Saturn Returns to Le Figaro

On December 19th, I had the pleasure of attending a meeting of the New York Mythology Group. This is an informal group led by Phil Robinson which is created through Meetup.com, a website devoted to having meetings of like-minded people all around the country. Meetup.com is not limited to groups based on mythology. You can probably find a meetup group devoted to any interest you have.

I’ve always been interested in mythology as a little kid. I loved the Edith Hamilton Mythology book, and was a big collector of the volumes of modern heroes and heroines – i.e. comic books. As I grew older, myths recessed deeper and deeper into my consciousness, until I heard of Joseph Campbell whose mastery of history, religion and mythology fired up the love of mythology again in a different way. This time, instead of seeing colorful stories, I was able to see the importance of these myths, what they were supposed to represent and how they are relevant today.

The NY Mythology group meets approximately every six weeks. This last meeting focused on the myths of Saturn which corresponds to Saturnalia, an ancient Roman festival that occurs from December 17th – 23rd(ish!). Anyone who is familiar with astrology is familiar with Saturn as in the dreaded Saturn Return. However in early mythology, Saturn was the ruler of the Golden Age and represented abundance. The Lecturer named Emily quoted from a wide range of authors spanning cultures as well as millennia, such as Hesiod (700-ish BC), the Persian poet Nizami (1141-1209), Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), Plutarch and Plato. I learned a lot of things that I never knew before such as the relationship of King Arthur to Saturn, the meaning of the Ziggurat structure, etc. It definitely gave me some food for thought and new directions to think about and consider.

The discussion was held at Le Figaro Café on Bleecker St. After the discussion people hung around and discussed topics such as astrology, existentialism, and rebirth.

The next one is happening on January 16th and will be discussing the mythology of the Adversary, i.e. the Titans, Satan, Tiamat, etc. Hope to see you there!

Happy Saturnalia!!!

Saturnalia is the feast at which the Romans commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn, which took place on 17 December. Over the years, it expanded to a whole week, up to 23 December.

Saturnalia became one of the most popular Roman festivals. It was marked by crazy antics and reversal of social roles, in which slaves and masters switched places.

The Saturnalia was a large and important public festival in Rome. In time, it became one of the most popular Roman festivals. It involved the conventional sacrifices, a couch (lectisternium) set out in front of the temple of Saturn and the untying of the ropes that bound the statue of Saturn during the rest of the year. Besides the public rites there were a series of holidays and customs celebrated privately. The celebrations included a school holiday, the making and giving of small presents (saturnalia et sigillaricia) and a special market (sigillaria). Gambling was allowed for all, even slaves; however, although it was officially condoned only during this period, one should not assume that it was rare or much remarked upon during the rest of the year. It was a time to eat, drink, and be merry. It was license within careful boundaries; it reversed the social order without subverting it. It was also an opportunity for men to be completely free with their fellowmen, sometimes evolving into homosexual and sometimes also pedophilic relations. The toga was not worn, but rather the synthesis, i.e. colorful, informal "dinner clothes"; and the pileus (freedman's hat) was worn by everyone. Slaves were exempt from punishment, and treated their masters with disrespect. A Saturnalicius princeps was elected master of ceremonies for the proceedings.

The customary greeting for the occasion is a "io, Saturnalia!" — io (pronounced "yo") being a Latin interjection related to "ho" (as in "Ho, praise to Saturn").

Reevaluating Egypt Part 5 - The Climax

Although I skipped a lot of events in this journey, the main ones that stuck out to me I recorded. The last one I remember was when all of us went up into the Great Pyramid of Giza for our coronation ceremony. The pyramid was difficult to get into, mainly because you had to alternate between getting on your knees and standing up in single file for a long time. Up inside the pyramid was nothing really remarkable, except for the huge sarcophagus towards the back.

All of us made a circle around the sarcophagus along the wall and sat due to the fact that the ceremony would be over an hour long. During that time we all chanted tones which we tried to harmonize. One of the members of the group was a very large man simply known as Abdul. He was very friendly, but a bit of a loner when he was with the group. Maybe he wasn't and just didn't connect with us, or maybe he had a problem with the heat, but he never completely jelled with the group, mainly on his side. However, one-to-one he was very warm, friendly and positively openhearted. He attuned me to level 2 Reiki, which I am forever grateful and never realized that my destiny was to receive higher Reiki energies in the land of the Pharaohs. Anyway he was with us in the room of the pyramid and while we all where chanting simple words such as AH and OH, he started to chant Remember. We all dropped what we where chanting and began to chant Remember as well. In that moment we all realized that the purpose of the trip was not to learn something new but to bring into our consciousness what we already are. This realization came upon us like a gentle breeze. We were and are now pharaohs but we let our chattering minds and protective egos get in the way. Everyone in the room followed him immediately realizing and allowing ourselves to be challenged to remember who we are…

The sarcophagus was empty, except for we who would be placed in them. One by one we were led blindfolded to the sarcophagus whose walls were about 3 feet up from the ground and hallowed out, so we had to go up a foot ladder to be lowered in. All of this while being blindfolded. After being laid down into the sarcophagus, we were told to place our arms folded across our chests much like the pictures you see of the mummies. After laying there for a few minutes, the leaders would chant something above us, and raise us up out of the sarcophagus as a symbol of our resurrection.

I don't know if this is really what happens on the path, but apparently I have gone through many several resurrections in my existence on this planet. Even though the terminology and the location maybe different, the essence of dying and resurrecting is still the same. It seems to me that life is just a series of resurrections and remembrances. We walk this earth shedding layers and layers of what is not true until we are ready to drop the final layer which is our actual bodies and realize that we are eternal, infinite beings.

Book Recommendation: The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

I've been reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche
and its been turning my insides around. Every page is filled with beautiful,
simple wisdom on the fact of death, change, and impermanence which is so hard to grasp in
our western culture and especially in NYC.

This book is especially relevant in our post-9/11 world view.

What does Hooters and the Virgin Mary have in common?

According to Lenora Claire, if the Virgin Mary was alive today and got knocked up, she would work
for Hooters!!!

http://laist.com/2007/11/28/merry.php

Reevaluating Egypt part 4 -The Temple of Horus

This was my favorite temple experience for no other reason than my own attachment/interest in Horus. Horus was the son of Osiris and Isis. The basic story is Osiris was deceived, killed and dismembered by his brother Set (who I am sure evolved into Satan) who spread Osiris’ body parts all over the world. When finding out what happened, his wife Isis searched the heavens and the earth for the pieces of his body. After finding and putting all the pieces together, the sun god Horus was magically conceived. After a long fierce battle Horus defeated Set.

The name Horus is derived from the word Heru which is the name of the Egyptian or Kamitic version of the Tree of Life in the Qabalah. From the word Heru, we get hero, and we get characters such as Hercules, etc. In any mythology, religion or spiritual practice, if you have a character that dies and is resurrected, or through death is brought back in a higher form, he is considered a ‘solar deity’ because he is similar to the sun that rises and sets every day. Consequently, Jesus is considered a solar deity, Dionysus, and Buddha whose was human and became enlightened – the light shining from his soul. Without getting too complex, you can see similarities in other ways, for instance there is a connection between the twelve disciples of Jesus, the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve labors of Hercules, etc.

Edfu is located on the west bank of the River Nile between Esna and Aswan. The temple of Horus was built in the Ptolemaic Dynasty approximately 237 -57 B.C. If gender identification is possible with temples, I would say that this temple looks more ‘masculine’ than the others. The walls surrounding the temple are approximately 50 feet high and 145 feet wide. The massive size of the temple reflected the prosperity of the dynasty. The outside courtyard of the temple looked like a huge dam. On the outside wall, there is a huge line drawing of Horus in a victorious battle against Set. When you go through the courtyard, you are visited by a huge metallic statue of Horus. Horus is usually represented by a falcon wearing a crown that represents his ruling of Upper Egypt. On one side of the Inner Sanctuary of the temple was a hieroglyph of Alexander the Great drawn as a pharaoh. The priests of the god Ammon declared him the son of Zeus, so he was called Zeus- Ammon.

Inside the vast temple, we did a ritual inside the section known as the Holy of Holies. I remembered when I was a Christian the stories in the Old Testament, where people were struck dead by the presence of the Lord if they entered the Holy of Holies and were not priests. I wondered how much of the Old Testament was influenced by Ancient Egyptian practices. This was the beginning of the expansion of my world view – seeing the connection of all myths, stories and practices. I began to see that there was a continuum of beliefs that are engrained in our collective consciousness that will be there as long as humankind exists. I imagine that 2000 years into the future, we will have these same stories even though the actual mechanisms of the stories may change.

As we surrounded the inner sanctuary, we were about to perform a ritual that was to resurrect the hero within us, the fiery determination to say ‘Yes’ to our lives and to defeat the darkness of fear that would keep us small. We envisioned what we wanted to create in our lives and did a loud, hard dance that represented our victory! We claimed it to be so and so it was!

Reevaluating Egypt Part 3 - The Temple of the Goddess of Love

The Temple of Philae

On top of the massive pillars you can see images of a cow carved out of stone. This represents female goddess Hathor. She was the goddess of love, music and beauty so she is similar to Aphrodite or Venus the goddess of love. We arrived at the crack of dawn so as not to be disturbed by the tourists who may not be open to the Shamanic Breathwork we will be doing.

The popular name for what we were practicing was called Rebirthing. Although this isn’t the classic text book definition, it’s basically a process in which you experience and release negative blocks and childhood traumas through breathing. The whole process is about an hour or so long. You lay down on the floor and you have a guide to help you. You start to breathe in a slow, rhythmic fashion with nothing to focus on except your breath. I don’t remember exactly what happened after that. I remember going unconscious briefly and when I woke up, my hands fell asleep so I had to shake my hands to bring them back to life so to speak. What happened then to me was a blur, but I started to realize certain aspects about my relationship with my father and started to forgive him and let go of old wounds that related back to when I was a child. My father left me when I was around 9 and although I reconciled with my father since then, I still had some issues that I was holding on to that I needed to deal with privately. Although some people may disagree I think there are things that you should approach people with and there are other things that you should deal with on your own, especially if there are things that are your responsibility. A lot of the issues had more to deal with my own power and accepting my manhood. Not in a macho, testosterone filled way, which at times has its place, but accepting responsibility, admitting successes and failures – maybe I should say, accepting my adulthood.

I finished my breathwork journey a bit earlier than everyone else. I realized how blessed I was, laying at the floor of the temple dedicated to Isis at 6am reclaiming my power. The sounds of crying, laughing and chanting resonated throughout the temple. The rest was for sightseeing sort of.

On top of the massive pillars you can see images of a cow carved out of stone. This represents female goddess Hathor. Some people say she was the goddess of the Sky, but was also supposed to be the mother of Horus so she was related to Isis.

The Golden Compass

There is a new movie coming out that is speaking out against the Catholic Church. Even though the movie has been watered down so as not to implicate them, it is still stirring up controversy. The Catholic Church is afraid that because the Church isn’t mentioned in the movie, when people will know that the Church has been removed from the movie then it will influence people to buy the trilogy that the movie is based on which clearly talks about the dark side of the church.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071128/film_nm/goldencompass_religion_dc

Reevaluating Egypt Part 2 - The Temple of Sakkara

The temple of Sakkara is the oldest pyramid in the world. Sakkara is a burial ground about 30 miles south of Cairo and was built by Imhotep somewhere around 2500B.C. Saqqara is located near the entrance of the Nile Delta, at the point where the river starts dividing into several arms, on the west bank of the Nile. Its first tombs, dated to the beginning of the 1st Dynasty, were built on the ridge of the desert plateau, probably immediately to the west of the new capital of Memphis. If this is the first image you ever had of a pyramid you may not be very impressed. It looks like they were still in the process of perfecting the shape of the pyramid. Its roughly hewn stones form a shape that looks roughly triangular like a pyramid but misshapen. It looks like a pyramid made in the sand by a 10 year old.

Approximately 30 of us arrived at the temple at dawn. For some reason surrounding the base of the pyramid were a few stray dogs hanging around the temple. Although many people thought it was symbolic due to the fact that we were to have a meeting with Anubis, the ancient jackal headed god of the underworld. Since it’s hard to get the Brooklyn out of me, I was not nearly as receptive to see stray dogs running around as a good thing.

The group was led by Nikki Scully, a shamanic healer and author of several books on Alchemical Healing. She leads Shamanic tours to Egypt and Peru roughly every year. She was assisted by Star Wolf, her husband Brad and Anyaa McAndrew, a powerful teacher, priestess and healer. Before we went into the temple we were told that we were going to go start our journey, since we already received the blessing of safe passage from the sphinx the day before. They explained to us that Anubis was the god of the dead, the guide who would safely lead us through the underworld. He was also the god of mummification and the funeral process. Back in the early days, the organs would be taken out of the body and preserved, while the body was mummified. The soul or the ka was being cleansed as well. Symbolically speaking, Nikki asked us as part of the rite of the Pharaoh, to allow Anubis to cleanse us and be a part of the ‘rebirthing’ process. I immediately thought of Christianity, which asks you to be born again, to die to yourself and be reborn in the spirit. It is very easy to see that this spiritual concept of being reborn could’ve started in Egypt as the seat of civilization over 3000 years ago. I wish I could say I jumped at the concept. Many thoughts came to mind such as ‘this is creepy’ and ‘I just wanted to sight-see’ etc. All those who said yes went inside the pyramid and those who said no stayed outside. All but one of us went inside. I don’t remember what the ultimate reason was as to why I said yes, but I figured ‘why not?’ and I realized how cool it was, or something like that. Besides I don’t like being left out.

The inside of the pyramid was much bigger than it looked on the outside. Although there were huge caverns, it was very clean and well kept considering its age. You can almost feel the ancient energy simmering inside. We all laid down inside the pyramid and were led through a guided meditation, where we were visited by the gentle Anubis who promised to keep for us that which is sacred, and when we were cleansed and renewed it would be given back to us. After the meditation we chanted and left the pyramid for the rest of our tour. I felt great and was looking forward to the rest of my journey. I wasn’t even afraid of the stray dogs anymore.

Revaluating Egypt Part 1

Technorati ProfileEgypt has always been and I suspect will always be a mystical place. There are so many mysteries associated with Egypt that I imagine they will never be solved and probably more will be added long after I’m gone. It’s been two years since I first visited Egypt although at the time Egypt was always with me in the form of art, fashion, spirituality and entertainment. I never had a desire to go to Egypt but when the opportunity came for me to go two years ago, I couldn’t turn it down. Now once again I am reevaluating what it meant for me to go and how it is still influencing my life.

The beginning of the shamanic journey started with a visit to the Sphinx to ask for safe passage. The Sphinx is actually the guardian of the mysteries of ancient Egypt. In Greek Mythology, if the sphinx asked you a riddle which led to your death if answered incorrectly. On a mystical level, the human head on the animal body represents the spirit dominating the animal nature. There is a huge stone and an altar between its legs that you will never see or never know its there because most of the pictures that you see are all of the side, and rarely ever of the front. One of the interesting things about Egypt is that you are constantly amazed at how big everything really is! One stone of the great pyramid for instance is at least 8 feet high and at least 12 feet long. Now imagine that and imagine thousands of stones like that culminating in a shape that has mystified us all. The second thing you are amazed at is the age of the structures, the temples and the artwork and how well they are kept up (Okay I lied – three things). The oldest thing I have seen in America (outside of museums) was a grave where the oldest inhabitant died in the 18th century, which makes sense since this is a young country. In Egypt, it’s common to see temples that existed circa 2500 B.C. It was wonderful to hold hands and do rituals with people all over the country that you have not met before. This was the beginning of the travels of the Pharaoh or the initiation into the Pharaoh!

The Pharaoh was the ruler of Egypt, the most powerful person in the land during that time. Some people have interpreted the name Pharaoh as to mean ‘Great House’. He was also called the Lord of Two Worlds. Egypt was divided into Upper and Lower Egypt, thus the name Lord of Two Worlds. He (and on rare occasion she) was also considered to be the incarnation of the sun god Horus, the son of the Isis and Osiris who was born out of Osiris’ dead body. Maybe I thought of it back then but now I realize that the lower and upper Egypt on a metaphysical level represents the internal and external worlds, the spiritual and the natural world, the animal nature and the higher nature,etc. So taking the initiation rites of the Pharaoh was an amazing symbolic way of spiritual regeneration!!! Most of the spiritual classes, transformational workshops, and endless self-help books, tapes, cads, etc are really reviewer classes. We all know everything they say to us, but we all get trapped in victimland, blaming, justifying, and feeling overwhelmed and powerless. All we really need is for someone to remind us that we are in charge of our lives!!!! What better way to be reminded that we are and have the potential to be the most powerful people in our lives, that we can create the life we want and are not slaves to the winds of the media, gossip, negative thinking!!! We are and have the potential to be kings and queens of our lives.