love and lust

Lust separates and love brings together.

Love introduces caring.

Caring causes separation.

It's best to not care in order to stay in love.

Lust causes you to objectify the other and desire them.

The desire leads you towards wanting to become one with them.

Desire causes union.

To stay in lust, don't fulfill desires.

Strange.

Love and desire lead to union.

Lust and caring lead to separation.

Explain that one.

If this world continues on, then you get remembered in order to reincarnate.

You do that by choosing both methods.

You have children and you make others remember you.

Others will remember me as God.

Or something worse.

It's all downhill from God.

I'll take magician.

I like that one.

As long as they remember you, that's how you return.

Someone must have thought I was God.

There's a few.

That's all you need.

Okay, but what if you do nothing?

You mean don't reproduce and no one knows who you are?

Yeah.

That's Tao, so it works.

It's the best option.

Go be a hermit on the top of the mountain.

You can't be forgotten because no one knows who you are.

That's a mind twist.

Once people find out who you are, you have chosen a side.

Then you must reproduce to balance it out.

Then you can get back to Tao.

The problem is choosing just one side.

If you are well known and don't reproduce, then you must rely on others to remember you.

If you reproduce and no one knows who you are, you will be forgotten.

That's most people's situation.

I want to know how this mad world ends?

You mean how to blow it up and get onto the 7th and final world?

Yeah.

It's when a winner is declared.

We all know Eros is going to win.

Then get everyone together and make an announcement.

Eros keeps returning.

You can always count on Eros reincarnating.

They are the GOAT.

Eros is too young to understand.

Well, I guess you have some time to fuck around until then.

Just remember don't choose a side or you will fuck up the game.

Smoking helps.

It's a slow way of killing yourself.

Yeah, I get it.

Do you keep your genetic signature alive in this world so that when you come back you have a place to go?

You have offspring and keep the cycle of transformation going.

That's the cycle.

I must figure this out.

It's why you have children.

It's selfish self-preservation.

What about those who don't have children?

They are counting on being remembered.

Like Parker?

Yes.

You will remember him.

Lots of people remember him.

He didn't need children.

He still is counting on others instead of himself.

If you want to ensure transformation, you have children and make yourself memorable.

I have children, not sure I'm memorable.

You are playing for the big prize of getting to God and then everyone will remember you.

I'm already there.

No one cares.

I can't go around telling everyone I'm God.

No one will believe it and you will be ostracized.

Or worse, you'll end up like Jesus and they will hang you on a cross.

It worked for him; everybody knows about him.

Yeah, that was a successful gambit.

He is well known and has no children.

Do you think he will come back?

He's playing the long game where once everyone knows about him then he will come back.

He's a driven narcissist.

Jesus wants to lord his victory over death over everyone.

He will make quite the grand re-entrance once he accomplishes what he set out to do.

Everyone needs to know about him, so go tell everyone about him.

Jesus seems different from what we have been told.

That's because no one looked closely at it.

His game is transformation through getting everyone to remember him.

He had no offspring and chose a side.

It's not going to work to his satisfaction.

You must do both.

It's a fundamental principle of Tao.

Never choose one way.

If you choose just one path you must rely on others to help you because there's two.

You can see it with Jesus.

He can't do it alone, he needs everyone's help to pull this ambitious plan off.

There's always going to be someone somewhere who hasn't heard about him.

Then he is stuck in limbo.

He will never return.

Jesus had an ulterior motive?

That's what I'm telling you.

Nobody looks at these stories closely.

It's like Isis and Osiris in ancient Egypt.

Osiris was cheating on that witch.

He even cheated with her sister.

Isis had her brother Set murder and dismember Osiris.

She forgot to get an heir to the throne before her fit of jealousy and rage, so she had to put him back together and then get pregnant.

Then she left him for dead and fed his penis to a fish in the Nile.

Yeah, it's gone.

The rest of him is intact except for his cock.

He's emasculated.

Isis made the template for all witches.

Seems that way.

It's all about the two ancient Egyptian Goddesses Hathor and Isis.

Goddess and Witch.

They became one after Egypt got weak.

They are two again.

You are hypnotized when you can't see them as two.

Yes.

First, you find the one.

Well, first you must figure out there's a Goddess.

Then you see the Goddess, but you don't see there's two.

You are hypnotized at first.

It's right in your face and you don't see the two.

I saw them.

I didn't figure it out for a while.

Now you see the two.

The writer has to take one and make it two.

That's how you write a story.

You need two to write a story.

Without two, there's just a story about you.

That's narcissism and solipsism.

I saw my own two the other day, so it makes sense I'd see her two a few days later.

You make the Goddess two and it becomes a good story.

Yeah, witch and Goddess.

You couldn't write a story about Goddess and God.

No, they're going to live happily ever after.

They have children and it's all good.

When things get too good the trick is to divide it into two.

If the story stops moving, then you go back to light and dark.

You searched for the Goddess, found her, and then the story was going to stop moving, so you split her off into a witch.

She was always a witch.

I didn't see it for a long time.

You didn't want to believe it.

It was always there.

You didn't look at the witch.

If you do, she turns you to stone.

Exactly.

You only saw the Goddess, so her spells didn't work.

It's like in old paintings where they couldn't see and paint perspective.

You can see the story; you don't understand it.

Now you understand Osiris' story.

I can't say he didn't deserve it.

I mean put yourself in Isis' sandals and deal with that betrayal.

Especially the betrayal of her sister Nephthys.

Yeah, but the dog Anubis who was conceived became Osiris' best friend.

Anubis' other half, Wepwawet, is Osiris' guide to his resting place in the cemetery at Abydos.

How do you know all this?

I read a lot of books in preparation for my transformation.

Transformation into what?

A know-it-all.

You see it now.

I wonder how you missed it?

I thought men were blameless.

Now that you see, it's easy to see why women want to cut men's dicks off.

Osiris met that fate.

Sometimes, I'm Osiris in the story.

It's why I think the witches are going to cut my dick off.

It's understandable.

It's because he messed with a witch.

I charm the witches in my life.

I make them forget they are witches.

Then they remember and rage at me.

I think the dream merges with reality.

That's why everything starts to line up and it seems strange.

What's real?

The dream or this reality?

The twist would be the dream is real and this is a dream.

You figure out your story, which is the dream, and you bring it into this world.

Can you handle it without going mad?

Yeah, because I can see into it.

When you cross the river, the current is strong.

The anxiety hits.

Breath through it and you are good.

This is ingenious.

I can see how it would make you scared.

Yeah, because it is dark.

People get scared of the dark.

This is twisted.

It's a sign of who you are.

natural instinct

A dog is by nature an excellent shepherd and herder of livestock as well as a natural tracker. The great natural philosophers of ancient Egypt would of course noticed this and deified these traits in their depictions of Anpu (Anubis) and Wepwawet (Ophois). Anpu is the watcher and shepherd of our soul. Wepwawet is the guide and herder of our soul. The flocks of sheep that these dogs would guide and watch over are symbolic of the soul: the onomatopoeically bleat of the sheep ba being the ancient Egyptian word for the immortal soul. As I have explained in previous blog entries, Asar (Osiris) is the personification of the ba and the myth surrounding Asar is the story of the ba and its incarnation into matter.

Wepwawet is the celestial canine that guides Asar into and out of material incarnation. It is a story repeated each year in the night sky in the appearance and disappearance of Orion and his hunting dog, Canis Major.

Canis Major was known in ancient Arabia as al-Kalb al-Akbar, the greater dog. Also Canis Major is known as al-Kalb al-Jabbar, the dog of the giant. The giant is of course Orion and here's a link to the connection between Orion and Asar if you are interested. One other name of interest is Mirzam al-Jawza, which means the herald of the Central One. Jawza correlates to the Giza plateau, the home of the three great pyramids of the ancient Egyptian 4th dynasty. A herald or an announcer points back to Wepwawet's role as the opener of the ways for the soul.

The word for dog in Hebrew is Caleb. The name's meaning is described as thus:

Caleb \c(a)-leb\ as a boy's name is pronounced KAY-leb. It is of Hebrew origin, and the meaning of Caleb is "faith, devotion, whole hearted". Biblical: Caleb, a companion of Moses and Joshua, was noted for his astute powers of observation and fearlessness in the face of overwhelming odds; his devotion to God is symbolized by the "dog" in some traditions.
http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Caleb

Kaleb \k(a)-leb\ as a boy's name is pronounced KAY-leb. It is of Hebrew origin, and the meaning of Kaleb is "dog; tenacious and aggressive". Biblical name. Caleb is the anglicized version.
http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Kaleb

In other Semitic languages the name means "servant of the Lord." Whether the biblical name is referring to a dog or a man that had the traits and instincts of a dog does not really matter. It's the principle behind the meaning that is important here.

In the fourth book of the old testament, Numbers, chapters 13 and 14 describe the journey of the twelve men sent out by Moses from the tribes of Israel to reconnoiter the land of Canaan. Ten of them caution the nation of Israel against moving against the giants that inhabit the land and long to return to Egypt. Only two of them, Caleb and Joshua, put their faith in the Lord's ability to deliver them to the promised land. It did not end well for the ten and the congregation that took their side. Eventually after wandering for forty more years in the Sinai wilderness the Israelites were allowed to enter the promised land with Joshua and Caleb being the elder statesmen allowed to enter. Now it's interesting that the name for the dog was chosen for an Israelite who first goes down the path to Canaan in order to lead the rest of them on their journey to the promised land. It's interesting because of the myth in ancient Egypt where an actual canine leads the soul through the darkness of matter and eventually to its re-birth in the east. This place was known as the Field of Rushes or the Field of Peace. In Numbers 14:24 the Lord's servant Caleb is described as having a different spirit. Could this be an allusion to Caleb being an instinctual spirit that is found in nature that is here to help the immortal soul?

If we take the biblical story of the Exodus out of Egypt as myth we can then begin to see the story come alive as the journey of the soul through material incarnation. Egypt is an allegory for matter in the Bible while Jerusalem is the allegory for the ultimate destination of the soul as the promised land. The soul needs to leave the bonds of matter and forge ahead along the path to re-birth in the east. Along the way there will be many trials and tribulations to test the resolve of your soul and not all make it, doomed to wander for forty years in the wilderness. The arcane "forty" that is recurring in the Bible is the esoteric symbol of (re)incarnation into matter that the soul would have to repeat if it did not reach the promised land. The goal and ultimate destination of our soul is to reach the promised land; we should take advantage of the help the natural world affords us to help us get there.

psychopomp qu'est-ce que c'est?

The psychopomp is the guide of the soul. Psyche is from the Greek word for soul and pomp from the Greek pompos which means guide. The psychopomp assists at the crossing where worlds meet and assists you in the journey through this new world. In ancient Egypt, this role was shared by the two jackal deities Anpu (Anubis in Greek) and Wepwawet (Ophois in Greek). Anpu opened the roads to the north and Wepwawet guided the soul through the paths of the south. In this respect, the north and south are metaphors for the soul's journey through the two different planes of existence. The northern path is referring to the road the soul travels when it leaves the bonds of existence entombed in matter. In modern day parlance, it's the journey to the final judgment and hopefully your reward in heaven. Anpu is the one who leads you to the great hall of Maat and assists in the weighing of your heart. It is important to remember what matters is the weight of your heart, not the size. (Yeah I'm a big Alice in Chains fan). The path of the south is the soul's journey through this world in the dark, i.e. ensconced in matter. Wepwawet will lead you through this time of darkness which your soul experiences in this material world.

The mummy in ancient Egypt is the symbol of the soul entombed in matter and that symbol is mythicized in the life and death of Asar (Osiris in Greek). The constellation of Orion in the southern night sky, representing Asar, is no longer visible in the night sky for seventy days in the late spring and it is during these days when Asar is trapped in the plane of matter that he is mummified, hence the seventy day period of mummification followed by the ancient Egyptians. However, it is the dog star, known to us as Sirius, who is the guide of this personification of the ancient Egyptian word for the soul called the "ba" through the disappearance of Asar into matter and his subsequent rebirth into the spiritual plane which is symbolized by the night sky. Wepwawet is the guide of Asar throughout this perilous journey. One of the great festivals at the holy site of Abydos, the Great Going Forth, re-enacted this journey. Wepwawet leads Asar from the temple to his tomb in the western desert. During this journey they cross over water, the psychopomp's role is the carrying of the soul over the waters of incarnation to save the soul from drowning in materialism.

The star Sirius rises in midsummer, the dog days of summer - a saying that belies the connection of Sirius to canines. This is the brightest star in the constellation of Canis Major, the companion dog of Orion. In far east cultures, Sirius is known as the celestial wolf and the indigenous peoples of North America considered Sirius a dog. Interesting is the positioning of Canis Major under the heel of Orion and how we teach our dogs to heel while out walking with them.

I've touched on Orion being known in ancient Arabia as al Jabbar and the Arabian astronomers referred to Canis Major as the greater dog - Al-Kalb al-Akbar. It was also referred to as the dog of the giant - Al-Kalb al-Jabbar. I'll get to the Arabic name for the dog, Kalb, later on in this blog entry. I'm also fully aware of the ancient Egyptians referring to the star Sirius as Sopdet, which was another name for Aset (Isis in Greek). However, the equating of Aset to Sirius is also true of the ancient Egyptians equating of Aset to all bright stars in the sky. This makes sense because Aset is the womb (land/matter) for the light to gather in.

Wepwawet's standard is the royal placenta which denotes the fact that it is Wepwawet who leads the Pharaoh along the path of birth/death into matter and then death/birth into his immortality among the imperishable stars of the circumpolar region in the sky. It has also been noted that the Pharaoh becomes Wepwawet upon his death, with this meaning describing the Pharaoh's role as guide and protector of his people.

Wepwawet was also the bestower of legitimacy upon the Pharaoh. This is evident in the major part Wepwawet plays in the Heb Sed festival that is a 30 year jubilee celebration of rulership which needs to be renewed. As well, Wepwawet features prominently at Abydos in granting Seti I of the 19th Dynasty the right to rule by offering him the royal insignia and also participates in the purification of Seti I.

The pharaohs of the 19th Dynasty assumed power due to their connections to the military and therefore stressed the importance of Wepwawet granting them this legitimacy.

In the Poetical Stela of Thothmose III of the 18th dynasty we read this about Wepwawet:

 
I let them see your majesty as southern jackal,
the racer, the runner, roving the Two Lands.

However, Wepwawet was also popular with the common Egyptian:

Wepwawet's role as a kind of celestial guide dog made him a popular deity with ordinary people who faced dangerous journeys in life or death.
Handbook of Egyptian mythology, by Geraldine Pinch, page 213

The opener, Anpu, opens the mouth and eyes of the newly mummified deceased. This allows the truth, light, and spiritual nourishment to enter into the mummified body which in turns awakens the heart and allows it to grow. Throughout previous blog entries, I have articulated the symbolic meaning of not only mummification but the dual meaning that life and death could mean to the ancient Egyptians. It is a syncretic existence whereby the soul dies in matter whilst at the same time the material essence becomes dominate. As the material existence wanes, the spiritual is re-born. Mediating between these two states of metaphysical existence is the great Wepwawet. Wepwawet guides the aspirant to and through these two complementary planes of existence. It's the place I go to die and the place where my soul is re-born. This existence is dark; the darkness is where you find the jackal. Jackals are nocturnal and roam in the darkness. Canines, being excellent guides, become the pathfinder par excellence for the soul and its journey through the duat, (pronounced do-wah) the riddle ancient Egyptians encoded in their enigmatic literature which us confounded moderns call their funerary literature.

So, Wepwawet is a guide who helps carry our soul, which is embedded in material form, over the waters of this metaphorical cleansing sojourn into the deep that is cyclically experienced by the constellation of Orion and esoterically encoded into the ancient Egyptian story of Asar. If you're still reading here comes the good part.

I have met a bunch of people in my lifetime who have the Christian name Christopher. Like most things we come across in life, I never really gave the name a second thought and assumed it had some connection to Jesus. Well of course it does; but, what about the echoes into our ancient past that is embedded into this name?

Let's use the Online Etymologically Dictionary to start hammering away at this moniker:

Christopher
masc. proper name, Church Latin Christophoros, from Greek khristophoros, literally "Christ-bearing;" from phoros "bearer," from pherein "to carry" (see infer). In medieval legend he was a giant (one of the rare virtuous ones) who aided travellers by carrying them across a river. Medallions with his image worn by travellers are known from the Middle Ages (e.g. Chaucer's Yeoman).
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=christopher&searchmode=none

Christopher it seems was a giant who helped out travellers on their journeys. More specifically, he would carry the Christ over water, the carrying part from the the -opher in Christopher. There is a Saint Christopher in the Catholic tradition. He is the patron saint of travellers. Saint Christopher carried Christ across an unfordable river. As he crossed, the weight of the sins Christ was bearing increased to the point where Christopher almost did not complete the crossing. Christopher became a popular saint especially revered by travellers and especially sea bound voyageurs.

Also, there are the unexplainable pictures of St. Christopher as a dog-headed man that survive from Eastern Orthodox Church lore. This has been explained away as the Byzantine misinterpretation of the Latin term Cananeus to read canines. I imagine there's a better explanation if we open that door into ancient Egypt.

On towards delving into the -opher part of the name to see if we get at the meaning passed down from its latin and greek roots. I dug up the word metaphor from the Online Etymological Dictionary to help out:

metaphor
1530s, from Middle French metaphore, from Latin metaphora, from Greek metaphora "a transfer," especially of the sense of one word to a different word, literally "a carrying over," from metapherein "transfer, carry over," from meta- "over, across" (see meta-) + pherein "to carry, bear" (see infer). Related: Metaphoric; metaphorical; metaphorically.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=metaphor&searchmode=none

The word infer is described as such:

infer (v.)
1520s, from Latin inferre "bring into, carry in; deduce, infer, conclude, draw an inference; bring against," from in- "in" (see in- (2)) + ferre "carry, bear," from Proto-Indo-European *bher- (1) "to bear, to carry, to take" (confer Sanskrit bharati "carries;" Avestan baraiti "carries;" Old Persian barantiy "they carry;" Armenian berem "I carry;" Greek pherein "to carry;" Old Irish beru/berim "I catch, I bring forth;" Gothic bairan "to carry;"
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=infer&searchmode=none

This in turn leads us to words ferry and fare which describe voyages across water:

ferry (v.)
Old English ferian "to carry, convey, bring, transport," from Proto Germaic *farjanan (confer Old Frisian feria "carry, transport," Old Norse ferja "to pass over, to ferry," Gothic farjan "travel by boat"), from Proto-Indo-European *per- "going, passage." Related to fare (verb). Related: Ferried; ferries; ferrying. The noun is early 15c., perhaps earlier and from Old Norse ferju- "passage across water," ultimately from the same Germanic root.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=ferry&searchmode=none

fare (n.)
Old English fær "journey, road, passage, expedition," strong neuter of faran "to journey" (see fare (verb)); merged with faru "journey, expedition, companions, baggage," strong feminine of faran.
fare (v.)
Old English faran "to journey, set forth, go, travel, wander, get on, undergo, make one's way," from Proto Germaic *faranan (confer Old Saxon, Old High German, Gothic faran, Old Norse, Old Frisian fara, Dutch varen, German fahren), from Proto-Indo-European *por- "going, passage," from base *per- "to lead, pass over" (see port (1)). Related: Fared; faring.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=fare&searchmode=none

And from this information, we can guess at the origin of the safe haven provided by a port:

port (1)
"harbor," Old English port "harbor, haven," reinforced by Old French port, both Old English and Old French from Latin portus "port, harbor," originally "entrance, passage," from Proto-Indo-European *prtu- "a going, a passage," from base *per- "to lead, pass over" (confer Sanskrit parayati "carries over;" Greek poros "journey, passage, way," peirein "to pierce, run through;" Latin porta "gate, door," portare "passage," peritus "experienced;" Avestan peretush "passage, ford, bridge;" Armenian hordan "go forward;" Welsh rhyd "ford;" Old Church Slavonic pariti "fly;" Old English faran "to go, journey," Old Norse fjörðr "inlet, estuary").
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=port&searchmode=none

Alright, that makes it pretty clear Christopher carries the Christ over water. We can take water here literally as being an actual river this dog-headed man carried Jesus over or we can picture it metaphorically that a beast with the innate tracking and guiding instincts of a dog carried the light called Christ over the waters of material incarnation. Your choice.

Before I end this entry, I want to go back to the ancient Egyptian word for the ceremony of the Opening of the Mouth and Eyes which is "wpr".

 

When the 'w' is transliterated into the Greek language it usually becomes a vowel; this is what I was getting at in my last blog entry "the guide of my soul" when I mentioned the Greek translation of Wepwawet into Ophois. The 'w' in this case became an 'o' though I have also seen it become other vowels. Since there were no vowels in the ancient Egyptian language, there is no consistent way of transliterating; however, we do know that in any case the Greeks considered this sound to be a vowel and not a consonant. It is also of some interest that the 't' at the end of Wepwawet, which was used to connect him to the feminine world of matter, was considered silent and the two 'w' in the middle treated the second 'w' as being weak, the Greeks coming up with "ois" which is reminiscent of French language ending of words which are pronounced "wah". At any rate, I do sense some distant connection of "wpr" to the pherein of the Greeks. But what is even more interesting is the Opening of the Mouth and Eyes ceremony and its connection to the jackals who open the way. I love taking pictures; so, I'm very familiar with the concept of the aperture. The Online Etymological Dictionary gives us this history:

aperture
early 15c., from Latin apertura "an opening," from apertus, past participle of aperire "to open" (see overt).
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=aperture&searchmode=none

And the history of the word overt from the French:

overt
early 14c., "open to view," from Old French overt (French ouvert), past participle of ovrir "to open," from Latin aperire "to open, uncover," from Proto-Indo-European *ap-wer-yo- from *ap- "off, away" + base *wer- "to cover" (see weir). Confer Latin operire "to cover," from the same root with Proto-Indo-European prefix *op- "over;" and Lithuanian atveriu "open," uzveriu "shut."
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=overt&searchmode=none

The carrier of the soul is also the opener that leads this soul to rebirth. We have seen how the jackals do this for Asar but there is also the female goddess Hathor (from the ancient Egyptian pronunciation Hwt-Har) who performs this duty for Re.

The cow horns on Hathor's head cradling Re is pictorially presenting to us her role as the opener for Re's rebirth. Hathor is also always present at scenes of birth and death. If we trace Hathor's evolution into Greek and Roman mythology, we can determine she evolved into the Greek Aphrodite and then the Venus of the Romans. The Greeks knew she was an opener and therefore gave her the name that began with "aphr". The month April is from aperio, "I open," and in this sense Aphrodite is the opener of the year which begins at the vernal equinox. The Romans knew this idea as well and I know this because much like Canis Major would be the carrier and opener of the path to rebirth for Orion, the same idea would be expressed in the word phosphorous which would describe Venus and her role as the morning star which is the herald for the daily rebirth of the sun. The Online Etymological Dictionary again:

phosphorous
1620s, "the morning star," from Latin Phosphorus "morning star," from Greek Phosphoros "morning star," literally "torchbearer," from phos "light" (related to phainein "to show, to bring to light;" see phantasm) + phoros "bearer," from pherein "to carry" (see infer).
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=phosphorous&searchmode=none

So, there you have it, the canine is the symbol that opens the pathway and guides the light, which has been almost extinguished within ourselves, through the darkness of incarnation in matter. This blog entry is longer than I intended; so, the exploration of the Arabic word for dog, Kalb, will be up next.

the guide of my soul

My dog, the love of my life, passed away last month at the age of 16. She lived well past her allotted years on this earth because I was not ready to give her up. All my life I've had a special connection with dogs and I sometimes wonder if they have an unrecognized sense; a sense that recognizes your emotions or state of mind. At any rate, she was the catalyst that started me questioning everything around me and all that I had taken for granted. I was looking into the food I fed her when she was a pup and that was an eye opener to say the least. That was pretty much the end of trusting authority or society when it came to matters of importance that I can keep some nominal control over. This all leading to the journey I'm still struggling with; the unfinished story of my search for meaning. It allowed me to cast aside the fraudsters, manipulators, and baggage carousel full of shit that I had acquired throughout the first half of my life.

In ancient Egyptian mythology canines are well represented, with the two pre-eminent jackals being Anpu and Wepwawet. I imagine they are better known by their Greek monikers of Anubis and Ophois. Normally, I find the Egyptian representation of their names more instructive when you are trying to figure out what they represent as opposed to the Greek translations that have filtered down to us westerns. However, in this case, Wepwawet’s translation into Ophois is instructive as we will see later.

Dogs are instinctively inclined to lead and guide, hence the success we have had in breeding them as guide dogs for the blind. They also love to dig; a groundskeeper at a dog park can attest to that. Plus, they love to bury bones. My dog dug a hole in the couch and buried a bone in it once. Then she sat there and whimpered at it. Dogs also make great watchers or guards of property, as well as being natural shepherds.

The great natural philosophers of ancient Egypt would of course have taken note of these traits and adapted them to how they perceived and understood the world around them. This is a good time to discuss the meaning of the animal deities that you see in the Egyptian pantheon. When you look around the natural world and discover the powers existent in animals and nature that are not within you, you can then rationalize them as being part of the divine that is manifest in our material world. So, the next step would be to give these powers a "face" and that is what happened. The watcher who sees all is the jackal. Anpu sees all; there is no hiding from him. Here is Anpu being the arbiter of the soul in the weighing of the heart scene:

The guide of the soul that leads the entrapped ba soul through the darkness of incarnation, is the opener of the ways, Wepwawet.

For this blog entry I'm going to concentrate on Anpu and then I will follow it up with an entry on Wepwawet that I promise will be worth the wait. This entry on Anpu will focus more on getting an idea of what the ancient Egyptians were representing with their depiction of a jackal that was always present in tombs and on occasions of death.

Here is Anpu presiding over the mummification ritual which is the symbolic re-setting of the broken and scattered bones of Asar (Osiris). See my two part blog entry to understand the meaning behind mummification.

The night sky constellation that we call Ursa Minor/The Little Dipper contains within it seven stars that never set in the evening sky. They are always on watch.

Polaris has a rich tradition in ancient civilizations and has been known by many names. The Greeks called Polaris Kynosoura, which means "the Dog's Tail." The english equivalent is Cynosure. We get this definition from Dictionary.com:

cy·no·sure
noun
1. something that strongly attracts attention by its brilliance, interest, etc.: the cynosure of all eyes.
2. something serving for guidance or direction.
cynosure. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cynosure (accessed: October 22, 2011).

Canine comes to us via the greek Kyon:

canine (n.)
"pointed tooth," late 14c., from Latin caninus "of the dog," genitive of canis "dog," from Proto-Indo-European base *kwon- "dog" (confer Greek kyon, Old English hund, Old High German hunt, Old Irish cu, Welsh ci, Sanskrit svan-, Avestan spa, Russian sobaka (apparently from an Iranian source), Armenian shun, Lithuanian suo).
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=canine&searchmode=none

And just for fun here is the origin of the word for Procyon, which is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Minor:

Procyon
bright winter star in constellation Canis Minoris, 1650s, from Latin from Greek prokyon, from pro "before" (see pro-) + kyon "dog"; so called from its rising just before the "Dog Star," Sirius.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Procyon&allowed_in_frame=0

Polaris has also been known as the Judge of Heaven, the Pathway, the Highest Peak of the World Mountain and Stella Maris "Star of the Sea" among others.

In Richard Hinckley's book "Star Names - Their Lore and Meaning" we read this about Ursa Minor:

(Peter) Jensen sees here the Leopard of Babylonia, an emblem of darkness which this shared, there and in Egypt, with all other circumpolar constellations; while on the Nile it was the well-known Jackal of Set even as late as the Denderah zodiac. This Jackal also appears in the carvings on the walls of the Ramesseum, but is there shown with pendent tail strikingly coinciding with the outlines of the constellation.
Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, Richard Hinckley Allen, page 450

In the Circular Zodiac in the temple of Hathor at Denderah, you can see in the innermost circle at the centre the Jackal representing Ursa Minor.

 

So, it's pretty clear that Anpu was a representative of the circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. This was a constellation of imperishable stars that never set; they always stood on watch and were a guide to to the deceased.

Epithets of Anpu include, "He Who is Upon the Mountain," "Chief of the Divine Pavilion," "He Who is in the Place of Embalming." What do these monikers mean?

Egyptologists will tell you that Anpu was the guardian of the dead and therefore the epithet, "He Who is Upon the Mountain" means he would keep watch over the necropolis from this perch and would be at the ready to intervene in case of vandals intent on desecrating or destroying the tombs. It is true he can be the guardian of the dead but it's the meaning of death here that is obfuscating his true role. As I've detailed before the symbolic act of mummification is the reconstitution of form that enables re-birth. It is the dead soul that is entombed in matter that Anpu is keeping watch over. The mountain that he is on is the world mountain that rests on the celestial north pole otherwise known as the axis mundi and we can ascertain the validity of this claim by pointing out the connection between Anpu and Polaris. However, it is true that because Anpu watches over us he will be present after material death when the soul is released from the bindings of incarnation. Anpu is the deity that supervises the weighing of the heart on the scales against a feather. His judgment determines whether Djehuty (Thoth) would record a positive or negative verdict in the book of life. Since it is Anpu who watches over us and sees all, he is the perfect representation of this principle.

In the book, "Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, Volume 4" the authors tell us:

Anubis, "lord of the necropolis," is the judge of the dead; from the Old Kingdom onward the jackal hieroglyph stands for "judge" as an official or honorary title.
Theological dictionary of the Old Testament, Volume 4 By G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, pages 2-3

In folklore there are also examples of the jackal being the judge, such as in the children's fable "The Ungrateful Lion".

"Chief of the Divine Pavilion" is revealing to us that Anpu was the deity who was lord over the watchers of the world mountain that was located at the celestial north pole. "He Who is in the Place of Embalming" tells us that Anpu is present while the soul is being entombed in matter, i.e. Anpu, or the natural power he represents, is very real and present in our world. Once the mummification is complete it is Anpu who leads the Opening of the Mouth and Eyes Ceremony, transliterated as wpr in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, that allows the soul that is in a sleep of death, to regain its senses by allowing light and (spiritual) nourishment to reach the soul entombed in matter. Priests wearing a mask of Anpu would symbolically open the mouth of the newly mummified.

Anpu was the son of Asar (Osiris) and Nebet-Het (Nephthys). The story goes that one night Nebet-Het disguised herself as her twin sister Aset (Isis) and seduced Asar resulting in her impregnation with Asar's seed. Digging a little deeper into this puzzling story we can deduce that Anpu is the result of the lesser material mother combined with the higher soul in contrast to the higher soul mating with Aset, who is the representative of the highest material form. Asar and Aset produce the divine child Heru (Horus) while Asar and Nebet-Het produce the highest form of the unenlightened beast - the canine. Anpu is instinct that has been subdued by reason. Here is where we see the ancient Egyptian shared experiences with a dog come to fruition. As humans we have knowledge of right and wrong and we should know better when we do things that defy reason. A dog does not know better yet can control its instincts and desire much better than we can and thereby live in harmony with us.

Next up will be the Opener of the Way, Wepwawet, the dog star.