Al Qasr A video brought to life with amazing sounds of Egyptian desert

The vibrancy of Egyptians western desert is brought to life with the music to this video,On top of a mountain overlooking the Dakla oasis, the ancient town of al qasr is still standing proud after many centuries, with perfectly preserved buildings and implements. I am sure this video will bring wonderful memories back for some of my guests and friends who have visited this ancient town with me on my western desert tour that I take to Egypt every christmas and new year. Some of my guests are just simply drawn to the life of the desert, which is a completely different experience to the tours of the ancient sites on the River Nile.



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www.caroline-dekker.nl/
http://www.freewebs.com/spiritualegypt/holidaysindahklaoases.htm

Muzawaka Tombs In Western Desert

Every Christmas and New year I take a group into the western desert to refresh the body with clarity energy vibrancy and amazing atmosphere of the Egyptian Western desert. This year we visited the tombs of Muzawaka in Dakhleh Oasis, near ancient Amheida,which was incredible as the tombs are still full of mummies! In this place you look death in the face, you think of the human souls and their lives who have layed in these tombs, since the first and second second centuries after the birth of Jesust Christ. This is an awesome experience and left me with a most poignant effect. Boujewin enthusiastically investigated lots of the tombs and was really effected with his experience in this necropolis. Have a look at this facinating video of the tombs full of mummies.



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Ancient Egyptian Prayer to the Goddess Bastet

Beloved Bastet, mistress of happiness and bounty, twin of the Sun God, slay the evil that afflicts our minds as you slay the serpent Apep. With your graceful stealth anticipate the moves of all who perpetrate cruelties and stay their hands against the children of light. Grant us the joy of song and dance, and ever watch over us in the lonely places in which we must walk - Ancient Egyptian Prayer to the Goddess Bastet

I love cats and have always had an affinity with them,and have four cats of my own at home. In Egypt Bubastis was dedicated to the worship of 'Bastet'the Ancient Egyptian Cat Goddess,the name Bubastisis means "realm of the cat." Bastet was a friend of humanity, who loved music and dance. She was a source of joy and pleasure. Bastet protected people from sadness, hunger, and illnesses from the body and mind, which if you think about your own cat at home, they do offer us this love and joy, and just sitting quietly stroking your cat as they purr is a comfort to us.

Bastet also protected people from the action of ghosts, evil spirits, and demons. Once a year a great festival was held to honor Baset. The festival lasted for three days. On the night of the third day,one candle was lit inside the temple of Baset. Then the light was spread around the town, Prayers and hyms are recited accompanied by incenseand prayers and hymns were mummies were found.

In the cemetry at Bubastis over 30,000 cat mummies were found, in the tombs in the valley of the kings you sometimes see cats defending and fighting the apep snake which was considered as totally evil.Bastet was portrayed either completely as a cat, or a beautiful slender feline woman with the beautiful cat head.

I would be lost without my own cats, they are a constant source of comfort to me. When I was in egypt my friend had a cat called Sabina, but my friend called her silly bina because of how she would scitter about and play on the rooftop,Egyptians today no longer have the reverence for cats that their ancient ancestors had and cats are often left to fend for themselves in the streets which is sad. Me and silly bina in luxor

Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Apocalypse

Their are many spells and hymns in the Egyptian book of the Dead, in one passage the creator God Amun describes how after millions of millions of years I will destroy all that I have made, this world will return to Nu, to the limitless waters, like its original state as described in the creation myth, Following this Apocalypse only two cosmic forces will survive, I and Osiris will be the remainder, and then I will come and sit with him in one place.

According to Egyptian cosmonology Amun was the original source of all the worlds elements and forces, Osiris as the God of afterlife, promised life after death, together they offer a vision of a future that will be re-created again, as the human soul lasts for eternity among the stars.

The Ancient Egyptians knew the book of the dead as the book of coming forth, this book was a collection of hymns, spells, and instructions to assist the deceased to pass through many obstacles placed in their way as they journeyed through the afterlife, it helped to overcome these terrors, genies, and the Apep snake which was considered as the force of chaos and personification of all that was evil, with the help of the book of the dead they would pass safely into the hall of Judgement for their Trial, and if they were found a righteous person, then they would sit at the side of Osiris and enjoy life eternal.

Margaret A Murray In Egypt - An Egyptologist and Spiritual Woman

The 'Egyptian temples' by Margaret Murray, was a book I was very happy to find in a charity shop recently, brilliant places for all sorts of wonders!, reading her book activated my interest in the woman herself, and I discovered what a really interesting woman she was :

Margaret Alice Murray (July 13, 1863 – November 13, 1963). Margaret led an amazing life fo over 100 years, she was a prominent British anthropologist and Egyptologist, she was the first female Egyptologist to be employed at the University of Manchester on behalf of the Museum. In 1908, she unwrapped “The Two Brothers”, mummies from a Middle Kingdom non-royal burial excavated by Flinders Petrie, he is shown in this photograph with her below.

In the late 1890's Margaret worked with Flinders Petrie and his wife at The Osirion at Abydos, a place another fellow spiritual woman was later drawn to, Omm Seti who was also an Egyptologist that believed in reincarnation.

Margaret became ill whilst working on excavations in Egypt and in 1915 she returned to recover her health in England near her home in Glastonbury, which then inspired her interest in Wicca and witch craft, that she also wrote many books about.

In 1931 she published a book on Egyptian archeology, The Splendor That Was Egypt.

Margaret remained very active well into her old age writing many books and following her interest in witchcraft and wicca, and in her one-hundredth year published her own autobiography entitled: My First Hundred Years. In the book she records her belief in reincarnation, her faith in the human soul, and the soul’s survival after bodily death, which were also the beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians, who were the the first to teach that the human soul is immortal.

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead a sentence states, "I am the Benu, the soul of Ra, and the guide of the gods in the Tuat (underworld). Their divine souls come forth upon the earth to do the will of their kas, let therefore the soul of Osiris
Ani come forth to do the will of his ka. ... The ka-name relates to the vital essence of an individual.

Approaching Egypt from a spiritual level as I do with meditation, helps people to 'remember' pieces of past lives, for the soul lives on along with many memories and lessons to learn.

Kalabsha Temple - A Greek Hymn to Mandulis in Graffitti translated

As much as I adore the history of the Egyptian temples I have a fascination with the graffitti found on and within them., as these are traces of a human soul, a remembrance of a life, footsteps of a presence in time centuries previous that we are now also standing in,and I often wonder about the person who wrote their graffitti, so to my joy I came across a selection of very old books about Egypt in a charity shop last week, and wonderfully one of the old books records the actual translation in English of the actual piece of Graffiti that had filled me with curiosity since I found it myself on the panel in Kalabsha temple that we visited on our spiritual tour in December, and what a joy of poetic hymn this piece of graffitti is, so moving and spiritual, so I will relate it to you.

TRANSLATION of the GREEK HYMN TO MANDULIS at KALABSHA TEMPLE:

'When I had gone to contemplate this blessed place of peace, to breathe in the air the sweet breath of life, new ideas,strange to my former life, whirled round my spirit on all sides. Since my conscience had no vice with which to reproach me, my nature then called on me to cultivate the mystic works. Then, becoming a scholar, I composed a varied song, thanks to the noble eloquent spirit which the gods bestowed on me. When the muse made me clearly pleasing to the gods, I shook the Bacchi crown adorned with flowering grass, and then a grotto of sleep staling me straight away transported me quickly into a country which is dear to me. For it seemed me that I was bathing my body in the streams of a river, and the sweet abundant waters of the Nile laved me pleasantly. I thought that I was singing a beautiful song in noble words inspired by the muses, in harmony with all the nymphs. Thinking it a dainty left by Greece I have written on the stone this inspiration of my wise heart. After having moved my limbs as one moves in tune, obeying the baton, I called in, to join with the song, the help of this inscription, without knowing whether I was leaving a cause for blame to unsympathetic souls; but the master called me to speak this learned poetry. Then the great Mandulis descended from Olympus. He softened the barbaric style of Ethiopia, and exhorted me to sing in sweet Hellenic verse that, thanks to thee, man's life can vaunt that is is foreseen, that Day and Night adore thee, and all the Hours, they call thee Brieth Mandulis of the same parents, divine stars rising together in one constellation. Thyself, thou badest me to come and inscribe this in thine honour, and to expose these learned writings to the harse judgement of all men'



The actual temple of Kalabsha was created durng the Graeco-Roman period,and took its present form during the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus,its dedicated to Mandulis, From the "Vision of Mandulis" we find the unforced equation of this Nubian solar deity to Egyptian Horus and to the Greek Apollo, which is what also probably inspired the Greek Hymn translated above.

New Kalabsha Island has been re-created itself with many of the sacred sections that stand on it, that were rescued in the same manner as Abu simbel. Here we saw Gerf Hussien and Biet en Wali, where our group held an angel spiritual meditation inside the chamber,this had once been turned into a coptic church,but now has returned to the original state that ramses 11 created.

A glorious kiosk stands proudly on the edge of the rocks looking out to sea, bathing in the warmth and brilliance of the Egyptian sun, to the glory of the Goddess Hathor whose smile greets us and welcome us within her Kiosk, where I experienced a wonderful feeling of love, a blessing from Hathor herself, and as I rested and felt the warmth of Light energy infuse my body, offering me new light energy and inspiration, I remember the beauty of this place surrounded by the sparking Turquoise sea of the Nile that laps around this wonderful Island, I hope my fellow friends of the group have happy memories also of our trip here - Love to you all from Lorraine & Caroline.


To watch our video of the group on Kalabsha:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUC_Zs_hKgE

Nefertari Beloved wife of Ramses the Great 'the Beautiful One'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1g-BSiJmu0


Ramses built the most beautiful tomb for his favorite and beloved wife Nefertari whose name means 'the most beautiful'. Nefertari’s tomb, her “house of eternity” is now closed to the general public, due to the damage that our breath & humidity causes to the wonderful paintings, which show Nefetari's journey after death to the afterlife, guided by various guardian-spirits and deities, including Isis, Hathor, and Osiris.

Nefertari can be seen embracing the side of Ramses leg as he sits on his throne of two lands outside Luxor tempel, and he also created for her a small temple beside his own magnificent temple at Abu Simbel, this temple was dedicated to the goddess Hathor and Nefertari, and once inside I sense a wonderful feeling of love and energy when I have visited this temple with my groups. Only pharoahs that truely loved their wives gave them such honours, the only other pharoah to honour his wife in this way was Akhenaten who dedicated a temple to Nefertiti his wife whose name means 'the beautiful one has come'