Sacred_Language

	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. 2009 Session – To Be Announced
	OLLI at UVa is recognized as a University-Related Foundation by the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia. Registration Information

	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." Read it at the Llewellyn Journal

The following programs have been archived:

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

Sacred Magic: The Living Temple
Sunday, February 15, 2004

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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.

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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