~ Yule ends.Kemetic month of the Swelling of the Emmer (𓈙𓆑 𓇣𓏏) begins, Emmer for short; Netjer of the month is Min. 

Քաղոց Ծմակ/January 1 ~ Last day of the Seven-Day Feast of Hathor

Արաց Արեգ/January 8 ~ Armenian Month of Arats Begins

Արաց Մուրց - Արամազդ/January 17-22 ~ Five Day Festival Marking the End of the 80 Year Battle Between Heru and Sutekh; which ended with Sutekh abdicating the throne. Spend one day to reread the story, one day for celebrating your victories, one day coping with your defeats, one day pondering ways to compromise and get along with others in your life, and one day pondering the concept of forgiveness. To end the festival, forgive someone, even if only in your head, it doesn’t matter if their offense was huge or slight.

Արաց Ասակ/January 24 ~ Feast of Djehuti. Do something nerdy, learn something new, write, draw. 

𓋹֍֎𓋹

Here’s the favorable/adverse day forecast for the month. The 16th looks like a good day to stay in bed. May Sutekh guide us all through the coming battles of the next 31 days. 

January

1. 𓄤𓄤𓄤 

2. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

3. 𓊢𓊢𓊢

4. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

5. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

6. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

7. 𓊢𓊢𓊢

8. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

9. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

10. 𓊢𓊢𓊢

11.𓂚𓄤𓄤

12. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

13. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

14. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

15. 𓊢𓊢𓊢

16.𓄤𓂚𓂚

17. 𓊢𓊢𓊢

18. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

19. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

20. 𓄤𓄤𓄤 

21. 𓊢𓊢𓊢

22. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

23. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

24. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

25. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

26. 𓊢𓊢𓊢

27. 𓊢𓊢𓊢

28. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

29. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

30. 𓄤𓄤𓄤

31. 𓄤𓊢𓊢

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀

Սիամանթօ Օտարը