Upet Ronpet 2008

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Happy Egyptian New Year!

Saturday, July 19. 2008 marked another first; our own ritual celebration of Upet Ronpet, the Egyptian New Year. As always, a big, BIG thank-you goes out to the Cresent Circle Silver Witches, who hosted the festivities and whose participation made it a lot of fun! Another special thanks goes to Trixie, who took these wonderful photos. Appropriately for a holiday honoring the birth of Ra, the sunlight figured beautifully in the pictures you see above.

A lot of work went into this holiday, especially the banners, finally in place in this shot. The hieroglyphs spell out the name of this temple, Hat Nebkheperura Amenty im Waset--"Temple of Nebkheperura [Tutankhamun] West of Thebes". Hopefully one day they can flank a dedicated temple space!

The theme of Upet Ronpet (more commonly spelled Wep[et] Ronpet) is commemorating the creation of the world, called the First Occasion, and the establishment of order over chaos. You can read some historical background on Upet Ronpet, as well as the Egyptian calendar, here. Another ancient New Year's tradition was to bring ritual statues outside to be recharged in Ra's sunlight; under a clear blue sky, we consecrated the statues arrayed on the altar (including Gaia, just visible in the photo below) with the Opening of the Mouth rite.

Everyone's favorite part was probably the Subduing of Apophis, where we wrote down negative things we wanted to be rid of on green paper snakes--then dropped them in the flaming cauldron. Next year we'll probably have to up the ante a bit--as long as we don't burn down the neighborhood! (Maybe that's what's got Daryn looking so worried...!)

Statues, flaming snakes, and dinner waiting inside--what a party! Hope to see everyone again next year! Seneb-ti! (Be well)!

 

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