I am an Osiris, too!--Awakening Osiris
For initiates into the Egyptian mysteries, the great rites culminated in contemplation of
one’s own death—mysteries that were never spoken aloud, never recorded on the
temple walls and were only alluded to in later times. They may have been
similar to initiation rituals enacted by the Golden Dawn, the Rosicrucians, the
Masons and Knights Templar, all of whom attribute their mysteries to an
Egyptian origin. When mystic Earlyne Chaney began to explain her understanding
as an initiate of the Mysteries, she said, “To the postulant of the Mysteries
the ‘dead’ referred to souls entombed in the physical form… To be ‘resurrected
from the dead’ meant that the superstructure could be raised to transcend that
of the lower personality.”
For initiates into the Egyptian mysteries, the great rites culminated in contemplation of
one’s own death—mysteries that were never spoken aloud, never recorded on the
temple walls and were only alluded to in later times. They may have been
similar to initiation rituals enacted by the Golden Dawn, the Rosicrucians, the
Masons and Knights Templar, all of whom attribute their mysteries to an
Egyptian origin. When mystic Earlyne Chaney began to explain her understanding
as an initiate of the Mysteries, she said, “To the postulant of the Mysteries
the ‘dead’ referred to souls entombed in the physical form… To be ‘resurrected
from the dead’ meant that the superstructure could be raised to transcend that
of the lower personality.”
We all have Osirian events in our lives and feel this need
to understand loss and renewal on both a psychological and a spiritual level.
Yet, we are more than the actions of our bodies and minds. We are spirits
having a human experience. We are the way that the divine can understand matter
and its consciousness by seeing what matters to us and how we act and react to
loss and return. Humans are the hands of God, the conduits for change. Every change
is a loss of something other. Time is an Osirian experience of aging, of summer
turning into fall then winter, of dying plants and dried seeds. It’s all a
falling away. I can remember standing at the Osirion at Abydos ten days after
my mother had passed and tangibly, physically feeling her leave the world and
me. I felt
Regardless of the degree of initiation, spiritual
celebrations and communion still have a profound psychic effect on the individual.
The mysteries always call upon us to turn inward and to face the unknown with
strength. There was an outer ceremony for nearly every Egyptian, but there was
an inner articulation of the mystery for only a few. That’s not surprising.
Religion is probably the most misunderstood concept of all—primarily because
religion is a subcategory of a larger concept, which is spirituality and unity
with the divine.
The ancient Greek philosopher Herodotus recalls a solstice ceremony in which a bull, a
symbol of Osiris called “The Good Being," was sacrificed and its carcass
stuffed with flour cakes, honey, raisins, figs, incense, myrrh, and other
herbs. It roasted over a fire as the priests of Osiris poured oil over it and
upon the flames to keep the fire going. Afterward, they ate the ox. The ritually
sacred body and fluid of the bull of Osiris has become the bread and wine given
for all. Anglicans and Catholics might find a resonance with the Eucharistic
sacrifice of Christ. The seed is the container of the mystery. Knowing the God
has died, the God is risen, and the God shall come again is the essence of the
mystery tradition.
In death initiations one contacts the sorrowful mysteries,
but the joyful mysteries lie beneath them. The sarcophagus in which the body is
placed bears upon its coffin lid the image of the sky goddess bending over the
dead. Literally, the word sarcophagus means "sacred eating." At the
end of the day, the goddess ingests the sun and it travels through her dark
body in the same way that the soul of light is swallowed by death and returned
to its source. There, in the dark and stillness, one gestates a new life. The
tomb is the womb of the goddess—an entrance and exit. In the words of the
hierophant Hermes Tresmigestus, the 'There where everything ends, all begins
eternally."
Such was the way of mystery initiations performed under the
veil of night. Moving beyond the dark night of the soul, one may burst forth
into ecstatic states of poetry, illumination, and wisdom. It is the darkness
that provides new meaning to the light. To spend the darkest night of the year
inside the temple of the Goddess, in the sanctuary that represents her body,
and to rise renewed at dawn the following day may facilitate all manner of
psychological and spiritual transformations that leads one to die to the old
life and embrace each day anew.
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If you are interested in attending an all-day Saturday event in which we “Lighten the Dark” through journal practice, please email me: ellisisis@aol.com with Jan 8 Journal Event as the subject line. I’ll send you price and information.
If you are interested in attending an all-day Saturday event in which we “Lighten the Dark” through journal practice, please email me: ellisisis@aol.com with Jan 8 Journal Event as the subject line. I’ll send you price and information.
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