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This might have been influenced by my reading of Hathor Rising by Alison Roberts. She describes the Egyptian sense of Time:
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"Like the Egyptian year's division into three seasons, the day was also divided into three phases -- dawn, noon and evening. Each day the sun god journeys through these, hour by hour, changing his name and form in each one. Of these three phases he declares in a magical text:
I am Khepri in the morning, Re at noon,
and Atum in the evening."
(Borghouts, "Magical Texts" as quoted by Alison Roberts, "Hathor Rising, page 20)
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As Khepri, he is 'becoming'.
As Re, 'triumphantly' sailing across the sky in his boat
"Then, as Atum, whose name means both 'The Complete One', and 'The Not (yet) existent One', he is the Old Man of the Evening appearing as a ram-headed figure within the solar disk."(page 20)
At noon, at full strength, Ra is able to do battle with Apep (the monster who would destroy everything in existence), his own self, but not at evening, for "old age and decline set in", and this is when he needs Set's protection.
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