Sacred Verses (32): Raise Up My Body / Let Your Sky Receive Me

My journey has brought me across the horizons
where sparrows carry the tongue of the Sun-God;
his words of dusk and daybreak shatter the loneliness of the sky,
now bright, now forlorn as morning and evening seek me.
What have I to do with sparrows who gossip of nightfall,
who summon with their little wings the movements of the veil?
I listen, and they speak of the Sun-God’s fragile skin,
a pale lotus of celestial blue;
he rises for them to unfurl his divine petals,
the language of the sky;
whereupon they chatter the words that part the veil before them.

Have they come to twitter of my slumber,
these sparrows who carry the mark of fire upon their breast?
I would be warmed by the face of their sun,
not drowned in the waters beneath the earth,
nor taken down by the cavern where wings tread the darkness.
The earth has become my father again, as he was when I was his seed;
shall I become a field of turquoise glimmering,
or a pasture of malachite summoning the flood?
If the earth is my father, then I shall wear a crown of cypress
upon my dusky brow;
I shall call the willow my second home, its mournful boughs my refuge.

I would have the bright wings of a heron,
whose immaculate sheen recalls the Sun-God’s first morning;
that morning which came fast over the torrent of the abyss,
pushing from it the sacral mound of the first beginning.
Here I would take the hand of my mother stretching out from the stars;
she comes from the Unwearying Ones, she comes from the north,
where rise but never tarry the Ancients who flew before me.
Mother, I see your starry breast and seize your glinting fingers;
your metal is gold which I take to my lips, your breast a constellation;
these are the stars that carry me to your thighs where life is waiting.

The heights I was called down from have called me back again;
the earth who is my keeper must give way to heaven’s gaze.
The Bull’s Thigh who bore me now appears before my eyes,
in whose lofty reflection the north is roused from its western daze.
Who comes in the north to be my mother, who opens wide her thighs;
my yawning horizon of eastern metal with electrum in her eyes.

You goddess of northern breast and eastern thighs,
where the Sun-God travels to recover his face of morning;
open for me your cleft of the dawn and secure for me our beginning.
I approach with the flesh and bones of a mortal man;
raise up my body from the earth and let your sky receive me.
I approach with the bleary eyes of a twilight wanderer;
open wide my eyes with northern light and let your stars behold me.
I approach with lips sealed fast by the nether sky;
open up my mouth with heavenly metal and let your speech become me.
I approach with nostrils shut against the wind;
open up my nose with that heavenly lotus and let your breath suffuse me.
I approach with loins of western slumber;
open up my channels with living blood and let your womb conceive me.
I approach with the sand of the desert on my feet;
open up the river above my brow and let your flood cleanse me.
I approach knowing the season of nightfall;
open up the day before my feet and let your dawn shine through me.

I see the sparrows now and hear their language in my heart;
not the gossip of the evening, but the words of the morning,
ringing clear through the passing clouds;
they pass on by, but I do not pass, with lips and nostrils breathing.
My heart has sheltered a heron, who knows what the great Gods know;
the earth that gives us cannot keep us, like the mountains that kiss the sky;
our earth becomes our Father, but our Mother lifts us high.

Father, I have my bones from you, my skin and breath of clouds;
but these things I return to you when the heights call me back to her arms.
I hear the willow and cypress, the boughs of your ancient sycamore;
but he too lets go of my feet when the tread of the sky finds my toes.
My arms become the wings of a heron to know the Imperishable Stars;
and I like they have a crest for a mirror, from which the Sun-God shines.

Mother, your body takes my earthly bones, my skin and eyes of water;
these things began in the heights of your stars,
where the light that guides the earth comes.
I behold your northern sky, your cleft of gold and its ocean;
blood swells my loins and I enter the lips where life first hears its calling.
O you goddess of twilight breast and morning thighs,
where all souls travel to recover their first language of the sky;
open for me your legs of the soul-house and give me my beginning.
I approach with the flesh and bones of a mortal man;
raise up my body from the earth and let your sky receive me.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Bring Me the Red Cloth

Where my feet have traveled leaves the dust upon them;
those mountains yonder, over whose peaks the spirits hover,
between whose amber towers the swallows make pilgrimage.
I hear their animated conversation beneath the wind’s howl,
who weaves his forecast for the wings of hawks and sparrows.
They have come the way I have come, though I on feet and they on air;
we tread the roads above and below, our end the same in time’s keeping.

But I require a body of spirit when that of flesh has tired;
I know my blood and I know my bones, taken by the desert hallows.
Tears and cornflowers have given my toes ornaments of the sky;
shall I now drift on forget-me-nots, or take the wings of poppies?
I would rather have the lotus with me when dusk closes his inevitable hand.

Bring me a torch to brighten my way, and tell dusk to flee like a shadow.
There are sunbeams in my hand through which the morning is born;
let me be one of those blinking lances piercing the flank of the veil;
to know my mother’s thighs of heaven and shine with the face of her sun.

Bring me sandals for my pilgrim’s feet, and tell the Gods to open a road.
There are the doors of the sky through which birds ascend;
let me be a swallow of red breast and red cowl, of lapis wing and foot;
to grapple the sky and proclaim the clouds as my call opens wide the doors.

Bring me a scepter of fine gold for my hand, and tell the sky to obey me.
There are the clouds and their rains before me, the offerings of the vault;
let me be a hawk of gilded form and feather, of striking light above the surface;
to appear through the rivers of the sky as master of all the waters know.

Bring me horizon’s eyes for my brow, and tell the dawn to behold me.
There is the east and there is the west, whose doors know spirit’s wings;
let me be a falcon of divine luminescence, of wholesome sight and knowledge;
to foresee the morning after night’s bleary fall where vision becomes my apex.

Bring me a mount of electrum for my perch, and tell the abyss to retreat.
There are dark waters where eternity dwells, a sea of beginning’s making;
let me be a heron of dazzling white crest, of shimmering eye and bill;
to awaken the eye of horizon’s becoming in east where I am sired.

Bring me a rudder for my boat of the sky, and tell the waters to fear me.
There is the north and there is the south, of wind and water rushing;
let me be a holy crocodile, of malachite jaw and carnelian stare;
to cut through the depths of untamed floods where stealth and speed become me.

Bring me the breath of the Sun-God, and tell darkness he has his master.
There is the beginning and there is the end, an ocean without horizon;
let me be that lotus of celestial view, of fiery crown and center;
to break the surface with my copper mirror as first light’s face appears.

Bring me the red cloth of my beginning, and tell my mother to bear me.
There is seed and there is a womb, a father and mother within me;
let me be that child in his trappings, an image of eternal design;
to knit together my flesh and my bones as spirit meets its makers.

I require a new beginning once my end has found me;
I know my slumber and my blindness, when land becomes my lover.
Shroud and coffin have given my loins ornaments of the soil;
shall I now be still with the willow, or have sycamore boughs as my cradle?
I would rather have the lotus with me when earth takes me in hand.

Where my feet have traveled leaves the stars upon them;
those constellations yonder, in whose spheres the spirits glimmer,
in whose wake I circumnavigate the sky.
I behold their untiring dance in the north, where souls on wings ascend;
their passage from the ground below makes death a stellar path.
They have come the way I have come, though I on feet and they on air;
we tread the roads above and below, our end the same in time’s keeping.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Sacred Verses (30): We Are All Shadows / Traveling Through the Open Doors

Earth, you are the residence of my bones,
the keep of my flesh with me from the beginning,
the house my ancient father made for me;
I will never be separated from you,
as your mountains will never be separated from your horizons;
they will endure on your loins as the sycamore endures,
rearing the green essence of field and meadow,
orchard and vineyard, cavern and grove.
You have passed to me these secret things from your seed,
and I carry them with me as the swallows carry the sun.

Sky, you are the residence of my spirit,
the keep of my shade with me from the beginning,
the house my ancient mother made for me;
I will never be separated from you,
as your stars will never be separated from your vault;
they will remain imperishable as your directions are imperishable,
holding aloft the gleam of Mooring Post and Bull’s Foreleg,
She-Hippopotamus and Crocodile, Lion and Myriad.
You have passed to me these constant things from your breast,
and I carry them with me as the winds carry the clouds.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the earth,
who gives us his seed of the ages stretching back to our beginning;
where we come from the gap of darkness and into the day;
where the thighs of our mother stretch forth to give us the world;
where the world is held up by the ocean encircled by void;
where the void is the source of the many from which the world is woven;
where darkness is the warp and light the weft of the primordial gods;
where the Gods comprise earth and sky, below and above, seed and womb;
where are hidden the children of the earth in the tears of daylight;
where the west swallows the stars that are born again from her body;
where the east spreads wide for the mirror of the swelling sun;
where are completed all the Mysteries that go forth as creation’s shadows.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the sky,
who gives us her breast of the eternal courses traversed by the sun;
traversed by the Unwearying Stars who rise and set by me;
traversed by the ark of daybreak which sails with me;
traversed by the ark of twilight which moors with me;
traversed by the souls of the north which provide breath for me;
traversed by the souls of the south which provide water for me;
traversed by the hawk of the east who shines gold on me;
traversed by the stork of the west who gives flight to me;
traversed by the Sun-God whose right eye opens for me;
traversed by the Moon-God whose left eye opens for me;
traversed by all the Secrets that go forth as life’s shadows.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of flesh and bone;
I take the pathway of doors my corpse provides,
steering me with the hand of my senses into the field beyond.
Life is my father, the deeds of my skin,
and death is my mother, whose clothing of the dusk conceals the virgin dawn.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the eyes;
I take the road of doors my mirrors provide,
gazing through my corpse and predicting the spirit following the flesh.
Daylight is the map my living feet tread,
and nightfall is the guide of my starry stride.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the ears;
I take the counsel of doors my music provides,
singing from the sparrows who hear the sun’s summons.
Earthly voices are the direction of my bones,
while the words of the sky provide wings for my soul.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the nose;
I inhale the incense of doors the earth provides,
swelling my worldly lungs with the savor of the immortal Gods.
Sweat is the scent of my corpse of the earth,
while breath is the flavor of my spirit of air going forth.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the mountains;
I ascend the soil of doors the beginning provides,
bursting up through the ocean of my mother as the mound.
My base is the road taken by the sun when he declines,
while my apex is the golden throne his ascension mounts.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the winds;
I sail the watercourse of doors sky’s breath provides,
moving in and moving out from the reach of the horizons.
My coming from the north revivifies the eternal sky,
while my coming from the south renews the enduring earth.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the rivers;
I quicken the flood of doors the netherworld provides,
overflowing every channel where my name spreads like water.
My water of the fields is the green of precious turquoise,
while my water in the sky is the starry veil of lapis lazuli.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the east;
I take to my breast the lotus of doors daybreak provides,
striking my heart with the fiery crest of a heron.
His call is my name rising from the pyramidion of the sun,
and his alighting is my soul’s forthcoming to the region of eternity.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the west;
I enter the mouth of doors twilight provides,
reuniting with my mother who acclaims her star-born child.
Her darkness is the secret cavern where my corpse is renewed,
while her light is the celestial door thrown open for my soul.

I am a shadow, like all the shadows
traveling through the open doors of the worlds;
we enter the lifetimes of doors eternity provides,
going forth by dawn and coming in by dusk.
Our life is the earth our corpse mirrors in daylight,
while death is the sky our soul ascends when night is opened.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Seize the Sky/ Mirrors of Hwt-Her

Hwt-Her of lofty form, standing firm in your field of turquoise,
striding heavenly circuits with horns of gold blazing,
your lapis veil the dancing ground of indestructible stars;
you are the mansion suspended above the brow of the earth,
whose hawk of enduring metal seeks the shelter of your thighs.
Taking his young body to your breast of heavenly milk,
your enchantments of the dawn grant him wings of stellar dominion.
Seize his wings, your wings, and bring them down for me, for me!

Come down O Goddess, bending low to the home of earthbound souls,
swinging your lights on the horizon before us, opening your two eyes;
these the dwellings of your whirling spirits, dancing as seven ladies in your train.
We see the horizons overtaken with riotous color of your two bodies,
one brightening the day with electrum, and the other clothing the night in alabaster; mirrors of the sky in whose depths the lights mingle.
Seize the sky, your sky, and pull it down for me, for me!

Swimming in your sky-waters, dappled with lapis lazuli,
carrying the Unwearying Stars in your belly,
your torches of gold going before you in the Nether Sky;
yours is the body of sublime form holding fast the gaze of the earth,
who beholds your thighs of fine and burnished gold welcoming the sun.
You praise him with your lips above, and with those below you hold him;
his emergence as that lotus of light-rays renews the world from your cavern .
Seize the sun, your sun, and send him out for me, for me!

Come down O Goddess, with mirrors foretelling your eyes;
let the east be your right eye and the west your left,
and my eyes behold you opening, opening.
May heaven open and the earth open;
your mirrors are dawn and twilight where spirits rise.
May the north open and the south open;
your mirrors are breath of sky and the flood becoming.
May the east open and the west open;
your mirrors are the birth and swallowing of the Sun-God.
May the lotus in his dark abyss open;
your mirrors are the going forth and withdrawal of the beginning.
May the secret Mound in his waters open;
your mirrors are the birth pangs and devouring of the earth.
May the Sacred Eye in its green wholeness open;
your mirrors are the division and reconciliation of powers.
May the Eye of the Sun open and the Eye of the Moon open;
your mirrors are the Day-Ark and the Night-Ark forthcoming.
May the Bakhu-Mountain open and the Manu-Mountain open;
your mirrors are the cleft of east and gap of the west receiving.
May the eastern and western portals open;
your mirrors are the stations of rebirth and eternity unceasing.
Come down O Goddess, with your mirrors predicting day after night;
let their spirits follow after you as your body of heaven opens,
and my earthly body opening, opening!

See now my legs striding the circuits of the stars by you;
you, the sky-mansion of unbroken light, between whose thighs the sun soars.
My body becomes your stars by you, seized by your hand and lifted up.
My eyes become your zenith by you, seized by your brow and lifted up.
My nose becomes your lotus by you, seized by your breath and lifted up.
My lips become your command by you, seized by your tongue and lifted up.
My tongue becomes your authority by you, seized by your heart and lifted up.
My heart becomes your enchantment by you, seized by your magic and lifted up.
My seed becomes your magic by you, seized by your womb and lifted up.
My thighs become your two horizons by you, seized by your eyes and lifted up.
My breast becomes your falcon of gold by you, seized by your thighs and lifted up.

Hear now my voice of turquoise shooting from your field;
you, the Mistress of Turquoise upon whose breasts the stars grow.
Take up my spirit-body to your starry breast and set him there;
establish his wings as those of a hawk of gold to glimmer forever.
You shine, and I see my reflection in your mirrors of the horizons.
You open your lips of the west, and I descend beneath your belly.
You dance in the mantle of the Unwearying Stars, and I rise up as one of them.
You throw back the doors of the nether portals,
and I go forth to the Mooring Post of the sky.
You place the diadem of the vault upon your apex,
and I become one of those Imperishable Stars enduring.
You open the lotus of the sun before your full face,
and I become the countenance of light filling your two eyes.
You shake your fecund thighs between the eastern sycamores,
and I become the Sun-Calf reborn from your turquoise sky.
You rule the nether region where earthbound spirits travel,
and I become a soul in flight encircled by your arms.
I become a portion of that ascended veil dazzling on your fresh horizon;
and you seize the sky to bring it down for me, for me.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Sacred Verses (27): The Gods Drink Their Image

I go in carrying my corpse in my hands;
all that I have from my Mother of my many lives,
their fears and transgressions pecking like crows;
these my entourage from my many lives,
their black cloaks haunting my shade for all its deeds.
We carry with us the corpses of all our accomplishments,
and like sparrows they gossip our names to the sky.
Sky, hungry sky, swallowing my sun into the hallowed west;
you swallow my mortal flesh whole, and with it my deeds;
for the sky is our beginning and our end,
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

I go in carrying my fear on my naked bones;
does he know his name, his scent, his flavor;
all that he has from his Father of his many forms.
Once I was green and gold like a field of corn,
my lighthearted soul fluttering above me as the azure sky.
I knew laughing and drinking and lovemaking,
the gleaming mirror of the sun throbbing from my loins.
I knew the names of my light-spirits, swallows on the wind,
tittering with the sky in the language of the fresh earth;
their speech the ancient tongue of an earth and sky united.
I knew these words and this language in my heart,
which received the knowledge of memory from the swallows;
and they received it from the Sun-God,
whose lotus breath knows our beginning and our end;
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

Where are my swallows now, who saw with their carnelian eyes
the rising of my sun on the fresh horizon of the east;
when I was still young, flawless, and green as the earth was green;
when I stood with my bare ankles in the flood,
my hands sifting the droplets of their beginning;
when my brow wore the diadem of the sun’s rosy light,
his rays playing over my wet breast and thighs;
when my shade traveled near me and knew innocence
as its companion,
before it played with snares and become entangled in nets;
when my eyes could see the future of their earth,
his Father below and his Mother above;
when the indomitable mountains appeared yielding
to the soft touch of the eyes, their peaks as lips to kiss;
when my mouth knew its first kiss and tasted its first lovemaking,
the flood sliding between my open thighs
to receive the power of the desirous sun;
when my passions knew only their beginning, never their end,
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

My light-spirits began as swallows as all spirits do;
they know from their birth the language of the rising sun.
They alight on the edge of the sky to hear the stars,
to catch their unwearying travels in the words their memory weaves.
This is the language of the swallows kept by the Sun-God,
whose beams traverse the four directions where swallows fly.
Their breasts and rosy faces have been kissed by the sun’s lips,
and their wings by the midnight sky, where their flights have ended.

If we spoke the language of swallows, we would hear how we began;
how the shade of our beginning was fashioned in the deep,
where the coils of serpents choked the first Mound of the earth;
how the Sun-God found his mirror alone in the surging darkness,
peering for the first time at his reflection of burnished gold;
how the loins of our first Father grew a sycamore on the Mound,
its boughs the bearers of his passions stretching from the abyss;
how the turquoise sky was upraised by the sycamore of the first dawn,
her body of gold becoming the Mother of the untiring stars;
how the light-spirits were born as swallows to perch near the elder sun,
their ears hearing his first words ring out into the burden of shadows;
how the bodies of the Gods were fashioned from the ancient elements,
their powers of gold and turquoise springing up from the first Mound;
these powers knowing their beginning, but never their end;
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

This is where we gathered our powers and our forms,
our lives reaching out before us like shoots of green in a void;
where we began as light-spirits untarnished by the shade of mortality.
This is how I began when I was still a child and could hear
the language of swallows carried on the wind.
They gave me the memories of the Gods in their first bodies,
which appeared upon the mirror of waters the beginning held.
Our beginning, our youth, our green souls were reflected with them;
many in number, they opened their wet ears to hear the song of those Gods,
being our gods and our voices, our language and our forms.
How those waters of the void fell from us, leaving our corpses awake;
how I held my swallows in my hands like the beatings of my own heart.
Have I now wings to travel like those hearts on blue-black wings,
to carry words of turquoise that sprout from stagnant shade?
Have I now wings that know their beginning, but never know their end;
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

I have gone in carrying my heart in my hands;
all that I have from my Mother of my many lives,
and all my Father gave me from his loins clothed in shade.
All my transgressions perch on my heart’s shoulders
like those swallows on sky’s edge;
she recalls their exploits as they recall my deeds,
and as the Sun-God knows his language from beginning’s form.
My youth has slumbered within my bones, my greenest hours faded;
I come again into the breast of the sky to shed my earthly skin.

Sky, my fragile youth and my beginning,
the Mother of my light-spirit whose breathing lights the vault;
I drink you in as my lips swallow your starry breast,
your thighs beneath me open to receive the sun of my green loins.
May my image grow within you as a star of undying aura,
born again in the east on your horizon of ascending light;
this light that glitters by day in the company of ancient swallows,
reaching up into the turquoise veil with their lapis wings.

Earth, my heady passions and my forthcoming,
the Father of my flesh and bones whose breathing fills the sky;
I drink your seed in as my lips swallow your inundation,
your skin on my skin bestowing me your savor.
May my flesh and bones be received by your hallows
to charge the cavern of beginnings;
where our Ancestors meet to receive their light-spirits
after travels through the memory of time.
Let me travel with them and hear their memories,
to become a swallow of the sky and air;
these qualities that know their beginning, but never their end;
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

I go in carrying my peace on sun-clad bones;
he knows his names, his youth, his beginning;
all that he has from his Father of his many forms.
He has drunk from his Mother’s sky of many lifetimes,
reckoning his past and his many transgressions.
But fear is unknown to him when he passes over
into the house of the midnight sky;
for he has tasted the waters of our beginning,
where all that once was has received the untarnished flood.
His reflection is the green and gold of the untouched Gods,
these qualities knowing their beginning, never their end;
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Sacred Verses (26): I Go Forth as a Jabiru

This is my going forth predicted by the Sun-God,
he who ascends from the fissure of his mother;
what I have heard chanted by the baboons who greet
the ever-rising countenance of the Sky-Lord;
what my two ears have been opened to hear;
what my mouth, lips, and tongue have repeated;
what the metal of heaven has brought forth
from my earth at twilight;
these powers of the Nether Sky woven by the Imperishable Stars.
I have seen them coming forth by day at my side,
these Gods and spirits clad in the flight of sunbeams.

You Gods who fill the earth and sky,
you spirits whose wings span the two horizons,
and you travelers upon the winds,
I take your direction coming from the north;
rising like a star of unwearying light,
I become a flashing torch in the presence of the east.
The shades of the earth behold my luminous face;
with full and open eyes I bequeath them the gift of sight,
and they who were without sight suddenly behold.

It is a wonder to cross the threshold of Gods,
and this I accomplish in the form of a god.
With dappled plumage and a crest of blazing gold,
my lapis lazuli dazzles their eyes, and my turquoise shines
with beams entwined with the raiment of the sun.
Who calls my name there, opening up the east for my flight?
It is the Unwearying Stars who know my names
and pronounce the savor of a god at my approach;
not with the stride of a man, but with the lofty stroke of a bird.

I go forth by daybreak as a jabiru of effective light,
being diffused across that eastern horizon
where the mirror of the sky reigns over millions.
How far my mantle of pure gold is spread,
the span of my wings encompassing the far-traveling clouds.
Blue of lapis, green of turquoise, and fiery red of jasper;
I lay claim to your brilliant enchantments,
carrying these upon the crest of my wings
where come the distant spirits of the sky.

Who makes flight with me when I open the gates of the north?
It is the circumpolar stars whose faces endure for me,
whose bodies of light appear for the beating of my wings;
they manifest as indestructible gold in my heaven of lapis,
where dwell the Ancestral Souls whose torches burn unceasingly.

Approach, come near and open your eyes for me,
you Imperishables of millions of years;
for I am the son of the sky whose endurance is with him,
before whose starry tread impotence flees and death is rent.
Behold with your wholesome eyes my plumage of white light;
see how it glistens in the waters of the sky,
my feet of carnelian beneath me, and my throat of red jasper upon me.
I have brought with me the mantle of the two horizons;
they are thrown wide open for me at dawn and at eventide,
where their doors of electrum kiss the tips of my unsullied wings.

I have seen the western vault dance beneath my flight;
she has opened her mouth of starlight to proclaim me to hidden doors;
where the river is swallowed whole by the shade of the sky;
where her spirits convene as jabirus in her retinue of stars;
where her gap takes Elder Light within the hallows of the Netherworld;
where the dead come to this place of the hauling for their reckoning of years;
where the bleariness of the Sacred Eye is healed within its Mound;
where come the Star-Gods to revive the corpse of the sun;
where sing the Star-Goddesses to open the course of the eastern land;
where brightens the world from its kernel of darkness;
where are remembered the divine words through which the world is reborn.

For I have seen the time of the flood with my two eyes,
and I have beheld the ascension of the Gods to their Mound;
its earth became the resting place of the sun,
and its apex the going forth of the eternal sky.
With darkness beneath the face of the Mound,
the world of water was divided in its time;
and this was the first beginning of the Gods,
who have possessed creation before dark and light were twined.
Their water is still upon them in the west,
where all souls take flight as jabirus of light-dappled mantles;
and these are my souls, and these my mantles of radiant savor.

This is my going forth as a soul of infinite life;
I go forth as a jabiru upon unceasing winds.
The sacred eyes of the sky are filled with my splendors,
when I go forth as a jabiru to claim my millions of years.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Sacred Verses (25): My Eyes Behold An Effective Spirit

Whose words now ring in my ears upon leaving this western land?
It is the language of the Gods that becomes my enchantment,
removing the earth resting heavy on my limbs;
this earth into whom men retreat when their time on the banks has ended.
What I have accomplished is the swallowing of slumber by the nether sky;
she has devoured my sleep and fashioned for me the body of a star.
Sky, my Mother, has shouted for me my inheritance from the stars,
which have risen on the ladder of the east,
making love to the morning horizon.

Departing now, this land of the west;
fed by its stream, clad in the shades of its Gods,
and recognized as one of its effective spirits,
I withdraw in the company of the sun;
his body feeding the mouths of the hungry spirits with gold;
his eyes restoring their sight with beams of turquoise;
his form brightening their twilight waters with his burnished reflection.
Whose reflection do my eyes see in the water below?
My own two eyes stare back through the opaque keep of the flood;
and this brilliant countenance is my own, by whom the spirits are roused.

“Let us remember the language of that Ancient Earth”, they say,
“He having come before the primordial Gods;
He having moved the waters, pushing aside their torrent
to stand on the Mound of the first horizon;
he having brightened the first horizon with his mirror;
he having opened his two eyes in the hallows of darkness
to find the earth and sky;
he having pulled the Mound of ages from the embrace of nether sky;
he having clashed with serpents on the outer limits of the world;
he having brought the world up and out of darkness;
he being our first sun on our first horizon;
he finding his hand in the shadows and embracing his loins with her savor;
he becoming she, and they having spoken the language of the Gods
into existence.
Let us remember them with the language of memory,
which clothes the naked earth and returns the stars to their sky!”

Whose language becomes my memory of my many ages?
It is my heart traversing these lonely waters with me;
this waterway being the place where spirits may forget their memory,
wandering in the shadows and starving for the Sun-God’s light.
It is when we have forgotten the ancient language of the heart
that we lose the radiance of our effective spirit;
alighting not, but taking flight as an ibis into the western vault.
Ibis, you with your glimmering crest are the return of my heart to me;
remembering your transparent beauty,
your gold-dappled plumage,
your light’s mantle of many colors;
I call you to my breast and hold you there.
Your language is the memory of my heart,
speaking from your most ancient time as the passage of my many ages.

Ibis, who like moon’s crest shines by night,
fills my breast with his awareness light;
I behold the sights that he has seen,
in west’s full shadows and east’s bright sheen.

My heart flies fast to its ancient source,
upon whose leaves reads a stellar course;
the tree of Gods where the sun is reborn,
to grapple night’s serpent whose coils are shorn.

O earth of my Father and Mother’s sky,
I drink from your tree of my ages gone by;
its waters to fill me as west’s shadows fall,
its life to become me as eastern lights call.

A persea tree flowers after gloaming calls,
with malachite leaves and electrum boughs reaching heaven’s veil.
It beckons the stars to spell out their courses upon its oracular leaves;
these being written by knowing hands whose portends govern ages.
This is the place where my ibis heart has led me;
his wings unfurl the leaves upon which my names are written.
Twilight’s ears have never heard my names nor slumber imbibed them;
for only the dawn can read this most ancient language,
carried upon the tongue of the north wind and its stars.
Whose stars are these in their ascent over my northern brow?
They are my many and secret names clad in the Sun-God’s colors.

Here I come in the entourage of the northern stars,
whose channels through the celestial waters become my guide;
following after them, I behold my body rise from its deep horizon,
enchanting the banks of the earth below.
Behold you earth and sands of the ravenous desert!
I have risen above your graves, and your sands do not know me.
Your red land cannot possess my shroud of slumber,
nor your spirits hold my heart from its starry flight!

See me now you snares and clutches of the outer darkness,
for I have transformed my shade to become an ibis
of dazzling crest and plumage!
Whose name do I carry in my bill of hallowed metal?
Lord of the Eight Primordials is my name when my crest glimmers;
it is the badge of the eight and ancient Gods who assembled in the flood,
their tongues predicting the following of day after night;
their hands weaving the warp of light with the weft of shadow;
their loins meeting in the embrace of void and substance;
their feet treading the Mound and their hands uplifting the vault;
their right eyes foretelling the sun and their left eyes foretelling the moon;
their north becoming the wind and their south becoming the waters;
their serpents biting time and swallowing eternity;
and their language twining the first beginning as the birth of the Gods.

These are the words that have caused my ascension in the east,
while the west pays me homage on the day of my farewell;
not knowing me to tarry in its sands or follow after its graves,
I go forth by the uplifted hand of the morning sky.
Come near and hear these secrets of the Hidden Shrine
where my effective spirit has flown;
its scent of heady myrrh precedes the forthcoming of a god,
whose tamarisk feet bestow the lifespan of the sky to earth’s spirits.
Are you one of those spirits of the earth with famished lips?
Come then and drink these Mysteries had from the Ancient Earth,
which lifted up the Mound at the time of the first beginning;
they became the world’s nourishment when the Gods came into being.

My heart is an ibis with a crest of winking silver;
it carries the pale sky upon its wings of divine strength.
His scent is the myrrh which foretells the footfall of Gods,
hidden in their clouds of heavenly savor.
Their feet know the memories of the Ancient Earth,
whose ages came before the birth of breathing men.
Their ages came before all breath and its speech;
but their breath is the language through which speech is known.
The tongue cannot speak it nor the breath know it
until the heart draws it from the Mount of its beginning.
Will you rise as I have risen upon that dawning Mound?

My heart has woven a miracle for my breath and tongue;
proclaiming the speech of the Gods known before the world’s beginning.
These are the words secreted within the courses of unwearying stars,
the northern and eastern heavens resounding with their powers.
These are the words that ring in my ears upon entering this eastern land;
they are the enchantments of the Gods beheld by my effective spirit.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

The Heron Wears Your Mantle

The east is your sycamore dappled with beams of turquoise;
a shrine thrown open by the brilliant hands of the sky.
O Ra Lord of Light-rays whose pervasive cloud of myrrh heralds his feet,
the sky is your ba-soul when dawn sees your face as the mirror of heaven.

A western mountain stretches with its goddess to meet the vault;
her horns of fine gold catch your beams like a net of precious metal.
Her open thighs know you when your sandalwood incense rises;
the god-making fragrance is your ba-soul when you enter the wind as its lord.

The holy waters are your ateruw-flood bursting from earth’s cavern;
in secret your deft hand brings the river from which all life draws breath.
O Ra the Father of the First Occasion whose flood lives in every vessel,
the waters are your ba-soul as they break open the body of the earth.

A lotus has stolen the blue mantle of the sky where you bathe;
the east finds your sun-pool submerged in molten gold luster.
Your Mother the Sky extends her hands to upraise you from the torrent,
the hallowed shell of your wet body appearing as the iridescent beetle.

The lotus is your eastern throne on the tide of the morning pool;
a first beginning where flood’s loins reveal their dusky secrets.
O Ra, Khepri who divides the waters in darkness where they churn;
the lotus is your ba-soul when its gleam parts the river by dawn.

A mound emerges from the deep pushed by your feet of electrum;
how the void flees your brilliance when you glimmer as the sun-beetle.
Yours is the seed of mysteries from which the magic of the sky flowers;
in darkness your seed becomes the sun rolled through the nether waters.

The heron wears your mantle when he breaks the fragile sky;
his bill proclaims the first dawn shooting from your fist.
O Ra, Benu-bird of scintillating plumage as first light finds your feathers;
the heron is your ba-soul when your migration brightens the world.

A calf with lapis dapples strides between the sycamores at daybreak;
his eyes possess the all-seeing sun which climbs the sky as his father.
He carries the light of the earth on his back as you traverse the clouds;
two realms are yours by day and night with earth beneath your hooves.

The domains of east and west become your summit where you appear;
bright gold and malachite reveal your body kissed by cloud trappings.
O Ra, Lord of Manifestations to whom earth and sky pay homage;
creation is your ba-soul when your heart’s light opens the lonely waters.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

House of Deities / Bringers of the Sky

Bringers of the sky, open your hands for me;
I receive the Unwearying Stars from your grasp,
and the bolts of the eastern horizon slide back at my command.
I enter your portals with the savor of a god on my skin;
thus the bolts flee before my hand and the doors before my feet.

May your celestial eyes be in the company of my holdings;
your magic of the vault with its Imperishable Stars;
your speech which divides the abyss and upraises the earth;
your fragrance of myrrh which surrounds you in your forthcoming;
your terror on the western horizon which devours souls;
your standards of pure gold flashing in the east, higher than clouds;
your diadem of the Cobra-Goddess whose venom strikes the adversaries;
your Ram-Soul in the west, entering in as flesh and returning as spirit;
your radiant sycamore in whose boughs the Sky uplifts her son to his zenith;
your cavern beneath the waters of the sky, from which the earth flood rises;
your bau-souls traversing the two worlds, alighting on their terrestrial forms;
your two horizons of yesterday and tomorrow,
those Twin Lions who encompass time;
your mound of your beginning from which the Benu-bird of the sky took flight;
and all the secret things held to the breast of the waters on that First Occasion.

Bringers of the sky, open your eyes for me;
I receive the clear vision of the Wedjat Eye from your vertex,
and the door leaves of the sky give up their secrets for me.
My eyebrows are the Two Combatants, reconciled in their two powers;
the north and the south entwined before my feet of black and red.
I take up the undiminished sight of the two papyrus wands,
their Cobra-Goddesses taking residence in my hand of enchantments.
My seat is in the filling of the Wedjat Eye,
whose shade governs heaven in its undefeated time.
I enter your portals with the essence of lotus on my skin;
indistinguishable from a god, I suckle from your breast in the sky.

May your bodies within the hallows of the earth be in my sight line;
O Ptah, Tatenen, Lord to the Limits,
rising from the sky in possession of the flood;
I receive the lotus at your nostrils and its fragrance becomes me.
O Sokar, Lord of the Hidden Shrine, you who are upon your sand,
rising in the Henu-Ark as master of the subterranean cavern;
I receive the ascension of your lofty crown whose sun-disk becomes me.
O Ausir, Wennefer, the goodly ruler of the Two Banks,
rising from your lands as the eternal and everlasting;
I receive the green kernel of your body whose immutability becomes me.
O Wepwawet, Opener of the Ways, whose heavenly strides are immeasurable,
rising high upon your standard in the sky, the sacred portals at your feet;
I receive passage from your two ears through all the doors that become me.
O Anpu, He Who is Upon His Mountain, Lord of the Sacred Land,
rising from your mount as the forerunner of those in the west;
I receive the flame of the secret things from your flank which becomes me.
O Djehuty, Lord of the Divine Speech,
Master of Time whose eye encompasses the sky,
rising from the radiance of your silver disk as governor of what its light encircles;
I receive the whole portion of your time which becomes me.

Bringers of the sky, open your ways before me;
I receive the pathways of the Unwearying Stars from your brow,
and the Two Eyes of the Sun-God grant their cognizance to me.
I have traversed the Two Ways in the entourage of the Sun-folk,
whose shouts of acclamation rend the sky at Ra’s coming.
I am acclaimed together with Ra as the mirror of my countenance
shines over the starry vault;
the proclamations of those Imperishable Stars deafen the ears of time.
Time does not know me nor death hear mention of my name;
for I go up in the eastern sky as the light-body of a star,
and I rise up from the mouth of the west as a ba-soul of lofty reflection.

Bringers of the sky, I have entered your open mansion of millions of years;
I have received unconquerable life from your apex,
delivered by your hands called the Imperishable Stars.
The House of Deities has been opened for me;
the Secret Shrine has been opened for me;
the Sacred Mount has been opened for me;
the eastern horizon has been opened for me;
the western sky has been opened for me;
the Unwearying Stars have been opened for me;
the Wedjat Eye at its moment of filling has been opened for me;
the Entourage of Ra has been opened for me;
the Day-Ark in its rising has been opened for me;
the Night-Ark in its setting has been opened for me;
the Henu-Ark on its sledge has been opened for me;
the very circuits traversed by the eternally coursing sun
have been opened for me.

Bringers of the sky, look, see,
and behold my reflection in the mirror of the heavens!
I have received the Never-setting Stars from your grasp,
and my countenance is now indistinguishable from that of an eternal god.
I ascend, I glimmer, and I rise up to take my place in your House of Deities.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Ra Sent Me A Swallow

Ra sent me a horizon filling the east with light,
its luminous arms welcoming me as my cradle.
Newly born, I rise up to you O Mother Sky,
your body of gold encompassing my horizon.

Ra sent me a star ascending the eastern vault;
the west is unknown where my striking rays lead the sky.
I call the heavenly bodies to follow in my retinue;
my body of gold and turquoise possessing the light of millions.

Ra sent me a snake swimming the waters above,
his coils the passage of millions of years.
Encircling the abyss of yesterday and today,
he is the devourer whom the earth’s ages fear.

Ra sent me a crocodile to swallow the depths;
his malachite stride crossed years in a single bound.
I have become those jaws dreaded by the abyss,
my valiant bite holding the terror of the midday sun.

Ra sent me a mountain from the depths of the flood,
its peak of gold piercing the hallowed veil of the sky.
Rise O you mountain beyond the realm of wet shadow;
lend me the strength of your vast and enduring years!

Ra sent me a flood to carry me home;
her starry back rose as a shrine for the Elder Sun.
I carried his ba-soul in my unveiled arms;
his light became my succor while traversing unknown waters.

Ra sent me a swallow perched on sky’s edge,
his ruddy face welcoming the mirror of the sun.
Whose countenance shines back from the star-clad vault;
my own rising high to cut the air with golden wings.

Ra sent me a heron of rosy-gold splendor;
his wet feet pulled the ancient earth from its slumber.
Earth’s sleep shall not find me when heron becomes me;
our plumage of dappled light igniting the earth with turquoise.

Ra sent me a lotus from beneath the dusky flood,
its lapis petals kissing the sky-clad body of the sun.
Whose body so rises that it brightens dark horizons;
my visage of divine electrum from which creation blooms.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa