Sharing Issues and Challenges
- Student shared challenges dealing with the health care industry
- Another shared feeling unappreciated and taken advantage of by a friend
- The sacred writings say to “carry the wicked without becoming like them”; so at what point do we abandon those who don’t share/carry our spirit
- Maat is a set of moral principles and guidelines; as we become stronger our moral and ethical life improves; member struggled with issues within the Black family – referencing the article that was shared during the last class (single parent families have a responsibility vs. not making a one-sided attack on the single parent family, while not recognizing their strengths)
- Min Mxolisi explains that the article was not an attack on single-parent families, but rather a statement of the challenges amongst African American families
Books of Rising and Transformation (p. 121, “X”
- Read “Books of Rising and Transformation”, p. 121 (X)
- There are four sons of Heru depicted in the Hall of Maati
- “…Bring to me the four brothers who pass by, wearers of the side-lock who stand by their staffs in the eastern side of the sky. May they tell my good name to Ra…Never again will the sky be void of me or the earth be empty of my presence.”
- Read “The Book of Coming Forth”, p. 109 (IX)
- “These are words … Great Hall of Maati… so that one may be separated from all offenses he or she may have committed and may behold the faces of the divine ones”
- Maati is the great house, and is a femine dual, and means the two truths
- Two sisters appears in the Asarian drama; Aset represents perseverance in pursuing truth; for Nebt-het, it is repentance, for her betrayal of Aset
- Member was afraid given the high requirements of the Declarations of Innocence; but the sacred writings do speak to compassion
- Waiting for a mother's resurrection, because member was so attached to her; but has felt her presence since then; seems to be an assumption that human beings are perfectable
- The history does suggests an aspect of a physical rebirth, with the statues in the tomb and the collection of material wealth
- Is our tradition like the Judeo-Christian religion where practioners engage in "back sliding" or do we expect a constant ongoing transformation towards perfection
- Why did they preserve the body if it was not important? There must have been some reason for the body to survive; in the history of mummification it wasn't always practiced, until it was discovered - the ancients were very concerned with beauty, and a notion that the image was important, and perserving the body from decay was symbolic of defeating death
- The Maati-maati Ka class (African Astrology), and how our ancestors dealt with the cosmology; when we came into being our ancestors mapped out who we were
- Person got their chart done from birth, and from a previous life because there are some declarations that they had to honor; some declarations are not relevant for her in this life
- 42 declarations reflective of the 42 nomes (cities); later there were 38 declarations because there were 38 nomes
- Discussed the need to review the declarations, since there are not 42/38 nomes; Baba Ray suggests it is time to review the declarations and extract/add the ones which are relevant for us in this time
- Raises the question whether we should recite the declarations during service, and should we have measured up to them in order to recite them
- We did have a ritual in service where we did recite the declarations, and suggests we do so during equinox/soltice
- Lecture and discussion by Mama Aduni - shares her writings to weave information together
