BreadWaterBeerIncenseA written account of your own portionAcceptance of what cannot be changed
Invocation Approach
Tone
Sober and exact
Address
ShaiThe OrdainedLord of Fate
Relationship
The share you were given not a negotiator
Warning
He does not bargain the work is to see the portion clearly
Resonance
Those at a limit those taking stock
Symbols
Measuring cordScalesThe written decree
Mythology Summary
Shai is the deification of fate — of what has been ordained — and his name means '(that which is) ordained'; he is a force as much as a person, and Egyptian texts speak as readily of 'a man's shai' as of the god. He appears in literary, wisdom and funerary texts from the Middle Kingdom onward, and most fully in Demotic and Greco-Roman material, as the portion allotted at birth and the destiny a person must live out; he can be feminine, Shait. In the Greco-Roman period he is identified with the Agathodaimon, the 'good spirit' of Greek and Demotic religion.
Modern Practice
Shai is invoked not to change fate but to see one's portion clearly: the practice is an honest inventory of what was given, what was taken and what is simply so. Work with him belongs to thresholds and to the acceptance that precedes any real choice.