You know about Akhenaten, Nefertiti and even about Tutankhamun, but did you know that I helped make them who they are? And yet you never heard of me. Good reason, I was the perfect civil servant⎯you might say that I was the Dick Cheney of the 18th dynasty ( 1300 B.C.) and my name was Kheperkheperura, doer of right, battalion commander, king’s scribe and father of the god. I was born reluctantly and had no early sense of happiness. You can call me Ay I knew and served all the key players: I was brother-in-law to Pharaoh, father-in-law to Pharaoh and finally in 1327 B.C., I made Pharaoh. Early in life, I learned this lesson from my mother and sister: attach yourself to someone of power and rise with them.
The need to serve and the ability to remain in the shadows, while using my strength to implement another’s vision, were ingrained in me (I was beneficial because of my closed mouth).
I became a practical man entrusted with carrying out public policy for Pharaoh. This meant preserving the Maat, the path of divine order and balance in the world. In the case of Akhenaten, I was required to manifest publicly his personal revelations, which aimed to overturn the entire religious structure of Egypt by substituting a direct path from the human to the divine. To Pharaoh, the revelation of God is light. Egypt’s light is overwhelming, with a brightness that multiplies detail and enhances objects with extraordinary clarity. It is the presence of God “ in our faces.” Akhenaten himself wore the sun as a garment.
But in disseminating another man’s vision, I found that I also imbibed his energy. My left eye opened and expanded; I saw heaven in small prisms of light that grew in beauty and intensity over time. I envisioned Akhenaten worshiping in a lush color-filled garden landscape that was free of gravity and ordinariness. When the sun emanates through you, the eye reverses the image and what you see appears to be upside down, but such terms are relative because there is no gravity in heaven. Stars were blue and moved sideways and dipped into orange water; the grass surrounding me was blood stained and flowed as from an open womb of life’s possibilities. Each color marked a spiritual vapor of energy: the presence of spirit in matter.
Breathe into your body and each part, whether kneecap or elbow, back or face, fills with its own intoxication, The color achieved knows no shape, but is amplified with an intensity of love.
For a time I let the sun-shine on me, but my old ingrained reservations eventually re-asserted themselves and I became frightened and closed down. Better to second guess what people are thinking so you can be there before them. There was no place to put this new vision in my own life. Instead, I befriended animals and enjoyed their colors and shapes and their capacity for a loyalty that I missed in human beings. They were my friends and I was determined to take them with me to the afterlife.
To be continued . . .
Pictures shown:
Ay - In Countless Guises, Watercolor, 2006
Ay - My Friends . . . , Watercolor, 2006
To See Part I go to:
seen-from-perspective-of-mummy_22.html
Posts
