If I may, how best does one begin to approach and honor Bes?
My first bit of advice for people wanting to develop relationships with a god is to recommend doing as much research as you can to get started. When it comes to Bes, information is kind of scarce which is obnoxious. (Those of us with interests in the less well known deities know those feels though.) But the bits and pieces out there in good books and good online resources can be a good way to get a decent base line together for the deity in question.
Once you feel like you’ve done as much research as you can, then I always recommend setting up a small space for the god in question. This will help you to focus on the deity so that you can begin to develop that relationship further. When I first started with all of my deities, I cleared off areas around my house for small or large altar spaces and used that area to create a sort of sacred space to focus my intent and my relationship.
I also used that space to spend time with that deity every day. I wouldn’t spend a lot of time with them but just a little bit every day helped me to focus as well. Sometimes that meant that I would leave offerings or libations; sometimes that meant that I would just talk to them.
That may sound like such a small thing, but I’m a big fan of just talking to your deities. This will help you to get to know them because you’ll begin to develop a sort of sense for them. But this is also huge because they can also get to know you. The ancient Egyptian gods are not omniscient or omnipotent so they need to be able to get to know you just as much as you need to be able to get to know them.
Now when it comes to Bes, as I stated above, information on him can be pretty scarce. His primary areas of focus according to those scarce resources are that he was a protective deity and that he was a fun-loving deity. To be fair, most of the ancient Egyptian gods could be defined thus, but Bes definitely fits that dynamic in every way.
Music is a big thing for him so I often play music. Music is very important to me anyway so I usually am listening to something. Sometimes when I’m playing whatever is on, I’ll leave the device I’m listening to the music on in his area so that he knows I’m listening to it with him or for him (depending on my mood). I also get weird pings sometimes for odd musical choices. One of the last weird ones was classical music played on the recorder.
Along with the music association, he is also very closely associated with dancing. (Shocking, right?) I don’t dance nearly as often as I used to do, but when I do, I will occasionally do so for him. When I’m not feeling up to dancing, I will sometimes play videos on YouTube of various dancing that I find compelling. He really seemed to enjoy hiplet (that links goes to a YT video).
Flowers are also closely associated with him in iconography and I fucking love flowers. I will get bouquets of flowers quite often and in homage to his recognized iconography, I will usually give him flowers.
Also in homage to the iconography we all know and love of Bes, I stick my tongue out at him a lot.
Bes is also a protector of dreams. This is actually what first introduced me to him a lot of years ago. (This is beginning to make me feel really old…) While that original approach was supposed to be a one-off at the time, it developed later when I needed to approach a deity regarding my dreams. It made sense that I would reach back out to Bes.
I keep an icon of him on my night side table for this very reason. In ancient Egypt, they would have headstands with his face carved into them. I haven’t been able to find or create a pillowcase that I felt would be appropriately protective and Bes-like for this, which is why I keep my icon on my bedside table.
Under the guise of a protective deity, he is shown holding knives quite often. I don’t own any or haven’t purchased any for him, but I always felt that getting him a good display knife or two would be appropriate as an offering.
Beyond all of the above specific things, in my household, Bes is a what we would consider a household deity. I think of his sacred space as a sort of beating heart for my own home and hearth. It is through cleaning and rearranging furniture, as well as ensuring his space is clean, that I pay him homage regularly.
In addition, I also apparently collect imagery of his. This is new to me since I wans’t aware it was something we were going to do, but here I am looking at Bes icon number three… XD
As far as offerings are concerned, I don’t give him a lot every day. I also don’t give him food as regularly as some other people might. After spending five straight years of giving offerings to all of my gods on a regular basis (six days a week, if you were wondering), both my gods and I feel that I am entitled in pulling back heavily on that aspect of my relationships.
That said, when I do give Bes offerings, I will either feed him cool water and whatever foods I find appropriate from my stash of Re-Ment or I will give him whatever item I feel particularly compelled to give to him. Sometimes that means that I have a bowl of dried herbs I’ll leave out for him. Sometimes that means I will give him a few cool crystals I have lying around that I think he would be fond of. Sometimes that means music or dancing and sometimes that means cleaning. It’s really whatever I feel is particularly appropriate at that time.
All in all, I can tell you that my relationship with Bes is probably one of the easiest out of all of them. Every deity/human relationship is going to be fraught with hardship. I think that’s most likely the nature of the beast. But with all of that, I can definitely tell you that the relationship we have is both easy and calming, which isn’t necessarily always the case with my other deity relationships.
