8 September (Spirit) Liber LXV, 5:64
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64. They are gathered together into a glowing heart, as Ra that gathereth his clouds about Him at eventide into a molten sea of Joy; and the snake that is the crown of Ra bindeth them about with the golden girdle of the death-kisses.
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Meditating on this verse took me places:
- The group. A promise for the future. One of us. Etc.
- The individual. All of the diverse thoughts are gathered together for one bloody wonderful purpose that beats with one's lifes blood, thoughts and deeds, and is crowned with supernal knowledge and understanding.
- Sex. Heart = blood pumping = glowing = pulsing = penis. Crown that bindeth them = golden girdle = snake = vagina. Snakes aren't normally this metaphor... but that's where the imagery (of a snake with it's talk in it's mouth wrapped around a glowing heart) took me - one wonderfully erotic coupling.
64 = golden waters (seems very appropriate), Sphere of Venus (golden girdle), Justice. Din and Doni - can't see how they fit.
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64. They are gathered together into a glowing heart, as Ra that gathereth his clouds about Him at eventide into a molten sea of Joy; and the snake that is the crown of Ra bindeth them about with the golden girdle of the death-kisses.
I have this very beautiful coffee table book of the Gods of the Egyptians full of many beautiful illustrations. The text has problems. It's well written and there is some basis in real scholarship for every assertion, but it fails to relate how different theological ideas were current at different times, and for different classes of the society. So we get this unified idea of the Egyptian religion as if it was a stable, unchanging doctrine lasting for many thousands of years, which of course is just wrong.
Still, there is one idea in the book that I always found quite moving and worthy of meditation, even if it cannot be a full representation of the heart of their mythology in all times and places. It's the idea that only two gods will survive the demise of the universe—everything else is subject to the laws of nature, will grow old, and eventually die.
These two gods are Amoun and Osiris. What I like about this concept is how easily it fits into the Adonai and Master relationship, potent in LXV. Amoun as the first is the secret soul of all things, even the monsters of the pit like Apep. And Osiris is the soul of man, perfected and made rich by its travels through many incarnations, as well as by identifications with all the other gods. At the close, when Adonai/Amoun withdraws him/herself beyond the veils of manifestation, he/she will take this other god with him/her.
The text feels like this, like the withdrawal of the sun sphere for the last time—the ultimate initiation into Tiphareth.
Now that's love...
Love and Will