Sunday, April 9, 2006 A

"Food for Thought"
4:25am

I've been having unsettling thoughts. So what shall I do? I think I shall disturb your thoughts, too. I've been hearing the thoughts of vegetarians with great respect for their acts of conscience. But I haven't been especially moved to do likewise. Somehow, as a carnivore, I've identified with the wolf, hungrily devouring his prey after a fierce hunt. Yes, 'life does feed on life', but as it turns out, things are not so simple as that.

Maybe in your world, things are. But here in the United States, with a thing called 'factory farming', things are not so simple as that. All the words of vegetarians have not moved me to quit the meat. But when I went to the fair yesterday, I had a good awakening. Words of passionate reasoning have not moved me. But when I saw the pigs yesterday, this has made me think. Several were peaceful in their slumber. One enjoying his slumber had a genuine, bonified GRIN on his face, he was having happy dreams, and the one responding to Julia's hands, oh, that got me thinking, there is some intelligence and personality going on in those beasties.

I did not get a picture of the one that was up close to me, grinning big, for my disk was all full, but I did get a picture of one farther back in his stall. Even so, I can see a bit of a smile:

I looked at him, and thought, "I don't want to eat you!" But today, following a link from a link from a link, I find the situation is much worse. I think, and maybe you, too, of the happy pig, enjoying his life up until the fate day of slaughter. Oh, but that is not even the case! This has been outlawed in Europe, but here in the states, most of the pigs have an awful life:

This is the life of the sows who are pregnant 20 times a year!
(picture credit Farm Sanctuary)

Those poor sows do not smile in their slumber. Their lives are constant torture. They FEEL that torture. These are sentient beings who are aware of it 24/7. These are not beings who have a happy life until the moment of slaughter.

I don't think I will be buying any more pork.

Sunday, April 9, 2006 B

"Full Circle Weirdness"
11:17am

I return to my writing post to deliver more alarming weirdness. Julia read this to me, from the May issue of Astronomy magazine:

"Asteroid 99942 Apophis will pass 22,000 miles from Earth April 13, 2029. Astronomers can now predict its course with enough precision to eliminate all but one possible impact. If the asteroid wanders into a certain "resonance keyhole,' its trajectory for an Earth impact in 2036 is certain." (Dan Durda, page 47)

If you've done any sort of research into the ancient mythology of Set, you know that Set was the only one strong enough to defeat the enemy of Apep/Apophis, a demon who would render everything to non-existence. They knew this when they named it: "Asteroid Apophis currently approaches us from inside Earth's orbit; it comes "out of the Sun," from our perspective. This makes Apophis a member of the Aten class of asteroids, which astronomers traditionally name after Egyptian deities. It didn't take the discovery team long to find a suitable name from this rich pantheon." (page 51.)

Set Slaying the Apep Snake

Twenty three years from now, we will have more opportunity to study this asteroid, and what to do should it go into that 'resonance keyhole'.

Another piece of peculiar 'weirdness' that is making news these days is that gnostic Gospel of Judas that's been found and translated. I found of particular interest these lines:

The first is [S]eth, who is called Christ. The [second] is Harmathoth, who is [...]. the [third] is Galila. The fourth is Yobel. The fifth [is] Adonaios. These are the five who ruled over the underworld, and first of all over chaos."

Ruling over the 'underworld' and 'chaos', could this Egyptian coptic writing be referring to the Egyptian god Set? It gets complex. "Seth, who is called Christ". There are some clues that there is an association.

Jean Doresse, via Gnostics.com, says:

"The god with the head of an ass is the image of the Demiurge Ialdabaôth, the “god of the Jews”…It is upon certain monuments of Egypt that we find the most ancient proofs of the attribution of a donkey’s head to a god, who was to become progressively identified with the god of the Jews. This originated from the Asiatic god Sutekh, whom the Egyptians assimilated to one of their greatest gods; Seth, the adversary of Osiris. They represented Seth also…with a human body and an ass’s head. Afterwards…Seth was definitely regarded by the Egyptians…as the father of the legendary heroes Hierosolymus and Judaeus—that is, as an ancestor of the Jews!"

TeVelde in Seth, God of Confusion also makes reference to this, when Set became villainized, "Here and there hatred of foreigners or anti-Semitism made itself felt, as as Seth now bore the stereotype of God of the Semites, owing to his close link with Baal in Ramesside times, his cult was victimised.(page 109)

This could explain the confusion of the gnostics.com author in determining the truth of this. Set, by this time, with the asses head, got to be associated with humanity's "lower 'animal' nature". Still, the original mythos, in which he was the only one strong enough to combat the demon of chaos that would render all to non-existence, must have retained some strength, for Set to be called 'Christ' and ruling over chaos. I wonder if 'Harmathoth' refers to Thoth?

It seems a full circle moment for me, as the interrelatedness of these things becomes more clear. In this reasoned approach, I gain knowledge. But full 'gnosis', aka 'knowledge', requires the intuitive, inward aspects as well:

In searching for these explanatory texts, I came across some other interesting quotes. Elaine Pagels, in 'The Gnostic Gospels' quotes a couple of ancient gnostics:

"But gnosis is not primarily rational knowledge. The Greek language distinguishes between scientific or reflective knowledge ("He knows mathematics") and knowing through observation or experience ("He knows me"), which is gnosis. As the gnostics use the term, we could translate it as "insight," for gnosis involves an intuitive process of knowing oneself. And to know oneself, they claimed, is to know human nature and human destiny. According to the gnostic teacher Theodotus, writing in Asia Minor (c. 140-160), the gnostic is one has come to understand who we were, and what we have become; where we were... whither we are hastening; from what we are being released; what birth is, and what is rebirth. Yet to know oneself, at the deepest level, is simultaneously to know God; this is the secret of gnosis. Another gnostic teacher, Monoimus, says: Abandon the search for God and the creation and other matters of a similar sort. Look for him by taking yourself as the starting point. Learn who it is within you who makes everything his own and says, "My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body." Learn the sources of sorrow:, joy, love, hate . . . If you carefully investigate these matters you will find him in yourself."

Full circle again, we return to the center which is Within.

Sunday, April 9, 2006 C

"Book of Secrets"
8:46pm

I decided to send for the Doresse book to learn more of the "wonderful and unusual" Secrets. Wonderful and unusual, that's up my alley! I also added to the cart a CD, "Blackthorn: Irish Love Songs" by Susan Mckeown. I might have added more music CDs, but my sample of them was ruined by a persistent prior music tidbit which could not be shut off. Amazon has never done this before, so I have no idea what that was all about.

Monday, April 10, 2006

"Sick"
9:46am

I am SO sick! At one am, I woke up with an upset tummy, diarrhea and the sweats. All of that got worse, until around 5 am, I was throwing up. I still feel like I could throw up, but there's nothing in the tummy. I would sleep more, but the back, it hurts. Julia called my work for me. Um, she could have been more dramatic about just how awful I feel. I hope my co-workers aren't thinking I'm having a good time...
belch, belch, belch, run, run, run, opps, 'sharted', change nightgown...belch, belch, belch...

12:41pm

Sweet Julia took time off from work to bring me a strawberry mango smoothie, the thing I'd asked her to bring me after work. Maybe she had an idea that I wouldn't have eaten anything but 3 crackers and some sips of waters. I am so grateful for her thoughtful actions.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

"Better"
9:09pm

You can make lemonade out of a sour lemon, but what do you do with a sour stomach?

The extra huge lemons were at the fair. I had Julia put her hand there to show the size. I am better today. It was a 24 hour stomach flu. One of my co-workers said it is a bug that is 'going around'.

Weird drawing of the night...
Is she juggling tiny lemons, or catching bugs or balancing lemons or bugs,
or do the little baubles mean something that's just out of reach?

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

"Acacias of Set?"
10:49pm

The Doresse book arrived today, amazingly quickly. Of course, I went scanning it, looking for references to Set. Doresse tells about the region in which these Gnostic texts were found:

"Hu is situated on the western bank of the river; but it was the neighbourhood around Chenoboskion on the eastern bank which became more particularily famous at about the epoch to which our papyri belong. Its celebrity is linked with the most ancient traditions of Christian monasticism. The Coptic name for the little town was Shenesit - the latest form of an Egyptian name which would signify "the acacias of (the god) Seth". The country would seem, therefore, to have been sacred to the divinity who, in pharaonic mythology was opposed to Osirus..." (page 129)

So I got to wondering what those acacias would look like. I learned there are "roughly 1300 species of Acacia worldwide", but what I was mostly interested in was the ones in Africa, which would likely be near Egypt. Having read "The plants often bear spines, especially those species growing in arid regions,", I figured they would most likely be spiny, as Set's region is the desert. I found an image of a twin spined acacia, whose spikes could remind one of Set's ears, and sketched it:
Whistling Thorn Acacia, from Africa