Quantum Planet Tribe

This one is both personal and long, so I’m not sure that it will be so relevant for other people, but I hope it can be entertaining rather than draining at least.

—

The first time I received a healing session with the one I would come to call my spiritually gifted friend, she connected me to birds. As she worked her way through my chakras, there seemed to be a bird present in almost every one of them. A bird was watching me from a branch in the tree that I rested my back against in my root chakra. In my sacral chakra there was a tall fire reaching for the heavens, and my friend saw me moving in the clouds high above. A flock of birds flew across the huge orange sun of my solar plexus, and I grew feathers and wings and joined them. My feathers had turned green while dancing in the vortex of my heart chakra, and blue tropical birds were making a racket in my throat chakra. In my crown chakra, my friend saw me sitting on a throne that had carvings of birds on it.

After the session she had asked me; do you have any specific connection to birds? It almost felt to me like you are a bird.

I don’t know, I said. I like birds as much as I like all animals.

—

But birds are special in the way they bring perspective, by their movement, flight and vision. Birds are messengers. They have come to symbolise information, communication, knowledge. Maybe even language itself if you’d agree with the podcast ”the Emerald” and the episode on birds (it’s lengthy and poetic and worth it like all of his episodes are). According to him, the bird often symbolises the shamanic ascent to the heavenly realms.

—

Astrology wise, I’m a Cancer sun with a grand trine in water, but my ascendant is in Sagittarius and my north node is in Gemini. The nodal axis of Sagittarius-Gemini brings a focus on seeking truth (Sagittarius), communication (Gemini) and the integration and dissemination of knowledge (both) in my natal chart. I could see the mercurial theme there, the messenger theme. The mutable, moving energy. The energy of the arrow from the bow of the centaur that is Sagittarius, an energy that is going somewhere, that flies, strives upwards. Crossing the expanses before settling on a specific, particular place hopefully.  Like a bird.

Earlier this spring when I started delving more into Mayan time and magic (thanks to Bella of course), and I learned that my mayan glyph was the Blue Lunar Night, and the Blue Eagle is my guiding power. I’m born in the wave spell of the White Wind, which is the wave spell of truth and communication.

—

At one point before the end of last year an image of the Ibis-headed Egyptian god Thoth randomly made its way into my Facebook-feed. With a god associated with knowledge, wisdom and truth, a clear connection to the written word (as the one who invented the hieroglyphs according to the myth) and to birds, I paid attention.

After references to Ancient Egypt started showing up left and right, I ended up taking a class in hieroglyphics, which also opened up to Egyptian cosmology, and that’s basically all I’ve been going on about since then (sorry). I was mostly into plants before, I swear!

—

When I started getting to know my spiritually gifted friend, I also began thinking about the meaning of names. My friend’s full name is very connected to her energy and different aspects of her spiritual gifts and what she can do in the world. For the sake of her integrity I will only tell you one of them, which is Elysia. It was fascinating to me, almost to the point of being ridiculous, that someone who journeys into other realms on the daily like a spiritual midwife or wayshower, would be named after the Elysian fields, an Ancient Greek concept of the afterlife for the blessed. When I started learning about the Mayan calendar I also found out that she was born in the wave spell of Cimi, the White Worldbridger, whose power is death.

My own name, Sanna, seemed simple and devoid of meaning in comparison. ”What does Sanna mean in your language?” my friend had asked me at one point.

-The name Sanna is derived from another language, I think Hebrew or Latin, and it doesn’t mean anything specific in Swedish. The name ”Sanna” does sound like the Swedish word for ”to be true” though. There’s a common saying ”sanna mina ord”, meaning ”true be my words” (similar to ”mark my words”). But that is not what it formally means; I said impassively, forever faithful to the written source.

—

I’ve mentioned this before so this might be a repetition for some, but fast forward to the second or third zoom class in Ancient Egyptian and Hieroglyphics, when our teacher held an exercise with us, mostly for entertainment, where we were supposed to answer whether different words in our own language came from Ancient Egyptian or not. There were the usual contenders of pyramids (Greek), obelisks (Greek), mumies (Persian) and then one photo of a Swedish actress called Suzanne Reuter. Our teacher, sporting the self-satisfied smirk of someone with a really good trick-question, triumphantly told us how Susanne or Susanna were adaptations from the Hebrew name Shoshonna, but that Shoshonna in turn was an adaption of the Egyptian word Seshen  (correctly transcribed [sSn]) which meant ”lotus”, as in the blue or white waterlily that was formally called ”lotus” in Ancient Egypt.

I remember snapping my head up with a new focus, realising that I had heard the (true?) origin of my own name, because Sanna is a Swedish short form for Susanna.

Before I had started my studies in Mayan Time and Magic and Hieroglyphics this spring, I had consulted an oracle deck that I like (the Herbal Astrology Oracle) on what I could expect if I studied them both at the same time. Several times I had received a card called the Blue Lotus.

—

A few weeks ago I had been thinking and writing about the term Merkaba and its association to the Egyptian language, and a fellow tribe member had suggested I read the book The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life by Drunvalo Melchizedek to learn more. Since the Merkaba-thing and the lotus thing (as the lotus often seem to be seen as the physical symbol of the flower of life) are still kind of itching in my skull as something ”to be continued”, I was glad to be able to borrow the book from the library. Not far into the book the author incidentally presents Thoth, who he meets during a meditation.

”The history of the world, especially, came from him. You see, while in Egypt, where he was called the Scribe, he wrote down everything that took place. He was the perfect person for it, right? He was constantly alive, so as a scribe he would just sit there and watch life go by. He was a good impartial witness, as that was a major part of his understanding of wisdom.” p 27

He continues with this paragraph:

”After I had been back from Egypt for three or four months, Thoth came in and said ”I want to see the geometries that were given to you by the angels.” The angels had given me the basic information/geometries of how reality is related to spirit, and the angels had taught me the [Merkaba] meditation I’m going to give you. This meditation was one of the first things Thoth wanted from me. That was the exchange: I received all of his memories and he received the meditation. He wanted the meditation because it was a lot easier than the method he was using. His way of staying alive for 52,000 years was very tenuous- it was like hanging on by a thread. It required him to spend two hours every day in meditation or he would die. […] Then once every fifty years, in order to keep his body regenerated, he had to go into what’s called the Halls of Amenti and sit for ten years or so before the Flower of Life (This is a pure flame of consciousness that resides deep in the womb of the Earth and to which humanity’s level of consciousness  is completely dependent for its very existence. […] (p 28)

—

I had read this part during my morning coffee,  and somehow I felt instantly reminded of a vision that my friend told me she’d had the day before. She had journeyed with the Earth Mother, and it went as follows:

”I am brought to the Earth’s core, our own inner sun. An ocean of molten lava and light. A bird bursts out from under the lava, a fire bird, and flies straight towards me, asking silently, are you ready? The bird swoops around and comes underneath me from behind and I fly in the space between on the firebirds back, massive sparkling clouds of energy everywhere. The bird takes me directly into the core and for a moment my human self worries, but won’t we get burned?

We arrive and all is still. All is black yet illuminated at the same time. But there is no time. There is no space. There is no matter. THIS is the womb of no-thing. The womb of Sophia. This is where we go to see our true selves. No one or no thing to compare or contrast to. Just our essence in this full nakedness. Completely vulnerable, yet impenetrably protected. This is where we go to rejuvenate our cells, our heart, our mind. I have no desire to leave this place. But I know I must. I push my way through the walls of the womb and come out on the other side, fully birthed back into the realm of space, time and matter. The fire bird comes up beneath me once again, flying me back to my correct reality, and puts me on the grass.”

—

You know, I kind of wondered, after having felt so strongly the theme of the return of the goddess, why is Thoth coming up everywhere suddenly? Why do I suddenly see him everywhere, mirroring back to the image of that long slender Ibis beak on that granite stelae amongst all the Season’s greetings before Christmas?

I don’t know if Drunvalo’s view of Thoth is genuine or true or not but I don’t necessarily think that it matters either (if you listen closely you can probably hear the sound of a frustrated Sagittarius rising gnawing their teeth, realizing they will never know for sure). It was interesting to me that Thoth needed to return to the womb space of the world to meditate in front of the ”flower of life” in order to be able to keep his manifestation in this world.

After reading this, I remember having a discussion about the return of the goddess with my spiritually gifted friend. Perhaps, I suggested, the return of the goddess is as much about consciously choosing to see the goddess in ourselves, in the Earth and everything, as welcoming and embracing returning feminine energies from the cosmos. The goddess has always been there for us after all, even when we chose to only value and see the masculine. She still allowed us to come into the playing field of existence even when we denied the fact that without her, there would be no manifestation and there would be no life.

—

And I am reminded again, of the Ancient Egyptians regarded the beginning of creation.

According to the ancient Egyptians ”the primordial unit is water. Water is amorphous but can make all shapes and is therefore a good image to describe the state which precedes the creation of form. In the primordial unit, darkness prevails. That’s the way it must be before the sun has been created. In the darkness everything is invisible and hidden…” (Gertie Englund: Så tänkte de; p 86)

This primordial water is called Nun, the darkness is called Kek and the aspect of being hidden, not revealed (or not manifested perhaps) is called Amon. There’s also a fourth being called Hek and that means something like ”the searching”. ”This last being is important,”, Gertie Englund writes ”because that is the ignition mechanism. The searching can cause a movement which can break the static unity and start the process of differentiation. The primordial unit therefore contains a latent possibility to its own differentiation.”

Gertie Englund mentions a common myth as to how the unmanifested world of the primordial water, full of potentialities and energy that has not been released, turned into the manifested world.

”We can imagine the process such, that there is a ripple on the still surface of the water, and out of the water rises a sandbank. This sandbank, this primordial hill, is nothing but the creator god himself. It is nothing that manifests into something else, the hidden god that shows himself. On the sandbank, there’s an egg and out of the egg, comes a bird that is the creator himself. (p 86, Så tänkte de)

This bird then searches the waters for duality, which then will enable manifestation.

Gertie Englund describes how the Egyptians, not unlike the Mayans; saw how the big cycles were mirrored in the smaller cycles. Now that I think about it, I was fascinated to learn in my hieroglyph class that there are two different words or terms for eternity; there’s the linear eternity that is called Djet (a correct transcription would be dt or [Dt]), that begins at the creation of everything and then just continues on and on, maybe somewhat like the long count; and then there’s the concept neHeH (transcribed correctly [nHH]), which is the circular eternity; that begins again with a new flooding of the Nile or the coronation of a new Pharaoh.

Englund writes:

”The beginning of the new year is analogous to the creation of cosmos from chaos. […] The new year for the agrarian population of Egypt began during the season of the flooding. The flooding of the Nile occurred during the second part of July. During the months before, the produce of the previous year had been harvested, the heat of summer kept rising more and more. The earth was dry and the people and animals were exhausted by the heat. Everything was resting and waiting in a state devoid of energy. Then the floods came and the entire country turned into an ocean, still resting and waiting, hesitant and tired. Here we see the similarities to the state of chaos, a watery state characterised by a lack of energy. When the water finally withdrew to its riverbed, the earth showed up again, like the primordial sandbank out of the water. And on this earth that had received new energy from the life giving water and its nutritious silt, life and activity started again.

—

Then came the morning of the new year when the sun and Sirius rose together on the Eastern horizon. The star of Sirius played an important role, it was associated with the Goddess, the mother of God and was called the life giving. So when the sun and Sirius both showed themselves on the eastern horizon, it showed the union the masculine and feminine maintaining forces. It was a manifestation of the latent forces of creation and through that, the transition from chaos to cosmic order could repeat yet again.

In a different book, Englund describes how Sirius is personified as a goddess called Sopedet, to whom Isis is connected. Orion was associated with Osiris. (Med världen som spegel, p 53)

Thot, on the other hand, was connected to the moon. ”The moon with its phases and predictive cycles was for the Egyptians as for many other peoples, a basis for timekeeping and Thoth who were the representative for knowledge and science in the world of the Gods, was the one who counted time, the time keeper.” […]According to the myth, during one of their perpetual fights, Seth had caught one of the eyes of Horus, which was the moon eye. Seth then crushed the eye and threw away the pieces.”

Thoth then passed by and collected all the pieces but for a tiny one that was still missing. Thankfully he could recreate the little piece thanks to his knowledge in magic, and thus were able to assemble the healed eye of the moon, which was called the wedjat-eye.

”If you add all of the pieces together you find that 1/64 is missing. This myth about the eye of the moon is about Thoth as the god of mathematics and time keeping. Both the moon and the sun were used in the calendar, but 12 moon cycles of 29,53 days are 354,36 days and that’s too short in relation to the solar year of 12 months and 30 days that the Egyptians paid attention to, which is 360 days. It seems like the story of Thoth and the moon eye is about the difference between the solar year and the lunar year, because if you take 1/64 of the months of the solar year (which is 360 days) you end up with 5,63 and if you add that to the twelve moon months of 354,36 days, the lunar year and the solar year end up at the same length. (Med världen som spegel, s 60).

—

The concept about chaos and cosmos, the movement to and from the the earthly world to the  the primordial waters of nun, are also mirrored in funerary situations. The dead ”exists in a dark nightly world that goes all the way to the borders of the primordial chaos. And there by the border between chaos and cosmos, where time and space cease to exist, there he will go through the same renewal as Re does each night and be reborn to a new life. ” (here I think of the description of the ”halls of Amenti” or what my friend saw as the womb space of the Earth)

Englund continues:

Practically all funerary offerings are symbols for that transformation. Let’s bring up one where the symbology is especially obvious, the so-called Nun-bowls. Such bowls were put into the grave during the New Kingdom. The bowl signifies Nun - the primordial water. The water is marked in the base of the bowl by a rectangular pool. Around the pool there are depicted the things that would be in the pool - water plants and fish. There are lotus leaves and lotus flowers. The lotus is important as a symbol for rebirth. The plant lives in the water and all waters are connected to the primordial water Nun. Furthermore, it is told that Lotus flower has the ability to withdraw beneath the surface during the night and resurface in the morning. That is why the sun is told to be born on a lotus flower from the primordial sea. And just like the sun, the dead shall be reborn on a lotus flower.”

—

Just for fun I googled the meaning and origins of my middle name, Maria. Don’t know how legitimate this is, but some sources state that it has roots back to Ancient Rome, where it was connected to the word ”mare”, meaning the sea. Maria would then be understood as being ”of the sea” or ”star of the sea”. Some sources site a greek origin, meaning ”rebellious” and others suggest an even older origin in Ancient Egypt, where it would mean ”the beloved” as connected to the word ”mr” which means love, or to love (and yes. I also find it funny that the ”mer-business” that had me so occupied a month or two ago could potentially be found in my own name).

I just read the Sophia Code by Kaia Ra, and there’s a chapter on Mother Mary who is regarded as an ascended master of the divine feminine. In the chapter she notes that the name Mary came from Ancient Egypt where Mother Mary had a connection to Isis. Mary would then mean [mry Isis], as in ”beloved by Isis”.

Oh yeah, and then there’s the obvious connection to the actual Mother Mary of course, which is why the name became so common in Christian cultures to begin with. This whole ”mother of Christ” thing. I did ask an online origin deck (Isha Lerners cards, they are all charming) on the meaning behind my middle name and received this:

—

The other day I looked through the lists of asteroids on astro.com for fun, and sure enough, there are asteroids with names of Egyptian Gods. Not Thoth (unless you associate him with Quetzalcoatl), but at least Isis, Nut, Hathor, Osiris and Horus. Interestingly, I found Hathor (who’ve been on my mind for most of the summer) conjunct my north node in Gemini, and Osiris tightly conjunct my Cancer sun, suitably placed in my 8th house ruled by Scorpio. Horus is conjunct natal Uranus in my first house Sagittarius.

—

Today when I (yet again) googled to double check the associations of the lotus, I saw that both the lotus and the water lily are considered to be one of the birth flowers of July, which is my birth month. This is getting ridiculous.