The Pharaoh's Daughter: A Spiritual Sojourn: The Healing Power of Past, Present, and Future Lives in Egypt

By Sharlyn Hidalgo

This is a book about an American woman's investigation into a past life in Egypt as Iput, daughter of the last 5th Dynasty pharaoh Unas of the Old Kingdom, and her role as an initiate of Hathor at the temple of Dendera. Sara's original fascination with Saqqara and the Pyramid Texts found in the pyramids there lead her into a fascinating discover

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alchemical Healing Arts
• Release date: Apr 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9780578877594

Sharlyn Hidalgo

Sharlyn Hidalgo has been a practicing astrologer and tarot reader for over thirty years. She teaches classes on the Ogham and the Celtic tree calendar, is the author of Celtic Tree Oracle, and offers tree readings. Sharlyn also teaches classes on the Egyptian mysteries and on Alchemical Healing as developed by Nicki Scully. She is the author of two books about Egypt and has led three pilgrimages there. She was a teacher for twenty-five years and has worked as a psychotherapist in agencies and private practice. Sharlyn lives in Seattle, Washington.

Book preview

THE PROLOGUE:

THE EGYPT ADVENTURE BEGINS

Before her first trip in 2006, Sara had already read everything she could get her hands on about ancient Egypt. As a young girl, she had been enamored with this faraway country—especially with the mummies—and by the time she was an adult, she had studied each temple complex up and down the Nile, as well as the gods and goddesses. She never believed she would ever be able to travel there, so she spent years of her life experiencing it vicariously through books. She had been so used to fulfilling the needs of others—busy with her marriage, her teaching career, and raising her two children—that her own desires had fallen by the wayside.

Her first trip to Egypt was a gift to herself for her fiftieth birthday. She had the money; she had the time, and she was bored with daily life. Her children had grown and left the house, and the fact that they no longer relied on her to navigate their lives was a new concept. She discovered a tour that specialized in spiritual travel. She was especially interested in the spiritual technology reportedly infused into the temples and sites of Egypt. She booked her tour and made the journey alone.

Even before visiting Saqqara, the ancient Memphite cemetery south of Cairo, she was fascinated by the Pyramid Texts etched into the walls of the various Old Kingdom tombs. She’d seen these hieroglyphs in books, but to see them in person, to be able to reach out and touch them on the stones at the pharaoh Teti’s tomb, that was an awakening. There was no explanation for why she was drawn to this plateau and these ancient burial sites. But her fascination with Saqqara and these ancient sacred texts only grew stronger.

***

Sitting at home on her comfortable sofa, Sara stared at the rain beating against the windowpane. These last three years since that first trip to Egypt had been difficult. In some ways, returning to the United States was like stepping into a tight and uncomfortable cocoon. She was changing. Her life had started to feel like a shedding of old skins—indeed, she was throwing layers of her old self away. Her transformation involved loneliness, emptiness, and longing—visiting Egypt had released a well of feelings that had been sleeping beneath her awareness. Life at home had lost its poignancy, the things that had held meaning suddenly lackluster. The urge to fill an ever-growing void had become impossible to ignore. For these last years, Sara walked through the world on autopilot, shut-down and unavailable.

The comfort and safety of her life had been replaced with a restless desire from which there was no respite: a deep need to understand the mystical Pyramid Texts had haunted her since that first visit. She believed these texts held important information for her and that, perhaps, they could be a guidebook to the kind of change or enlightenment she sought. She was desperate to fulfill herself as a spiritual being. She sought connection to divinity, and somehow, she knew that this place and these texts might offer that link. The bliss she had encountered in Egypt had disrupted the contentment of her life and cast her into a sea of dissatisfaction and unhappiness. This is what is so often described as a dark night of the soul.

To keep the hunger at bay, she began to study more about Teti and another pharaoh named Unas, as well as anything she could find on the Old Kingdom Dynasties. She was particularly taken with the tomb of Unas because it was home to the oldest and most original rendition of the Pyramid Texts. Some scholars believed that these tombs may have been used for initiation ceremonies, and that they were built with a technology that could encourage spiritual experiences. This tomb, it seemed to her, was a place where she could find something profound. Out of a deep sense of desperation, she finally signed up for a second spiritual tour.

CHAPTER ONE:

BACK TO EGYPT

The beautiful Mena House hasn’t lost its allure. The ample pillows beneath me, the low purr of the air-conditioning, this luxurious quilt … I feel like the Queen of Sheba. Being in Cairo is a familiar feeling, and it beckons me to relax, but all I can think about is what tomorrow holds. What it will be like to be in front of these hieroglyphs that have had such a grip on me—for three long years. To reach out and feel them beneath my fingertips. To be in Saqqara again.

My journey via Paris went smoothly. No missed connections, no lost luggage. I can’t help but stop to count my blessings. I’m in good health—I’ve been walking three miles a day at home to prepare for this. I’m not unhappy with this physical package; even at fifty-three years old, it carries me—my slender frame, brown and sparkling eyes (so I’ve been told), good posture, dark hair—save for perhaps a few rebellious streaks of silver. They represent hard-won wisdom, and I welcome them. Mostly, I am armed with my passion for Egypt and its mysteries. I am alive. I am present. I am ready for new adventures.

I know how important gratitude is. But I can’t deny that an underlying layer of unhappiness has permeated my home life. I want spiritual experience. What this means exactly, I can’t say. All I know is it has become consuming. Inexplicable to my husband and my family. Kept like some secret within my heart that cries louder the more I ignore it. It’s hard to admit, but my marriage has become secondary. I’ve been going through the motions at home, and for the last few years, my heart has been in Egypt.

A wave of some combination of guilt and restlessness comes over me, and I calm my mind by turning to my books. I open one that I snatch off the top of a pile on my nightstand about the Pyramid Texts. It’s not so much an exercise in gaining knowledge than an effort to quell the anticipation. I could teach a class on the information in it: The Pyramid Texts are the oldest surviving body of religious writing in the world. Explorations of ritual and resurrection. The original canon would lead to further funeral texts such as the Book of the Dead and the Coffin Texts, written in the Middle and New Kingdom Dynasties. The pyramid that houses the texts was built for the pharaoh Unas to guide his spirit, while the texts themselves served as a map to help him find his way to the stars.

The elaborate story within the texts has always fascinated me. They describe Unas’s travel through death and his ascent to the sky, where he experiences a ritual rebirth and becomes a star. He then returns to earth as a spirit being, whose purpose is to pass the knowledge he has acquired on to the next pharaoh, the next incarnation of the god Horus. He is now a master of both worlds, the living, and the dead, uniting everything above and everything below. He becomes a mediator between the worlds. A channel for the energies of the spirit world to flow into the terrestrial world. As an enlightened being, he can share his knowledge with his heirs through dreams, intuitions, synchronicities, and visions. By the end of the story, he has united the realms of heaven and earth for the benefit of all Egypt, establishing Ma’at, universal harmony and order, throughout the kingdom. A sentence on the page of my book stops me: He can share his knowledge …

I can’t help feeling like the words in this book are written especially for me. Knowing that I will see these texts makes the hair on my arms rise, and I shiver momentarily despite the warm hotel room. They tell me that this spiritual information, accessible by Unas, is also meant for the living. The knowledge is meant to be practical. Usable. That is the knowledge I want. I want direct encounters with a spiritual dimension of existence. And what if these hieroglyphs are a manual for how to contact the spiritual realm? A road map for how to enter heaven? What if encounters within this pyramid could lead to enlightenment and an ascension to the stars?

I am convinced that the tomb I will stand in tomorrow is one of the few places on this earth where this kind of spiritual communication can happen. Spiritual experiences occur when the boundary between the worlds is consciously crossed. I close my eyes, breathe, and set an intention, as I have a hundred times before. I want real, spiritual experience. When I enter that pyramid tomorrow, I want to communicate with my higher self and with universal consciousness. I want some kind of rebirth and regeneration. Every part of myself is aching for that.

I think of Unas’s spirit returning to earth and the second half of my intention is clear as day. My goal is not just to enter a relationship with the Divine. It is to bring any communication, or empowerment, or wisdom back into this earthly realm so that it can be applied to this world. There are no more kings to unite these realms. What if I can do it? What if we can? Maybe, just maybe, those who are drawn spiritually to Egypt are brought here to carry out something necessary. Maybe these eighteen souls who have come to Egypt on this pilgrimage are here to participate in this sacred Egyptian technology. To create a channel in which the power of All That Is might come to the earth and provide renewal for each participant.

I realize I’ve been so lost in thought that the light has grown dim, and the pages of my book have flipped closed. I think about my tiny world at home and this new expansive intention, and shake my head, as if to somehow remind myself how preposterous all of this may be. Even still, a tiny thought comes through before I drift off to sleep. I have found a key, and tomorrow, I will use it.

CHAPTER TWO:

SAQQARA AND THE PYRAMID OF UNAS

As I hop down from the bus, I take in the expansive view. The desert seems to stretch out forever in all directions, and everywhere I turn, there is golden-brown sand and golden-brown rubble. At the horizon to the west, there’s a vastness of bright turquoise. It looks as if a sharp line has been drawn between the sand and the sky. The half-hour bus ride from Cairo to Saqqara couldn’t pass quickly enough.

There is a grit to the desert. The fine sand blows into my eyes, nose, and mouth with every gust. The sun is scorching. The pyramids are in ruins. Still, as I take a few steps toward the scene before me, it’s as if I’m about to attend a grand celebration.

The temples of the great ancient metropolis of Memphis were built at the mouth of the Nile Delta and are long gone due to the yearly flood of the river, buried under thousands of years of silt deposits. But here at Saqqara, things are preserved. The complex stands on higher ground and rests in the middle of a vast western desert plateau, full of tombs and ancient artifacts. We walk up the hill to a walled temple complex.

Once the group gathers, our guide leads us through a large doorway built into a towering edifice. There’s a collective sense of relief when we reach the cool shade, and we walk slowly and quietly through a long corridor with a high ceiling. The pillars on either side are like sturdy trees in an immense forest. When we emerge, we are met with blinding hot sunlight once again, and it’s like I have entered another dimension. A huge, rectangular courtyard stretches out before us, and at the far northern end stands the magnificent Step Pyramid. The Egyptologists say that this pyramid was the first grand stone pyramid built in Egypt, and that it was built a good one hundred years before the Great Pyramid of Giza by the pharaoh Djoser and his vizier Imhotep. I vaguely recall that Djoser was the first pharaoh of the Third Dynasty. After walking the corridor, this open space reminds me of a football field. Maybe a landing zone for alien spaceships. Perhaps both.

I stand for a moment and imagine the crowds that gathered here during the Jubilee Sed Festivals of the early dynasties. Held at the thirty-year mark of each pharaoh’s reign (although many pharaohs, not without ego, held them more often), participants came to celebrate the pharaohs’ power and authority. I can almost see them—almost sense what it would have been like to stand in this courtyard with hundreds of people, one spectator among many.

A gust of hot wind brings me back to the present. This truly is one of the hottest afternoons I can remember, and the heat waves dance above the sand. A thin, emaciated dog, scurries across the courtyard. My heart lurches a bit at its visible ribs. I remember it’s a regular sight here: yellow dogs panting in the heat, tongues hanging from their mouths, asleep to the world with no shade and little water. Every time I see them, I think of the black jackal god, Anubis. Anubis, the god of embalming, is a powerful guide for the deceased as the soul makes its way to the afterlife. His image is everywhere, from Egyptian artwork to the walls of temples. It is especially prevalent here, at this mortuary site that is home to so many Old Kingdom tombs. It’s not surprising, given that this site’s purpose is to guide the deceased to their new life.

As the dog trudges off, I scan the edges of the complex. It’s enclosed on three sides by a wall, peppered with remnants of false temple entrances, more pillars, chapels, and rooms. There, on the northern fourth side, is the great Step Pyramid, looming above us.

The moment I take in the power of that structure I am no longer satisfied to stay here. Members of our group are wandering as the guide offers tidbits of information about the courtyard and the enclosure, and an overwhelming surge of impatience comes over me. I want to be in the chamber where Unas was buried. NOW. I want to see those texts. If I didn’t have more self-control, I would take off running. It’s probably the heat, I tell myself, breathing slowly. I am bristling, but no one seems to notice.

Everyone is too content to take their time, too wrapped up in the guide’s latest activity. He’s led us to the outside of the eastern wall, where small windows—he calls them healing windows—are cut into the surface. We’re told to place our heads through them and make sound with the intention of sending healing to ourselves or our loved ones. People go one-by-one. It’s painfully slow. Some are louder than others. Some seem to have beautiful experiences. I remember, in fact, doing this during my prior visit and having those beautiful experiences. Right now, it all feels trivial, and my frustration grows by the second.

When we finally walk across the courtyard to the stone-cut steps that will lead up over the enclosing walls of the Step Pyramid complex and down to the Pyramid of Unas, I walk briskly, remaining at the front of the group. The guide points to the upright cobras that sit as protection along the top of the adjacent western wall.

The raised cobra, called the Uraeus, symbolizes protection, he explains. You will find them on the pharaoh’s headdresses, always ready to spit their venom at an approaching enemy. Too much talking. The more information he offers, the more my agitation grows. Egyptology normally fascinates me—I’ve heard these same words and clung to every single one before. Not today.

Are you okay? Too hot? he asks as we take off again. His words catch me off guard, and I quickly shake my head, silently screaming—shut up and take me to the tomb. At least he senses that something is wrong.

My impatience feels too pressing for the circumstances. I should be happy to be here with this man who has a depth of knowledge about Egypt that I can barely fathom. It must be the heat. It is nearly unbearable. Even the guide grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls it away from his body, venting for some fresh air. On the other hand, I have this nearly indescribable, but somehow solid sensation that my soul is showing up at this place after thousands of years of waiting. And that I’ve waited long enough.

Finally—we walk up the rock-strewn stairs to the top of the wall, take in another vista of the desert stretching for miles, and then clamber down another stairway that leads us out of the enclosure. We move toward the tomb, the Pyramid of Unas, and my heart pounds. I can’t believe that I will soon be able to enter this tomb that I have so hungered to visit and have been so fascinated by. I have to pinch myself.

The Visit to the Pyramid of Unas

We stand as a group before what is left of the Pyramid of Unas, the tomb of the last of the Fifth Dynasty pharaohs. It appears to be nothing more than a pyramid-shaped hill of rubble. I know it’s hiding an entire world underneath it: an antechamber, sarcophagus room, and serdab room, all intact. These rooms house the famous Pyramid Texts, sacred hieroglyphs incised upon the stone walls. We are alone here. It’s not cheap to have a private visit—it has been closed to the public and requires a hefty payment to the Egyptian government. Many people have only had the chance to read about this place.

A substantial chain attached to two posts on either side of the walkway blocks off the stairs that lead down to the entrance. I am tingling with anticipation as the guard pulls the chain away, and some of my agitation melts away as he opens the way for us. We descend the stairs, and the guard unlocks the iron-gated door. We enter, crouching to walk through the long, low causeway, and the scorching desert air fades. Entering these sites is always an athletic activity; my thighs are just beginning to burn as I leave the causeway and walk through an entrance door. I can finally stand to my full height as I move into the middle of the small dark room. We are in the tomb.

We wait in the dark, cool interior, lit only by a few fluorescent floor lights, as the rest of the group members enter. The dimly lit, turquoise blue hieroglyphs stand out from the white walls, and the ceiling is dark although we can make out the faded stars. Originally the ceiling was painted lapisblue and was studded with golden stars. When we are finally together, an automatic silence falls over us. This is the sacred silence of over four thousand years …

After letting the silence settle, and almost as if we are communicating without speaking, we begin to move together, crouching beneath a low opening, to get to the next room. When we arrive, we form a circle. I look up, feeling my ribs expand. There they are again—those faded stars covering the vaulted ceiling. I scan the room slowly. On the floor opposite the entrance stands a large, black sarcophagus filling the entire west side of the room. It’s empty, with no lid; it looks to be built of solid granite. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can see the designs along the wall behind it. Lotus plants, I think. Each stone wall is filled, bottom to top with cut hieroglyphs, even the area above the door and on the gables. This little stone chamber is like a book. A permanent text that has withstood the test of time, unlike the scrolls of papyrus and vellum that have crumbled and disintegrated away. These are the Pyramid Texts, I think to myself, and I am deeply awed by this privilege of seeing them.

They seem alive, almost as if they are breathing. They emanate a power that fills the space and expands beyond it. Here it is. Here, on these walls, is the story of how the pharaoh travels to the stars, hangs out with the gods, and as the Egyptologists say, eats them, and then comes back to give inspiration to the people. A sly smile spreads across my face, though no one can see, and I hope my modern-day interpretation doesn’t offend the spirits of Saqqara.

This tomb … it feels holy and sacred. But more than that—the truly odd thing—is that it feels like home. I am grounded. Comfortable. Like it belongs to me. Like somehow, I know every nook and cranny and shadow. It’s visceral, and there’s an inexplicable territorial edge to it. I want everyone to know that this place is mine. A tiny voice somewhere in the recesses of my mind tries to tell me this is preposterous, but the feeling of overwhelming familiarity is too strong. For the second time today, I am glad the rest of my group isn’t privy to my inner thoughts.

The lights flicker off. It’s customary, during a tomb visit, for the guard at the entrance to turn off the lights and let the group stand in total darkness. This is our opportunity for ceremony. Our group leaders guide us in a chant, and together, we make our prayers. As we begin our ceremony, I remember that this place is not just a burial chamber. It is a place of initiations into the mysteries. It is a place where the living can achieve inspiration and elevated consciousness. It is a place where I may be able to satisfy this longing that lives within my heart and soul.

When a group is dedicated to spiritual pilgrimage and has the incredible privilege to stand in a space alone, the temples and sites of Egypt seem to open in a way they won’t when they are swarming with thousands of tourists. The idea that this could happen is riveting. Will this tomb respond to our meditation?

Just be here, I tell myself. As our leaders take us through a guided journey, I fall into a trance state. I travel to my higher self … a world of spirit. I’m aware of my body, but it is not important. Here