Egyptian Temple Meditation
Perform your normal pre-meditation relaxation.
Imagine that you have just awakened, very early in the morning, too
early to get up. You've been dreaming about ancient egypt,and you are
lying there in that dreamy state between wakefulness and sleep when
images are both fluid and clear, thinking that if you had a time a
machine you'd set it for 2500 BC and visit that mysterious land.
You open one eye to check the clock and observe, without concern, that
it is slowly dissolving and disappearing. As you reach for the lamp, you
are somehow pleased to discover that it too is softly vanishing.
So it is with everything in your room that is served by electricity,
until after a few moments, even the outlets vanish from the walls.
Proceeding more slowly, another disappearance has been accomplished at
the same time, as all the synthetic materials in the room have been left
behind in what was, a few moments ago, the present. A plastic water
bottle, or a flower pot -- floor covering, maybe a picture frame?,
Cotton-poly sheets have turned to a fluff of fibers, and what about your
sleep wear? No matter - perhaps it's all a dream, and the air is so
pleasantly warm, and fragrant.
The fact that the glass from the window is gone seems just right. And a
milled door frame isn't really necessary when there's no door. The
synthetics are long gone, and all that is manufactured fades from the
room. As you drift back to deeper sleep the process continues outside of
your awareness- dry wall and 2 by 4s give way sun dried mud brick - roof
shingles or tiles become palm thatch - bed frame and wire springs become
an earthen platform and a cowhide over fresh straw.
A warm breeze across your bare skin awakens you. The air always stirs
just before dawn. You think to yourself - "the temperature must be about
75" but as soon as you think it, it seems to have no meaning. Arising
you walk naked into the greenish light of predawn, stretch, walk the 30
paces to a clump of shrubby sycamores and relieve yourself. Back past
the house, and from there, the distance of a strong man's throw brings
you to the place where you bathe. And you note that today the water's
edge is more than a hand's breadth lower than it was the day before.
You stand facing east, with the river before you as the horizon fills
with the power of the sun. As the green air turns to gold the heat
pushes forward from the east like the bow wake of a boat or the wind
from the wings of a great bird.
As red as the head of a birthing child the disk emerges from what was
the night - until, whiter than a beam of light reflected from a falcon's
eye, it blazes across the water, the air becomes as hot as blood, and
all bow down before the sun.
Returning to your house, you eat some dates, and what , in your other
life, might have served as crackers, drink water and choose the better
of your two linen garments. You work a coarse comb through your hair and
wrap the length of sun bleached linen around you, tucking an amulet made
for today, into the folds.
Entrusting your cow and ducks to the gods you start west along a dry
path with the sun on the back of your head. Shortly you join a road that
goes north, baking in the heat as it seems to float above the great
muddy squares of irrigated fields. The higher the sun rises, the heavier
the silence and the stillness of the air.
Once the road took you across a canal, where there were palm trees and
perseas and sycamores, and they were filled with noisy birds. Spotted
cows grunted at their calves in the shade. You had a drink of water
there. But now, with the white eye of the sun burning at it's zenith you
walk alone in the open, through heat-woven air, crackling, crystalline
dirt beneath your feet, hypnotized by the day.
When finally you raise your eyes from the road, the temple consumes your
field of vision.
Momentum carries you inside, in spite of the sudden awe you feel.
Directly overhead the sun beams down among the gigantic columns.
Alternating deep shadow and brilliant light confuse your senses, as do
the unfamiliar smells. To encircle one of the columns would require the
arms of several grown men. To see the white sky above requires the full
bending back of one's head. To feel the presence of the neters requires
only that one be here.
As your senses adjust, and you proceed, you attempt to absorb the images
carved and painted on the walls. Kings, crowned with snakes, make
offerings to gods with heads of birds. Gods in white skirts receive
praise from baboons. A cat takes a knife to a serpent. The sun rides on
a heron's head. Your spirit is drawn into the mysterious harmonies of
proportion, to a place beyond the reach of reason.
Ahead, at the far end of the temple precinct, lies a darker place. Deep
within the forest of columns is a small room, roofed and and sealed with
a pair of great doors covered in gold. It is time for you to enter the
sanctuary. Odor's of myrrh and burnt meat weigh in the air. The only
sound is the stiff rustle of the priests' linen as they open the doors,
as if they have been waiting for you, and ceremoniously, leave.
Within, a tiny window high above admits a narrow portion of sunlight,
which, it seems to you, spreads across the pure white sand of the floor
like an altar cloth, unfolding in its purity, drawing your eye and soul
to the living image of the neter who has been in your thoughts since the
moon was new. Gaze upon the living image before you, ask what you will
and listen with your heart.
(PAUSE)
Take the amulet from the folds of your garment, and giving thanks, make
of it an offering.
(PAUSE)
When you are finished, leave the sanctuary, not looking back, but
hearing the priests close the great doors and commence their evening
chants of praise. Pass among the columns, where only deep and deeper
shadows now remain.
Coming onto the road, you note the sun is low in the west, and are
grateful that the heat of the day has passed. Walking south you pass the
canal, where birds chase the insects of evening and sing a quieter song.
Along the raised road, past the fields, black in the dusk, you arrive at
the path to your house, and turn east, toward the great living river.
It's been a long day. You loosen the linen from around your body and
think of food. No need for a fire - a pomegranate, some bread and a bit
of warm beer will do tonight. Settle down, and slowly allow the present
to return around you, hearing perhaps, the sound of traffic going by,
the hum of electric appliances, but keeping with you the message of the
neter.... and when you are ready, open your eyes.
Author Unknown