Normandi Ellis - Hieroglyphic Words of Power: Symbols for Magic, Divination, and Dreamwork

For my brothers, Edward and Byron, and my daughter, Alaina.

HIEROGLYPHIC WORDS OF POWER

This is a work of genius! Normandi Ellis, the author of this mind-cracking, soul-shaking work, is a once and future priestess, poet, and practitioner of the mystery, magic, and spiritual arts of ancient Egypt. She illustrates the enormous difference between our material thought and what we might call our soul thought or hieroglyphic thought. The Egyptians lived closer to the depths of their intra-dimensional minds than we do. By learning to perceive hieroglyphically, we can tap the many levels of consciousness; we can accommodate ourselves to the many transformations of our time; we can discover the many meanings, the sacred ambivalences. By consciously shaping our lives through spiritual attunement by thinking hieroglyphically, analogically, and symbolically in charged multi-patterns with webs of meaning, we can begin to create changes in our own formsin our bodies and our minds. Thus, we approach the enantiodromia, the big turnaround, that leads to a higher and deeper culture for us all collectively.

JEAN HOUSTON, PH.D., SCHOLAR, PHILOSOPHER, RESEARCHER IN HUMAN CAPACITIES, AND AUTHOR OF THE PASSION OF ISIS AND OSIRIS

Normandi Ellis dreams into the mind of ancient Egypt, and Egypt dreams through her. She is one of those who passed through the lion skin, as Egypt said of initiates, and now invites us to taste the mysteries. With Hieroglyphic Words of Power, this word priestess gives us access to ancient codes for creation through the heart and the tongue. She takes us on a tour of the magic library of Seshetscribe, goddess, and celestial consort of Thothwhere gods and glyphs come alive. This beautifully designed book is a workout for the visual imagination and an invitation to awaken to the power of naming and constructing personal oracles from ancient words of power. Through essays on sixty medju neter (words of the gods), Normandi introduces us to hieroglyphic thinking and leads us with poetic clarity through a profusion of deities, creation myths, and spiritual bodies. She leaves us with a reference book to which I will return again and againa resource unlike others, because, beyond scholarship, the authors shining love for her theme blazes through every word.

ROBERT MOSS, AUTHOR OF DREAMING THE SOUL BACK HOME, THE SECRET HISTORY OF DREAMING, AND THE DREAMERS BOOK OF THE DEAD

This book is almost as good as being in class or traveling with Normandi Ellis, as she shares her immense wisdom from her even bigger heart. As the class or tour eventually ends, this beautiful book ensures that the teaching does notyou can delve into it anytime to discover new layers and revelations. Normandi presents the hieroglyphs of Egypt as tangible oracular tools to navigate the magical cosmology of our existence and to divine ourselves as living images of the magic that created us. This book is not only about the magic; it vividly helps us to remember that we are the magic.

KATHRYN W. RAVENWOOD, AUTHOR OF HOW TO CREATE SACRED WATER

Normandi Elliss latest book has given me something precious: access to a door that for years I thought had no key, behind whichI just knewwere wonderful things just out of reach. At last, with the surprising and multilayered techniques given, I see a way to crack it open.

ALAN RICHARDSON, COAUTHOR OF THE INNER GUIDE TO EGYPT AND AUTHOR OF MAGICAL KABBALAH AND THE SEA PRIEST

As Normandi writes, truth is more than one thing. To break the spell that reality is something fixed, Normandi conjures spells of imagery and poetry, tricking us into a larger truth. Dont be confused that in your hands now is a book of words. For if you dare suspend your usual perceptions and expectations, you may recognize that youre being handed a prism of realizationone facet, one image, one key to the kingdom at a time. Beyond the relative reality that we unconsciously construct moment by moment lives the imaginal realms. Step into these pages. Let go. Become ancient and available to the gods through your own nonrational self.

DEBORAH JONES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE NINE GATES MYSTERY SCHOOL

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T hank you, Jon Graham, for returning my call when I left a Sunday message on the phone saying, I have this idea for another book, and described it. Thank you for calling me back on Monday. Thanks to my mentor Nicki Scully, for being my Anubis and opening the way for me to do my work, now every day. Thank you, thank you, dear sister. Thank you to my fellow travelers and cohorts in the work: Deborah Jones, Sandra Corcoran, Indigo Ronlov, Gloria Taylor Brown, and Kathryn Ravenwood. Thank you to every student who gave feedback on the process of using hieroglyphs as oracles.

Thank you, Lexy Reed Hovis, for attending one of the first classes on hieroglyphic words of power in which we drew the images of these magical words. Lexy, you have done a marvelous job inscribing the heka of the goddess Seshet into your heart. I cant thank you enough for the beautiful illustrations that grace this book.

And a huge thank you to Amy Auset Rohn who photographed the gorgeous temples of Egypt on two different trips with me. Thank you also for taking extra time to photograph the hieroglyphs themselves as we walked about the temples, adding a few more until we were done. This book would fall far short if not for your skilled eye. Thanks to Meg Wolsiffer for using your magical graphic designers wand and creating readable photographs of particular hieroglyphs that were crumbling or too dim to capture properly.

This acknowledgment would not be complete if I did not thank my mentor and friend Jean Houston who, many decades ago now, lifted up a rock under which I was hiding and said Hello, hello! Come out! Jean, your generosity of spirit, your work with me in editing and creating hieroglyphic thinking in your book The Passion of Isis and Osiris, and the opportunity over the years to converse, speak, and tell stories has been the gift of a lifetime. All we discussed led to this book and helped me hone my thinking on the hieroglyphs that follow.

Jamaica Burns and Anne Dillon, my editors and lifesavers, I am forever indebted to your skillful ways of excising my jumbled thoughts (like upturned temple stones buried in the detritus of a lifetime!) and helping me to excavate the true meaning of the text we worked on together. Your patience with me was a blessing, especially when schedules overwhelmed and computer crashes impeded our progress. Bless your eye for detail and pattern that demonstrated exactly what hieroglyphic thinking is about.

And to my Egyptian friendsEmil Shaker, Hatem Aly, Ihab Rashad, and the late Mohamed NazmyI am forever indebted to you for making me a part of your family. It is you who are my Beloveds, my Habibis. When I walk on your sands, when I feel the sun and wind on my face, when my eyes rest upon the hieroglyphs that enter beauteously into my dreams, I know that I am home.

And to Egypt itself. I loved you before I knew you. You were in my bones; you were the neteru in the natural world. When I found you, I found my world. In a real sense, it is you who gave me the words.