Cosmic Legacy of Ancient Egypt

By Asher Benowitz

Today, we do not use our ancient cosmic orientation to relate to the natural world as we once did. It's no longer determined by where we are or what time it is by the Sun's daily motion across the sky. Our perception of the outside world has changed, and we have lost our sense of wholeness within a great system. Factors such as our work and play rhythms, clothing, diet, and travel are affected by climatic and seasonal factors. These factors affect our unconscious sense of timing and our ability to communicate with nature, which we often overlook.

Often we marvel at the apparent serenity and spiritual confidence of ancient people, forgetting that their tools were taught and used within an environment that encouraged them to recognize and embrace natural and divine forces. These tools enabled one to maintain a profound sense of cosmic orientation, keep it, and view one's role as actual spiritual work. In ancient Egypt, a man named Al was gifted with a sense of cosmic orientation.

As dams have been constructed in our era, the Nile no longer produces an annual flood, but understanding the rhythm of that event and others associated with it is essential to understanding Egyptian rituals and ceremonies. To restore cosmic orientation, we need to leave our temporal field of time and enter the visible universe of ancient Egypt, where cosmic rhythms sustained human life, nature, and even the gods.

For Egyptians, both secular and spiritual matters were governed by the concept of time. Even though the gods' realms (Neheh) were considered eternal, they were also continuous and manifested in cycles. According to cosmic life's ebbs and flows, gods appeared at different times but were lasting and constant. Through the medium of heavenly bodies, events take place in linear time (Djet) and according to the ebb and flow of cosmic life. The three dimensions of cosmic activity were thought to be formed by three distinct rhythms, the lunar, solar, and stellar.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DTTV PUBLICATIONS
• Release date: May 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201783396

Asher Benowitz

Born in Poland to Jewish Parents, he has long been fascinated with All things Middle East.

Book preview

ASHER BENOWITZ

Today, we do not use our ancient cosmic orientation to relate to the natural world as we once did. It's no longer determined by where we are or what time it is by the Sun's daily motion across the sky. Our perception of the outside world has changed, and we have lost our sense of wholeness within a great system. Factors such as our work and play rhythms, clothing, diet, and travel are affected by climatic and seasonal factors. These factors affect our unconscious sense of timing and our ability to communicate with nature, which we often overlook.

Often we marvel at the apparent serenity and spiritual confidence of ancient people, forgetting that their tools were taught and used within an environment that encouraged them to recognize and embrace natural and divine forces. These tools enabled one to maintain a profound sense of cosmic orientation, keep it, and view one's role as actual spiritual work. In ancient Egypt, a man named Al was gifted with a sense of cosmic orientation.

As dams have been constructed in our era, the Nile no longer produces an annual flood, but understanding the rhythm of that event and others associated with it is essential to understanding Egyptian rituals and ceremonies. To restore cosmic orientation, we need to leave our temporal field of time and enter the visible universe of ancient Egypt, where cosmic rhythms sustained human life, nature, and even the gods.

For Egyptians, both secular and spiritual matters were governed by the concept of time. Even though the gods' realms (Neheh) were considered eternal, they were also continuous and manifested in cycles. According to cosmic life's ebbs and flows, gods appeared at different times but were lasting and constant. Through the medium of heavenly bodies, events take place in linear time (Djet) and according to the ebb and flow of cosmic life. The three dimensions of cosmic activity were thought to be formed by three distinct rhythms, the lunar, solar, and stellar.

The lunar rhythm is well known.

Esoteric traditions transmit the truth that all life is determined by nature's rhythms, seasons, and cycles. Two luminaries, the Moon and the Sun play a significant role in human life.

According to scholars, ancient Egypt's first invention for tracking time was a lunar calendar. Synodical periods are determined by the number of new moons in a month. The 29-day synodic period began with the first sliver of light from the crescent New Moon. There are two hemicycles in this period: 14 waxing days and 14 waning days of Lunar light. Each quarter has seven days. A lunar week and lunar month are based on these measures and have been used from ancient to modern times.

Lunar phenomena are deeply rooted in the symbolism of waxing and waning in the sky. In the exact location in the sky, the Sun and Moon are conjoined at the beginning of the Lunar cycle (the New Moon). In the numerous legends of the mating of gods, the ancients viewed it as the union of male (Solar) and female (Lunar) principles. This is memorialized in the Grand Festival held at the temples of Edfu and Dendera on the New Moon of the eleventh month of the Solar year, commemorating the union of Heru and Het-Her. The Solar disc (waxing and waning crescents) in the Moon's orb symbolizes this event in the goddess' Crown.

There is no visible light during the New Moon, but by day three following the Solunar conjunction, a crescent of light can be seen. At the beginning of the seventh day, half of the Moon's disc is illuminated with light, and by day 15, the full Moon is fully illustrated with the Sun's reflected light. With the Full Moon passing, the light in the sky diminishes in the days that follow until it is lost in the waning crescent.

The lunar months and Lunar festivals are listed on this page, though in unique terms. The complete cycle of Lunar days is depicted in a frieze in Heather's Temple at Dendera. Accordingly, the New Moon would occur after day 2 of the new synodic cycle, when the first visible sliver of the crescent appears. Thus the Quarter Moon celebration is known as the Six-Day Feast (six days after the first crescent is visible), while the Full Moon celebration is known as the Fourteen Day Feast (fourteen days after the first crescent is visible).

There are 354 days in a Lunar year divided into 12 lunar months. For thousands of years, there has been an attempt to reconcile the two calendar types of lunar and solar years by shortening this period. As figure 32 shows, the Egyptians included a thirteenth lunar month that lasted a variable time. Lunar calendars were never abandoned, and they were widely followed throughout the dynastic period. At the end of the Lunar Year, it is a lavish ceremony of offering to all ancestors, and it marks the period for making offerings at the tomb at the Six-Day Feast.

Although only relevant to religious observances, the ancient Egyptian lunar calendar is still used today. Jews celebrate Passover on the first Full Moon following the spring equinox; Muslims observe Bridal Adhah (the hajji, or journey to Mecca) on the first Full Moon following the spring equinox, and Christians celebrate Easter on the first Sunday following the first Full Moon following the spring equinox. The Oriental calendar also determines the New Year by the time of the first New Moon following the Sun enters Aquarius.

Even though most cultures, including the Egyptians, viewed the lunar cycle as feminine, it is only through the stories of the Heliopolitan deity Asar, who is closely linked to the changing faces of the Moon, that the Lunar cycle of growth and decline is uniquely embodied. During the mists of antiquity, Egypt's first regent, Asar, along with his faithful sister consort Auset­, brought order and civilization to the country. But his brother Set was intensely jealous of Asar's universal affection. Set and his confederates then murdered him and dismembered him into fourteen pieces due to these nefarious acts. Due to Auset's magic and the intervention of the gods, Asar was magically restored. He became the lord of the shadow worlds, the vast, intangible realm beyond the material world where all ancestral souls reside. Consequently, it was believed that all return to the realm of this Deity when physical life comes to an end.

Asar essentially assumes the function of recurrence in the life cycle and the power of transcendence as the pulse of the Lunar principle in nature. This myth weaves together the processes of the Moon, from the time Auset and Nebt-Het took over Asar's fourteen members to the time of the Lunar eclipse after his death, which signified the ascendancy of Set as ruler. Under the variable course of the Moon, light wane and wax, but its repetitive return defeats the forces of dissolution by promising continuous renewal. In defeating Set, Asar became whole and entered a realm beyond the temporal powers of nature.

Crescent moons symbolize Asar's return in Egyptian ceremonies when his power is waning. Restoration marked his reappearance, whereas reappearance marked his reappearance. Following this, his dismemberment is formally proclaimed, followed by a mourning ritual and a period of non-activity until a New Moon resurrects his life. Lunar ceremonies during this cycle are typically dominated by