The Egyptian God Horus and Jesus

I was looking into pre-Christian era crosses online today. Almost synchronistically there was a television program on tonight called, "The Pagan Christ". I don't watch t.v. but my husband called me out of my computer room because he thought I might want to see it. It had already been on about 15 minutes when I walked in, and right about when I sat down the show displayed an image of a man on a cross. It turns out, this image was around before Christ. Here is the image:



The show pointed out some similarities between the Egyptian god Horus and Jesus Christ. I won't get into them all here, because there are so many. If you would like to see them for yourself, visit this page: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5.htm

I was able to find the segment on YouTube, and watched the beginning of the show that I had missed. It raises some interesting questions.

There are five parts; here is the first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p41j5_KSZLE

Life Has a Flavor; Notice It

When you eat a banana split, do you just perform the action of eating a banana split, such as, take spoon, scoop up ice cream and piece of banana, stick in mouth, chew, swallow, or do you really TASTE the banana split?

I've just noticed how easy it is to eat food as if it were just an automatic daily ritual, without remembering to taste it. It seems more worthwhile to taste it, to enjoy it.

I'm sure this applies to life, too, not just a banana split. I want to use more of my senses more often, instead of living as a biological creature. Not just taste, touch, smell, sight, sound... but more.

Free Food for the Hungry

A few times on this blog I've mentioned a few free charities that allow you to give food to the hungry simply by clicking the button on your mouse. I have added some buttons on the right column of this blog that will allow easy access to these charities.

On The Hunger Site, you can click the big button once a day on each of the sub-charities. These include, "Hunger, Breast Cancer, Child Health, Literacy, Rain Forest, Animal Rescue". You can sign-up for a daily email which will remind you to return to the site to do your clicks.

Free Rice mixes in a bit of fun by testing your vocabulary knowledge while you do your clicks.

All it takes is just a few minutes of your day. It's easy to get to these sites; all you have to do is click the buttons on the top right side of my blog.

Teachings of an Initiate

"...But at length there comes a time when the yearnings of the spirit are felt, and the personality sees the light and sets out to seek its Higher Self across the bridge of mind. And as flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, the body is crucified that the soul may be liberated and joined to its Father in Heaven, the threefold spirit, the Higher Self."
~Max Heindel

http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/ros/ti.txt

Plant a Seed of Light and Watch it Grow

I'm still in the beginning of the book on Kabbalah I've been reading. I'm not moving along very quickly for two reasons. The first reason is that when I come to instructions in the book for a meditation, I stop reading until I am able to do the meditation. Secondly, I find myself wanting even more detail, so I stop reading and go to the Internet to explore some of the topics even further. One such topic is that of the tenth Sephirah, Malkuth. It is at the bottom of the Tree of Life, and is quartered into four segments. Basically it is a circle with a cross inside. The book calls it the "Elemental Mandala", because it represents four elements, earth, air, water and fire. (It can represent other things, like the seasons or the four cardinal directions, or more.) These four segments have their own symbolic colors. I won't get into the colors here. As an aside, I experienced an eerie synchronicity yesterday with this circle. Not long after reading about it in the book, I was watching a video online about Meher Baba. One of the symbols they used in the video was the circle with four segments. It happened so soon after seeing it in the book that I couldn't help but feel stimulated by it.

One of the exercises dealing with Malkuth - named "The Cross of the Elements" - is a meditation that involves imagining four rays of light emanating from a small seed in my heart. From the furthest point on the horizon, the eastern (front) ray begins to sweep around me in a clockwise fashion, all the way around, forming the circle.

The circle looks like the image below. I could not find a simple image like this doing a Google image search, so I used software to draw it. I doubt the circle is perfect and I'm sure the lines aren't exactly centered, but I think it at least gets the point across (a cross).



"We’ll leave the Light on for you."
~Motel 6 commercial

Dream Date September 23, 2008

I had stitches on the outside of my little finger. They were somehow pulled out partially, so I went to the urgent care center or emergency room to see about getting the stitches fixed. Apparently, the place I went to also dealt with mentally ill patients, so the waiting room was entirely full of mentally ill people sitting around waiting to get mental status examinations. They were there before me but I didn't want to have to wait because I thought my issue would take a quick fix and should get done prior to them giving lengthy examinations which would make my wait quite long. There was a doctor sitting on a chair in the waiting room; I think he was there to "baby sit" or something. I asked him, "Do I have to wait for all these people just to get my stitches fixed?" He said, "Yes."
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This seems to me to be a lesson in patience (patients). I shouldn't expect immediate results (immediate enlightenment).

Up, Up and Away

I remember quickly shooting up into the sky from the ground,
Like a rocket or speeding bullet, or even Superman.
I was moving so fast there were air trails around me.
I pierced through the atmosphere as if I was piercing through a veil.

I saw spiral galaxies and intergalactic light shows.
What were the lights?
Perhaps they were stars being born.

"Keep going up and you'll project astrally."
That's what I told myself.

Was it an out-of-body experience?
Or was it just a dream?

~From a dream I had while sleeping late today.

Dream Date September 21, 2008

I dreamed that my cat Peachy drowned in a pool of water; perhaps it was a pond. There was a man sitting nearby under a tree. He saw her drown. I confronted him, and asked, "Didn't you do anything to try to save her?" He replied, "No." I became angry at him.
-----

Goodness knows there are all sorts of possible meanings to this dream, if there is meaning to be found at all. In spite of owning several dream dictionaries, I do not consult any of them, for I have learned that the symbolism in my dreams is only relevant to me or those that know me on a deeper level. I am not certain, anymore, that there is objective symbolism in dreams.

With that said, it had just occurred to me a moment ago that I can see at least one possible meaning. In this dream, Peachy could be me, or really any spiritual seeker for that matter. The man under the tree is trying to teach me independence, or teaching me to rescue myself from the troubles I get into as opposed to relying on others to come to my rescue.

My Bookmarks

The link below gives access to even more links of things that have interested me over the course of time. I've been cleaning the inventory of links and will probably be adding more in the next few days. Many of these come from the bookmarks or favorites I have in my browsers. Some are pages that I've read but most are things I want to look at when I have more time.

Mostly the list is composed of spiritual subjects, esotericism, etc.

http://delicious.com/light.of.sophia

Sounds Familiar

I seek the mystery of Life and Time,
The Key of all that is not and that is,
And that which -- climb, imagination! climb! --
Transcends them both -- the Mystical abyss
Where Mind and Being marry, and are Bliss.

~From Tannhauser: A Story of All Time

http://outercol.org/pdf/TANNHAUSER.pdf

A similarity I noticed, from Dedication:

I shall not tell thee that I love thee!
Nay! by the Star in Heaven burning,
Its ray to me at midnight turning
To tell me that it beams above thee --
Nay! though thou wert, as I am, yearning,
I should not tell thee that I love thee!

And from Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton, one of my favorite poems:

I do not love thee! - no! I do not love thee!
And yet when thou art absent I am sad;
And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,
Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.

I do not love thee! - yet, I know not why,
Whate'er thou dost seems still well done, to me:
And often in my solitude I sigh
That those I do love are not more like thee!

I do not love thee! - yet, when thou art gone,
I hate the sound (though those who speak be near)
Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone
Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear.

I do not love thee! - yet thy speaking eyes,
With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,
Between me and the midnight heaven arise,
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.

I know I do not love thee! - yet, alas!
Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
Because they see me gazing where thou art.

Rachel's Song

Discover Gio Aria!

This is a cover of Vangelis's "Rachel's Song" from the Blade Runner Soundtrack, one of my favorite songs.

The Parable of the Goldfish, a Tale of Trust

A friend of mine that I used to be in frequent contact with a couple years ago sent me an email last night after reading some of the recent posts on my blog. I couldn't pass up the chance so I asked him for permission to post it here. It's a true story.
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"Perhaps all it means is that everyone and everything is your teacher, as you are a teacher to all things.

Way back when we first started writing a bit to each other I told you about a cattle trough we have on our ranch, and the goldfish in it. I told you how I scraped the algae on the side of the tank with my hand and how they'd swim over to it to feast on the algae. Several months ago a raccoon or maybe a crane got all but two of them, and for all this time those two lost all their training and would stay at the center of the through, never coming over to the scraped off algae. But I persisted, every day scraping it again, until finally they have become tame again.

I suppose this is no big deal, other than it illustrates how trust can be lost, and with patience, regained. Although it seems to me that with humans it's more common that trust is never regained. Perhaps with so many people around, people figure there's always another."
------

I responded with this:

"Once trust is lost with someone, it is very difficult to find that trust again. I know this through experiencing someone's loss of trust in me. ... I won't go into details about this, but through the loss of this trust in me, I learned that trust is not to be taken lightly."

Telling the Truth

Until today, my profile used to say, "I'm just a newly 30 year old woman..." I just changed it to plain old 30, as it has now been three months that I've been 30.

The Inner Tree

(Image: Yggdrasil or the Tree of Life)

I've been slowly reading a book I bought a couple weeks ago. It is _The Kabbalah Experience_, by Naomi Ozaniec. I was on the airplane headed for Phoenix when I did the first meditative exercise. It is more like guided imagery, to be exact, but the meditation led me on my own symbolic journey.

The first exercise is called "Inner Tree". To read the short exercise and to participate in it yourself, read page 10 of the book, found HERE.

I wrote down my reflections in a small memo pad; I share them here with you. If you read the page and do the meditation, I'd be interested in discussing your reactions to it.

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I stood before the garden with great curiosity, as I have done with the mysteries in general. Opening the door, I walked to the tree which has very tempting fruit. I partake of the fruit. It's the Tree of Knowledge and the fruit is Wisdom, meant to transform me. After eating the fruit, I exit the door opposite the one I came in, because it was the farthest away, hence there will be the greatest transformation from who I was before I walked into the first door. I did not want to leave the way I came, for to do so would mean I'd return to my former incomplete self. Finally, I close the door, signifying the transformation is complete. (I also thought of the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve ate. I believe this thought is caused by remnants of my early Christian upbringing.)

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It should be said here that I am not interested in Ka-pop-alah, or the modern day fad that is made popular by Madonna. I hope to find the real Kabbalah in my searches.

Gau - Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Boxes

In 2001 I saw a movie in the foreign film festival called "Himalaya". (It is one of my top two or three favorite-all-time movies.) One of the characters in the film was wearing a pendant that I fell in love with. I am trying to find one like it. The closest I've come in my short Google search so far is this amulet box: http://www.asianart.com/exhibitions/bowers/23.html
I've also found this: http://www.bandcantiques.com/items/330879/item330879store.html

At these prices I can keep on dreaming, but I'm hopeful that I can at least find a replica. There are many different styles of Gaus, Ghaus, Gaos or prayer boxes, but it's the figurine inside the peep hole that I like.

Have you ever seen one of these before?

At least watch the movie trailer. Click on the title of the movie to watch it. I don't think the trailer shows the Gau, but I do want to point the movie out to you. If you have Netflix, now is a good time to put it on your queue! The music is stunning; I've had the soundtrack for years. If you watch it, let me know what you think.

Hi from Phoenix

I just wanted to say hello from Phoenix, Arizona! I'm in the hotel using their computer in the lobby. Surprisingly - as I am not a sports fan - I found that the baseball game was fun and rather exciting. Maybe it was the surroundings, the people cheering, the popcorn, cokes, hot dogs, vendors, lights.... Our team (Cincinnati Reds) won. It went into the 10th inning. I'll post pictures on my photo blog when I return.

See you tomorrow night!

Bon Voyage

I'm leaving for Phoenix in the morning. I'll respond to comments when I get back on the 15th. See you then!

Dream Date September 12, 2008

First dream:

I was showing off a photograph to someone that showed me attached to a celebrity in midair while we were skydiving. (I don't remember who the celebrity was. In fact, as I see his face now in my memory, I don't believe he is a waking life celebrity.) The celebrity had on a yellow jumpsuit and was looking right into the camera.

Second dream:

I received an email from someone that I didn't know; it said that A. had died. I became very upset and started to cry. (A. was my previous teacher.)

New Photos and Videos

I've posted some more vanity photos on my photo blog as well as a few short videos.

http://surroundingsofexistence.blogspot.com

Dream Date September 11, 2008

First dream:

In waking life I've been meditating almost every night, based on a meditation that was taught to me by Daniel. One of the things I began to notice about this meditation was that I starting seeing imagery of faces flash before my mind's eye. It's only happened a few times but I never mentioned it to my Teacher. In the dream, I received an email from him that told me one of the points of the meditation was to see faces. Reading this, I became excited because I hadn't yet told him about the faces I was seeing.

Second dream:

I'm sitting on a couch, barefooted. I look at my feet on the floor and see frogs everywhere. I lift up my feet and see that there are squished dead frogs on the soles. I begin to panic because there is nowhere for me to put my feet, and everywhere I put them are more and more frogs. I also start to see another type of amphibian; there's nothing like it that I know of in real life, though I'd say it resembles a very large tadpole with legs. These new amphibians are larger than the frogs and hence would produce more ooze should I step on them. This was a very slimy dream!
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Note on the first dream: I am curious about the faces I've been seeing, so I did a Google search and found a short article someone wrote on their blog about "psychic faces". http://spiritual-web.com/psychic-faces/

Note on second dream: There have been tree frogs showing up on the cover to our hot tub. Last year, a tree frog kept showing up on the cover and I kept picking it up and walking it all the way to the back of our yard to place it on a tree. He showed up three times after I kept moving him and I was just tickled that this little frog hopped back all the way across the yard to stay in or on our hot tub. Finally we just decided to let him stick around. In the end, it was a bad choice, because my husband accidentally put the cover down on him. The next day, I lifted the cover to find him there, squished. I was very unhappy about seeing my "friend" there, dead. Here are photos of him (or her): http://visionsoftheworld.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-little-hot-tub-frog.html I have taken photos of some of the frogs that have showed up this year: http://surroundingsofexistence.blogspot.com/2008/09/jeremiah.html and http://surroundingsofexistence.blogspot.com/2008/09/jeremiahs-girlfriend.html

Goings-on

On Saturday, September 13, we are leaving to go to Phoenix, Arizona for three days and two nights. I won this small vacation from a sweepstakes that I had entered. The prize includes hotel, airfare, rental car, baseball game tickets and $200 per diem. The sweepstakes was sponsored by Fox Sports Network and the theme is major-league baseball. For our prize, we had to pick an "away" game to attend played by our region's home team. The Cincinnati Reds is our home team, and they play the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday. I am not a baseball fan; really I don't get into any sports at all, but my husband is excited about the game. I'm just excited about going someplace out-of-town. What I am really looking forward to is the scenic drive we'll be going on while we're there. It's called the "Apache Trail". It is a very narrow, steep, winding and unpaved road of 40 miles. We were in Arizona last year and I really had a great time going on drives out in the desert. I am not at all disappointed that Arizona is where we have to go as our prize, in fact, I am very happy to return, as I feel a deep connection to the deserts and scenery of Arizona.

Two days ago, the FedEx man rang our doorbell with a package for me. I thought it was the package with our tickets to the baseball game, as they were going to send them via FedEx to my house. I opened the package and there was news that I had won yet another sweepstakes, this time the prize is $10,000 from Better Homes and Gardens. Five-thousand dollars will be in cash and the other half will be in furniture that I choose from their catalog. I am happy that half the prize includes cash because I'll need some to pay the taxes on this prize and the vacation that I won. The rest of the money I'm using to renovate the guest bathroom in my house.

Dream Date September 9, 2008

At one point in the dream I became lucid, not really enough to control the events of the dream, but to know that I was dreaming. There was a large group of people doing a sort of ritualistic dance with singing, and in particular I was watching a decoratively dressed black woman, who had some type of headdress on. I made a note of how real they looked; they looked even more real than what's seen in waking life.

I don't know if it's the same dream or not, but I was riding as a passenger in a topless vehicle, maybe it was a convertible. It was dark outside, and snowing; the ground and everything was covered in snow. Ahead of us was a large building, perhaps a mansion of Victorian architecture. I pointed at it with my finger and said, "Light!", and suddenly the mansion and everything around us lit-up. The mansion lit-up as if there were golden Christmas lights hanging on it.

Next, we were driving around, in this snowy environment, and there were wolves everywhere. They looked sinister, some of them were back on their haunches as if they were preparing to attack us. The driver hit some of them with the car to keep them from attacking, but there were so many that he/she couldn't hit them all, so I pointed at each of them with my finger and said, "Banish!" As the word was spoken, each one would just disappear into thin air.

Metamorphisis Two - The Caterpillars' Journey Continued

There are more photos posted on my Surroundings blog of the continuing transformation of the two caterpillars I've been raising. http://surroundingsofexistence.blogspot.com

This transformation is very symbolic of the spiritual metamorphosis that takes place as we progress towards enlightenment.

The other day, my Teacher used a word to describe what happens when the transformation is complete, and it is a word I had never heard before: "Imago". Interestingly, today I was reading about caterpillars and butterflies when I came across the word in a diagram, seen below.

Metamorphisis

I got behind on the comments because I found myself in a three-day depression, but it seems - hopefully - that I'm coming out of it again. I'm getting ready to respond now, but in the meantime, there are some photographs on my photo blog that I took of some caterpillars I've been "raising".

http://surroundingsofexistence.blogspot.com/

Hypnovisions - Wine and Floating Leaves

Before falling completely asleep I had a couple hypnagogic visions. In the first, a man asked me to pick out a type of wine for him to drink. I thought to myself to tell him to try the white zinfandel, but then I became afraid that he wouldn't be satisfied with my choice.

In the second vision, I saw the trunk of a tree, with one lone leaf growing off it. In the vision, I saw the exact same leaf floating in the air nearby the original leaf. While witnessing this vision, I somehow got the impression that it was symbolic of astral projection. The original leaf is the physical body while the floating leaf is the astral body. The original leaf (body) is tied down and anchored to the physical world (tree), while the floating leaf is free.

On Big Toes and Chiggers

Yesterday was a big adventure and a day that has affected the outcome of every day for the next couple weeks, especially this Thursday and Friday. Since I'm a very graceful woman, I slid down the stairs in our pool and broke the big toe on my left foot. When it happened I was alone and it hurt enough for me to grab it and dance around in pain on my right foot, but I just rubbed it and decided to forget about it. I had no idea that it was broken, so I even went on a short hiking trip thinking that I could just walk-off the pain. When I got home and took off my shoes and socks I saw that it had turned black and blue and it was then that I suspected it was broken. Since it was Labor Day the local immediate care centers were closed so we went to the emergency room at the hospital. I knew it wasn't a big emergency and probably could have waited until the next day but I didn't want to take any chances, especially because I thought about my dad and the bad limp he's got for the rest of his life. We were there for three hours because they were very busy. They "buddy taped" it and sent me home with some pain medication. I took some earlier this morning and it knocked me out the entire day. It is now 10:00pm and night and I just woke up a half hour ago. I am never taking that stuff again! Anyway, I say this event has affected the next 14 or so days because they told me to keep my weight off it and that I can't go hiking until it heals. This means I can't volunteer at the animal sanctuary Thursday, nor can I go on the big hiking trip my mother and I had planned out-of-town for Friday. I also won't be able to take my nightly hikes at the park. :( All this right at the end of summer, just when I'm wanting to pack in as much outdoor activity in a day as I can.

During the visit to the hospital I did find out from the doctor that it's not poison ivy I've had for three and a half weeks. It is an infestation of chiggers! When I came home from my hike to Mt. St. Francis three weeks ago, both of my ankles looked like this woman's: http://www.dailyyonder.com/chiggers-try-wire-brush-black-decker I thought I had poison ivy so I've been putting calamine lotion on them. Now I know to put fingernail polish on them. I had no idea that chiggers could live so long inside the skin, but the doctor informed me they could be there for months, so I'm going to work on getting rid of them. It has been a maddening experience. There were times I thought I'd scratch the skin right off my bones.

Nostalgia

Some photographs of objects that I've kept with me since childhood are posted on the photo blog, as well as a short piece of American folklore.

http://surroundingsofexistence.blogspot.com