equations, giants and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - part 2

In part 2, the other branch I'd like to explore is the setting of broken bones that Al Jabbar refers to. I have alluded to the Goddess Isis and her love of her husband Osiris. Isis searched high and low in Egypt to find the pieces of Osiris that were hacked up and scattered by his brother Set. Once she had gathered up all of Osiris' pieces, she put him back together long enough to work her magic and be impregnated by Osiris' seed. The allusion here is the light spirit of Osiris penetrating the earth mother Isis and her representation as the vessel of matter where the new life will grow. That new life is the baby Horus; Horus being the result of the soul incarnated into matter, acquiring love and wisdom, and then being declared fit to join the enlightened ones. It's ancient natural philosophy at its finest. It is yours and it is my destiny; we are all destined to become Horus.

But what about the dismembering of Osiris? Where does this come from? The constellation of Orion, as the yearly cycle passes, sinks lower and lower below the horizon each night when the sun goes down. One by one all the stars that make up the great giant by late spring are eventually dismembered until finally Orion is no longer visible at night for seventy days. After the seventy day period, the constellation starts to re-appear again in late summer, as the sun is about to rise. This is the setting of the broken bones of the giant Al Jabbar. Not coincidentally, the ancient Egyptian mummification period lasted 70 days as well; these ancients being the ultimate symbolizers of natural philosophy. Material death, mummification and Osiris all played parts in symbolizing the reconstitution of self in order to facilitate re-birth into a different plane of existence as well as the engendering of new life. This can also symbolize the incarnation of soul into matter, as mentioned earlier, where a new life portrayed as Horus, will be the result of this union.

This explains Al Jabbar the giant and why this moniker also refers to the setting of broken bones. In my mind this leads to a couple more immediate questions and observations. The first one is who is this Set and why would he dismember Osiris? The second one is the connection to observing natural phenomenon and how the dismembering and remembering is something you see every night in the monthly waning and waxing of the moon. With Easter coming up this is a fantastic topic that needs to be explored further.

equations, giants and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Do you remember a basketball player named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?  He was born with the name Lew Alcindor but as he matured he embraced Islam and changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  He starred in the NBA with the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers. This guy was a giant at 7 feet, 2 inches tall!

You know what else is a giant?  The constellation Orion which dominates our winter sky is a giant.  You can't miss it in its nightly voyage across the southern night sky as he rises in the east and eventually sets in the west.  Many ancient cultures referred to Orion as a giant. To the Jews Orion was known as Gibbor, the giant who they considered Nimrod the great hunter, and this Nimrod was bound to the sky for rebellion against Yahweh.  The Syrians referred to Orion as Gabbara the giant and the Arabians knew Orion as Al Jabbar the giant.

We turn again to the Online Etymology Dictionary to start connecting some dots:

algebra
1550s, from M.L. algebra, from Arabic al jebr "reunion of broken parts," as in computation, used 9c. by Baghdad mathematician Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi as the title of his famous treatise on equations ("Kitab al-Jabr w'al-Muqabala" "Rules of Reintegration and Reduction"), which also introduced Arabic numerals to the West. The accent shifted 17c. from second syllable to first. The word was used in English 15c.-16c. to mean "bone-setting," probably from Arab medical men in Spain.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=algebra

So Algebra comes from the Arabic Al Jebr, refers to bone setting, and is etymologically correlative to Al Jabbar.  Those familiar with the ancient Egyptian story of Osiris and Isis will remember Osiris being hacked to pieces by his brother Set and then re-assembled by the love of his wife Isis.  How this all interestingly enough adds up is Osiris is equated many times in the Pyramid texts to Orion.  For example text 820 states  “Behold Osiris has come as Orion.”

The action of Al Jabbar refers to the setting of broken bones while the thing it refers to is a giant in the sky and that giant is Orion.  This is only scratching the surface as what we have just learned branches off in many interesting directions that are well worth following.  I'll just follow one branch for now and that is concerning the stars that make up the constellation of Orion and how they relate back to our friend Osiris.

In old Arabia the belt of Orion stood out in the night sky and was given the designation Al Jauzah, which was a term used to describe a black sheep with a white spot in the middle of its body.  The left leg of Orion, known to us as the star Rigel, was known as Rijl Jauzah al Yusrāʽ.  The right shoulder of Orion, known to us as Betelgeuse, was known as Ibt al Jauzah - "the armpit of the Central One."  In Egypt the Great Pyramid of Khufu along with the pyramids Khafre and Menkaure were built on a plateau that is called today the Giza Plateau and is known in Arabic as Al Jizah.  Somehow the Arabs that named this area Al Jizah knew what this sacred plateau represented, as Al Jizah easily correlates with Al Jauzah.  There is a popular theory about the three pyramids representing Orion's belt, made most famous by author Robert Bauval in his book "The Orion Mystery". This has been disputed by leading Egyptologists most likely because it didn't dawn on them first.  The pyramids are symbols of re-birth and to the ancient Egyptians this was part of becoming.  Re-birth was the vehicle that allowed you to fulfill this act of becoming.  The Pharaoh was a living Horus, which is telling us that the King had achieved a spiritual becoming while on earth and had the authority to rule as the enlightened one among us.  In physical death the Pharaoh would become Osiris again and await re-birth while being entombed in his great symbol.

Next I will follow the path that explains the setting of broken bones.