A Kemetic Cat [rambling "essay"]
My religion and my nonhumanity. I truly want to write about these subjects together. I can feel it practically squirming under my skin, wanting to get out into the world and be heard, be read. I just can't find the closest-enough words. Bear with my autistic spectrum little self, as I attempt to describe what's going on in my whirling head and pulsing heart.
I am a spiritually nonhuman being, at my core. I acknowledge that I currently inhabit a fully biologically human body, and that I can't change that. I can only dream of being a shapeshifter (who's for the most part, feline) like I believe my soul is. Every day and night I go about my daily tasks and errands referring to myself as a human, as well as being called such by everyone else; sometimes, I don't even think about it that much (when there are more important things going on), and other times, the term chafes and rattles against my mind as it leaves my mouth or someone else's. It's simply out of necessity; for safety's sake. Imagine how shit would go down in a largely rural conservative place like where I live, if suddenly everyone who wouldn't understand it knew about my full identity, including my own blood-family. I keep this stuff confined to my Internet circles for damn good reasons.
But here in this piece as I type, I am free.
I jive with the Kemetic gods best. The Netjeru, AKA the ancient Egyptian deities. They're Who I started with, They're where I find myself most besotted. I've also reached out to several Hellenic (ancient Greek), and a smaller amount of old Norse gods, but I think I'll begin with name-dropping the goddess I'm a devotee of right now: Sekhmet, and Her leonine associations, which often inspire lion/lioness 'kin shifts in me (alongside Ma'ahes). Bast gives muse for domestic cat shifts, Mafdet for cheetahs, Pakhet for the variety of smaller wildcats. There are many other deities in this religion that are either primarily feline or can assume a feline shape despite it not being their main thing. Shezmu, Nefertem, Tefnut, Shu, for some; even Ra Himself can be the Great Cat...it goes on and on. You could argue that since the gods are shape-changing inherently, They can look however They wish at any given time. It's all up to Them and Their preference.
Which of course, reminds me of my overall kintype. I am forever-fluid, unable to be pinned down as a singular thing. A dilute tortie housecat one hour, a slinking dark-phase jaguarundi the next. An explicitly feline or feline-like fictherian shift here, or sapient feline/feline-y people-species shift there (random examples: Kantonian Meowth from Pokémon, Tabaxi or Leonin from Dungeons and Dragons, and Stratifelis from Creatures of Sonaria). Sometimes, non-feline facets of me claw to the surface, like a fictotype, my heart-types, or a myriad of smaller things I can also be but notably less often, less intensely than my identity of Every-Cat-Ever, as I term it among friends. It stretches across the vast multiverse, I think. How the hell do I manage that is beyond me. I'm pretty sure I can at least tap into the multiverse; I'm not the only one who believes they can in this alterhuman community, by far.
I've sometimes wondered if this makes me a semi-cosmic (inter-universal?) spirit of some kind, embodying the very quintessence of felinity itself (the definition of "quintessence" can use the word "perfect," but I am obviously by no means that), yet there are other parts of me that aren't cattish at all. My on-and-off AU fictotype, my handful of linktypes, my two heart-types, or my tentatively labeled Coming-of-Age Story Protagonist archetrope. I think those are all things that have developed since after being born in this body due to being in bio-human, living a human life. This-me has gained all those extra things over time here, but the original state of my soul is simply the concept of felines itself. Sometimes I stare off into the distance wondering if there's some higher form of me puppeteering this flesh from within, and then I realize, yes, you fuckwit (me—derogatory). That's your soul.
I think I may start tentatively calling myself a Felidae spirit, which is a "species" name I completely made up, It does not include the extra identity-things I've accumulated in this lifetime, just the spiritually feline nature of myself overall. I like the way it sounds, that's all. Sue me. I wonder if I'll ever find others who can make use of the name, in ways just like I do, or at least similarly. Conspecifics (even if there are nuanced differences between us) would be amazing. Wondering if I should speak of the concept over on Tumblr...Tumblr is always a good place to broadcast your thoughts within the alterhuman community (for better or worse, cough). A spirit embodying the multiversal-wide concept of felines, to try summing it up in one sentence.
Moving on: if Khnum sculpted my soul into being prior to me being born as this-self, like I believe He most likely did, I accept that He intended me to be like this, to learn valuable lessons that only the bio-human experience can teach. In that vein of thought, I do think I’m gonna go to A’aru (the Field of Reeds) when my time comes, after all this necessary learning is over with. If any religion’s afterlife is going to be my hereafter destination, it’s Kemeticism’s. It’s either that (remaining there for the rest of my soul’s existence), staying there for a while before choosing to reincarnate, or immediate reincarnation upon dying. I like the first two possibilities best. I look forward to meeting Anpu and having my heart weighed on His scales. I can’t imagine it being heavier than a mystical feather—not anymore. I love myself more than I used to, thanks to growth, and in turn I’ve let go of a lot of the hate I used to waste energy feeling so deeply. Bitterness and despair flare up now and then, that’s unavoidable as a sapient being, but there is a small handful of names I can give in this world that I’d label utterly loathed by me. They’re all bigoted pricks, and you’d probably recognize most if not all of them if I said ‘em.
Moving on, again: Kemeticism is the faith that I feel aligns best with modern-day science abstractly, metaphorically. More-so than in Norse/Hellenic paganism, even. There is no mythic literalism. It's extremely freeing compared to the nondenominational Christianity I was part of for a few years in my early twenties; not only in that sense, but also in the lack of queerphobia/transphobia, and avoidance of far-right views in general among most of us Kemetics. I am safer on this path than I was in my old one. I've met a ton of alterhumans in Kemeticism, too, as well as other soulbonders and plural/multi systems. It is home to me; Sekhmet has planted a root in my Felidae soul that connects me directly to Her. She'll always be there when I need Her. If someday I stop being a devotee of Hers (seems unlikely now, but y'all never know what the future holds), I still think She'll resurface at times to back me up. So do and will the rest of the Netjeru if They see fit, though Her name is the one I've called out most when afraid during my sleeping nightmares. It always works to save me, in those, usually by waking me up.
As if reminding me: it's just your anxiety riling your imagination, as it often does. Everything is fine. And She's right. I am diagnosed with anxiety disorder, and it permeates damn near every aspect of my waking life, why not my dreaming one, too? Sekhmet is talented at poetically (but softly) sucker-punching me in the gut with common sense. I appreciate this from Her. Receiving visible signs from Her always feels special, though it's only happened a small handful of times so far, the most insane one involving a cloud in my line of sight which was uncannily in the shape of a fierce lioness' head. I felt distinctly compelled to stare at it, like it was there specifically for me to witness. I felt a warm light in my chest then, like a suddenly-lit candlewick, a safe sensation of being protected by someone trustworthy—and who else could that have been but Her?
Who else can I count on, if not Her?