My Lord, Khnum

As we deepen our practice, as our odyssey continues, we will, again and again, meet our gods, that is, the Divine will express Himself* to us as he wills and as we are prepared. As we continue, we will meet our gods and spirits in many places, after long mistaking them for dreams, coincidences, imaginary friends and mere deep attachments to names and places. So it has been the with serpentine river than wraps itself around where I live, and is called now Saint joseph, but has her own secret names. So it has been with the holy inland freshwater sea nearest me, Lake Michigan. So it is with the Mermaids, signs and symbols of something far deeper than tuna cans and Disney cartoons, and so it is with the giant red ram, Khnum.

            I have met Khnum three times. The first time I was not thinking very much and forgot about him. The second time I thought was the first time until my memory was jogged. This second time was after the summer solstice. He was bright red and rising on his platform over the golden sandy beach, hot under the glowing blue sky. I thought him the lord of the desert, the Devil himself, and honored him in this aspect, but did not trouble to ask any questions or spend much time with him. I could not even photograph him. My phone’s camera was no good. But he did not leave my thoughts, for the Goat never leaves the thoughts of a witch for long.

            It was today, when I returned to Michigan City and it was entirely too hot, that I beheld him again and looked up his artist, Sophie Marie, and his name. I had not known that Khnum was the name of the God of waters of the Nile as well as its mud which brought fertility and made the clay, that as God of the clay, he was God of potters creation, and he shaped all things, evne the other gods. I did not know that as he was God of the Nile, he was God of all waters, including great Michigan, and that he was the God of the subterranean rivers and the deep springs, therefore of the waters of the unconscious and the Spirit World. I did not know that staring down into deep blue Lake Michigan from pier, I was looking into the eyes of Khnum, he who stirs and shapes and brings to life.

            What I do know, is that because now the name Khnum means something to me does not mean all the things I learned before are untrue. He is still the Lord of the Burning Desert. He is still Azazel, He is still the Great Pan, and still he is the Bucca, carrying the light between the horns. He is still, and always, the very path we follow, our witch craft, or besom. He is the holy witch’s ride.

*I do not say herself, because in our world that is straining the point. We are used to the Divine being He. And I do not say itself, because it infers something less than human and less than personal. If there were a pronoun for the superpersonal, or the supragendered, then I would use it, but in our language the closest is still the faulty him, and so, I am using it.