Ma'at....

It's interesting that I named this journal 'Finding Ma'at'....it's a very challenging thing - something very challenging to even consider - to honor the Goddess of Ultimate Balance and Truth and Justice. Sheesh.

Anyhow - here's the rather scattered information I've been able to gather.

Maat
http://touregypt.net/godsofegypt/maat2.htm
http://www.swedenborgdigitallibrary.org/egypt/forw.htm (Seems like a good general reading for Kemetism) 
http://www.philae.nu/akhet/NetjeruM.html#Ma'at (Shows festivals!)
http://www.godchecker.com/ (Just plain interesting!) 
http://www.neberdjer.org/ (also Interesting!) 
http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/maat.html
http://www.nubeing.com/unblind2/maatlink.htm

Whoo - this is taking longer than I expected, so I will close out here, and come back to update and elaborate as needed. 

I need a GOOD book.

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Hmm... where to start? 

Ma'at - usually translated as truth, justice, balance, straightness, righteousness, was considered to be both a Netjer as well as the foundation upon which existence WAS. The translation still loses a lot of the concept of Ma'at, however.  Ma'at is NOT 'good', as one would usually think of it - Ma'at is what is required to allow the universe to continue to exist - to operate - and thus things that upon the surface are 'bad' (like Set killing Osiris) are actually well within Ma'at (if he hadn't killed him - who would be the King of the Dead?). Ma'at is about balance - the delicate interaction of microevents that allows the macro to occur. 
The opposite concept is Isfet (Asfet) or chaos. Once again - it loses a lot in the translation. Isfet would really be 'That which is against Ma'at - that which weakens the Universe and brings The End of All Things'  because sometimes chaos is needed in order to get things going. 
Ma'at is what every Egyptian - from the Pharoah to the lowest laborer - strived on a daily basis to achieve - to be balanced and right with the All.  The Pharoah however, was seen as being the most important upholder of Ma'at - which is why civil war and other strife of sucession was viewed with such horror because it was an indication that Ma'at was not being upheld.  Ma'at was the final judge at the end of all things. After death, your heart was weighed against the feather of Ma'at, and if your heart was heavier than her justice, it was consumed by another god and you were sentenced to non-existence. However - if your heart was lighter than her feather, you would be allowed to move on into the presence of the Gods. 
Ma'at was usually represted as a standing woman with a ostrich feather coming out of her head. She was also represented as simply an ostrich feather coming out of the primodial mound, or as a woman sitting on the primordial mound - once again with her trademark feather.  I read somewhere (but can't find it again!) that rarely she was represented as a pair of identical twin goddesses - but I can't find their names!
Because she was viewed as the root of all that was, there were suprisingly few temples dedicated to Ma'at in and of itself. There is one that Queen Hasputset built, and then another at Karnak (or the one that the Queen built may have been built at Karnak - I'll have to get clarity around that).

I think that one of the reasons that I resonate so well with the idea of Ma'at is because it seems to combine the idea of Karma, as well as the awareness that the bad don't always GET their comeuppance - and sometimes evil deeds are done that result in a future good.  *thinks* More accurately - evil/bad exists in the world because it is required as part of the balance. Light is nothing without Dark, Good is nothing without Evil. And yet - at the same time there is a concept - Isfet - that is beyond dark and beyond evil and - determined to destroy for the sake of destruction alone.