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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Egypt

I was asked recently to develop a talk which could be delivered as a sermon, using ancient Egyptian sacred texts and ideas.  Here is Part 1 of that talk.

b2ap3_thumbnail_Book_of_Gates_3rd_Hour_20140605-170414_1.jpgWe open this morning with words from the sacred Egyptian text called the Book of Coming Forth By Day:

[rhythmic shaking of sistrum]

“Oh my heart, my mother! My heart, my mother! Do not rise up against me as a witness, do not speak against me in the presence of the great god, lord of the west. Dua, ibi, hail to you my heart! May you say what is good to the gods. I go forth, not dying in the west, but becoming a spirit in it.”

The crafting of a life is an epic journey, a story which has been told around the world for as long as we have memory. For the ancient Nile dwellers, survival was exquisitely poised on the banks of that great river where the mysterious flood arose each year, bringing new fertility to the whole land. But the Egyptians also carried the understanding of how this life is linked to the next one, the deep mysteries of life, death, rebirth and new, transformed life.

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Posted by on in Paths Blogs

b2ap3_thumbnail_khepertut.jpgWe are stardust, we are golden . . . Even though it’s ten days past the solstice, I’m still in a dreaming frame of mind.  An old friend appeared to me in a dream before I woke this morning.  She said, “I have a gift for you,” and placed in my hand a glowing blue scarab.  Delighted, I exclaimed, “Oh, a khepera!” Kheper (or Khepri or Khepera) is the Egyptian deity represented by the beetle which rolls its egg case from east to west, just like the sun.  I took this as a reminder from my very artistic friend that I should continue to create my life, keep on moving forward, keep my path on that of the dawn. 

The medium we all work with is the stuff of dreams – manu, primordial waters, or atum, original life force.  A pop song that my husband and I associate with our falling in love has a line that seems apropos, “I think I dreamed you into life.”  Seth (Jane Roberts, not the Egyptian Set) teaches us that everything must be dreamed of in the nonphysical inner world before we can bring it forth in this existence.  “Now, other planes and systems are as real and as unreal as your own.  They are all formed from inner vitality . . .” (The Early Sessions: Book 7 of The Seth Material by Jane Roberts, 1966-1967) Making my own life is a lot of responsibility, so I’ve spent the past decade or two trying to be more intentional, more conscious, of what I am creating.  

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b2ap3_thumbnail_NutCosmicDream.jpgAt the winter solstice I can’t help but be aware that the earth is rushing inexorably towards its fatal crossing of the ecliptic on December 21.  After that longest night, the sun will rise a tiny bit earlier, set a bit later.  Before I know it, the year will have changed again, and life will have moved on as I sleep, whether I am ready for a new year or not. 

Deep in the quiet night, curled up beneath the warm of my down coverlet, I ponder the fragile balance of light and darkness, remembering that the Tanach says in Genesis that G_d separated the evening and the morning, then called them the first day.  In ancient Egypt, all life emerged from the water, but soon began the same sort of bicameral division, first into firmament and waters, then into snakes and frogs, and eventually into ta, the land of Kmt, and Hapy, the great river of life surging through it. Ages later, modern science told us a new story of cell division and multiplication. The act of creating would seem to necessitate divisions. 

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Hail to you, Bull of the West!  So says Thoth, King of Eternity, about me. 

b2ap3_thumbnail_nut-night.jpgMost of the Pagan world in the Northern Hemisphere observed the feast of Samhain this weekend, drawing near to and honoring the blessed dead. 

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Seeking Sekhmet

Sekhmet is an interesting goddess; long before I traveled to Egypt, I’d begun to feel pulses of magic from the lioness-headed statues I encountered in various museums, and even in the land of the Nile, it was in a museum that I first felt a pull toward her. At the time, it struck me as a bit strange that I’d feel resonance not with the sand beneath my feet, but with the massive black granite statues of the goddess, but it makes a certain amount of sense. It’s widely believed that tremendous statues of Sekhmet guarded Egypt’s ancient borders, and some even say that in times of invasion, the statues were brushed with poisonous spores to infect the would-be invaders as they crossed into Egypt. It’s no wonder that the statues of the Lady of Pestilence pack a punch; these icons are loaded with power!


I hadn’t expected to feel so strongly drawn to this goddess during my pilgrimage to Egypt; I’m an Isis girl all the way, and while I’ve always enjoyed the other Egyptian gods, I’ve never felt pulled to work with them. But Sekhmet was insistent, from the first time I faced her in the beautiful museum in Luxor, and by the time I ventured south to the Temple of Kom Ombo, I couldn’t ignore the intense emotions her image stirred in me.

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  • Jamie Rae
    Jamie Rae says #
    ive read a few of your post and was wondering if you could help me. i am new to paganism and wiccan so i do not know too much. ive
  • Jen McConnel
    Jen McConnel says #
    Thanks for commenting, and welcome to the site! Personally, I don't believe there's a "wrong" way to worship as a Pagan. Honoring

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b2ap3_thumbnail_abydos-crop1small.jpgThe crafting of a life is an epic journey, the story of which has been told around the world for as long as we have memory. For the ancient Nile dwellers, survival was exquisitely poised on the banks of that great river, where the mysterious flood arose each year, bringing new fertility to all the land. This is the time of year when the flood used to peak.  But the Egyptians also carried the understanding of how this life is linked to the next one, the deep mysteries of life, death, rebirth and new, transformed life.

The story of those mysteries comes to us from numerous writings preserved in the royal tombs and temples: the Book of Going Forth By Day; the Book of Gates; the Book of Caverns, the Amduat, and several other afterlife texts. Each of them is a variation on the 12-hour journey of the sun through the netherworld, or Duat. Each hour requires passage through a gate, each hour is a stage of personal transformation for the soul. The journey culminates with the re-emergence of the sun - the transformed life - in the brilliant light of dawn. In ancient times, priests of the temple played the role of the gods in the story, as well as reciting and chanting praises and prayers.  We know many of these today through the so-called Book of the Dead.

Traces of the Egyptian mysteries were preserved in the books known as the Hermetica, and the process shows up again in the work of the medieval alchemists. Our ceremony tonight is based on the Book of the Night, found in the Osireion at the Temple of Sety in Abydos. The goddess Nut, with her lapis-blue star-spangled body, spans the ceiling of a transverse chapel of the Osireion. There we see the sun in its solar boat beginning the journey through her body.

The afterlife books are filled with layer upon layer of myth and meaning, hundreds and hundreds of years of allegory and symbolism. Sometimes the dying and reborn god is Ra, and sometimes Osiris; the goddess may appear as Hathor or as Sekhmet. Sometimes the goddess Maat is the divine woman wearing a feather on her head, and sometimes maat is the abstract principle of truth, justice, balance, right living. But the central figure is the soul of the dead, whom we will here call Ani, navigating through the dark in the solar boat. Whether a pharaoh or one of us, that soul begins the afterlife journey at the death of its physical body, is rebirthed in the Duat, and emerges as Horus, the powerful shining one who soars like a hawk across the daytime sky.

As we embark on another cycle through the dark time of the year, may your journey bring you to the eastern gates, transformed into an akh, a shining one.

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b2ap3_thumbnail_osireionNut.jpgLast night an old friend came to me in a dream.  He has been a genuine soul-mate, both before and after his earthly passing.  Our affair of the heart was stormy, but in matters of spirit he always drew me to my best self.  I blocked him out for many years, but for a while now have been aware of his benevolent and supportive presence.  And he is not the only one.  On the periphery of my awareness there is a veritable cloud of witnesses, as one sacred text refers to those who have crossed over.  I don’t seek them out so often as I simply know them to be with me and part of me. 

Not unlike contemporary Pagans, ancient Egyptians had a complex set of ideas about the afterlife which often look like contradictions without study and reflection.  After the weighing of the heart in the Hall of Maat one might ascend to the sky as an “imperishable star” along with other ancestors.  Or one might face defeat by the monster Ammit should the heart be out of balance.  Most Egyptians simply hoped to live in comfort and happiness in a new world beyond.  Those of a more religious ilk imagined detailed journeys through the Duat, including encounters with all manner of beings and neteru (gods).  They understood this trip to be an alchemical sort of transformative process, describing the path of spiritual development. 

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