rhythm and blues

dance of the moon,

pulse of the star.

Ma'at's sacred rhythm

distilled inside me.

birds dance in heaven

to plumb the earth.

my soul has wings

and lives in a sycamore.

sleeper soul,

bounded drift,

temptuous seas,

hetaera lighthouse.

death's allusion

buried in sand.

modern palliative dogma

unable to hear heresy.

sacred fire

is a feeling aflame.

seminary science

can't dissect emotion.

sometimes i get lost

on this lonely climb.

empty spectacle beckons

desire's undertow.

tumultous battle

rages inside me.

coiled vicissitude 

augurs evanescence.

translucent dreams

etching visual poetry.

morning star,

sustaining harmony.

light my way

Light illuminates my mind. My thoughts swim around freestyle in my mind, planting seeds in my subconscious which light quickens to allow further insights and discoveries, eventually blossoming into this fruit that I have a desire to share.

Genesis 11 tells us Abram, whose name means high father, comes from Ur of the Chaldees. His wife, Sarai, is barren. His father, Terah, leads them on a journey to Canaan. In Hebrew, Ur means a place of light, so if we are interpreting Abram's birth symbolically then he comes from the region of light as opposed to the literal place called Ur. Canaan is from Kenaan, the son of one of Noah's sons called Ham, who was disgraced when he witnessed the nakedness of his drunken father in Genesis 9:22-26. Canaan was cursed to be a servant of Shem and Japheth. The meaning of the name Shem has a connection to the heavens, while Canaan is of the earth, symbolically designating matter to serve spirit. This story of Abram leaving Ur for Canaan is creative storytelling, encoding the descent of the spirit into matter. To further corroborate this interpretation, it should be noted that the Chaldees can refer to an astrologer much in the way Abram's direct ancestor's name, Shem, is derived from a Hebrew word shamayin that also has a meaning of an astrologer.

The word Ur or Ar in many ancient lexicons would refer to light or spirit. The ancient Egyptians, being the preeminent observers of the natural world, ascertained that the eye was the vessel that acted as the sacred conduit to allow light to manifest in this world. Much like the sun and moon gather light that allows them to shine, it could be said that our eyes gather light and symbolically allow us to shine due to this light containing the wisdom of the gods. The ancient Egyptian word for eye would be transliterated as ir.t, with the t denoting its feminine property; the feminine being something that belongs to the material rather than spiritual plane. We find this concept and specific symbol making up part of the name for the great Osiris, as the hieroglyphs representing his name consist of a throne chair, from which we get "As" and the complete eye glyph from which we get "ar", which combine to give us the name Asar.

The light of the sun, referred to by the ancient Egyptians as Re or Ra, consists of the hieroglyphs of the mouth shape and the arm that is reaching out.

It is instructive to remind the reader that although you will read monotonously that Re is the ancient Egyptian sun god and the Egyptians worshipped the sun, Re is in fact the light of the sun. Re was represented as a falcon with a sun disk on his head. The falcon gives away the idea that Re is a free spirit and not tethered to the sun disk. The god emanates from the disk.

                                            Re with his offspring Shu and Tefenet

Today, we might be tempted to call what Re represented a light ray. Of course, there is no connection here, right? Move along... The ancient world seemed to have connections and shared ideas, especially among the Mediterranean based civilizations due to extensive trading between the nations and a shared synchronistic outlook on the gods. The rise of monotheism and development of Christianity plunged the world into an ever increasing enmity, polarity, and darkness. The advent of the internet and free flow of ideas and cultures is something that has been lacking for two millennium, though we still tend to carry around with us our monotheistic inspired attitudes and hatred of those who are different, along with those whom we perceive to worship false gods. Christianity cannot even agree on its own worship, with many different "denominations" competing for the loyalty of the flock.

The great body of light in ancient Egypt, Wer, has two great eyes. Depending on whether this light is referred to as Re or Horus, light would have an "eye", commonly referred to as the Eye of Re or the Eye of Horus. Re is the daytime light encapsulated within the sun while Horus is the nighttime celestial light which would gather and be housed within the moon with the Eye of Horus represented symbolically by the moon. As is such, it would mean Re is the light that has reawakened those who have come forth by day while Horus is the light that comes forth and is accessible to those resident in the night darkness which symbolizes material existence. The Eye of Horus was known as Wadjet, with Wadjet taking its meaning from the green papyrus plant of Lower Egypt, once again pointing to this Eye having a connection with the material plane, i.e., Lower Egypt. This eye was feminine and commonly associated with goddesses such as Hathor, Sekhemet, Tefenet, and Mut. The goddess would be pictorially represented as an uraeus snake that encircled the sun disk or moon, in essence encapsulating the light which was present within the disk.

The abode of the god is the Eye, explaining why these goddesses would contain the potentiality to be an ancestor of, or give birth to, a great god of light, whether that be Horus, Nefertum, Ihy, and Khonsu to name a few. Uraeus is the Greek translation of the Egyptian word iaret. In both cases, you can see once again the connection of the word for light in ancient cultures sharing a common pronunciation, Ur and Ar. The uraeus cobra worn on the crown of the ruling Pharaoh denoted sovereignty. This design symbolized the idea that the light god was resident in the Pharaoh and as such was protected by his mother in snake form.

 

Pharaoh Psusennes I with uraeus

Now, I'm of the belief that the wise and cunning priests of ancient Egypt had through observation and thought, deduced that light is the eternal spirit of the universe, however they used this knowledge to curry political favour and made it the exclusive domain of royalty. It was during the collapse of the Old Kingdom and subsequent First Intermediate period that this knowledge did make it into the hands of the commoner which is described by some Egyptologists as the "democratization of the afterlife," although it wasn't until about 2000 years later when the Greeks actually put democracy in vogue. Anyway, in light of this development it is possible to construct a case that the reign of the "heretic" Pharaoh Akhenaten can be construed as reactionary, with a desire to return to the exclusiveness of kingship that was the case in Old Kingdom Egypt. However, Akhenaten and his religion of light is a topic I will have to leave for the moment due to the enormity of verbiage needed to tackle it.

So, to return to the topic of light, I would like to bring up the etymology of the constellation of Orion, the giant in the sky:

Orion
late 14th century, from Greek Oarion, of unknown origin, though some speculate on Akkadian Uru-anna "the Light of Heaven." Another Greek name for the constellation was Kandaon, a title of Ares, god of war, and it is represented in most cultures as a giant (e.g. Old Irish Caomai "the Armed King," Old Norse Orwandil, Old Saxon Ebuðrung).
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Orion&allowed_in_frame=0

The Light of Heaven is an apt name for the giant who encompasses such a large and bright region in the sky. When Orion descends into matter for a seventy day period in late spring it is metaphorically demonstrating the descent of the soul into its material chains. The ancient Egyptian story of Osiris is the story of this descent into matter, its remembering and resurrection which allows the soul to be born again as the son of Osiris. I have written many posts in this blog space that go further into this story. In some of the temples throughout Egypt you will see this story depicted on the walls of the temple such as at Abydos, Denderah, and Philae. In these scenes of Osiris' remembering and resurrection which allows him to impregnate Isis, he is shown lying asleep on a bier that at the head has a lion's head and at the other end has a lion's tail.

 

Temple of Seti I, Abydos

Temple of Philae, Aswan

It's curious symbolism as the connection to lions and Osiris is unclear. Personally, I believe the connection is that Osiris lying on a lion bed is representing the light spirit at rest. How so you ask? Well, glad you asked.

This light is a lion and should be represented properly as the seventh sign in the zodiac. That the ancient Egyptians had formulated names for stars and constellations is not in dispute, but the evidence is pretty flimsy as to whether they had a defined zodiac of their own. The evidence for zodiacs in ancient Egypt are mainly from Ptolemaic temples built near the close of the first millennium and were influenced by Babylonian astrology. However, there is plenty of evidence of astronomical ceilings from the time of Seti I in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the Ramesseum temple ceiling, and even more star ceilings in tombs and coffins which date much further back in time. Both these structures date to the time of construction of Seti's temple at Abydos around 1200 BC which contains this poignant scene of Osiris lying on a lion bed. There are connections of light with lions such as the name Hebrew Ariel, which means lion of god, giving us a connection to the Ar - light and a lion. In the same vane, we can see that the name Uriel means angel of Light or flame of God. Western astrology treats Libra as the seventh sign, but if we properly take Aquarius, the pouring out of light energy, as the first sign then the lion as Leo is the seventh sign. Aries has been fixed as the first sign due to it rising at the vernal equinox during the Hellenistic age when the tropical system of astrology was established, however if properly you start from Aquarius it will start to make sense as the story of the spirit's descent into matter. Here is the Coles notes version:

Aquarius pours light energy out into the universe, Pisces represents the two main components of this light energy which are wisdom and consciousness. Wisdom is the soul, represented in ancient Egypt as the ba while consciousness is the energy that allows this soul to come alive which is the ka in ancient Egypt. Wisdom needs this consciousness, but as we know it is also its downfall that leads to its death. Aries is the Ram, its bleating of ba giving away what it represents. It is prolific in its creation activities much like a ram. Next is Taurus the bull, the untamed charging bull being the ka symbol in ancient Egypt. They are shown again in the next sign, Gemini, as twins that are forever linked. The next sign, the crab, is originally the beetle, which is the symbol for becoming that gives us an idea of the potentiality of us all in this journey of becoming. This leads us to the seventh sign Leo the lion. Leo is royal light and the King, however in the ancient world it was believed the journey of the soul into matter was an arduous journey and once completed you would rest on the seventh leg of the journey. Hence why you would see Osiris, the symbol of the ba in its journey, resting on a lion's bed. Check out the sign for Leo and its similarity to the hair of Hathor.

 

Also, you'll find Astarte/Ishtar/Inanna/Asherah/Qadesh, all forms of Hathor, depicted with lions or standing on lions.

Here is Wadjet pictorially represented with Horus as the lion king, wearing the double crown to denote his kingship.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, Osiris, when encapsulated in matter, is the husband of Isis however when he is reborn in the constellation of Orion as Horus the Elder his celestial wife is Hathor. Fittingly, Horus the Elder's Egyptian name is Heru-Ur, once again giving us the connection to Ur and light in the ancient world.

Heru-Ur

Here is my blog entry that makes clear the relationship of Osiris and Horus within the constellation of Orion. So, the great light father is at rest in matter after being given birth by the great mother goddess Hathor in the west. In order to enable rebirth into different planes of existence, it was understood that Horus must become kamutef, the "bull of his mother." Today, we would hurl the epithet "motherfucker" at such a person! The sacred mother who gives birth into different manifestations is Hathor. After being at rest in the sign of Leo, the light moves on to be born again of a Virgin in the sign of Virgo. I'll leave the journey of light through the zodiac for now.

Is this story still relevant today, or can we find echoes of it? In the animated movie by Disney, "The Lion King" you can see the pieces of the great Osiris and Horus story. The lion cub Simba is born to great fanfare as the heir of the throne. His uncle, representing Osiris' brother Set in the story, tricks him into believing he is responsible for the death of his father the King who is representing Osiris. Simba flees the pride, grows up and avenges his father's death, just like Horus, and then takes his rightful place on the throne. Light once again becomes unmistakably a lion.

So, what then of my connection of Abram to this region of light? If this story is just another iteration of this ancient motif, then it should not be difficult to find echoes of it within this biblical story. Well, let's go find them. I'll use the King James Version of the bible.

Genesis 12:12
12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.

Abram fears he will be killed upon his descent into Egypt (matter). He also knows they will lust after his beautiful, old, barren wife.

Genesis 12:13
13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.

Sarai is described as Abram's sister much like Isis is Osiris' sister-wife. Furthermore Isis is the house of conception for the eternal soul in the material world and it is through her that the ba soul is reborn as Horus.

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

Abram is saying that his soul will survive because of Sarai.

Genesis 12:17-20
17 And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.
18 And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?
19 Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.
20 And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.

The descent into matter, symbolized by Egypt, is ruled by the beastly Set. Pharaoh plays the role of Set who lusts after Isis and wishes to take her as his own but cannot.

He (Set) experiences heterosexual desire towards the goddess Isis. His feelings are not returned. He is so badly deceived by Isis, that he complains in tears to Re. (Author cites Beatty papyrus 1, 6, 2 sqq. for this claim)
Seth, God of Confusion, by H. Te Velde, page 55.

Genesis 16:1-2
1 Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.
2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.

In the story of Isis and Osiris, Isis' sister Nephthys disguises herself as her sister in order to seduce the virile Osiris. Being true to that motif, Hagar, who is Sarai's handmaid from Egypt/matter, plays this role in accepting the abundance of Abram's life creating ability.

Genesis 17:5
5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.

Abram is given a name change as is Sarai to Sarah later on in verse 15 that have connections to being a father of a great multitude and nobility. This foreshadows a great miraculous prince to be born to the previously barren Sarah.

Genesis 17:10-12
10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.
12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.

God requires the act of circumcision as a token between him and his people. This occurs on the eighth day in the case of newborns. As I explained in the Coles Notes version of light's journey through the zodiac, on the seventh leg in the sign of Leo, light rests while on the eighth leg in the house of the Virgin it is born anew. This is the symbolism of the eighth day circumcision. Feel free to use this to impress at parties.

Genesis 18:2
2 And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground,

Three men of importance show up to tell Abraham and Sarah they are going to have an important kid. Seems a common motif of three wise men showing up to presage some great birth.

Genesis 18:7-8
7 And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it.
8 And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.

The symbolism here is the sacrificing of the life force, ka, of the young calf that will allow the newborn ba soul to be born into the material plane of existence.

Genesis 20:1-3
1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.
2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man's wife.

After Abraham and Sarah journey to Gerar the King of Gerar takes possession of Sarah much like Pharaoh, as Set, had tried. Isis is wanted by all the Kings of the material world but the attraction always remains unrequited.

Genesis 21:28-31
28 And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves.
29 And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves?
30 And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well.
31 Wherefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they sware both of them.

Abraham digs a well at Beersheba and gives seven lambs to Abimelech to commemorate it. Here we have the connection to seven and incarnation into matter. The flock of lambs are representing the young ba soul on its journey into matter. Beer means a well and Sheba is seven or swearing an oath. The swearing of an oath can be referred to as to seven oneself. Beersheba is then the place where the soul incarnates into matter.

Genesis 21:33
33 And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God.

Abraham plants a bunch of trees at this place that figuratively the spirit has entered into matter and then he calls on his god. The trees are tamarisk. The tamarisk is the tree that encapsulated Osiris' coffin when it floated to the shores of Byblos after his death at the hands of Set, symbolizing Osiris as the soul being at rest in the hard tree trunk which is representing matter.

Genesis 22:6-10
6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.
7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

After God tells Abraham to make a burnt offering out of his son, Abraham dutifully obeys. Abraham goes to sacrifice Isaac, his first born. Symbolic of the ba soul having to "die" in matter in order to be born again.

Genesis 22:13
13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

Right on cue, a ram shows up as the symbolic substitute for the first born son of Abraham and Sarah. A Ram (ba) becomes the substitute sacrifice for Isaac.

These are just some of the connections which tie the story of Abraham and Sarah to the greater ancient motif of the incarnation of the soul and its arduous journey that eventually will lead to our greater self. If what I have expounded on in the above is correct, then it should be a recurring meme that continues throughout the Old Testament, especially in the stories of the patriarchs. The names may change but the stories will all share a common thread, the thread being the great light spirit and its journey into and out of material existence.

destiny

barber pole encircles

my lost yesterdays.

rooted sycamore

shelters distant future.

divine harbinger

of mysterious eminent birth.

give celestial match maker

invitation to my sacred marriage.

double crown magic

ever veiled.

i gave you a name.

i don't know your name.

drinking,

dancing,

singing,

celebrating until dawn.

new life leaping

in the morning's gold.

i shall take my seat

in my forever ship.

let the sleeping giant lie

You don't get far into the first book of the Bible, Genesis, when you are confronted with a strange story of giants who roamed the earth in antiquity. Not only that but it is written that they mated with the daughters of humans and had children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Giant

Here is the passage from Genesis chapter 6, verse 4 in the King James Version:

4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

and here is a translation from the New Century Version:

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also later. That was when the sons of God had sexual relations with the daughters of human beings. These women gave birth to children, who became famous and were the mighty warriors of long ago.

The giants were called the Nephilim and they were mighty warriors of old. It is difficult to explain this in a literal sense without a serious leap of faith on the part of the reader though many have tried due to this desire to accept the Bible as a literal account of creation and history of the Jews. I think this story is explainable if we take it as myth and also accept the fact that these myths were borrowed and adapted from other cultures of the old world. Let's get a better handle on the topic before we start making some connections.

From Clarke's Commentary on the Bible we can can glean this information about the meaning of Nephilim and the meaning behind the terms mighty men or mighty warriors:

There were giants in the earth - נפלים nephilim, from נפל naphal, "he fell." 

The same became mighty men - men of renown - גברים gibborim, which we render mighty men, signifies properly conquerors, heroes, from גבר gabar, "he prevailed, was victorious."

The non canonical pseudepigraphic text of the Old Testament called the Book of Enoch mentions the Nephilim and elaborates on the story a little more in detail. Their leader, Semjaza, leads the descent of the fallen angels to earth to consummate with the comely daughters of the earth.

Book of Enoch Chapter 6 1 And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto 2 them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men 3 and beget us children.' And Semjaza, who was their leader, said unto them: 'I fear ye will not 4 indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' And they all answered him and said: 'Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations 5 not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.' Then sware they all together and bound themselves 6 by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn 7 and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it

The punishment from the Lord for their great sin was to bind them to the valleys of the earth for seventy generations.

Chapter 10

And the Lord said unto Michael: 'Go, bind Semjaza and his associates who have united themselves with women so as to have defiled themselves ¹² with them in all their uncleanness. And when their sons have slain one another, and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgement and of their consummation, till the judgement that is ¹³ for ever and ever is consummated. In those days they shall be led off to the abyss of fire: and ¹⁴ to the torment and the prison in which they shall be confined for ever. And whosoever shall be condemned and destroyed will from thenceforth be bound together with them to the end of all ¹⁵ generations. 

Later on it is revealed that these fallen angels who lusted after the daughters of men were cast down into Tartarus.

Chapter 19 1 And Uriel said to me: 'Here shall stand the angels who have connected themselves with women, and their spirits assuming many different forms are defiling mankind and shall lead them astray into sacrificing to demons as gods, (here shall they stand,) till the day of the great judgement in 2 which they shall be judged till they are made an end of. And the women also of the angels who 3 went astray shall become sirens.' And I, Enoch, alone saw the vision, the ends of all things: and no man shall see as I have seen. Chapter 20 1,2 And these are the names of the holy angels who watch. Uriel, one of the holy angels, who is 3 over the world and over Tartarus. Raphael, one of the holy angels, who is over the spirits of men. 4,5 Raguel, one of the holy angels who takes vengeance on the world of the luminaries. Michael, one 6 of the holy angels, to wit, he that is set over the best part of mankind and over chaos. Saraqael, 7 one of the holy angels, who is set over the spirits, who sin in the spirit. Gabriel, one of the holy 8 angels, who is over Paradise and the serpents and the Cherubim. Remiel, one of the holy angels, whom God set over those who rise. Chapter 21 1,2 And I proceeded to where things were chaotic. And I saw there something horrible: I saw neither 3 a heaven above nor a firmly founded earth, but a place chaotic and horrible. And there I saw 4 seven stars of the heaven bound together in it, like great mountains and burning with fire. Then 5 I said: 'For what sin are they bound, and on what account have they been cast in hither?' Then said Uriel, one of the holy angels, who was with me, and was chief over them, and said: 'Enoch, why 6 dost thou ask, and why art thou eager for the truth? These are of the number of the stars of heaven, which have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and are bound here till ten thousand years, 7 the time entailed by their sins, are consummated.' And from thence I went to another place, which was still more horrible than the former, and I saw a horrible thing: a great fire there which burnt and blazed, and the place was cleft as far as the abyss, being full of great descending columns of 8 fire: neither its extent or magnitude could I see, nor could I conjecture. Then I said: 'How 9 fearful is the place and how terrible to look upon!' Then Uriel answered me, one of the holy angels who was with me, and said unto me: 'Enoch, why hast thou such fear and affright?' And 10 I answered: 'Because of this fearful place, and because of the spectacle of the pain.' And he said unto me: 'This place is the prison of the angels, and here they will be imprisoned for ever.'

If you remember my previous blog I told you to keep Tartarus in the back of your mind. Here's the link:

Cronus was eventually overthrown by his son Zeus and sent to Tartarus.  A little side trip to Tartarus now.  Tartarus is an abyss below the underworld where the sinners were sent.  Keep this point in mind.

It is a fate that mirrors the episode from the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge and now are cognizant of good and evil. Adam, because of eating the fruit of the forbidden, becomes the first of the fallen who will now die because of his transgressions. Having this knowledge is actually a good thing; not having this knowledge makes you an ignorant beast. It is as if God has this knowledge that he likes to not willingly share but will let you take it if you dare and then punish you for it. This concept is then mirrored again in Genesis 6:4 when the sons of God come to the earth and mate with the daughters of men. It is alluding again to this knowledge that is being acquired by the human race on earth that God gets all pissy about sharing.

In Peake's Commentary on the Bible, page 260,  we get this regarding the Nephilim:

The name is of uncertain origin, but n'philia is the Aramaic name of Orion, the giant of the sky.

This would make the Nephilim properly the sons of the Nephilia, Nephilia being a name for Orion. Well you know I'm all over this.

Genesis 6:4 is making references to mighty giants that fell from the sky. Clarke's commentary on the Bible gave us the Hebrew word "gibborim" for mighty men. Now where have we heard that word before? You may recall I wrote a two part blog about the giant in the sky awhile back:

http://fessell810.blogspot.ca/2011/02/equations-giants-and-kareem-abdul.html

http://fessell810.blogspot.ca/2011/03/equations-giants-and-kareem-abdul.html

I'll clip out some relevant passages, though I really do recommend you read both articles:

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

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

The action of Al Jabbar refers to the setting of broken bones while the thing it refers to is a giant in the sky and that giant is Orion.

Osiris as Orion is a mighty giant who does fall from the sky in late May and is imprisoned in matter for seventy days until he rises again in the night sky.

The Book of Enoch 10:12 is alluding to just that when the punishment for these "fallen angels" is described as thus:

bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth...

Seven and seventy appear frequently in the Bible and antiquity to represent either latent creation, i.e. God creating the visible universe and then resting on the seventh day as described in the opening of Genesis or the binding and swearing of a sacred oath. An oath in the Old Testament is referred to as to "seven oneself" such as when Abraham's servant binds himself to Abraham in Genesis 24 before going off in search of a wife for Isaac. Since I'm on a roll right now I'd like to mention the Hebrew word for bind which is 'asir'. Of course Osiris' proper Egyptian name is 'asar', with the vowels in both languages just there to help us moderns with a guide to approximate pronunciation. I don't know or can't prove any connection here but I thought it was interesting to point it out since Osiris is bound into matter in a state of rest for this sacred amount of time before rising again as his mighty warrior son Horus.

Okay I just let the cat out of the bag - The mighty men being referred to are the son(s) of Osiris and Isis known as Horus. I wrote a blog about the connection of Orion to both Osiris and Horus which I knew at the time would spare me having to explain it now :) Here is the link which I trust you'll read because you have made it this far into my exposition:

http://fessell810.blogspot.ca/2012/04/fighting-for-truth.html

The mighty warriors of old is referring to Horus the Striker, the son of Isis and Osiris.

Isis is the metaphorical womb in the material world that receives the seed of the great fallen giant angel Osiris allowing for the eventual birth of a man of renown if you can rouse this Osiris long enough to engender that new life.

In ancient Egyptian mythology Osiris becomes the lord of this underworld to judge the souls of the departed.

This underworld, or subconscious realm, is where our true self resides and is something you have to get in touch with in order to become your greater self. Mythology describes the Titan Cronus being sent to Tartarus and the Book of Enoch tells of the punishment of these fallen angels is a trip to this Tartarus as well. This the underworld realm of Osiris in which he presides over and judges your soul. I wrote a blog  that showed the similarities between the biblical character of Abel and the ancient Egyptian figure of Osiris and how Abel became the judge of your soul in the pseudepigraphic text of the Old Testament called the Testament of Abraham. It's good stuff, you can read it here:

http://fessell810.blogspot.ca/2011/08/iconoclastic-cain-and-abel.html

Okay now that you've read it you can now start tying all this mythology together in your head and realize it is not the domain of one religion but encompasses and is central to the myths of the civilizations of the old world. But what is the essence these stories are trying to convey? It is that the scattered soul of the great god that contains the knowledge of life, which the ancient Egyptians called ba, comes to incarnate in matter and allows the creature called man to become greater than just simple carnal beasts. This ba soul we need to awaken and tame the beast with so we can engender that new life within us that is full of goodness and wisdom but also is strong enough to keep that beast at bay with his mighty sword. The ancient Egyptians represented this great hero with a hawk, not a dove.  Stay strong and fight your enemies!

In closing I'd just like to quickly tackle a name given for the leader of the fallen angels in the Book of Enoch. That name is Semjaza. It has been explained that the first part 'Sem' means name and 'azaz' means to rebel. Seems plausible. I'd like to throw out one more explanation that takes into account the jaza part without dropping the j or y (remembering that a 'j' in ancient lexicons is represented as a 'y'). The belt of Orion was known in Arabic as Al Jauzah and the sacred plateau of the three great pyramids in Egypt that represent Orion's belt is called today Al Jizah or what we English call Giza. It seems to me possible that the name Semjaza is alluding to the origination of the fallen angels being metaphorically from the constellation of Orion. I can't prove it but hey it seems as good an explanation as any I've heard. If you do investigate this further you'll find correlations between Semjaza and Azazel and the attempts to connect it to Satan. The conflating of Semjaza and Azazel as the same concept is misleading as they are two distinct entities. I'd be tempted to designate them as representatives of the ba and ka from ancient Egypt such as what I wrote in this blog entry that will give you a good idea of the relationship between the ba and the ka. At any rate this is getting beyond the scope of what I'm trying to tackle right now. If you do want to read more about these myths from a biblical perspective here is a website that retells some of them. Scroll down until you find "The Star Maiden".

I love how Istahar tricks Shemhazai into revealing God's hidden name. If you've read the ancient Egyptian story of Isis tricking Re into revealing his true secret name you'll get a chuckle out of this.

Alright, well this Sunday sermon is enough for you chew on for now. Be forewarned though as I'm about to rain on Abraham and Sarah's parade now that I've armed you with enough background into the myths of the ancient world.

i need some time

Sometimes it is hard to keep track of time or we just lose track of time. Interesting that the same thing applies to the god of time. We have lost track of him and because of it mythology has been thrown into confusion. If we could track down and harness this time, then things will become clearer and orderly.

So, who is the god of time? From Greek sources we get the god of time being Chronos and from this we have the modern words such as chronicle, chronology, and chronic. Chronos means an indeterminable portion of time. He can be depicted with wings and also in the pose of Father Time as a wise old man with a long, grey beard. Also, Chronos was imagined as an ethereal god with three heads - a man, a bull and a lion - but serpentine in form. A common alternative name for Chronos was Aeon, eternal time, and this Aeon would be depicted in Greco-Roman mosaics as a man turning a Zodiac Wheel. In this form, he was a youthful god.

Confusing this line of mythology is another Greek Titan god named Cronus who also had a connection to time. This Titan overthrew his father Uranus after castrating him and ruled over earth's Golden Age. ronus was eventually overthrown by his son Zeus and sent to Tartarus. A little side trip to Tartarus now. Tartarus is an abyss below the underworld where the sinners were sent. Keep this point in mind.
From Cicero, De Natura Deorum 2. 24 (trans. Rackham) (Roman rhetorician C1st B.C.) :

"[Khronos and the Titan Kronos are identical in this passage :] By Saturnus [Kronos] again they denoted that being who maintains the course and revolution of the seasons and periods of time, the deity so designated in Greek, for Saturnus’ Greek name is Kronos, which is the same as khronos, a space of time."
http://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Khronos.html

At some point in the classical world there was a conflagration of these two deities with this amalgamation further confusing the concept behind the personification of time. To even further muddy the waters would be the Roman name for the the time god which was in latin Saturnus which we know today as Saturn. Saturnus was an agricultural god that reigned over harvest time. He ruled over the Golden Age and was also connected to the concept of justice. During the time of the winter solstice the Romans would partake in a great seven day festival known as the Saturnalia. More on the Saturnalia later. If that didn't confuse enough we have today the planet Saturn. Saturn was named after the Roman god of time, Saturnus. It is important to remember that the planet Saturn was named after, not because of, the god of time. That concept already existed and was applied to a planet afterwards. You will find numerous well intentioned references in books and on the internet that conflate the mythology of Saturnus with the dim, slow moving planet we call Saturn. You will be told that Saturday was named by the Romans after the planet Saturn - not true - they named it after their god of time, Saturnus. Get this planet out of your head and you can start to make sense of and unravel the whole huge edifice.

Now, time to switch gears. As Plutarch tells us, the story of Osiris and Isis in ancient Egypt is a story of the love of these two as they ruled over an age where all was good and pure in the world. They educated man in the use of agriculture and tamed the barbarian so that mankind could enjoy civilization. This Golden Age or as the ancient Egyptians called it, Zep Tepi (The First Time), ended upon the death of Osiris at the hands of his jealous brother Set.

Isis revives Osiris long enough to be impregnated by his seed and from this union she gives birth to Horus. Among other allusions to the dying and resurrected god man Osiris, the ancient Egyptians would see this aspect of Osiris in the the cyclical vegetation cycle where a seed (Osiris) is buried in the earth (Isis) at the end of the previous threshing season and from this is born the fruit in the following growing season. Inside the tomb of Tutankhamun was found seeded dirt or corn mummies in the shape of Osiris that would germinate in the darkness to help with Tutankhamun's resurrection.

"...Effigies made of vegetable mould and stuffed with corn were buried in graves or placed between the legs of mummies. In a representation at Philae we see the dead body of Osiris with stalks of corn springing from it, watered by a priest. There is an inscription: 'This is the form of him whom one may not name, Osiris of the mysteries, who springs from the returning waters.' A religion then of the earth and its fertility; but at the same time, a promise of resurrection for the dead."
John Ferguson, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Mysticism and the Mystery Religions

The foregoing survey of the myth and ritual of Osiris may suffice to prove that in one of his aspects the god was a personification of the corn, which may be said to die and come to life again every year. Through all the pomp and glamour with which in later times the priests had invested his worship, the conception of him as the corn-god comes clearly out in the festival of his death and resurrection, which was celebrated in the month of Khoiak and at a later period in the month of Athyr. That festival appears to have been essentially a festival of sowing, which properly fell at the time when the husbandman actually committed the seed to the earth. On that occasion an effigy of the corn-god, moulded of earth and corn, was buried with funeral rites in the ground in order that, dying there, he might come to life again with the new crops. The ceremony was, in fact, a charm to ensure the growth of the corn by sympathetic magic, and we may conjecture that as such it was practised in a simple form by every Egyptian farmer on his fields long before it was adopted and transfigured by the priests in the stately ritual of the temple.
The Golden Bough, Sir James George Frazier, pages 377-378.

From the representations we have of the more public Mysteries, it can be concluded that their fundamental theme is that of the permanence of life, even in face of the death inherent in every creature: there is no ultimate death, but only changes of state throughout an ever-renewing genesis from seed to the fruit which is the new seed. When the king himself cut the sheaves with his golden sickle in the harvest season it represented the death of Osiris. The threshing evokes his dismemberment by Seth, while the sowing is his entombment, and at the same time the posthumous fecundation of Isis (the earth) by Osiris (the grain).
Egyptian Mysteries - New light on ancient knowledge, Lucie Lamy, page 86.

Keep in mind that by corn what is meant in modern day parlance is grain.

A symbol of the latent reconstituted Osiris is the Djed pillar.

Osiris as the Djed pillar speaks of the permanence of the soul. It can be torn asunder, scattered but not destroyed. It is eternal. The fourfold nature of the pillar also symbolizes Osiris' dominion over the four corners of the earth. As we can see, Osiris is an agricultural deity as well as a symbol of permanence all in addition to his celestial role as Orion.

From the book Gods and Men in Egypt, we can get a better understanding of Osiris' role as a time god:

 
But we know otherwise that the theologians made an immense effort to make of Re and Osiris two indissociable aspects of the divine, representing the course of the sun in its diurnal and nocturnal aspects, symbolizing yesterday and tomorrow. Neheh and djet are thus con-substantially associated. This double aspect is summarized with great concision in two complex but extremely evocative signs that were used in the Ptolemaic texts. The sun disk, appearing in the horizon and containing a falcon, an image of the sun god, represents neheh, while a serpent wrapped around a mummy, or better still, around Osiris himself, served to write djet, the prototype of the ouroboros. Time, in its form of neheh and djet, time that cannot be quantified, which is counted indefinitely in millions and millions, nevertheless had a beginning and undoubtedly an end.
Gods and Men in Egypt, by Françoise Dunand and Christiane Zivie-Coche, page 70.

Once again, we see the concept of the serpent associated with the time god, this time with Osiris and his role as an eternal god of time.

In the Pyramid Texts, Osiris is described as a time god:

Utterance 577
1520a. To say: Osiris dawns, pure, mighty; high, lord of truth
1520b. on the first of the year; lord of the year.

Okay, let's start making some connections: from Richard Hinckley Allen's book, Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning we get this from his chapter on the constellation of Orion:

 
Saturnus has been another title, but its connection here I cannot learn, although I hazard the guess that as this divinity was the sun-god of the Phoenicians, his name might naturally be used for Uruanna-Orion, the sun-god of the Akkadians.
Richard Hinckley Allen, Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning (New York: Dover Publications, 1963), page 308.

...Cronos had a Latin counterpart, Saturn, whose name probably came from that of an Etruscan god but is traditionally supposed to come from the verb 'serere', to sow. This folk etymology is worth taking seriously, simply because those who took over the worship of Saturn did so. It then becomes clear that we inherit the notion of time as both reaper and sower, which makes Cronos the god of harvest.
Hamlet's Mill, Santillana and von Dechend, page 332.

Saturnus was so named because the completed act of sowing in latin is "satus." Eusebius of Caesarea, known as the "Father of Church History" has claimed that El, which is used as a name for God in the Old Testament, was also the name for Saturn or the Greek Cronus. This he got from reading Philo of Byblos, a Greek writer who gives an account of this El in a tract called Sanchuniathon. In this account, the Phoenician El is the son of the sky and earth, which is the parentage of Egypt's Osiris with the difference here being the sky is male and the earth female. Osiris' mother was the sky goddess Nut and his father the earth god Geb. El attacks his father sky with a sickle and castrates him to in order to force the sky and earth to remain apart so life could flourish. To appease his father sky, El offers his only begotten son as a burnt offering and circumcises himself.

Many ancient sources do compare Saturnus to the sun. In Babylonian astrological texts Saturnus is referred to as shamash - the sun. In Chaldean astronomy Saturnus was called alap-shamas - the star of the sun. Phaenon was a word used by the Greeks for Saturnus which means "the shining one". These appellations have confused scholars for years because they have never made the connection of Saturnus to Orion but held to the beliefs it referred to the planet Saturn. Staring them right in the face is the Roman festival called the Saturnalia, a seven day festival for Saturnus that ended with the birth of the new sun at the winter solstice. This false dichotomy spawned many incorrect assumptions that at some point in our ancient past the planet Saturn must have been as bright as the sun. It is strange to me that no one has ever bothered to look into the ancient Egyptian texts that clearly state that Osiris is the nocturnal sun.

 
The body of Osiris also played an important role in some of the New Kingdom Underworld Books. In the darkest hour of the night, the soul of the sun god Ra reached the cave where the body lay and became one with the soul of Osiris. This allowed Osiris and all the dead to awake and live again.
Egyptian Mythology, Geraldine Pinch, page 179.

A complex and particularly important relationship existed between Osiris and the sun god Re. Although Osiris was incorporated into the Heliopolitan theological system at a relatively early date, the god continued to grow in importance and by New Kingdom times his stature as an independent god was considerable; as is seen in titles which were applied to him such as 'lord of the universe', 'ruler of eternity' and 'king of the gods'. Osiris' position became, in fact, comparable to that of the sun god himself. He came to be regarded not only as the counterpart of Re in the netherworld, but also in some cases as the sun god's own body - so that Osiris and Re came to be considered as representing the body and soul, respectively, of a single great god. The solar cycle was thus imagined as the ba of Re descending into the underworld to unite with Osiris as his own corpse.
The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, Richard H. Wilkinson, page 120.

As I have mentioned many times before, Orion is the constellation that represents Osiris. Richard Hinckley Allen claims Saturnus is an appellation for Orion but he does not know why. If he was still alive I would personally tell him.

Alright, now that we have made the connection of Osiris to Cronus to Saturnus to El and by inference Orion, I'd like to add in a few more bits of knowledge that will give you pause for thought. The god of time's day is Saturday and it is the seventh day of the week. Here is Cronos as Saturday:

http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/Z50.1G.html

Saturnus always had a snake wrapped around its body seven times and sometimes you see the signs of the zodiac in the spaces between the snakes coils. Orion's belt in antiquity was known as the L or Ell.
Seamen have called it the Golden Yard-arm; tradesmen, the L, or Ell, the Ell and Yard, the Yard-stick, and the Yard-wand…
Richard Hinckley Allen, Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning (New York: Dover Publications, 1963), page 316.

It has been said dead men don't lie but also it seems the stars don't lie either. The ancient semitic Phoenicians called their great god El and we know this was Orion. We find Orion in the bible as Nimrod:

 
Later on the Jews called Orion Gibbōr, the Giant, considered as Nimrod bound to the sky for rebellion against Jehovah.
Richard Hinckley Allen, Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning (New York: Dover Publications, 1963), page 309.

The belt of the giant in the sky, el Jabbar, is replicated on the Gizah plateau as the three great pyramids. The celestial Orion as Osiris.

Next blog will start looking for this time god in unexpected places.