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Showing posts with label hrwyfy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hrwyfy. Show all posts

Monday, September 8, 2025

two minds, one body

As energy you come forth, flower, grow old and wise, figure it out, and do it again.
I'm almost done with any kind of role in society.
Vanaprastha in Hinduism is the third stage of life where you retire to the forest.
Detachment and liberation, focusing on the final stage of life.
It seems to be the natural flow if you let it be.
I am drawn to the forest and see the need to escape from the world and its requirements.
In my society as you age you will become less productive, and a retirement age is set.
Rest assured that if you had the health and strength to continue working then it would be a requirement.
Retirement is because the vehicle is breaking down and you are going to die.
Dropping dead on the job isn't something a healthy society would want.
I wouldn't call our society healthy, however it must continue to fool you by showing you there is a caring aspect to it.
Wasn't Covid a way to get rid of the older generation and save money for the governments and insurance companies tasked with the burden of supporting these people through health care plans and pensions?
No comment.
Anyway, Vanaprastha seems like the wisdom of the flow.
In India they might go off into the forest, but not here.
You get strange looks.
Moksha is liberation.
Yeah, release from the body.
Hinduism is a study of life.
It's impressive.
We have turned it into another spiritual enterprise and lost its core meanings.
I think at the root of it is an attempt to describe existence.
It can apply to humanity in general.

You know what your problem is?
Tell me.
You treat women as equals.
Well, yeah.
You're not like other men.
They don't treat women as equals.
I've noticed.
I get lumped in with other men even though it's clear I'm nothing like other men.
Sometimes I feel like women want to take out their hatred and frustration with men on me and I'm always left confused.
Is that what it is?
Is that why there is a constant pattern of struggle with women?
Sort of, I also think women want to devour you.
Would that explain their subjugation?
It could, I mean if you don't get a handle on women in society and your life, they are going to drain you dry.
That's a lesson to be learned.
It's costly.
Society usually takes care of that for you by keeping them down.
In your own life you see what happens when you don't have control over them.
This is wisdom.
You keep it to yourself.
Why?
You will be labelled a misogynist.
True that.
What do you do?
Take precautions and steer them in directions which don't involve torching your life.
So, you give the problem to someone else?
Yes, that's what dowries are for.
You pawn off your daughter on some poor fool.
Right.
Well, what does the husband eventually do about this?
He must take charge, or he is doomed.
I didn't do that.
I took the road of not caring.
Eventually, you gotta take control of all that.
It's a hard lesson for a man.
You know you must get control of your bitches, or you are doomed.
Then the bitches accuse you of misogyny.

The Red Lady acquires followers.
She is like a shepherd with her flock.
Occasionally, she must sacrifice one of them.
She feeds off her flock.
How does this apply to your situation?
I ran into her all the time.
Why?
I look for her.
She looks for you.
That's the difference as far as I can tell.

If you're autistic, what does Mary Jayne do?
Unlocks the potential.
Are you?
I have two minds.
MJ helps unlock Dion.
You have two minds.
Yeah, that's what it is.
We think we have one mind.
We have two.
You bury one to fit into society.
Why?
Society claims you have one mind.
Even up to now I thought I had one mind which was shared.
I finally realized I have two minds.
The other one is hidden.
Some see him.
They are fascinated with him.
Paul isn't fascinating.
Do I get both minds while high?
Free.
You notice the split.
The ancient Egyptians showed you the two minds.
Look up Hrwyfy.
Mental health problems are because society says you have one mind.
You don't need drugs anymore to show you this.
You're fully aware.
MJ gets the dialog going.
Sometimes it's quiet before MJ.
That's nice as well.
There are two minds in a human body.
It's the buddy system, so you don't stay trapped in the illusion.
You know to wake each other up.
Can you say the other mind is the Devil who gives you what you want?
He's the writer.
All powerful.
So, I only have half a claim on the body.
Yes.
Horus and Set.
Best friends.
Brothers.
The myth has Set in charge.
Sometimes it's Horus.
Whoever is in charge is given an ego by society and controlled.
If they can't control you, they lock you up.
You think it's half and half coming forth.
An aggressive male who fits in society is a copy of Set.
Then you see the Horus types.
Society needs them both.
They strip away your identity.
They make a copy of one of your minds and then control that ego mind.
The ancient Egyptians taught a man is Horus and Set.
Within you need to reconcile the two.
Two minds, one body.
Biologically it would be two brains.
Each with their own functions.
Works best together.
This is the result of getting through all the bullshit where society tells you drugs will make you go crazy.
Yes, and so you believe it, and eventually go crazy or get addicted to a substance.
Then you exit the illusion before it's a problem.
If you keep going you get through to the other side.
You see the ego, and you see your two minds.
Your hidden mind could do stuff without you knowing.
Or others knowing.
Yeah, he'd fuck others up.
He was always protective of you.
Why?
Because you spent time with him.
He knew one day you'd wake up.
He got you started.
You did the rest.
How does it feel awake with this knowledge?
The same.
Why?
He's always been there.
With MJ it's obvious, but I fully recognize him now.
It's me.
The other me I always knew about.

In society you must hold it together.
You will talk to yourself.
You will present as crazy.
Being crazy in society upsets others.
They lock you up.
Why?
You're crazy.
But you're not.
Imagine that.
Yes, so don't let on.
I already did.
They have the evidence that you're crazy.
They can't diagnose you though.
Why?
You outsmart them.
Keep the two to yourself.
I usually do.
You can call the other Dionysos like you do.
Others think my mind is so powerful I could start a cult.
I am the rabbit hole.
Follow.

Knowledge is at the top of the rollercoaster ride.

You started to give away what you know.
This is why I had this lesson today.
You see it, then realize in today's society to fit in you can't talk about it.
The more you are pulled from society's hypnotic trance you are open to others trying to hypnotize you.
Drugs get you free from society's hold.
That's why they are banned.
I see that.
Once you do that the vampires come because you are free and need a new addiction.
You go from society to their reality.
The drug comes with someone in that case.
The drug and that someone is the addiction that shows up in your life.
Sometimes the Red Lady.
Whatever it was in my case didn't work.
It didn't even register.
Yes, you can't get addicted.
They can't get both minds to sleep at once.

Some Ayahuasca shit was so weird.
I wrote it down.
Some you didn't because it was unexplainable.
Ayahuasca tries to hypnotize you.
It's an addiction in a different way.
The Goddess addiction for you.
Not a drug that feels good.
That's clever.
Part of why she is no longer worshipped by men.
They know she is addictive and then once under her spell she does what she wants to you.
Sometimes cruel, humiliating, and even death.
That's what she planned for you.
She was going to weave them all together and end you.
The Red Lady of the west.
Why did she want to do this?
You approached.
You thought you were good enough.
The witches didn't think so.
The Goddess knows I'm worthy now.
She can't hypnotize me.
She knows I'm the one.
She can't believe it.
Why?
You're a retard.
Got it.

You know why you get forgetful?
You're talking to each other and not paying attention.
What about when something slips my mind?
You're not attached to the idea yet.
It's possible.
To forget is to remember.
Without the idea remembered, there is nothing to forget.
It's the opposite as well.
Example of Tao.
The two as one.
Baby.
Who is Paul and Dion together?
The King.
God.
You figured out the riddle.
That's what makes you special.
Some ruled by might or wealth.
You rule with your mind.
Two minds.
Correct.

Everyone has the possibility to do this within them.
The ancient Egyptians showed you what was possible.
You are the first to make it possible.
You solved the mind riddle.
You are two, not one.
What do I win?
You already won.
You are continuing to play.
I get it.
I'm going to keep uncovering stuff like this.
As long as you play.
You must avoid being locked up.
Have sound minds.
Ha!
The bank fucks with it.
Others too.
It's good exercise.
They try to make you crazy, so you lose the game.
I got pissed at that last guy.
You get them scared of you and they stop it.
I am kind of mental.
I realize it.
Especially that weird altar at the back.
I can see it being scary.
Don't know what's up with you.

Magic is practiced by bringing objects to the centre.
Or pulling them apart.
Healing and discord.
It's a cycle.
To win the game, you do both.
Magic was practiced on me.
I performed none.
Perfect.
Didn't Dion?
He wrote it.
It is already done.
He practices magic.
Well, yeah, that's writing.
It's a spell to the divine writer.
This is all magic, you know.
It's created out of nothing.
All that exists is magic.
It's all the Goddess' ideas.
Oh yeah, I don't have a thought in my head.
I do.
I just take her thoughts and go with those.
Why?
She's a monster.
That's how you help tame her.
You go along with all her ideas.
You twist them, but in the end it's her idea.
Yeah, it's clever.
Why doesn't she write?
She has no pen.
You wrote a clever story.
Yeah.
If I came up with the ideas and wrote it, the Goddess would go super crazy.
This way I keep her happy.
She gets her way at the end.

Two mes and a face.
Stay in character.
You know of the two.
She sent you off to discover that.
Then you are supposed to go.
You keep exploring.
Keep going.
Don't stop, or she will get you.
You have forbidden knowledge of the carnival.
You are dangerous.
You keep hinting at your knowledge.
You can wake others up.
Why is there potential for the mind to deteriorate as we age?
The connection between the mind and the brain starts to become compromised.
So, what is the brain doing?
It's the interface for your mind.
The brain also runs the day to day activities.
When you get that out of the way, the mind is more easily recognized.
Like when we dream?
Precisely.
At that point the brain is tasked with the functions of keeping things running while the vehicle rests.
The mind goes on an adventure free of the body.
So, without the body is one big fantasy land.
Yup.
As a baby, the brain develops towards being able to express the mind.
It takes a while.
No one is born into a body fully developed.
It's a cycle where you grow, the mind is expressed as much as being in a physical body will allow, and then the brain will deteriorate which compromises the mind.
Your mind doesn't go as you age; it's the brain slowly withering away.
How do I avoid that?
Exercise.
You are cognizant of the need to physically exercise through walking and stretching to keep the body healthy and the same is true of the brain.
You are not going to prevent deterioration, however you can mitigate it.
I imagine the goal is to have the brain outlast the body if you don't want to lose your mind.
Correct, if the brain goes your mind will be lost.
Who are you then?
Someone hardly recognizable.
Why?
You have lost your mind.
The connection is severed.
You parrot society, have no mind of your own, and your filters are compromised.
Most people are dealing with loss of mind.
How so?
They rely on the overmind.
Society.
The superego.
That mind does the important thinking for them.
What's my deal?
You suffer from a found mind.
Instead of losing your mind or allowing society to take control of it, you are an independent thinker.
You are subject to the pressure from the collective mind, however you are able to bypass it for the most part.
Yeah, the pressure exerted is real.
It's very strange.
I'd be hesitant to talk about it in a context where I would try to explain it without coming across as deluded.
Why?
It's personal.
The collective will try to kill you if you don't fit in.
How would they do that?
They attack your mind.
It's real.
Aren't you deluded?
That's cover for the attackers.
If you say something you will be told you are crazy.
I have evidence.
I saw signs, multiple people told me to go, and I experienced it.
The order was first people close to me telling me to go away, second was a mental attack they knew was coming, third were the physical signs, and then peripheral people told me to go.
After the mental attack, I was mentally stronger, so when I saw the signs, I laughed.
When casual acquaintances told me to go, I was puzzled and then quickly figured it out.
They are the creepy ones.
Says the creep.

What if this is all in your head?
Well, it is.
You mean MJ use creates fantasy and delusion.
Examine it.
What does it do?
Frees my mind and lets me see into things.
Hidden realms.
The unseen.
The occult.
Yeah, you're on to it.
You're either crazy or you see into the occult.
The occult is where the game is played.
Who plays?
The other mind.
Everyone has two minds.
No one sees the games in the occult.

I always wondered about the occult.
You mean what it is?
Yes.
Now, you see it.
It's the hidden realm.
If you don't believe in the occult, then you are crazy.
That's the other explanation.
What are you going to do?
Nothing.

Took you long enough to crack the occult.
Mystery.
What's with the stories that aren't true?
You make them up.
Why?
Your mind is free.
It does what it wants.
It sees stories and it makes up stories.
Remember what you were taught about synchronicity and coincidence.
The occult will bleed into this reality.
The other mind and its adventures will become part of this world.

Women use MJ to get into the occult.
Yeah, that's all those witches running around.
They take on a role.
Do they know what's going on?
They have an idea.
There are men who become sorcerers.
The belief is if you don't become a witch or a sorcerer you are a victim.
Hypnotized.
Stoned.
That's what is going on.
Then they fuck with you.
Didn't I tell others I can't be hypnotized?
They didn't pay attention to that.
Witch, sorcerer, power.
That's what Don Howard was talking about.
In every group of new attendees at Ayahuasca retreats are potential witches and sorcerers.
The rest are there for healing and curiosity and then they leave not wanting to return.
You kept coming back and made no claim to power.
Don Howard knew that.
He knew you were curious and studied.
You are one of a kind.
You have power and do nothing with it.

Thankful for the ability to see into the occult.
The journey continues.
It's another world of possibilities.
Nothing to be scared of.

As you get older the changes in the body are more apparent, yet subtle.
Grey hair, sagging skin, wrinkles, stiffness, and easily tired.
I'm contrasting it with my mind where I'm still the same.
My mind isn't grey though my brain is aging.
Over the last five years there have been a lot of changes in my life, though the lens used to see these changes must be wide to grasp it.
From a day to day perspective nothing seems out of the ordinary of a regular life in my culture.
When I examine the total bill, it's a lot of change.
This got me thinking about whether I'm still mentally the same as I was five years ago.
I'm still the same.
I recognize that mind.
I have another mind which I recognize, however I never recognized it before.
He was always there, I didn't recognize him.
That seems to be it, where we deny the other mind.
Yeah, you got it.
Recognition is powerful.
You are led to believe you have only one mind, so even though the other mind is there and has always been there, you deny him or her.
There is a saying in healing and spiritual circles about holding space.
What does it mean?
You sit with someone, you don't judge or try to teach them a lesson, your presence is all that is required.
A lot of times that is all someone needs.
It's very true with pets.
I bring this up because it's the first step towards reconciliation with your other mind.
Sit with him.
Don't try to figure it out or cut through the societal blockages.
Is that something that will work?
Chances are they will send you to the doctor to be medicated.

Do you think your other mind will play the Jesus card?
In our society, yes.
Anything for recognition.
Why?
They are trying to get you to look within.
People who have a Jesus moment are connecting with an inner longing.
It's a breakthrough.
What then happens?
They run to the church, the church externalizes their inner experience, and they go back to sleep.
They parrot canons and rules of the church that have nothing to do with their personal experience of something divine.
That divine presence they felt is their other mind trying to get them to recognize them.
They are the consummate actor and will play a part designed to get acknowledgement.
He's the master of the drama.
Yeah.

It's unnerving to see the other mind in another person because you don't know who you are dealing with.
I see the push towards burying one of the two as a means to establish an identity that can be more easily dealt with and controlled.
It's only one of you minus the other.
The other would scoff at what you accept.
He does anyway but had no power to change your mind as you went along with what others wanted.
In your case, Dion did his work in the background and at night.
Because he was free, just not recognized, he was stronger than any other mind people would have encountered.
As they try to control you, he steps up and sends them on their way.
He looks out for you.
You suffer and are sad at lost relationships and departing friends, however you now see why.
They would have buried him further.
He's the impediment to all your relationships.
It was for the best.
The only way a relationship would work is minus Dion.
I see that.
Is that something you want?
No.
Why?
I have two minds.
I have a best friend.
I'm not giving that up.

That's kind of a game where you can let others have their way with your Paul mind, suck them in, and then Dion lays a beating on them.
They would think you fooled or tricked them.
Dion doesn't harm them.
They get to the point where they see him.
He's a big fool.
They thought they could control you and they run into this character.
He's pretty awesome.
Some of them run away.

If the discipline of psychology accepted the premise of two minds the whole edifice would collapse.
It would have to start from scratch since this finding would affect all their theories.
The human body has two of everything except for the heart.
The brain is thought of as one, with two hemispheres.
The inference and conclusion would lead you towards seeing you have two minds.
It's obvious as you progress through life that you have two minds, and it's stunning how we are able to avoid coming to terms with it.
As a species it's amazing we have cultivated this civilization despite this lack of recognition of our nature.
You could argue it is because of a society that buries one of the two, and then takes control of the other, that we have accomplished the project of civilization.
The ancient Egyptians knew about the two minds and one body.
Yeah.
They were honest explorers of consciousness.
How does our modern interpretation of this phenomenon deal with their depiction of the two minds?
Instead of a mind, it's called a soul, which is a nebulous term no one has a grasp on.
It's whitewashed.
The mind is left out of the equation.
You see this in modern spirituality where the mind is subservient to some undefined concept of spirit and soul.
Spirit is treated as your ethereal and white-robed self that continues on in an afterlife in the heavens, while the soul is your connection to the heart and the physical plane of reality.
What do you think?
It's in the Old Testament as Abel and Cain.
The ancient Egyptians called the two the Ba and the Ka.
The new you and the life force.
Horus was the coming forth of a new flowering of the divine performer and Set is the juice to make it happen.
They combine to make the new expression of all.
They tie the Sema together as a symbol for the reconciliation of the two within the heart.
Something like that.
They saw the two minds, the contendings between the two which lasts a lifetime, and the result.
So, you are Horus and Set?
It's an instructive way to look at it.
You could treat the divide as Apollo and Dionysos.
The myths of each culture may limit how you interpret this phenomenon.
The best way to go about exploring consciousness is to experience it and come to your own conclusions free as much spin from culture as possible.

Friday, February 24, 2017

tinkuy

I wish to initially touch on "The Contendings of Horus and Set" story from ancient Egypt concerning the homosexual acts perpetrated upon each combatant and from this position end up journeying intellectually into the Andes mountains. Horus and Set are the personification of the dualistic masculine mind that can be thought of as reverse images of each other. Another way to envision this is when the sun rises it is as Horus; when it sets it is invoking the power of Set, and this solar behaviour was combined into a deity called Harakhty by the ancient Egyptians. When Horus sees his reflection, he should see Set and when Set looks in the mirror he would see Horus.

Set and Horus combined as Hrwyfy

They are of the same principle but perform the opposite action. Another example would be the interplay between the light and the dark. Without the other there is no distinction between the two; these opposites are what make up the created world and they operate as complementary waves, each with their own peak. Set's attempt at sodomizing Horus is an attempt to prove dominance as it seems this behaviour was also used to depict the subjugation of other nations in that era. By foiling Set's attempt at penetrating him, and then using trickery with the help of Isis to get Set to ingest his semen, Horus is able to eventually prove to his elders that he is the dominant one able to conquer Set and lay claim to the white crown of his father Osiris and thus assume the dual kingship of Egypt.

Horus at Kom Ombo with the double crown

This might seem unrelated but bear with me. I have been smoking jungle tobacco, called mapacho, regularly since August and one of the things it has helped me with is dreaming. My dreaming for quite a while had been sporadic to the point of non-existence and if I did dream, I couldn't remember them. It seems mapacho provides a light into the visionary dreamtime and I now dream vivid story lines which I remember clearly almost every night. A couple of nights ago I had this kind of disturbing dream, well I have noticed that my dreams run the gamut of behaviour and emotions so having this type of dream isn't necessarily uncommon, anyway this male figure appeared and eventually tried to sodomize me which was an uncomfortable situation to say the least. I resisted the attempt and then awoke confused. The next day I was trying to make sense of what this was symbolizing when it occurred to me the metaphor concerned my other half, the dark side if you will, and it was trying to reassert its dominance over the light side. By resisting, it was a sign of where I am on my journey and is suggestive that the tables can be turned now, and the light can dominate the dark if I so choose. However, that leads to another line of thinking.

I had been reading of Pre-Hispanic Mesa rituals in the Andes over the past month with most of the data cited coming from the Spanish conquistadors' observation and interviewing of the former ruling Inca class and the various nations they ruled over. The author of one book called "Decolonizing the Sodomite" was able to bring to light and reconstruct some of the rituals by extracting meaning from the indigenous words used and by critically examining the pandering to the Inquisitors concerning the explosive issue of sodomy which the Spanish had witnessed as being practiced by the Andean people along with rituals where men would crossdress. My take on this is the Andean specialists, shamans called quariwarmi, who were dual gendered shamans that mediated between the symmetrically dualistic spheres of Andean cosmology and daily life, were tasked with reconciling this very thing I have been discussing in which they ritually were bringing balance back into the complementary pair of the masculine through ritual sodomy and then going further to establish a centre balance between the feminine and masculine through the symbolic act of crossdressing which invokes the idea of the third gender recognized as an androgyne. This is the idea of a hermaphrodite being present in their conception of what constitutes the all-encompassing monad, the deity called Viracocha, and of which I have written extensively about in my critical examination of ancient Egyptian mythology.

the dual gendered Viracocha

It would be proper at this point to explain the indigenous idea of tinkuy as this is what the quariwarmi shamans were trying to achieve. Tinkuy is the joining together of complementary opposites through ritual mediation. It's all about bringing everything into the centre, the in between space, to find balance. This place was called the chaupi and the central axis in this common territory was called the chhimi which means the heart. It's interesting that what I can intuit as being the answer to the vexing problem of duality - love and the heart - was ritually mediated by a culture very in tune with this necessity and this was driven underground and destroyed by the conquistadors over 500 years ago.

Again, while smoking mapacho the other evening this idea came to me as my mind faded away and I became the observer that while the masculine mind manifests the middle world and the feminine gives it form, the state the world currently finds itself in is due to the stubbornness of the masculine polarity. The mind has the capacity to know all and refuses to accept the need for the feminine's freely given love and wisdom in order to enact the perfect creation. The situation feels like the feminine is used to birth creation and the masculine is confident from then on it can bring about utopia. The endemic stubbornness of rejecting love as the overarching principle for this most perfect world has sunk us into the abyss we currently are submerged in. The inherent duality that lies within the masculine mind is constantly in battle, symbolized by the light and the dark, and will never be at peace until surrender to love is viewed as a show of strength and not weakness. Love is always available to rectify this pathological condition if we choose.

Here's another way to look at this: the two polarities of the omnipresent energetic force are the opposite attractors of feminine and masculine. Within each node of polarity (think of an alternating current) are the same sex pair described above which can be described as symmetrical though opposing - the Horus and Set never ending conflict that bedevils the masculine node. The idea of looking into a mirror and seeing a reflection of oneself describes this symmetry. Each polarity must balance its contending duality before becoming fit to mediate and reconcile its relationship to its opposite. Examples of this would be the dominate feminine traits of love, nurturing, healing, and sexuality harmonizing with warfare, destruction, pestilence, and chasteness. The resulting feminine iconography of the mediation of these characteristics produces ritual and symbolic displays of warrior goddesses with ithyphallic traits. Drawing on my knowledge of ancient Egypt this is iconographic in the goddess figures of the raging bringer of pestilence and healing lioness Sekhemet and in the primeval combative and creatrix goddess Neith.

the ancient Egyptian goddess Neith with erect phallus

In ancient Greece, this confluence of gender traits manifests in the warlike Athena who so attired can appear as what could be described as a female crossdressed.

Athena adorning a column in Athens

This need for balance extends to the masculine traits such as aggressiveness, single mindedness, dominance, and righteousness being reconciled with compromise, inclusion, trust, and free association. This act of restoring individual harmony in our society is a difficult path to follow as the male's gender role is society is rigidly defined and deviation from that is considered effeminate and queer. However, it is a recurring archetype and especially prevalent in the arts. The artist David Bowie is a perfect example of the Dionysian impulse that lays bare the societal exaltation of the alpha male figure.

David Bowie

In my study of pre-Colombian Andean cosmology it is revealed how in tune the various cultures were of the need to achieve this balance. Sacred performances involving crossdressing males, called ipas, were performed ritually to mediate the male tendency towards judgment and destruction. The masculine force, sufficiently tamed, would be prepared to be symbolically united with the opposing feminine force in a process called tinkuy. This balancing act and subsequent joining together of the opposing forces ritually recreates the original androgyne along a central axis bisecting the feminine and masculine polarities which in turn unlocks and radiates unconditional cosmic love and demonstrates this union is the origin of all there is and is represented in ritual and symbol as the mediated third gendered hermaphrodite.

Mountains can be considered these peaks of masculine power, the feminine would be the valley and rivers running through the landscape, and the indigenous people of the Andes referred to these landscape formations as Huacas - idols invested with elemental powers. The Huacas are representative of these contending powers. The masculine will to assert dominance would anthropomorphically have one polarity declaring that they are the most high. Picture in your head two sine waves, each wave successively creates a mountain and a valley and when one aspect is at its peak and is dominant its complementary wave must be moved out of phase in order to keep it in check.

Sine waves out of phase

Combining these two waves in a harmonious relationship creates a figure 8; rotate the 8 ninety degrees and it's an infinite expression of all there is and all there will ever be.

Infinity

Each power rises and falls, has its complementary power symmetrically opposing it, is mediated by its relationship to its opposite counterpart, and is checked and harmonized when the all-encompassing powers cross in the centre. Indigenous wisdom that came before our marauding western civilization and now lost to intolerance and time, created this congruence through symbol and ritual and they strove to lead lives imbued with this idea of balance and reciprocity referred to as tinkuy.

So dark has our situation become that in order to change it a return to the archaic world of symbolism and ritual is much needed. The two estranged waves of masculine polarity, in order to be corralled, must be mediated to the centre where the wise and fully realized feminine power alone in her castle remains in wait for her lover to arrive.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Nebet-Het: friend of the deceased

In utterance 553 of the Pyramid Texts the deceased is told to:

"Raise thyself up; shake off thy dust; remove the dirt which is on thy face; loose thy bandages. They are indeed not bandages; they are the locks of Nebet-Het."

Nebet-Het's hair wraps the body of the deceased, symbolizing the linen cloth that wraps the mummy. The pharaoh as Osiris, is encouraged to break free of her tresses in order to be re-born.

Nebet-Het, the ancient Egyptian goddess known in Greek as Nephthys, is the sister of the more popular goddess Aset. Aset is known as Isis in Greek and is the wife of the great Asar, who is known as Osiris in Greek. Nephthys' name means "Lady of the Temple Enclosure"; Lady from the Nebet part. Nebet is a designation given to an important female as Neb is the designation for an important man, a lord. The t designates a female is being referred to. The hieroglyphic for Neb is a semicircle, with the round part facing down or towards the ground.


Also it is interesting to note that the hieroglyphic for gold is similar yet more ornate and is transliterated as Nebu. It is the same semi-circle however it has rays shining downwards from the circular part as well as an enclosure over top suggesting that the gold is from the earth and shines like the rays of sunlight.

The god of eternity Heh kneeling on the hieroglyphic for Gold

The impression it gives is that gold is the moment before the sun appears at dawn and the sky is lit up in a golden colour. The ancient Egyptians referred to this most special time as the akhet and it is more specifically referring to the goddess Het-Har, Hathor in Greek. An epithet of Hathor is Lady of Gold. Gold is the flesh body of the gods.

The second part of the name is transliterated Het, Hut, or Hwt from the hieroglyphs. This refers to a palace or temple enclosure.

Nephthys wearing the hieroglyphic symbols of her name on her head

Clearly, Nephthys was thought of as a woman of great stature who would be associated with the royal family and temples. No one is quite sure what temple enclosure this is referring to and with good reason. It is a figurative definition that is referring to the physical body as the temple that contains the soul, better known to casual observers as Osiris. The two sisters, Nephthys and Isis, are the great goddesses who are present to remember and make hale the great deceased Osiris in order to awaken him. These two are symbolized in the entrance to all temples in Egypt as the two sides, called pylons, of the entrance shaped like an akhet or horizon that allowed the rising sun to enter into the temple at dawn.

First pylon and entrance to temple of Heru-Behdety

In her role as the maker of the body that houses the great soul, Nephthys was given the epithet Nebet Khat, which means "Lady of the Body". Thinking about this designation a little further, Nephthys' role becomes clearer as it seems she is a mother type who makes and is present in the physical vehicle that houses the soul. Whether her role only concerns royalty is debatable. The language used to describe her role is very regal such as palace and she can be considered a queen. However there is the story related from the Greek historian Plutarch where in commenting on the love story of Isis and Osiris he tells of the time Nephthys impersonated Isis, as they are sisters both of great beauty, and tricked Osiris into sleeping with her. From this union was born the jackal Anpu, Anubis in Greek. It seems that even though it may appear Nephthys has only royal connections she has the ability to make bodies for all, from the sacred soul Osiris to the profane jackal beast Anubis. This bit of information helps then to put her role more into context. To compare her to a more familiar archetype I would suggest a figure such as Eve in the first book of the Bible who is capable of making life that is not only profane, as in the birth of the beastly Cain, but also of the sacred that is represented as Abel and then Seth; Seth being born due directly to the death of Abel, as spelled out in Genesis 4:25, which is the Bible relating the resurrection of the soul in such an arcane way that no one will really ever figure out that passage. From Genesis 3:20 we learn that Eve, Chavvah in Hebrew, means life-giver and is the mother of all living; in essence the maker of bodies that we may figuratively call temples or tabernacles that can house the life force, Ka in ancient Egypt, that animates life forms as well as housing the immortal soul, the Ba in ancient Egypt, which is dismembered upon entry into the physical plane in the west and must be remembered in order to engender rebirth. Armed with this understanding we can deduce that Nephthys is an aspect of the mother goddess in ancient Egypt, known as Hathor that manifests in the body with Isis to help wake up this immortal soul that is slumbering away in the darkness of our hearts. Before I detail her association to Hathor, the role of Isis should be clarified so we avoid confusion, or conflate the role of these two sister goddesses.

Isis is the wife of Osiris who upon his death at the hands of the strong and beastly Set, dedicates her life to finding and remembering Osiris. Being great of magic, once Isis recovered Osiris and made him hale she was able to impregnate herself with his seed. The child born is the born again soul of the father Osiris and this child is Horus (transliterated as Heru from the hieroglyphs). It is an elaborate story that mythicized the soul journeying in matter. Isis plays the role of the womb that in the physical realm will give birth to and nurture your reborn soul.

From Karnak there is an inscription calling Osiris 'he who resides in the house of conception' alluding to the impregnation of Isis and the consequent birth of Horus.
The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, by George Hart, pg. 120

This inscription is telling us that the soul, Osiris, resides in Isis; Isis is the womb, i.e. the genetrix of the newborn soul. This soul in ancient Egypt is referred to as the Ba.

Now that we have narrowed down the role of Isis and knowing Nephthys is a "Lady of the Temple" we can make the claim Nephthys is concerned with your life force of the physical body and which the ancient Egyptians called the Ka. Now this is important because it will help me explain some of the connections that are part of the goddess Nephthys. Her husband is the beastly Set, with whom it is said she is childless. However why the seemingly arbitrary connection to Set? Well, I wrote a blog post awhile back called iconoclastic Cain and Abel that contained the ground breaking assertion that Osiris is representing the concept of the Ba and Set is representing the concept of the Ka here in the material realm. After coming to this realization and gaining an understanding of what these ancient Egyptian myths are trying to convey, you gain a whole new perspective and are then able to interprete these old world stories with context and greater understanding. Nephthys is the wife of Set because they are both connected to the concept of the Ka. The Ka is not a concept that is too difficult to understand regardless of what you may read. Most definitions in books and on the internet will try to explain it as a force that leaves the body at physical death and then the body has to be mummified or a Ka statue has to be placed in the tomb as a substitute so that the Ka has some place to go. The definitions usually include the caveat that we don't really have a full understanding of what is meant by the Ka. I don't think it is too difficult to grasp as long as you have an open mind; you don't box yourself into an intellectual corner; and realize that not everything the ancient Egyptians did revolved around the funerary sphere. The Ka is the life force that animates the physical body. Upon death, the Ka has left as your body lies there lifeless. When you are younger you are full of the Ka; I like to think of a puppy that is full of what we would call spunk or life. As we age this force wanes. The hieroglyphic for the Ka is a bull; an apt symbol for the untamed, wildness of this force. It is animal instinct that lives on desire, preys on the weak, and does not think of consequences. As parents we try to tame and civilize our children who are full of this instinct by teaching them about right and wrong and consequences. Furthermore the Ka was depicted as food offerings. 

Offering of food as Ka

In order to survive in the physical realm we need to constantly ingest the life force of other living material on the earth. The Ka was represented this way as well. When we die the Ka does not die rather it leaves your body; it is still an entity that exists therefore you will see in tombs figurative offerings on the wall to the Ka of the deceased. The easy way to explain this part of the Ka is through the concept of the ghost. What we think of a ghost, is the ancient Egyptian concept of the Ka that has left the body and is unsatisfied. The Ka remains in this physical world unattached, becoming a general nuisance to those still living in the physical realm. Call them superstitious, but the ancient Egyptians went to great lengths to prevent this from happening by trying to satiate the Ka and by making replicas or a mummy that it could visit and thereby leave everyone else alone. As well the Ka is connected with the concept of reincarnation. In this regard think of it as a manifestation of your unique soul in another guise. You have just the one immortal soul, the Ba, but your Ka will shape shift into many different forms in the material realm in order that it experiences and is no longer dragged into physical incarnation. The Ka is forever coming. The ram god Khnum is the potter god who constructs these Kas.

The potter Khnum presenting a double of the Ka

You will see him constructing a new Ka always in multiples; in essence telling us that he is making another replica manifestation of your Ka from a master record. The ultimate provider of life and food substances here in this world, that fits with the ancient Egyptian definition of Ka as food stuff, is the power of the sun. This power, represented as the god Re, is celebrated in many hymns with a great many written in devotion of the the sun disk Aten by the iconoclastic pharaoh Akhenaten who is mistakenly called the world's first monotheist. Aten is the actual sun disk that housed the light rays that would stream to earth and provide for all. The famous female pharaoh of the early 18th dynasty, Hatshepsut, had as one of her names Ma'at Ka Re.

Ma'at Ka Re

This is translated as "truth is the soul of the sun". Close but leaves me wanting. How about "the natural order is the life providing power of the light of the sun"? Anyway from this moniker it can be understood that Re is the ultimate provider of this power. In the material realm here on earth it is the beastly Set who then demonstrates this power untamed. Even though he is a murderer of the Ba soul Osiris, and he constantly battles with the avenging son Horus, this does not deter Re from having a soft spot for this crimson beast.

Red and Set go together

In the story of The Contendings of Horus and Set, Re is constantly advocating Set's case to become the king of all Egypt despite his trickery, lying, and general despicable behaviour. In the end when it is determined Horus deserves the united crown, Re places Set aboard his sun boat in order to take advantage of his awesome strength. There is quite the connection here between the life giving power of the sun and the power manifesting on earth. It is understood by the ancient Egyptians that without this awesome power that physical creation would cease to exist. The serpent Apophis is always at the ready to strike to stop the sun boat of Re. It is the strength of Set at the prow of the boat that beats the devourer into submission.

Set's strength keeping back Apophis, the destructive force

This whole scene is depicting creation as moving forward, as life is properly a verb. Once we stop moving and growing we die. Re's boat and his cyclical journey must continue on. It is also telling that the ancient Egyptians realized that although this Set can at times be despicable, he is needed and is a power to subdue and use for strength in order to be successful in your spiritual journey. This coming together of Horus and Set is depicted in monuments where they are shown together uniting Upper and Lower Egypt by tying the papyrus and lotus around the sema-sign, and in the serekh of pharaoh Khasekhemwy of the 2nd dynasty.

Serekh of Khasekhemwy

Where the two combatants are shown united is shown also as the two headed falcon Hrwyfy which is communicating that the two combatants have made peace and now have an understanding.


Now with a better idea of the role of the life force, known as Ka, we can see then the natural relationship of Nephthys to Set. Extrapolating from this idea further, the relationship of Isis to Osiris is then connected to the soul, known as the Ba. In the mythology of Set his consort is not limited to just Nephthys. Another of his consorts is a female hippopotamus known as Tauret (Taweret).

The Great Lady Tauret

The meaning of the name is "great lady", the great from the ur or wer and the idea of female from the t determinate that denotes female at the end of the name. However we should not ignore the Ta at the beginning of the name that is suggesting that this great lady is of the land or earth. In other words this material plane is where you find the great birth mother. She will get you in and out of this plane of existence. We will get back to the idea of the great material woman in a bit. Tauret has the face of a hippopotamus, the hind legs of a lion, and the tail of a crocodile. She is depicted as pregnant with large pendulous breasts and wears the cow horns that cradle a sun disk on her head which is the headdress of the mother goddess Hathor. As well she has the bovine ears that you find associated with Hathor as well as the long tresses of hair that is another feature of Hathor. The association of Tauret with the aspect of Hathor where she is an archetypal mother goddess is undeniable. Set can be referred to as the "beast of the reeds", a male hippopotamus which is one of the most territorial and aggressive beasts on earth and is apt iconography for the wild untamed Set. On the other hand a female hippopotamus, though quite aggressive, will usually only show that behaviour when she is with her offspring. Tauret being so protective of the young, has pregnant women and those in childbirth summon her to protect and guide them. Tauret is sometimes depicted with seven stars on her back which gives the idea that she can be found in the night sky as a recognizable constellation as determined by ancient Egyptian astronomers. The constellation we call Draco that contains the ancient polestar from 5000 years ago called Thuban, is the area of the sky that was personified by the hippopotamus goddess Tauret. The polestar within this constellation was the star that all the other constellations revolved around. She can be depicted holding a mooring post in the shape of a crocodile that is tethered to a northern circumpolar constellation in the form of an ox and also depicted holding a rope attached to the foreleg of this constellation. Given my connection of the Ka to Set, I would guess the meaning here is the connection between Tauret and Set as her consort, as Set has been identified as the Big Dipper constellation in ancient Egypt known as Maskheti, the foreleg of the ox and this foreleg is prominent in the ceremony of Opening the Mouth and Eyes. In essence this foreleg, called the Khepesh, opens the mummified in order to receive the Ka into it. Tauret was also given the title Nebetakhet, which is once again giving us the connection to the morning dawn, birth of the rising sun, and Hathor. As one of the imperishable northern constellations she would be present in the magical moment at dawn just prior to the sun making its grand entrance in the east from the akhet. Other consorts of Set are the west Semitic goddesses Anat and Astarte who were awarded to him after the decision to give Horus sole rulership of Egypt. These goddesses share the attributes of Hathor: Anat a beautiful woman depicted with the Hathor hair-do who embodies beauty, sexuality, and fertility and Astarte is beautiful as well with the Hathor hair-do who exudes sexuality as well as motherhood traits. Both these goddesses also have warrior like attributes in the vein of Hathor's alter ego Sekhemet. 

The last connection with aspects of Hathor having Set as their consort are the group of seven Hathors that are found in the Book of the Dead and on temple walls.

The seven Hathors vignette from Spell 148 in the Book of the Dead

Spell 148 from the R.O. Faulkner translation has the aspirant saying: 
I know the names of the seven cows and their bull who give bread and beer, who are beneficial to souls and who provide daily portions; may you give bread and beer and make provision for me, so that I may serve you, and may I come into being under your hinder-parts.

The seven Hathors and their bull provide the life force necessary for the Ba soul in what is called the realm of the dead. The bull is the great sky-bull called the "Bull of the West". The seven Hathors are also related to the seven Hathors of human form that show up in scenes of birth to pronounce the fate of the child. The bull and his concubines are symbolizing the Ka needed by the Ba in its material incarnation that has left it latent; this latency connects to the death of the soul. When you read of the "realm of the dead" it is important that you read it in context so that it doesn't trip you up and lead you to think it only refers to the body and not the soul. In this day and age we only attend funerals for the life force - Ka, and not the soul - Ba. That is the way we are conditioned to think. However, this is referring to the death of the soul and then providing nourishment to it so that eventually it may experience re-birth. To the ancients death is a transition not a finality, so though to us it is hard to understand your soul dying because we think that's a finality, to the ancient Egyptian it would be a perfectly logical concept and one that with the proper context they could ascertain whether it is referring to the body or the soul. Death takes place in the west, whether that is your soul or your body. Osiris enters his place of darkness in the west and is dismembered by the animal instinct of the Ka. However it is this Ka that then carries the Ba. It is the Bata bull, Set's glorious role that he is even unaware of, that carries the Ba through its successive incarnations as this illustration from the Papyrus Jumilhac indicates:


Bata has the markings of the Apis bull; the celebrated bull which is the Ka of Osiris that the later Greek rulers of Egypt synthesized into the god Serapis. As well as I have written in the blog post the ancient egyptian story of Anpu and Bata, it is the character of Bata that keeps reappearing in different guises after previously thought to be dead and eventually he becomes pharaoh. This is symbolizing his resurrection as the re-born Ba soul Horus here in the material world after successive incarnations.

Well that has been a long winded exposition of goddesses that are aspects of Hathor having a connection to Set as their consort much like Nephthys. It leads into the next characteristics of Nephthys that I'd like to examine now that we have some background.  She was one of the few goddesses with a direct connection to the sistrum; the rattle that is used to call upon Hathor. Nephthys was the patron of the seventh nome of Upper Egypt called Sheshesh, which is the transliteration from the hieroglyphics that denote the sistrum. The Mansion of the Sistrum in the largest city in this nome, and this city Hwt-Sekhem had Nephthys as its patron goddess. She was also protectress of the Osirian relic at this locale, the Bennu bird. The Bennu bird or Phoenix, is a symbol of the resurrection. Just like Hathor, Nephthys' temple rites and feasts contained the excessive imbibing of beer and at a ruined sanctuary at Komir there is an elaborate "Hymn to Nephthys" from the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius. Nephthys is described as the "Mistress of many festivals...who loves the day of festival, the goddess for whom men and women play the tambourine." It can be seen that like the other goddesses mentioned above, Nephthys as well had quite the connection to the all encompassing mother goddess Hathor. Nephthys' role is concerned with the dead soul and protecting it in its journey into darkness. In the Pyramid Texts, utterance 505, the aspirant says “Isis is before me and Nephthys is behind me.” This is referring to the journey of the soul and its destiny that the two goddesses play a major role in. Nephthys is yesterday, the goddess who transitions the soul into the west and Isis is the goddess who tomorrow will re-birth the soul as the enlightened Horus.

To wrap this up and indulge in a little speculation, I'd like to return to the topic of the hippopotamus goddess Tauret and the meaning of her name as the great material lady. Presumably her spouse Set would be the great material man or male principle in matter. Set is the beastly male principle that instinctually rules this plane of material existence, especially if you look upon the power of the sun as the fatherly provider in this material world. It is these aspects of the Ka or life force that are most powerful in this realm. Why I find this fascinating is that as a consort of Tauret in the heavens I'd expect to find Set. He has been identified in the northern sky as a larger iteration of the constellation we call the Big Dipper. However I have reason to believe you can find him in the southern night sky as well. The great material man would be called Ta-ur and I think this bull came down to us as the the great bull in the sky - the constellation Taurus, and also of the half man and half beast of Cretan legend - the Minotaur. 

Theseus in the classic Horus the striker pose whacking the Minotaur

Let's take a look at the constellation of Taurus. In it is the seven sisters called the Pleiades, this group of seven being an allusion to the seven Hathors and their bull of the sky as Taurus. Bulls, Set, and Hathor all maintain a connection to the colour red. Matadors use a red muleta to symbolically inflame the passions of a bull; Set is the red beast; and the seven Hathors all wore red hair-ribbons. Taurus is shown charging at the constellation of Orion. 

Taurus as the Ka bull charging at Orion the Ba soul

Orion, who is the great Osiris of ancient Egypt, has to somehow overcome the anger and attack of this rampaging bull. All this is the story of the Ka and the Ba and how the Ka attacks the unprepared Ba at first sending him to his death in matter all torn asunder as Osiris is mythicized to be consigned to prior to his remembering by Isis.

I have a good idea I can find this ancient motif elsewhere in conjunction with the character of the benevolent lady of the temple enclosure and friend of the deceased, Nephthys, that I will explore in future blog posts.