A Kemetic Devotional to Ma’at

This past weekend, I was pleased to attend a devotional to Ma’at hosted by T. Thorn Coyle of the Solar Cross Temple. Solar Cross hosts devotionals most months and I’ve recently started attending. The devotionals cover a range of different Pagan orientations. Solar Cross itself is rather eclectic, with members from a variety of pagan religions, and the devotionals reflect that.

May’s devotional was a traditional Kemetic ritual designed to honor Ma’at and performed by members of the Kemetic Temple in California. The ritual was very well done, and even included a traditional prayer sung in Ancient Egyptian!
Before this devotional, I had only known of Ma’at in her role of judging the weight of the hearts of the dead to determine what their afterlife would be like. In this devotional, I learned that there is so much more to Ma’at!

In addition to Ma’at the Goddess, there is Ma’at the principle. Ma’at is the balance by which we strive to live our lives. It is the understanding that we all play a part in the bigger picture, and when we play our part well we can effect positive change on others around us. In the same way, if we are particularly negative, it has effects beyond ourselves and can bring negativity to those around us.

One of the priests said something particular interesting. He pointed out that Ma’at weighs our heart against a feather. To live in Ma’at is to live with a light heart. So all those things that we do that weigh down on us, or make our heart heavy, are things we should address. Either we find a way to feel light of heart while doing them, or maybe we don’t need to be doing them.