I wrote this meditation to complete a class I gave on ancient egyptian religion and magick. It might be best if you prepare in advance by choosing one of the neters (egyptian deities) as an object of study or meditation at the time of the new moon, and performing this meditation when the moon is full. You may want to read this onto a tape and play it back to yourself.
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 sleepwear? 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 relfected 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. Odors 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.