Contending

In the Egyptian tradition it is about now that the Contendings of Horus & Set are kept/marked/enacted...I'm not terribly well up on Kemetic stuff so I'm not really clear what they do. In fact I may kave missed them completely because I was hesitating over how to relate it to what I want to say, & knew full well that calling this post, 'Mum, Mum, come & see what Set did to me' with an illustration of that incident, would mean making this blog adult & unsearchable for ever.

You see I have a soft spot for Set. In many ways he embodies my self-publicity: of course I don't ultimately believe in a complete evil, nor yet that I embody it. I'm all sweetness & niceness, darlings, just those two attributes with power behind them.

A friend recently characterised my magic as removing the malign, which was one of the most gratifying things I've ever had said about me. I only make myself out to be on the dark side in reaction to the fluffy approach where *everything* is sweetness & light.

The energy of the contendings is played out in our daily life in the right-sized pursuit of power. Another friend commented that I'm not really introverted, I just like being on my own because then I can guarantee I won't be surrounded by idiots! Or rather, as a remover of the malign, you attract the malign because you can remove it: it's part of nature's way of maintaining homeostasis.

And in every interaction there is the making of a bigger picture, of which we are part of the weave. When things get challenging, as they do when contendings come up, we magical people are challenged to envision the world we want to create. The contendings of Horus & Set were so important to ancient Egypt as establishing the pattern of kingship. Our own contendings are so important to us personally as making or allowing us to make decisions & establish patterns for the future. And I can't think of a better way to describe this than sovereignty, which brings with it a degree of responsibility & - don't laugh - noblesse oblige.

------------------