Brown Gloria Taylor - Invoking the scribes of ancient Egypt: the initiatory path of spiritual journaling

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to the people at Quest Travel in Giza, Egypt, who made our tour possible, particularly Mr. Mohamed Nazmy, its president. Given that he was educated in the United States, Mohamed has superb command of the English language, as well as the ability to understand what pleases foreigners who visit Egypt. In Quest Travel, which specializes in the spiritual tourist, Mohamed has created an empire of devoted followers around the world. They include some of the greats in alternative or spiritual Egyptology: John Anthony West, Graham Hancock, Jean Houston, and, of course, Nicki Scully of Shamanic Journeys.

In addition to providing exemplary accommodations and arranging all aspects of our travel, Mohamed also provided us with the sacred boat, his beloved and beautiful Afandina, which allowed us to work together fluidly and luxuriously as we traveled. His was a gift given in love and rendered with exquisite detail.

Emil Shaker is the chief Egyptologist of Mohameds Quest Travel, guide extraordinaire, and all around great character. Emil is a Copt, the Christian minority in this Muslim country. He accompanied us on the tour, providing knowledge and humor in equal measure. Emil is a master storyteller, and in his company all of Egypt comes alive. We owe him a deep bow of gratitude for bringing so much of his own magic to our trip.

Special thanks go to Nicki Scully and Mark Hallert of Shamanic Journeys who provided us with arrangements for the tour. Even though Nicki has led many tours through Egypt, as a participant on this one, she provided expertise only when asked, allowing us to forge the way. We also give gratitude to our sister tour participants and priestesses who assisted in the temple ceremonies, Kathryn Ravenwood and Laura Janesdaughter, with special thanks going to our talented photographers. There are many more people who made this book possible, from the participants and contributors on the tour, to the staff of the Afandina, and the office staff of Quest Travel and Shamanic Journeys.

We are both blessed to have husbands who read our work and make useful suggestions, as well as colleagues and student assistants who helped with the manuscript preparation. All of them were important to the final outcome, and we are eternally grateful for their assistance.

The Mysteries Call Me Home

Kathryn Ravenwood

The call came and my heart and voice said, Yes! Yes to Egypt! I feel the mysteries calling me back. Osiris appears in visions promising death and rebirth while tears bathe me in ritual preparation of purification. I make offerings with sacred smoke at altars adorned with ancient archetypes of a time when balance was sacred and truth shone like a white feather in the sunlight.

I am transported through time and space. I am going home. Home to Egypt. Home to ruins of temples and living water. Home to secret texts etched into walls and glyphs of familiar gods gazing eternally into past and future memories. Clues to forgotten diaries and trunks of treasures are left for me to rediscover... reunions and re-memberings. My name is proclaimed. Doors are open to receive me.

How long have I been lost from these palaces of lotus columns crowned with cobras and vultures, exalted in lapis lazuli and gleaming gold? Why was I sent away on this ageless quest that has led me through lifetimes of searching? What is the grail I was dispatched to retrieve? I have traversed this plane of density and worn through the soles of many shoes. The path goes ever before me, winding like a snake, coiling back on itself, rearing and striking, hiding in the grass. Within me are the ragged remnants of the Book of How It Was to lead me home again, but I can no longer read the writing or decipher the symbols.

Osiris! Long have I searched for the severed and scattered pieces of who I AM. I have erected temples of sand that melted in high tides. I have built shrines of stone engulfed by twining vines and adorned with the nests of birds. I brought offerings and sacrifices to altars of gods long forgotten. I wrestled with crocodiles and carried the sword in battle. I gave birth to rosy-cheeked children and baked bread in earth ovens. Let it be enough. Osiris. Bring me home, and I will bathe my feet in your ancient waters and fill the niches of your temple with honeysuckle and wine.

And so once again I stand below the arc of Egyptian sky and am cast upon the ancient potters wheel. My vows of wet clay harden into the shape of what will be. I am the vessel. I am the clay. I am the wheel. I am the potter. I am Egypt.

Foreword

In the fall of 2009 I went on what I consider to be my dream journey: a mystery tour of Egypt for writers that Normandi Ellis and Gloria Taylor Brown were leading. Everything about it was perfect, from the accommodations on our beautiful private dahabeya (a sailing boat like the ones that traditionally carried Egyptian royalty up and down the Nile), to the weather, to each and every participant who chose to join our circle. Most enticing of all, the intention for this group was to learn to write in the form of spiritual autobiography such as was written by ancient Egyptians whose philosophic musings appear in The Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Our seventeen travelers were ripe and ready for the transformation we knew would result from our efforts. We had signed up for it! We were confident that our two leaders, outstanding alchemists well versed in the ancient Egyptian mysteries, would blend their abilities into the perfect catalyzing agents necessary to inspire deep inner exploration and Thothful word play.

The resulting Pearl of Great Price is this book, Invoking the Scribes of Ancient Egypt, an accomplishment whose sum is more than the individual and unique expressions of seventeen attentive, creative students of the art of autobiographical writingit is a deep introspective into the potent magical power of Egypt.

When we looked at the walls in the temples of Egypt we engaged with our own reflections as carved in stone by ancestors who were adept at expressing the truth of our existence and our divinity. These walls can and do speak; their sacred hieroglyphic images evoke re-membrance and awakening. We immersed ourselves in the direct experience of their mysteries during our private ceremonies at the monuments and temples, and even while practicing the writing techniques in the sanctuary of our boats gracious living room, or on its deck. Under the deft guidance of Normandi and Gloria, our souls stirred and our hearts opened to the mystical experience of the moment, after which words flowed onto the pages of our journals, vivid and alive. We remembered ourselves, we remembered our connection with divinity, and we remembered our reasons for beinghere and now. We discovered that the truths of thousands of years ago are as relevant today as the possibility of love, the fertility of the Nile, and the warmth and generosity of the people of Egypt.

I love this book. And I love the women who created it. Normandi and Gloria have been friends of mine for decades. They are both visionariesdeeply connected with the Egyptian pantheonand priestess sisters in our lineage of Thoth. We share a passion for Egypt and her Mysteries, which has brought us together a number of times in Egypt and at our Egyptian Mysteries retreats here in the United States.