Holy Days of the Holiday Season The Death, Embalmment, Burial and Resurrection of Wsr
Holy Days of the Holiday Season
The Death, Embalmment, Burial and Resurrection of Wsr
When a child wants to find the roots, they sit under the tree.
- Kemetic Wisdom
The cold season contains what is today referred to as the holiday season. When one considers how the current holiday hysteria appears, you may be surprised to learn that it finds its root in an interesting and sacred place. From the season’s association with holidays to its very drop in temperature and the stilling of active life on Earth it can call be brought back to one place: The God Wsr Unnefer Kersheta (Osiris, the Beneficent Keeper of the Mysteries).
Though many have become aware that any intrinsic value one could claim for our modern holidays has been sold to corporations for its potential commercial gains, the value the season really seems to bring is giving our relatives paid leave so that families can reunite and share in each other’s time and presence. So, Afrocentric communities have tried to replace the commercial Christmas season with Kwanzaa, a series of days that follow the lead of the Jewish Hanukkah and highlight a communal value that families and communities can give their attention during their time together.
But, what is the value of searching for new paths out of our current situation where reality has already become so confused by the new reasons and claims that our political leaders have given to what we do? Should we really even try to pave a new path before understanding why it is we are doing what we are doing in the first place?
Today’s holiday season, which has the power to bring us together, consists of a day of Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November (28th of 2019), Christmas, a day to honour the birth of a religious Saviour (December 25th) and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day (December 31st and January 1st) when we close one period and begin the next inviting our year end reviews, plans, projections or resolutions. These important notions of gratitude, birth and new cycles have become chances to spend money on big elaborate meals, fancy decorations, awe inspiring gifts and relentless partying. But, where did these original notions come from?
DEATH OF WSR - 17TH OF ATEERI
Using the Sidereal Calendar (humanity’s original calendar) the Kemetic temples have observed the 17th of Ateeri (or roughly November 26th) as the anniversary of the God Wsr’s death. Because Wsr, as a Divine being, chose to die, he opened up the cycle of life, death and rebirth or resurrection to the existence. Wsr therefore gave to humanity, as well as the animal and vegetable kingdoms (all of which function on that cycle of life) a chance to exist. He is therefore known as humanity’s Divine Ancestral Father). As our redeemer, he took responsibility for the well being, education and survival of humanity because it was through humanity his spirit could itself resurrect. Because of the role he played in our existence, civilisation and survival, the anniversary of his death has always been known as the saddest day of the year. Though we are grateful for his life, the day is spent fasting, mourning and lamenting his death. His death marks the day that his energies are no longer influential on Earth and around the planet from that day vegetal life recedes into the root, animals hibernate or hide themselves from the cold and human beings are more susceptible to destructive energies.
According to the Holy Drama (the sacred text that gives account of Wsr’s cycles of existence) when Wsr was first killed, it took a period of time before his sister-wife Aishat (Isis) located his body and assisted him in finishing his mission on Earth. It was only after that, that his spirit could begin traveling in order to create the World of the Dead. This period of time between Wsr’s death and his journey to the afterlife is reflected in the Sidereal Calendar. The day of his death is followed by a period of thirty-seven days before his embalmment and burial and only then does he begin his journey to the hidden world (Imentet) on the fortieth day after his death.
EMBALMMENT OF WSR - 24TH OF KAIRIKA
For the precolonial world, undistracted by our current obsession with the material realm, there were many ceremonies and sacred rites performed in honour of Wsr’s experience and what it meant to the living world and specifically his descendants and followers among humanity. The Embalmment of Wsr was celebrated on the 23rd of Kairika (roughly January 2nd). This is the day the Neter Inipu, used Divine knowledge to preserve and wrap Wsr’s body, preparing it for burial. The example Inipu left began the complicated and highly technical funerary traditions of body preparation that can still be found among indigenous groups around the globe, but especially among the ethnic groups on the African continent. Various natural substances like plants, resins, gums, bitumen, perfumes, etc. are used in a sacred process to preserve the body of the human being. In some traditions, body parts are removed to prevent the decomposition of the body. In others, time is taken between the death of an individual, the preparation of his body, the mourning of the family and his/her burial, just as it was with Wsr’s. The preservation of the body is important for the spirit’s journey to the World of the Dead and to increase its potential for and efficiency in resurrection.
BURIAL AND RESURRECTION OF WSR – 25TH OF KAIRIKA - 15TH OF TEPIA
The burial of Wsr is not marked on the Sidereal calendar, however a twenty day ceremony which started on the 25th of the month, two days after the embalmment, is performed to honour the cycle of his burial and resurrection. On that day, devotees of Wsr use clay and seeds to make a small statue of the God. After just a few days, the seeds sprout from the statue, (one can imagine the current day Chia pet figurines to get an idea) representing the resurrection of the life force of the God. The figure is then buried in a pot placed at the window or in a garden in the courtyard of one’s house. Two cycles of burial (formation of clay figure & burial in pot or garden) and resurrection (sprouting from clay figure & sprouting from soil) were represented in this ceremony. Gardens and window plantings are originally a spiritual practice done in this season in honour of the God Wsr, a God also associated with agriculture.
This water that you put on your plants that’s my blood, everything will feed on that. These seeds represent me, you will live on my flesh. If you add on these life giving seeds (my body) my blood (water) life will resurrect from that.
- WSR UNNEFER
It is only through these words, this original understanding, that the modern religious consumption of the blood and body of their Saviours makes any sense beyond cannibalistic rituals. Interestingly, Greek culture would adopt the notion of the sacred window plantings with Adonisian gardens in the recreation of Wsr’s personality in the Greek God Adonis. Roses were the favoured plants in the plantings for Adonis. In some villages Adonis even became celebrated by decorating a pine tree on the 5th of December and twenty days later, the villagers would carry the decorated pine tree to the river and throw it in. Though this custom seemed short lived amongst the Adonisian cults, it seems to have a huge influence and some might even argue has survived until today.
FASTING PERIOD - 27TH OF KAIRIKA – 6TH OF TEPIA
On the 27th of Kairika, while worshippers awaited their effigies to sprout, the general public joined the elders and temple caretakers who had been fasting every day from sunrise to sunset since the anniversary of Wsr’s death. The general public would fast for ten days and these ten days were the final ten days of the elder’s fifty-day fast. During this fasting period one abstained from food, drink, sex, smoke, profanity and impurities. The severe energetic influence of this period on life on Earth serves as another period that is observed by Kemetic initiates. Participating in this fast allowed an individual to harmonise themselves with rhythms taking place on a universal level and one’s ability to keep themselves pure in this time provides protection from the destructive forces of existence. Even the uninitiated can perceive the destructive agents of the cold season preventing life and bringing sickness in this period.
(See Join the Fast on page 56 for more information on how to participate in the fasting period.)
END OF FAST FEAST – 7th OF TEPIA
After the last day of the fast, the community comes together in order to celebrate its culmination. Its completion most importantly meant that the God Wsr, Redeemer of Humanity arrived in his Kingdom where he has even more power over his descendants on Earth. His protection and guiding influence once again provide a security that is celebrated and his spirit and sacrifices are honoured as we share in the presence of our family, friends and community.
My interest is not to explore the irony of a season of thanksgiving, gift giving and partying during the period of the year that was the saddest for those living by Kemetic spiritual customs. It is more important for us now to find the roots and see how they can nourish our lives. If you are reading this article, perhaps you have been looking for a way out of the rat race of the modern world. Perhaps, something has been nagging at you and you know that the value of your life is much more than something to be sacrificed day in and day out to a workplace in order to make money to buy things only so they can later be thrown away. This holiday season, join those who are uncovering the origins of human culture and the value that every life on Earth represents. Join those who are investing in the legacy of human civilisation, a spiritual wealth that does not go to waste. Apply the wisdom of your forefathers to your life and see the transformation.
