Addenda
 
OLLI
Ancient Egypt – Magic and Metaphysics
   ... a six-week course offering an overview of the religion and spiritual life of the ancient Egyptians. Material  is drawn from the sacred literature, art, and architecture that discloses the enigmatic themes of life and death as the ancient Egyptians expressed them.

Early Spring 2010 Session – February 11 through March 25
Osher

OLLI at UVa is recognized as a University-Related Foundation by the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia.

ancient hound

Pharaonic Dog by Howard Carter
     Pharaoh’s Friend                                  by Rosemary Clark

   I was born in the season of Inundation, when the river Nile floods the lowlands and brings rich silt from the southern land of Kush to mingle with the black soil of Egypt. It was just before the thirtieth year of His Majesty Intef II, known to me and his kin as Wa-Ankh, "enduring of life.”

   As firstborn and strongest of my siblings, I drew much attention in the household of Thethi, chief treasurer of the king and overseer of the vast temple estates in Thebes. Being a very wise man, he held me up before my eyes had even opened, pronouncing me of fit and noble appearance, enough to deserve special consideration.

   “Ah yes,” he said. “This one is worthy to be the gift to my lord in honour of his thirtieth jubilee, an offering that none could possibly rival.”

   My master was speaking of the coming festivities that would honour the king’s anniversary. They would be celebrated throughout the country, from the great temple cities to the smallest towns along the river. No one alive could remember Pharaoh presiding over the Two Lands for such an extended time, and a mostly peaceful term at that. Though before my birth there had occasionally been rebellious factions from Herakleopolis. The rebels had created skirmishes with Pharaoh’s guard, who had always dealt with them quickly and effectively. That was because Wa-Ankh was a brave and just ruler, one who inspired his subjects yet drew awe from his enemies.

   And so from a pup I was singled out to enter the rank of hunting companion to the Royal House and devote my life in service to His Majesty. But that was to come. At just two weeks old, I had already ventured out of my soft bed of rushes to explore the courtyard of my master and pull at the woven ropes his children teased me with. I ran, jumped, and retrieved the throw sticks they passed through the air, distinguishing myself in their eyes.

   Then after three months, the coat of my youth had sloughed off, revealing numerous bright spots of white on my sable torso to match my white feet. One day after I had fetched dozens of hand balls and throw sticks from the children of the house, Thethi stood before me with satisfaction.

   “So far you have proven my estimation of you to be correct,” he said with his hands on his hips. “But it is time for you to become accustomed to the duties I have chosen for you.”

   A linen cord was then placed around my neck and I was taken with my master in his chair to the palace kennel in Thebes. Such a fine place it was! My new home was a stone brick enclosure under a grove of shady Persea trees, bordered by a canal flowing with Nile water.

   I was not alone. My new family included other hunting companions, some young like me and others of advanced age. And we were as different as the birds that nested in the Persea trees above, of many colours and sizes, some shy and others proud.

   On my first day I was washed and anointed, my ears pierced with small gold rings. Every day after that the routine hardly varied; a morning run along the canal, breakfast of bread soaked in sour milk, exercise of jumping and retrieving followed by a big meal from a catch the fowlers brought at midday. In the heat of the afternoon, rest under the shade of the trees and at sunset, a stew of ox followed by brisk play and a coat brushing. By the time I was nine months of age, the kennel grooms hailed my swiftness and strength.

    Some of the companions were regularly brought to the Royal House, to spend time with His Majesty and learn his commands. I remember the first time I was taken to Pharaoh¹s quarters, because that was when I received my name. In the early evening we entered the palace, ablaze with colour from hundreds of lamps. Light reflected from the vast golden floor, which I crossed with awe and expectation, my ears alert to new sounds; music, laughter, the querulous speech of cats.

    It was my former master Thethi who spoke when I entered the royal chamber. “I am honoured to present you with the noblest of companions Majesty,” he said as he spread his hands, palms down, before him. “He is matchless in every way, as your groomsmen will attest. Let him prove his worth through the long years the gods have conferred upon you.”

    The cord upon my neck was loosed, and I stepped upon the platform before the king. In imitation of my former master who remained bowed, I also extended my paws and lowered my head.
    “Such a beauty!” Wa-Ankh said. “Come friend, let me see your coat.” I obeyed, but gulped nervously as the royal hand brushed over my back and rump.

   “I shall call you Abutiyu, the speckled one,” he continued, “because you look like the night sky, covered with stars.” He eyed me carefully for a moment. “Now show me, catch this!” he shouted, as he threw a baton from his lap into the air.

   Two steps, a leap, an easy catch. I returned to His Majesty with the baton, dropping it back into his lap.

   “Bring him to me tomorrow,” he said to one of the grooms. “I want him to accompany the next hunt.” He touched my head lightly, then rose and left the chamber.

    I cannot describe all the things that transpired after that day. I was taken to the Royal House and took part in Pharaoh’s routine. Instead of running along the canal with the other companions, I chased and caught throw sticks hurled by the king. He allowed me to sit at his feet as he dictated letters and conferred with his counsellors. After a year I was even given a special friend, a lovely runner like myself called Mahedj, the gazelle.
 tesem hounds
Anpu head
   But best of all, I accompanied Pharaoh and his retinue across the river in the royal barge, to run after rabbits and antelope in the vast fields beyond the cultivated land. Bowmen from the local villages shouted with excitement when Pharaoh appeared, eager to take part in the hunt. And I, foremost of his hunting companions, often led the chase.

   On one of those occasions when we travelled to the western bank of the river, Wa-Ankh stopped to visit a chapel on a hill overlooking the field, allowing me to accompany him into the dim chamber.

    “See here, Abutiyu,” he said to me, “The lord of your kind is guardian of this place. He leads the souls of those departed into the Western Land. He is Anubis, the Opener of the Ways.”

    I looked upon the image that was majestically elevated behind a stone altar. Indeed, the god of this place was a dark hound with raised ears and piercing eyes. I lowered my head in reverence, but could not help glancing at the king, whose hands rested upon the altar in deep contemplation. After a quiet moment, he struck his breast and then turned to leave. I followed, but of course I was captivated by this visit and looked back at the image. One of my kind among the gods of Egypt !  It was unforgettable.

   A few years passed and I was content, living in the house of His Majesty, sometimes standing guard at the chamber where he slept. Then news came that of unrest in some of the villages on the western bank. Pharaoh¹s guard had to be sent to quiet the disturbances. On those occasions we did not go across the river to hunt, but stayed in Thebes. I sorely missed those excursions, and so did my royal master. He swatted his fly whisk about in the afternoons, grumbling about his restless subjects. One day after doing this, he looked down as I stood at his feet.
    “My friend, tomorrow we shall go to the western fields and run with the antelope,” he said, rubbing my uplifted chin. “We will put an end to this palace boredom and be with our companions once again.”

    It was a bright morning when we set out, with Pharaoh¹s guard marching briskly ahead and the bowmen singing songs of valor. Many companions from the royal kennel joined us, Abaqer, the swift one, Kemu the black one, and the twin hounds from Libya, Tekenru and Teqeru. After crossing the river, we jumped with excitement, barely able to restrain ourselves from the woven ropes cinched to our leather collars while the kennel grooms also shouted with joy. Then to the north we journeyed, greeting villagers along the way.

    But on entering a dry expanse beyond the Theban plain, a group of royal guards ahead of us turned back and warned that a hostile band had been seen in the hills and a return to the city was advised. His Majesty was much annoyed by this news, but waved at his retinue to reverse course.

    It was then that the confusion descended. First with the appearance on the cliffs above of several bowmen, unknown to us. Then a company of soldiers marched swiftly toward us from a cleft in the western hills, carrying the war standards of Herakleopolis. His Majesty was calm, but directed his guard to engage the interlopers rather than flee. The kennel grooms were alarmed though, and let the ropes loose from our collars in fear. I looked to Wa-Ankh, wanting to be with him at this fearful moment.

    It was then that I saw the bowman above us, intent on His Majesty. It was the sound of the arrow flying down toward us that caused me to run to my master. Somewhere in the din, I heard him cry out my name.

   Two steps, a leap, an easy catch. But this was not the king¹s baton I had retrieved. Instead it was an arrow which had been aimed at the king. His Majesty had seen my action, and on our return to the palace declared that I had saved him from injury. By Royal Decree henceforth I was to be known as Pharaoh’s Friend and be honoured as his personal guard and constant attendant.

   Thus it was that for many years I served His Majesty day and night, always at his side, his loyal and trusted companion wherever he was, whatever he was doing.

   In the fullness of time I found myself once again in the chapel of Anubis, above the western cemetery in Thebes, where Wa-Ankh had shown me the sanctuary of the Opener of the Ways years before. This time I was alone. The graven image of the god was no longer silent, but now spoke to me as one familiar companion to another.

   “You will open the way for your master, when his day of entering the Western Land comes to pass,” he said to me. “He will know you, and you will know him, and you will both run with the antelope in the Field of Peace.”
Opener of the Ways    Pharaoh Intef II fulfilled his birth name of Wa-Ankh, "enduring of life."  Born in BCE 2117,  he was crowned king in his 20th year and reigned over Egypt for 48 years more before he joined his friend Abutiyu in the Field of Peace, BCE 2069.

   More than three thousand years later, in CE 1935, the American archaeologist Dr. George Reisner, while working in Egypt for the Harvard-Boston Expedition, discovered a funerary stele in the western cemetery of Giza, under the shadow of the Great Pyramid. It reads,

 “Here rests the guard of his Majesty, named Abutiyu. The king decreed that he receive a ceremonial burial, with a coffin from the royal treasury, and that he receive a great quantity of fine linen and incense. And he was given perfumed ointments and a tomb built by the royal masons. All this his Majesty did for him, so that he might be honoured before the Great God, Anubis.”

   You can read Resiner's report in The Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts: Boston, December 1936, Issue No. 206, page 96 et sec. Reisner, George A.: "The Dog Which was Honored by the King of Upper and Lower Egypt," or download it here.
 
This story was initially published in August 2009 at the website of  Floyd the Dog.  Join his free Story Club for more tales about our timeless friends, great and small.
Tut mask

The Magic of Tutankhamun

   Beyond mortal life lies worlds that the ancient Egyptians mapped in great detail – through texts, images, and sacred spaces in temple and tomb. In the same manner that they approached life and the activation of magical powers to enhance it,  they also approached death with the goal of using magic once more, to enter the worlds of nature and the gods. In the tomb of Tutankhamun, the young king proceeds on this archetypal journey, and we may follow him to that sublime destination called "eternal life."
The following programs have been archived:

Egypt – Magic, Mysteries, and Tutankhamun
Sunday, April 16, 2006

Sacred Magic:
The Living Temple
 Sunday, February 15, 2004
 Radio   Listen to 21st Century Radio Here

 Hieronimus & Co.

 Senusert shrine

Discovering a Sacred Language
To speak the name of the dead is to make them live again.
– Ancient Egyptian inscription

    Many of us keenly feel the absence of ritual in modern life, and recognize the emptiness that results from daily routines lacking in color or meaning. It seems to us that in past times, life was more often punctuated by rituals and ceremonies that provided that lack, along with a close familiarity with nature and divine life.

    This was a sentiment often expressed to me by students in astrological and meditation groups I conducted over the years, as we sought to re-learn some of the sacred languages of the past. Those ancient mythologies, religions, and occult sciences beckoned to us with a deep resonance and left us with a desire to understand their possible role in our lives.
   
    But it soon became apparent that satisfying our intellectual curiosity about those languages did not wholly resolve the need. They had to be spoken, and expressed in their context, in order to be fully understood and live in our dimension. And it was Egypt that continually arose as the mother lode of of all sacred languages –  the cosmology, magic, architecture, and astronomy of the ancient temple. These realms of knowledge were not segregated in past times as they are now, but formed a comprehensive world view that explained the relationship between the cosmic life, nature, and human beings.
   
    This realization resulted in the re-creation of a temple practicum that became the directive for my research and retrieval of Egyptian spirituality. Through this, I understood how the essential sacred language of ancient Egypt was ritual, and it was embedded in every aspect of the culture over several millennia – long enough for other civilizations in its proximity to acknowledge its antiquity and power.

    But how was that language spoken?

    Egypt’s divine images provide us with the first key. The cosmic gods and goddesses, spirits of celestial time and geographic place, and even divinized human beings in a vast pantheon reflect an understanding of the spiritual functions of the universe. They are letters in the sacred alphabet, standing for the sounds of creation. And rather than being remote or removed from earthly life, the Egyptians understood those functions as immanent in nature and human beings. Thus, they are not only accessible – they are bonded to our existence as much as we are to theirs. This is the key that provides us with the “what.”

    The second key comes from understanding the rhythm of the sacred language – celestial phenomena. Divine beings, the Neteru, were believed to reside in the physical substance of the heavenly bodies – the stars and planets. Thus, we may communicate most effectively when we follow the approach of the ancients by observing the periods and cycles of planets and constellations. For example, the Egyptians observed certain rituals at the New and Full Moons, and the ingresses of the Sun into certain domains in the sky. This is the key that provides us with the “when.”

    The third key is provided by the ancient legends. They were not viewed as “myths” by the Egyptians, but were believed to have been actual events that transpired when human and divine beings co-existed. For example, one legend concerns the reanimation of the god Osiris after being slain by his brother, Set. Another tells of the sacred marriage between Hathor and Horus, who by their mating unite the Lunar and Solar lights in the sky.

    Temple ritual was intended as the re-creation of those acts that gave life to the universe, so that it could be maintained in its original order and balance. It was endowed to the human race in Sep Tepi, the “first moment” in time, so that the timeless dimension in which gods and humans existed could be realized once more. Thus, the Egyptian ritual of the Opening of the Mouth is a reenactment of restoring the senses of Osiris, and the Festival of the Divine Union is a re-consummation of the divine matrimony that created the luminaries. This is the key that provides us with the “how.”

    And so it is in the Egyptian approach that speaking the sacred language is not only possible, it is the natural outcome of using divine images, sacred periods, and timeless acts. It is a process of speaking once more to the gods, and engaging in a divine conversation that may have begun in the mists of the past, but can continue to enrich us in the present.


Solar Maat
  
Going Forth by Day: The Venus Transit of 2004

In an era bereft of devotion and compassion, the heavens once more remind us
that the shadow of discord may, in its time, become the light of harmony

   For the first time in more than one hundred years, the Earth’s sister planet Venus recently transited the face of the Sun and was visible over a select swath of the Earth. There have only been 52 such events since 2000 BCE and this event was cited by NASA as “among the rarest of planetary alignments.”

   On June 8, 2004 Venus was at inferior conjunction to the Sun, or between the Earth and Sun in a similar configuration to a Solar eclipse. For a little more than six hours, Venus was seen to cross the lower limb of the Sun from the Earth.

   First contact with the Sun: 5:19:57 Universal Time               Last  contact with the Sun: 11:23:15 Universal Time

   Astrologically, Venus appeared retrograde from the Earth at 17º Gemini (Tropical) or 23º Taurus (Sidereal), and her Solar crossing took place against the backdrop of the constellation Orion, the warrior.
   The Lightbringer

   Of great significance is that this event provided the only opportunity to view the atmospheric “ring” of Venus, where the light of the planet’s surface was visible. When Mercury transits the face of the Sun, he appears as a black dot moving across the Solar orb, while Venus featured a halo of light around her dark edge. No one alive today had seen this phenomenon.
   The transit was entirely visible in the Pacific rim nations and in the northwest area of North America. The first visibility took place at June 8 sunrise on the tip of South Africa. A map available in PDF format from the U.S. Naval Observatory website shows the progress of the event over the Earth.

   This rare transit should be viewed in context with its cyclic occurrence. Transits of Venus occur in pairs eight years apart. Following the June 2004 event, Venus will again transit the Sun in June 2012. The record is as follows:

                Dec. 1631    Dec. 1639
                June 1761    June 1769
                Dec. 1874    Dec. 1882
                June 2004    June 2012
                Dec. 2117    Dec. 2125

   What occurs during the period between the eight-year transit pairs is undoubtedly more significant than the events themselves. Those with historical and metaphysical insights will note that intense periods of social and religious enlightenment took place at these times, which set into motion long-lived institutions for justice, social equality, and the eradication of disease. In the realm of spirit, these periods also set the stage for intracultural discourse on spirituality and the dissemination of ancient knowledge.

    A Goddess Emerges from the Shadows

    The astrological Venus is, in her many roles, primarily the arbiter of the human endeavor called civilization. In the Greek pantheon, she dispenses justice as Pallas Athene and divine passion as Aphrodite the mother of Eros; she teaches dance to human beings to honor the gods as Hi’iaka in Hawai’i; she assumes hermaphroditic qualities as Ishtar-Attar in the Mesopotamian universe to govern war and peace. In Roman legend, Venus was the mother of Aeneas, founder of the Roman nation and a hero of the Trojan War. She embodied many images, as the universal mother (Genetrix), the changer of hearts (Verticordia), the goddess of favor (Felix), bestower of gratitude (Obsequens), among many others. In the sky, she was Hesperus (the morning star) and Phosphorus (the evening star), and ever the companion of Ares, god of battle.

     In the sacred astronomy of ancient Egypt, Venus as the morning star represents the ascent of Maat, goddess of truth, in the celestial barque of her father Ra. As the evening star, she signifies the descent of Hathor, one of the goddesses in the afterlife who enters the Duat or invisible region of the sky, where she welcomes departing souls.

     But there is contention and disharmony in the realm of Venus. Becoming the male god Shukra in the Vedas, he is spiritual teacher to the Rakshashas, the demonic  souls. In China, the planet is known as the Great White, who emanates a ghostly atmosphere that punishes the unfaithful. Associated with the fifth element of Metal, its color brought to mind the reflected light of weaponry. In the Mayan universe, Venus is associated with both the rain god Chac and the god of disaster, Tlaloc. When appearing as the morning star, he becomes Quetzacoatl, emanating rays of light that become spears aimed at his enemies. And in the Judeo-Christian creation, Venus is embodied in the subversion of the archangel Lucifer, who refused to serve man because his love for the creator was greater.

    From these mythic themes, Venus shows us that enlightenment does not arise from passive seasons of contentment. Rather, it is born in the landscape of struggle and discord, where outworn dogmas divide society and the individual from wholeness. Reaching for meaning and balance, human beings attain profound understandings when they recognize the absence of harmony, and take action to attain it, if only as an ideal and a vision for the future.

    Synchronicity and Meaning

   This is what the transit has Venus offered us. As the years unfold to 2012, we have the opportunity to enact the mandate of the lightbringer and become her embodiment to those around us. As much as we would wish it, celestial events such as these do not shower the unwitting masses with “higher consciousness” or a cosmic audience with advanced beings somewhere in the universe. They are reminders of the celestial harmony that continues to resonate despite our unwillingness to hear. In this instance, the lightbringer fused with the Solar light, attaining a rare moment of illumination and offering it to her partners in a divine undertaking. By accepting, the goal of spiritual inclusion can incubate in the next eight years, to balance our social and familial lives with the devotion and compassion our ideals have called us to – qualities that this moment in time has cast aside.
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