The Essential Joan - Inhaling Deeply

Inhaling Deeply

Sensuous Symbology...

June 4, 2005

Sometimes salvaging my picture efforts is quite the restoration act. The original of the following lotus inhaling lady originally looked like this:

And now she looks like this:

On the large, vertical block of relief, Niankhwadjet inhales the scent of a lotus.
Elements from the False Door in the Chapel of Mery's Mastaba
First half of Dynasty 4 (2575-2520 B.C.)
From Saqqara, Limestone, now at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The information accompanying the relief says the scent of a lotus is associated with rebirth because the flower opens each morning for the sun. Bridget McDermott in Decoding Egyptian Hieroglyphs informs us further:

"The lotus had an important symbolic role in religious life. The blue lotus, which opens with the first rays of the sun, and the white lotus, which opens only at night, were associated with the sun and moon, and the opposing forces of light and dark...The lotus became a symbol of rebirth after death" and is "also linked to fertility and was a sexual symbol."

I especially like this picture as being a metaphor for inhaling deeply of life.

scarab, sacred symbol of evolution, regeneration and transformation . . .