Hymn To RA

The truth of what we call our knowing is both light and dark. Men are always dying and waking. The rhythm between we call life. In the night I turn and face myself, the many howling, laughing, pausing in the body of one. Some miracle is about to happen. Some new man unseen wishes to rise and speak. I walk in the dark feeling darkness on my skin. Dawn always begins in the bones. The light stirs me to rise and walk. Lightly I step around the sleeping forms, the bodies of the other selves still dreaming. Nothing has disturbed my inner quiet. I am restless, an animal sniffing the wind. The shape of truth is coming.

Death matters, as does life. As it ends it begins again. Knowing that is both my comfort and fear. Perfection is a long road; I shall never see its end -- the ribbon of life winds back on itself. At dawn the threads of time unfurl, sunlight streams across the sands. Time reaches in both directions, knotted in the golden orb of the moment. The eye opens, the navel yawns and takes the world in its belly. Beneath him the snake feels the movement of earth. Everything else is sky. This moment is eternity.

The light I call genius, noble being conversant with gods. He goes out, hears the hum of the world, beings of light muttering in every stream. In every rock and tree he hears god songs. Then he returns and tells me what god said. I flow like blood from the god's wounds. I am the god's life made visible. I am how god comes to know himself, his ears, his hands, his eyes. The dreaming selves stir in the dark and follow the distant song of the lyre. We enter grace and beauty. I am Osiris shining.

From Awakening Osiris circa 1600 BCE/Translated from the Egyptian by Normandi Ellis. Pub. in Changing Light ed. by J. Ruth Gendler.

I love this ancient discussion of dreaming. I'm often amazed at the things that my dreams tell me. Lately, I've been working with a conception of the self based upon Feri teaching; one part that I've found difficult to work with is the notion of our godself (called in Feri The Sacred Dove) as a light existing just above our physical, sticky, and ethereal self. Last night, I dreamed that I was in bed talking to a very kind, helpful person through a circular disk in the ceiling just above my bed. I was investing a lot of energy in making sure that my (now long-dead, but, of course, still alive and threatening in dreamtime) mother didn't learn about this source of aid and encouragement. I woke up going, "What was that about?" Miss Thing came up to me as I was pouring myself a cup of tea in the bright Autumn sunlight and brushed against my leg. It's often her way of saying, "Cripes. I feel so sorry for you that I'm going to just give you a clue. Oh, shit, look, here's the message, OK?" Because she's a cat, it takes just a brush against my leg and a flick of her tail for her to do this. Oh. Yeah. Now I get it.

Sometimes I believe that my main purpose in life is to laugh at myself and how difficult I can make things for me.