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.