#awakening osiris

[virtuouslibertines69]

"Mine is a heart of carnelian, crimson as murder on a holy day." - from Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead (trans. Normandi Ellis)

Art by Tom Bagshaw

[hedgewitchgarden]

I am content in the company of god, a prayer that contains its own answer. I am the lotus. As if from a dream, I wake up laughing.

Awakening Osiris, Becoming the Lotus

[sat-neteru]

Oh jackal Anubis! Show me the road through darkness. I have passed through this door into nothing. Nothing grows and nothing dies; all that was and would be is.

Normandi Ellis, Awakening Osiris

[father-of-the-void]

I am a child, the seed in everything, the rhythm of flowers, the old story that lingers. Among cattle and fruit sellers, I am air. I am love hidden in a shy maiden's gown. I am the name of things. I am the dream changing before your eyes. I am my body, a house for blood and breath. I am a man on earth and a god in heaven. While I travel the deserts in frail form, while I grow old and weep and die, I live always as a child inside the body of truth, a blue egg that rocks in the storm but never breaks. I sleep in peace in my mother's lap, a child mesmerized by sunlight on the river. My soul is swallowed up by god. Out of chaos came the light. Out of the will came life.

Awakening Osiris, Becoming the Child

[juniperusashei]

Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead translated by Normandi Ellis - 5/5

“I remember the names of my ancestors. I speak the names of those I love. I speak their names and they live again. May I be so well-loved and remembered. In truth, may the gods hear my name. May I do work with my hands worth remembering.”

This translation came at the recommendation of like three different people independently, so I knew I had to read it, but I picked it up when I did to possibly find ways to cope with my grandmother’s departing. I came away with insight on self-reflection and self-improvement, and the knowing that this might be the same thing as remembering the dead. The language made it feel a little like reading the Bible (which makes sense, given the geographical proximity), but the content was the polar opposite. My grandmother was a religious woman, but what the rent-a-pastor at her funeral got wrong with his Protestant fatalism was she didn’t let it define her life. This book maybe gets a lot of the things right that the Bible gets wrong, that the way to revere the dead is not mourning but celebrating their life.

Example of this is that one of the most common words in this book is “I”. It feels a little like a narrative, fluctuating between first person and third-person about Osiris. But Ellis’ introduction clarifies that, while Osiris is the Egyptian god of the dead, an Osiris is anyone who follows in his footsteps, so anyone dead or alive. I read this to cope with death, but I learned more about myself… but isn’t that all the same thing because we all share the same fate? My favorite sections, from 40 to 51, “Becoming the […]” exemplify this perfectly. There’s a lot about taking your destiny in your own hands, creating yourself, becoming yourself: “Who you are is limited only by who you think you are.” So in many ways I think of this as the exact opposite of Christian dogma, and that these guys had a much healthier outlook on life and death than people centuries later.

I will say if you are looking for an academic text, this is not the version to read (a friend recommended R.O. Faulkner’s translation, which I have yet to check out, though I definitely will because this book was so meaningful to me). In the foreword, Ellis even admits, “I hesitate even to call this a translation. It is a meditation.” She changed a lot, obviously, but I respect her a lot more than for example Arthur Waley’s arrogant work in translation, because she not only shows a deep reverence for the culture, but also cites more rigorous translations and provides a concordance with the original papyrus to facilitate academic study.

[fireeaglespirit]

Anyone ever read or ever heard of this book??

Is it any good? I heard it is a very poetic free translation of the papyrus of Ani

Aka, a famous exemplar of the ‘book of the dead’.

I want to see the page called ‘becoming the phoenix’. 

It seems interesting, if anyone has this page for me to see I’d be glad since I don’t have means to buy e-books. Just for me research in writing my fantasy story since its heavily based on these myths...

[soracities]

I return to the rhythm of water, to the dark song I was in my mother’s belly.

from Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead (trans. Normandi Ellis)

[thelightofthecenter]

We are gods in the body of god, truth and love our destinies. Go then and make of the world something beautiful, set up light in darkness.

Egyptian Book of the Dead, more correctly translated as the Book of Coming into the Light.