[ Please excuse if this particular essay is a touch on the incoherent side. I have celebrated the first thunderstorm of this season with perhaps an excess of rum. ]
In the world of the ancient Egyptians, there were three seasons. The flood, the fertile season, and the barren season. The flood came from the roots of the Nile, bringing with it plagues and at the same time the promise of fertile land in the future as it replenished the floodplain with rich silt. When the floodwaters receded, they left behind the rich land that could be farmed for the rich bounty of Egypt's agriculture. Then, come harvesttime, the desert crept in, blowing sand over the edges of the fertile land, threatening, at least until the flood came and washed the sand away.
I do not live anywhere near the river that shaped the seasons and the myths, and the river itself has long since been dammed -- the ebb and flow of the powers of Set, of the desert and the storm, and Wesir (Osiris), of the growing green -- and so I need to think when I consider the myths. I need to look at what they mean in order to see whether I can be honest in honoring these gods in the place that I live.
A while ago I wrote a poem titled "Seth Beyond the Borders of Egypt":
Tonight, the first thunderstorm swept in after winter, after the barren time of my climate. The moon is swelling near-full, in the time when I do my regular rituals, and I cleansed myself and sat and drank to the renewing of the fertile season, when the barren storm brings back fertility to my land. Here is that ancient dualism in the form of my place, twined together and mingled in a way less clear than the ancients knew these gods, but still -- storm and growing things ebb and flow together.
I went up and lit the flame and the incense, poured out the water, anointed with oils dedicated to Set. The rain had passed by the time I was in the ritual space, the storm no longer thundered, but I celebrated it sharing a drink with him.
I remember, as I drink, that the storm serves to clear away the blocks, to destroy that which needs to be taken down in order to make way for the new. It brings the water that makes possible the spring, in this place and time. We are not so different here, even without the river; the Nile is a myth of my place, not a reality upon which I can build myths, but its waters flow down my gutters and enrich my land.
I have dyed a streak of green into my hair, now, something to conclude my celebration of the barren storm as it brings the possibility of new growth, perhaps.
[ If I were feeling really girly, I'd try to make flood/fertile/barren into a menstruation metaphor. Aren't you glad I'm not so much as a girl now? ]