Desert Luminosity and an Emerald Nile: Wings of Isis Open on the Road to Nag Hammadi - Neela Bhattacharya Saxena

 

Nile, Nile, O Emerald Nile! You have been flowing north from the heart of Africa for millions of years - sheltering birds, fish, and nurturing other entities in your silky bosom full of Yin energy with unfathomable strength. It was my first admission into the Mother continent where the beauty and grandeur of negritude glows. Egypt/Kemet, the terrain of black earth, is the place where geometry and alchemy were birthed. The Nile transports fertile, black mud from Ethiopia and Lake Victoria to regenerate the land and create the rhythm of life. The soft splashing of this blue green river is heard beyond the twittering of the white egrets that congregate on small islands and trees.

“I have known rivers…I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.” Langston Hughes’ song in “Negro Speaks of Rivers” came truly alive as we traveled upstream on a slow moving dahabiya named Mary Rose. She picked us up in Esna, south of Luxor, and we savored the ancient rhythm of the river for five days before reaching Aswan. Nile feels utterly quiet as evening falls, small boats return home, and the call to prayer is heard from the shore. In Esna, Khnum, one of the oldest deities who presides over the Nile inundation, wears the double feather of Ma’at. The alchemical mysteries these extraordinarily talented people discovered were hidden inside the wings of Isis - an aspect of Ma’at. 

It felt like mere moments before Mother Earth taking the form of a virus sent everyone home to ruminate over our planetary predicament. However, the cosmos has not been sheltering in place. Recently a wonderful traveler from outer space visited us. The last time this celestial visitor rounded the sun and grew a tail was 6766 years ago. To be precise it was 4746 BCE.  Perhaps Neowise, the newly wise comet, is heralding the resurrection of Isis wisdom in us. Wisdom that might have existed from pre-dynastic times in the stone circles of Nabta Playa in the Nubian deserts.

Let us then time travel to Egypt to unite with their magic and The Egyptian Book of the Dead. It is funny that this Western mistranslation is also applied to The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Neither name is accurate. Muata Ashby, a contemporary master of Kemetic secrets, translates the Pert em Heru as The Book of Coming Forth by Day. Ashby shows us that the book is about creation and self-knowledge, and in this Anunian theurgy cosmic consciousness manifests in creation as Ra. In his writing, Ashby uses the original Kemetic names Aset, Asar and Heru instead of the Greek Isis, Osiris, and Horus. The hymns are startlingly like Vedic mantras except that the creator’s form in hieroglyph is Kheperu, the scarab beetle!

On our first day, the pyramids of Giza greeted us just outside the bustling city of Al Qahira. In the middle of a desert expanse, their immense triangular starkness grounded the stony silence of the Sphinx.  Our corporeal presence in that land perturbed me and shook my sense of reality. Perhaps it was just jetlag, or the dawn of a new decade, or seeing them in person on the first day of 2020. I felt an uncanny sensation. By the time we reached the massive Red Pyramid in the Dahshur necropolis, I was too light-headed to consider entering the depth of its belly. The whirlwind day included numerous pyramids and temples in Giza, Saqqara, Dahshur, and Memphis. The magic was just beginning.

The pyramids that fearlessly challenged time were barely the tip of the iceberg. In Memphis, the city between Upper and Lower Egypt, a colossal and exquisitely carved sculpture of Ramses II greeted us. Found in the ruins of Memphis, it captures the overwhelming monumentality and serpent power of a civilization that reveals the depth of human capacities. Ancient Egypt was one of those spots where people responded to the message of transmutation that Kemetic Thoth, or Hermes Trismegistus in his Greek avatar, uttered. The wisdom of Ma’at, the double winged deity, who upholds the cosmic order, was at the heart of this civilization and its vast, temporal landscape. The serpent power known as Arat Shekhem was worn as the asp on the crown of the gods and its energy powered kings who represented the indomitable human wayfarer. 

When the divine serpents ascended from the depth dimensions of the earth, they revealed themselves to those who could hear their voice. When I came across the notion of the feather as the symbol of Ma’at in Muata Ashby’s works I was reminded of the feathered serpent of the Mayan pyramids. His Introduction to Maat Philosophy also describes two intertwined truths that are striking and the staple of shamanic and life affirming philosophies. Those aspects of Ma’at are Aset/Isis (light)-wife of Osiris and mother of Horus, and Nebthet (dark)- wife of Set, and mother of Anubis. They balance the duality of Heru and Set in our being as symbolized by the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.

The animal essence of the entire landscape of ancient Kemet was palpable. The gods were in zoomorphic forms, and Heru/Horus, the falcon, was omnipresent. The philosophy and methodology of Kemetic transcendence is known as the philosophy of Osiris or Ausar.  I was amazed that we ended up in temples dedicated to the practice of these esoteric deities in Edfu, Dendara, Philae, Abu Simbel, and most strikingly in Abydos. As a writer and teacher, I empathize with the scribes who spent days and nights writing on walls, tablets, and sarcophagi. Those hieroglyphs remain preserved across time and space. This now nose-less, smoothly carved, straight backed yogi figure’s half-smile expresses satisfaction in a job well done. After all, he represents Thoth, the divine scribe and inventor of writing.

In Luxor, a young Coptic woman guided us to an extraordinary temple where the color of the desert sparkled. We had seen numerous depictions of pharaohs with their arms crossed to represent Osiris’s journey to the underworld, but Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s story was the most compelling. Her name would have been erased by Amenhotep II, the son of her stepson Thutmose III. Amenhotep assumed her accomplishments and attempted to erase her from the walls of her magnificent temple. The gods intervened. She was tenderly protected by the goddess Hathor and her divine father Amun Ra. Beyond her temple, one can see the fortification of Madinat Habu and magnificent ruins of Ramesseum that inspired Shelley to write Ozymandias. Fallen or not, for Ashby, “the king” represents the aspiring human being on the royal road awaking to the magic of Maati.

We must close our mortal eyes so that the eye of Horus can show us the dimly lit path to the inner sanctum. There are no deities good or evil that are cast aside in the land of Thoth/Hermes. Set was the antagonist in the tale of Asar but later you see Horus himself has the head of Set. Ashby goes into details about the methodologies that he describes as Egyptian Yoga and Tantra or Sema Tawi and shows that Heru and his nemesis Set were a part of the same dialectic. They signify the union of two lands with the higher Horus representing the positive aspects of the self and the lower Set, the negative. The word Sema reminds me of Sufi Sama, that musical tuning of the soul so that we can be in harmony with our human and cosmic others. The Arabic word Dua or prayer also has its origin in this ancient language, in the adoration of Ra. 

Our Egyptian guides told us numerous tales of painted and sculpted gods. My origins in circular Indic mythologies triggered a kind of startled re-cognition when presented with these entangled stories. Looking for the Ur deity, the ultimate truth, is never ending; only when we give up the search, will a numinous darkness envelop us. Arising from that deep absorption of samadhi, one wakes up as Heru (Horus) who can dance with Hetheru (Hathor). It makes so much sense that crypt after crypt, wall after wall, those magnificent temples have such dense designs that no intellect can fully decipher them. Hathor the Cow Goddess of love, music and magic is needed to experience that sensational realization. Although Hathor shows up everywhere, her temple in Dendara, built at the end of the pharaonic period, was superb. 

Many guides hinted at the Hermetically sealed parts of our own being that the Egypt within can open only when the Egypt without is present. Our three-hour drive through the Western Desert, periodically escorted by armed police, to the ancient pilgrimage spot of Abydos felt like visiting a shakti peeth of India. I was thrilled to see the road sign that pointed toward Nag Hammadi - my current “academic” gnostic obsession with the hidden gospels. This temple is also about divine body parts and about dissolution, according to Ashby. Osiris’s story, although varied, is well known. The god of fertility and the dead is dismembered by his jealous brother Set. Osiris’s head was supposed to have fallen in Abydos by the mystical pool of Osireion. 

Just before reaching Aswan we visited the temple of Sobek, the crocodile god. Some say it was a crocodile that ate Osiris’s phallus. The generative power of Osiris’s story engages the plant and animal worlds. To replace the consumed phallus, Isis fashioned a symbolic one with corn shafts to re-generate the cosmos. Djed, the pillar of Asar, contained his body and became the symbol Ankh that is represented in the Kemetic Tree of Life. Aset/Isis then initiated another cycle of creation. In numerous figures her great wings protect her family. The most remarkable, but unsurprising fact, that I learned from Ashby is that the quintessential symbol of initiation in the mystery of Ausar is Isis nursing the young king! In this beautiful figure in Abydos, the young pharaoh receives that nourishing initiation from the Great Mother. 

During Osiris’s regeneration she hovers over his body in the form of a bird. Perhaps the dove/Holy Spirit finds its origins in these images. It is possible to envision intertwining Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tales in ancient Egyptian lore. In 535 CE the Byzantine Emperor Justinian abolished the worship of Isis in her temple on the island of Philae. She arose again in the guise of the Virgin holding the Christ Child. The beloved image of Notre Dame is fashioned after Isis with Horus at her breast. The Kabbalistic Tree of Life resembles the Egyptian one, and Moses walked like an Egyptian. He was a prince of Egypt, and it is fitting that monotheist faiths find their urgrund in Akhenaton's Kemet – something that Freud intuited in his Moses and Monotheism.

Gebel Silsila where the stones for Karnak and Luxor were quarried introduced us to the scale of the Egyptian undertaking. No civilization made dying into such a meticulous art and science. They left the elaborate details in the tombs of the kings, queens, and their subjects. Decoding those details was a challenging enterprise that was partially solved by the Rosetta Stone. Entering the tombs of the workers near the Valley of the Kings was probably the most amazing experience after seeing all the wonders of Karnak and Luxor temples. Workers like Sennutem built their tombs next to their well-organized village.  They had the same gorgeous carvings that they created for the pharaohs, but at a smaller, more human scale. 

Regardless of social rank, everyone’s heart was weighed by Anubis - Guardian of the Scales. If the heart was lighter than a feather, then that person’s name was written into eternity. This is an idea worth all the treasures found in these valleys. Ashby assures us that the tale is not just about life after death, but the art and science of living with the intuitive wisdom of dissolution. The ritual of weighing one’s heart against the feather of Ma’at, or truth, is so profoundly beautiful that we may miss it. Fortunately, I had heard Zen master Alan Watts explain it in one of his lectures full of crazy laughter. 

The idea is simple. Your heart must not be burdened with anything whatsoever, guilt, regret, cravings, resentment, or you cannot cross to the other side. If the heart were heavier than Ma’at, it would be consumed by Ammit. One must live unperturbed like a seafarer on the boat of Ra, at the “still center of the turning world.” Boat rituals were an integral part of Kemetic religion. Many temple ceilings depicted the colossal boat that climbs on its daily journey symbolizing the incessant rhythm of life and death. Nut, the sky goddess of the starry heavens, holds that path. She is separated from her embrace of Geb, the earth god, who lies beneath her. Egypt depicts one of the few instances where earth is male and sky female - the parents of Osiris and Isis.

The magnificence of the stones that glimmer with stories can be awe inspiring art or simple tales of old. Those who are not privy to the mystery and are unconsciously enmeshed in the certainty of their “true religion” or un-religion call the rites of Isis a cult. However, the root word relates to culture or acculturation or cultivation and agriculture. Rituals create human culture. Rites connect us to rta and spanda - the pulsating rhythm of the cosmos. In the Nubian Museum we saw a gorgeous sculpture of a woman marked as a daughter, perhaps a priestess. Her extraordinary demeanor of rooted dignity was irresistible.

Cultures divinize our ordinary life and create sacred symbols. Where would we be if the Great Mother did not grow wheat and rice and prepare them for our nourishment. But we forgot her delicate balance in our rationalizing hubris. Demeter was the Great Mother in Greece. The Olympians tried to subdue her by kidnapping her daughter to their peril. While time traveling to ancient Kemet, we were nourished by the most delicious breads baked in beautiful clay ovens by hijab clad women. I know some of the magic of Isis rites and her serpent power remains hidden in today’s belly dancing. Unfortunately, this art is now sold to the global consumer gaze. But things are changing as some women are reclaiming their rights/rites.

Heraclitus and the Buddha knew that everything flows and that everything changes. Gate gate, su gate, para gate, para samgate bodhi swaha. Gone, well gone, gone beyond, gone even beyond that. But then it also returns like the tide of the ocean changing its form as the performance continues. Other travelers arrive to see mind-boggling colors and carvings. New gods attempt to erase old ones; evidence of that failed effort can be seen on the defaced deities. An especially painful example of early Christian vandalism was where the Mother, initiating pharaoh to her dual mystery with her milk, had her face gouged out. But this had a strange effect on me, that of creating the face of a Black Madonna. I also remembered that Mary Magdalene, who might have been a priestess of Isis, was also deliberately erased from her apostolic space. The feminine cannot be erased without severe repercussions to the psyche.

New churches and mosques were built on top of ancient temples that were hidden by the sands of time. Similarly, modernity, in the form of the Aswan Dam, would have engulfed the temples of Abu Simbel. Global efforts recreated the space and moved the temples above the rising waters of Lake Nasser.  Ramses II built these temples in Upper Egypt on the edge of Nubia to commemorate his victory at the Battle of Kadesh in the 13^th century BCE. Ashby in his virtual teachings takes his students on Osirian rites that took place at Abu Simbel to help the human soul leap beyond death. When we reached the almost empty complex, we had been traveling for over two weeks in the land of the fabled Pharaoh. The crowds had left, and we were among a small group of people who saw the moon rise over Lake Nasser. Then the light and sound show transported us to a spectral reality.

It was time to take the road back through the Sahara to the beautiful city of Aswan. There we would see the rescued Temple of Isis, an exquisite Nubian museum, a botanical garden, Elephantine Island (Ramses’s gift to Nefertiri), and a grand Coptic cathedral that needed protection by a military tank. Coptic people are a link between the ancient rites and later religions. We could not leave Kemet without paying our respect to the serpent staff and the burning bush of Moses; after all the rites of monotheism too originated in Egypt. On our second day we had visited Coptic Cairo that hid the footprints of a famous refugee family, Joseph and Mary with their baby, and a 4^th century BCE synagogue whose holy grounds felt the footsteps of Moses. Cairo also contained the first mosque built in Africa and more recent grand mosques that are architectural marvels - resounding with deep devotion when the call to prayer is heard. After Aswan we were off to the Red Sea and Mount Sinai via Sharm-El-Sheikh.

I am the Mother, the Child, and the Holy Spirit whispered a voice to me in the breathtaking silence where Nabi Moussa found Shekinah while his brother Nabi Haroun waited below. Somehow, we had arrived at one of the holiest sites in the religions of Ibrahim. Kind camels brought us most of the way up Mount Sinai, but there were still 750 steep and icy steps to the top. Our young Bedouin guide patiently waited as we gasped our way up. The days of wandering by the chosen people now held a different meaning. The masjid was open for sajda, but the church was locked. Vigilant Sekhmet cats were everywhere and a dog, like a white Anubis, guarded the shrines at the summit.

We made our way slowly down the mountain as the evening tranquility descended upon the valley. Saint Catherine’s monastery beckoned, and Sheikh Mousa’s Bedouin camp promised food and a place to sleep. On our way down a fellow traveler made the sign of one hand clapping, a Zen greeting, and our recognizable faces were greeted with joyful exclamations: Hindi, India and namaste. When we arrived at the Bedouin tent there was a campfire and company. I made friends with three magic women. There was no disparity, religious or otherwise, only elemental nature, animals, human laughter, and wordless gratitude for being alive.  

The Monastery of St Catherine contained fascinating secrets, both scholarly and mystic. At its heart it is dedicated to two women. Patriarchal systems do not like women who dare to tread beyond prescribed boundaries asking fundamental questions. Two extraordinary women were brutally killed in Alexandria: the philosopher Hypatia in the name of Christianity and St Catherine in the name of paganism. Both women are virtually indistinguishable except for their supposedly opposing beliefs. It is possible that they are the same person. 

Most religions and their academic study are dominated by men, but the Hermetic and transformative aspects of every tradition are only accessible via the feminine. The feminine cannot be contained by any commandment; however, she can be intuited by profound humility and indomitable courage. It was fitting that we accompanied three rebel women to pay our respect to St Catherine where we beheld the light falling on the burning bush that believers venerate.

At the camp, we first heard about a virus originating in China. We packed our bags one more time stopping in Dahab on the Red Sea and then returning to Cairo and home. Flying over the Red Sea and the Nile left a strange pang in my heart. It was great, good fortune to see a portion of this land and meet its gentle and kind men and women. However, its recent history has been raw and tumultuous. I had enthusiastically assigned the Arab Spring in my class while it was happening in 2010. Now things are eerily quiet. Travelers come and go, but the people must find better ways of being without suffocating power structures. While the world suffers from Mother Earth’s time out, perhaps human beings will find their lost Osirian heads and reconnect with the sheltering wisdom under the outstretched wings of Isis.