Poem for Nefertiti

In Akhenaten and Nefertiti by Cyril Aldred

1973



Fair of Face

Mistress of Happiness

Endowed with Favors

Great of Favor

Lady of Love

Mistress of Upper

And Lower Egypt

Wife of the King,

His beloved Nefertiti.

Happy New Year

January 1, 2010

I was reading in Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis also known as The Egyptian book of the Dead or Coming Forth by Day this morning from the chapter out of the “Seven Houses in the Other World.” The book is about the passage from death to the neter world or underworld, looking back on one’s life and facing oneself by acknowledging the truth one learns as one lives. It feels important for this New Year and new decade in these uncertain times to keep asking myself if I am living in accordance with my own truth so that as I make my own journey into the next life that I have faced myself fully and wholly. I offer this passage as a reminder to those of us who wish to do the same.

“Oh what joy it was once to be young! When all a man had to do was eat and sweat and make love to his wife. But that was not even the height of my powers. I learned more or less in time to weigh my words, to conserve my actions, even to suppress my little will, ah! but never to deny my feelings. Love and anger gave me words of truth, but I refined them and I was no less a man of passion for my caution. The virtues of Thoth made of me more god. I gave the mind the pleasure of creation. I sought the truth, though difficult and hidden. And the strength of Osiris was the strength of the mind, the strength of the hand, the strength of the will and god….I offer myself at this moment, a man in the dark walking by his own light along the way. I pass on. I am a priest of light, a man of conviction. I have made my changes. I am a being of becoming. Open the way to me.”

I am also seeking truth in every moment though it might force me to writhe in my own vulnerability as I look at the ways I want to hide and deceive myself to avoid shame. And yet at every juncture that I allow my own heart to break open, I have created a vessel that lets the light fully permeate my body and then I too can become a priestess of light. And as the Hymn to Hathor reads, “ go in the world and make something beautiful. Set up a light in the darkness.”

I am following the thread of my own becoming offering, offering, offering myself to the gods and those who seek refuge in my support and love. I write this as I make myself new again and again. May I have the strength of body, heart, and spirit to be of use so when I leave this earth I am used up in all ways. And may I also forgive myself in those moments of forgetting. May this humble prayer be my guide as I take each breath, each step and speak each word this year.

Here is my New Year's Offering

The Bell Family Wishes You A Blessed Year

The heart of the Sphinx is the doorway to the awakened heart. We send you these blessings and hope that your life will be inspired by this field of love.