Excerpts from GiNnY's Diary

I wonder just how many invisibility devices I actually am wearing that I don't know of? The One Ring? An Invisibility Cloak? Or did I activate some sort of cloaking device? I don't know anymore.... Everything feels weird. I hope I won't be saying "I amar prestar....". I don't adapt to change easily. I survive it, but don't normally accept it. Evolution would probably leave me behind.

I was soaring I was flying, Knowing I had no boundaries, with the heights that now surround. But I was tethered, I was falling, knowing everything that goes up must come down. Quoted this song a few posts ago. A few posts ago, it seemed a given. But now, I wonder, can't one defy the laws of physics, so that one can go up but not come down? Like get wings and fly? Forever? Or be as light as a feather and be just be carried by the wind? Forever? Looks like it can't be avoided. Down you go.

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Since I soooo feel like I'm about to either crash into a weird depressed state or lapse into a long period of suspended animation, I thought that the Egyptian Book of the Dead will be good reading material today during work breaks. Not depressing, not joyful, just gloomy enough, but hey, the texts talk about eternal life. In fact, the ancient Egyptians call it prt m hrw or "coming forth by day", because they believed that the soul took the whole night to travel through the Underworld, and it shall emerge triumphant by day. Doesn't sound too gloomy, does it? And you never know what lessons you may find.

The Book of the Dead is actually not a book. It's a bunch of papyrus sheets where mortuary spells were written, and some of the vignettes are written in tomb walls. Morbid? Well, probably. But these spells ensured that the soul of the dead would get through the underworld safely and attain a blissful afterlife. The Book also contains hymns of praise to the ancient Egyptian gods.

Most of the text relates the Odyssey of the soul through the Underworld, from the weighing of the dead's heart against the Feather of Truth, to passing trials like going through the Seven Arits, and passing the Pylons of the House of Osiris. After this, he will be ushered into the presence of Osiris, and after a few more spells and trials, into the presence of Thoth. Then he will become god-like and have powers like a deity.

The version I'm reading is "The Book of the Dead" which was translated by E.A. Wallis Budge from the Papyrus of Ani, which is the best preserved version of the book, complete with beautiful illustrations. Will write more about it when I've read a substantial part of the text.

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Cause I am barely breathing
And I can't find the air
Don't know who I'm kidding
Imagining you care
I could stand here waiting,
A fool for another day.
I don't suppose it's worth the price
The price that I would pay.
But I'm thinking it over anyway....
--- from "Barely Breathing" by Duncan Sheik



.:chronicled by senator skywalker at 9:23:00 PM:.
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