Ancient Egypt was the monumental civilization par excellence.  They are bloody well everywhere.  One can be walking down a village street or out in the field and you will be walking over a buried tomb, temple, or monument without realizing it.  There are whole villages built over such things and one family – the Rasuls in Luxor – have a 200-year old, lucrative family business of locating and looting such tombs and selling the artifacts on the black market (so to speak).  Which is to say, teams could excavate in Egypt every week for 500 years without uncovering all of the monumental remains of that civilization.  The place simply mesmerizing.  So is the Nile itself.  In Luxor, my room in the Sonesta Hotel overlooked the Nile and at different times of the day I would just stare at it.  Finally I said to myself, “Those ancient people loved this river, to the point of worship”.  And I have come to love it in nearly the same way. Herodotus said nearly 2500 years ago that Egypt was the “gift of the river”.  And no truer or more succinct epigram has ever been vouchsafed about the Nile or Egypt.  The place is still the “gift of the river”, in spite of the Aswan High Dam controlling the annual flood.  Without the Nile there is no Egypt, then or now.

Hot as hell though.  We routinely drank 2-3 gallons of water daily in temps routinely above 100 degrees and, back at the hotel, another half gallon.  Drinking water all the time.  Not much sweat however, in that dryness it evaporates almost as soon as it appears on the skin.  We spent two days at the South Assasif archaeological dig of the 25th Dynasty High Priest, Karakhamun (c. 715 BC) and it was the highlight of the trip for all.  One absolutely has to admire the commitment, dedication, and tenacity of two people, both of whom have been essential to the excavation of Karakhamun’s Temple-Tomb:  Elena Pischikova and, of course, Anthony Karakhamun Browder.  Those two are the twin pillars of this enterprise and let me tell you, they, with the team assembled there (including the volunteers) are making and re-making history.  Ancient Egyptian history-writing will have to be re-visited and revised because the Temple Tomb is showing that the 25th Dynasty – the Cushitic Dynasty – was a brilliant, if brief, epoch of cultural achievement and innovation, veritably a mini-renaissance in Egypt.  So many of the attainments attributed to the 26th Dynasty are actually those of the 25th.  The pharaohs of the 25th were seen at the time as the restorers of Egypt’s ancient glory but the 26th appropriated the credit.

Five members of the Djed Rising Collective have now been present at the ongoing unlayering process of Karakhamun I’s Temple-Tomb.  I really have to strongly encourage ALL the Djeds to make that pilgrimage.  Consolidated Tours accepts payment plans lasting a year; Karakh Browder will go again in 2015 and I will return in 2016.  Karakhamun is NOT dead; his spirit is orchestrating this entire project and reaching out from 27 centuries ago to touch everyone who visits his Temple-Tomb in the present era.  What the Asa Project needs:  (1) money and (2) volunteers.  Fund-raising is unceasing and Karakh pursues it relentlessly.  Elena Pischikova is the first to say that without Karakh Browder, there is no excavation of Karakhamun I’s Temple-Tomb or the companion Temple-Tomb of Kerabasken.  Enough talking about it:  if one wants to experience directly and personally the transcendant power of ancient Cush-Kemit, one can travel with Karakh Browder to South Assasif in the next two years.

The quasi-hysteria of the media about Egypt is, shall we say, overblown.  Syria and Iraq are another matter and I suppose one could say that Egypt gets lumped in with the violent crises in those two countries and Libya.  But the Egyptians, with the national army, have clamped down on jihadism.  Doesn’t mean it has been uprooted and eradicated but, as of now, jihadism is not tearing the country apart.  To me Mubarak’s biggest miscalculation was not the dictatorship as such, but his attempt to make it hereditary by naming his son as his successor as was done in North Korea.  That precipitated the first uprising, opening the way for the Muslim Brotherhood who in turn of made the mistake of assuming that their somewhat dubious electoral success was a mandate.  It wasn’t, as Morsi found out the hard way.

Anyway, back home and life goes on…

CSF lll

The post <a href="http://www.charlessfinch.com/blog/14-days-and-back">TO EGYPT AND BACK </a> appeared first on Dr. Charles S. Finch.

Ethiopia has to be the most unusual country in Africa, or at least it seems so to me after having traveled to a dozen African countries, north, south, east, and west.  It can claim 3,000 years of continuous history (probably more) which means that its history has run longer than any country in the world except for China.  Ethiopia’s semi-legendary origins goes back to Solomon and Sheba, whose proper name is Makeda.  Sheba – more  properly referred to as Saba –  once comprised what is now Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, and western Yemen.  Saba was as much a queendom as kingdom.  In the Song of Solomon, the queen of Sheba, or a stand-in for her, said of herself “I am black and comely oh ye daughters of Zion”.  A son was born of this “communion’ between Solomon and Sheba (Makeda) named Menelik and when he attained the age of manhood, he journeyed to Israel and met his father, Solomon.  When Menelik returned home, he carried the Ark of the Covenant with him which the Ethiopians say is still in Ethiopia.  He is considered the first king of the “Solomonic” line that ruled Ethiopia until Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974.  No other Ethiopian king took the name Menelik until Menelik II toward the latter part of the 19th century, the king who defeated the Italians at Adowa in 1896, a red letter date in Ethiopian history.  The Ethiopians are fiercely proud of the fact that they have never been colonized, though temporarily defeated by Mussolini’s army in 1935 armed with modern weaponry the Ethiopians lacked.  Aided by the British, the Fascists were driven out in 1941.

          These people are Christians like I have never seen.  It is hard to describe.  Their form of Christianity is called Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and they date the introduction of Christianity in Ethiopia to the baptism of the Ethiopian minister of Candace, Queen of Cush, by the Apostle Philip as recounted in the Book of Acts.  Full conversion took place under the Emperor Azana in the 4th century AD by the Phoenician Saint Frumentius sent to Axum by the Bishop of Alexandria.  Ethiopia had been known as Axum since the 5th century BC and the ruins and remnants of the Axumite empire are still there.  Today, Ethiopians are completely devout.  Christianity suffuses their lives in every way and they have defended it for more than 14 centuries against Jewish and Muslim attempts to overrun the country.  The Jews of Ethiopia, led by their queen Judith, succeeded for a time in conquering and ruling Ethiopia but were eventually conquered in their turn by the Christian Ethiopians. 

Contemporary Ethiopians are not evangelical in the manner evident among fundamentalists in America.  Muslims comprise 30% of the population and both religious camps have learned to live and let live vis-à-vis one another. Most Ethiopian Jews, the Beta Israel, have emigrated to Israel because they were severely persecuted under the Marxist regime of Mengistu.  Ethiopians churches are magnificent and their religious architecture is completely unique, as is seen in the well-known cruciform church cut into the ground out of living rock in Lalibela. In Lalibela and in Axum one finds stone work in religious buildings entirely comparable to what I have seen in the ruins of ancient Egypt.  These people were skilled builders not excelled anywhere.  In Axum too, one finds obelisks that are very reminiscent of those found in the temple of Karnak.  Axum was, in fact, my favorite place in Ethiopia because of the marvelous architecture, though fine ancient buildings can be found throughout the country.

          The Ethiopians themselves are a very attractive people.  Herodotus nearly 25 centuries ago called them the “handsomest of people”.  They tend to be slender and lightly built but one thing that struck me very forcibly, even on the first day, was that nobody smokes, neither men nor women.  That apparently shows the pronounced influence of their priests who basically forbid it.  They drink wine and beer – especially the honey wine called tef – but they avoid tobacco. 

          The other thing that is striking is the physical affection friends show one another.  Male friends will walk hand-in-hand or hand-over-shoulder on the street as will female friends.  Americans seeing two men walking hand-in-hand on the street in this country will perforce reach an immediate conclusion about the relationship between the two men.  Doesn’t even compute in Ethiopia.

          There are both priests and nuns in the clergy of Ethiopia.  I don’t know about the nuns (should have asked) but the priests do marry.  However, if widowed they will retire from life and become hermits in a remote mountain habitat or enter a monastery.  One reason I felt a certain resonance with the religious observances is that when praying or entering a church to receive the priest’s blessing, they invariably make the sign of the cross.  I suppose it is one reason that Catholics often feel at home in Ethiopia.  That and the elaborate pageantry of religious services.  Moreover, the Ethiopians do have a “pope”, referred to as the “patriarch”.  He used to come invariably from Alexandria (Egypt) and the Coptic church there until about 1955 when, under Haile Selassie, the Ethiopians decided it was time for an Ethiopian to be Patriarch of the Ethiopian church.

          Ethiopians consider Addis Ababa to be “the capital of Africa”.  Somehow, that too resonated especially since, under Haile Selassie’s patronage, the headquarters of the Organization of African Unity – now called the African Union – is situated there.  Other African peoples or nations might find the designation presumptuous but those of us on the tour could kind of see the point. Ethiopia tends to affect one that way.

          This is probably enough (too much?) for now but there is rather more that could be said and described.  But yes, I will go back.  There is more to see and experience; I want to understand more about the country.  Hardly anyone now would know it but Ethiopia was at one time a major geopolitical epicenter of world history and events.  But Ethiopia has a way of seeping into one.

The post <a href="http://www.charlessfinch.com/blog/ethiopia-land-of-legend">ETHIOPIA:  LAND OF LEGEND</a> appeared first on Dr. Charles S. Finch.

Portents will appear in the sun, moon, and stars.  On earth, nations
          will stand helpless, not knowing which way to turn from the roar and
          surge of the sea, men will faint with terror at the thought of all that is
          is coming upon the world, for the celestial powers will be shaken

WHAT I AM LEADING UP TO RELATES TO THE CHANGE IN THE CELESTIAL ALIGNMENT AT THE NORTH POLE WHEN, IN OR AROUND 2050, THE CONSTELLATION CEPHEUS WILL REPLACE THE CURRENT POLAR CONSTELLATION URSA MINOR – ANCIENTLY CALLED WEP-WAT, THE JACKAL – AND WILL REMAIN AT THE POLE FOR THE NEXT 3,700 YEARS, CONSTITUTING THE AGE OF CEPHEUS.  WHO IS CEPHEUS?  CEPHEUS IS THE COSMIC ETHIOPIAN KING, ONCE THOUGHT OF AS A REAL KING (OR EMPEROR) WHO RULED FROM ETHIOPIA TO PHOENICIA (JOPPA) MORE THAN 3,000 YEARS AGO.  WHAT STRUCK ME FORCIBLY WHILE TRAVELING THROUGH THE COUNTRY IS THAT CONTEMPORARY ETHIOPIA IS TRULY THE LAND OF CEPHEUS. 

AS ALREADY RELATED, THE LINE OF KINGS THAT RULED FROM ABOUT 980 BC TO 1974 AD IS CONSIDERED TO HAVE DESCENDED FROM MENELIK I, SON OF SOLOMON AND SHEBA (MAKEDA).  THEY WERE NOT ONLY TEMPORAL RULERS BUT ALSO CONSECRATED PRIESTS AND PATRIARCHS MAKING THEM PRIEST-KINGS OR SACRED KINGS.  ETHIOPIA’S HISTORY, THEREFORE, IS BOUND UP WITH THIS SOLOMONIC KINGLY LINE WITH A DISTINCT BIBLICAL GLOSS, BOTH JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN.  DESPITE HIS DEPOSITION, HAILE SELASSIE PARTOOK OF THIS ETHOS AND IT WOULDN’T SURPRISE ME AT ALL IF, SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE, A ROYAL RESTORATION WAS EFFECTED.  MOST OF WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT CEPHEUS COMES FROM GREEK MYTHOLOGY, IN THE STORY OF PERSEUS, THE GORGON, AND THE RESCUE OF ANDROMEDA, DAUGHTER OF THE ETHIOPIAN KING CEPHEUS AND QUEEN CASSIOPEIA (SEE ROBERT GRAVES’S THE GREEK MYTHS).

ANOTHER UNUSUAL (TO ME) CULTURAL FEATURE OF ETHIOPIA IS THE UBIQUITOUS PRESENCE OF ST. GEORGE, ICONICALLY ALWAYS REPRESENTED AS SLAYING THE DRAGON.  HIS FIGURES AND PORTRAITS ARE AS COMMON AS DEPICTIONS OF CHRIST.  ST. GEORGE IS THE PATRON SAINT OF ENGLAND BUT APPEARS TO BE THE PATRON SAINT OF ETHIOPIA AS WELL.  WE WERE SHOWN AN ANCIENT BOOK, GOING BACK TO THE 11THE CENTURY, WITH AN ILLUSTRATION OF ST. GEORGE SLAYING THE DRAGON SO HIS PRESENCE IN ETHIOPIA IS AT LEAST THAT OLD.  WHEN ONE STUDIES THE STORY OF ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON, ONE FINDS THAT IT TAKES PLACE IN LIBYA AND “LIBYA” WAS ONE OF THE ANCIENT NAMES FOR AFRICA ITSELF. 

THE NAME “ETHIOPIA” ALSO WAS FREQUENTLY USED TO REFER TO ALL OF AFRICA.  MERIAM, WHOM WE KNOW AS MARY, IS ALSO PROMINENTLY FEATURED IN THE ICONOGRAPHY OF ETHIOPIA, ALWAYS SHOWN IN THE MADONNA POSE HOLDING THE CHRIST CHILD.  SHE IS PROFOUNDLY VENERATED, POSSESSING SEMI-DIVINE STATUS.  THE OTHER IMPORTANT ICON SEEN EVERYWHERE IS THE LION OF JUDAH, SOMETIMES REFERRED TO AS THE “CONQUERING LION OF JUDAH”.  THE LION IS THE EMBODIMENT OF THE ETHIOPIAN KINGSHIP AND HAILE SELASSIE WAS SAID TO HAVE KEPT A TAME LION IN THE PALACE.  ONE COULD SAY, THEREFORE, THAT THE LION WAS THE ROYAL TOTEM OF ETHIOPIA.

THERE IS A RASTAFARIAN COMMUNITY LIVING IN AN AREA ABOUT 3½ HOURS FROM THE CAPITAL.  AS IS WELL-KNOWN, THE RASTAFARI CONSIDER HAILE SELASSIE DIVINE.  ETHIOPIAN SYMBOLS AND NATIONAL COLORS – GREEN, YELLOW, AND RED – ABOUND ON RASTAFARI PARAPHERNALIA.  THEY ADOPTED UNMODIFIED THE FIGURE OF THE ETHIOPIAN LION HOLDING THE NATIONAL FLAG.  EVEN THEIR DREADLOCKS WERE DERIVED FROM SIMILAR HAIRSTYLES FOUND AMONG PEOPLES IN SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA.  THE NAME RASTAFARI COMES FROM THE ORIGINAL PRE-CORONATION NAME OF HAILE SELASSIE, RAS TOFARI, MEANING “PRINCE TOFARI”.
BY ETHIOPIAN RECKONING THERE WERE APPARENTLY THREE STAGES IN THE EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY IN ETHIOPIA.  THE FIRST STAGE HAPPENED WITH THE BAPTISM OF THE ETHIOPIAN MINISTER OF CANDACE, QUEEN AND RULER OF CUSH (ETHIOPIA) IN THE 1ST CENTURY AD BY THE APOSTLE PHILIP.  THE SECOND STAGE OCCURRED AROUND 340 AD WHEN FRUMENTIUS, A PHOENICIAN MONK, WAS TAKEN TO ETHIOPIA AS A BOY AND EVENTUALLY BROUGHT BEFORE THE REIGNING MONARCH, ABREHA.  HE WAS TAKEN IN AND WELL-TREATED, LEADING TO LONG CONVERSATIONS WITH THE KING AND HIS WIFE THAT – AFTER ORDINATION IN ALEXANDRIA – EVENTUALLY RESULTED IN THE CONVERSION OF KING ABREHA TO CHRISTIANITY.  ABREHA TOOK THE NAME AZANA, THE NAME BY WHICH HE IS KNOWN TODAY, AND IMPELLED THE CONVERSION OF HIS ENTIRE COUNTRY TO CHRISTIANITY.  THE THIRD PHASE OCCURRED IN THE 6TH CENTURY A.D. WHEN NINE SAINTS, REFUGEES FROM SYRIA, EMIGRATED TO ETHIOPIA AND ESTABLISHED THEMSELVES THERE.  ONE SAINT IN PARTICULAR, ABUNE (“FATHER”) AREGAWI WAS ESPECIALLY NOTABLE BECAUSE GOD SENT HIM A MESSENGER IN THE FORM OF A SERPENT WHO DIRECTED HIM TO A PARTICULAR MASSIF ON WHICH TO BUILD A CHURCH.  ABUNE AREGAWI IS SAID TO HAVE CLIMBED TO THE TOP OF THE MASSIF ON THE BACK OF THE SERPENT AND LAID THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CHURCH THAT IS STILL THERE.  IT CAN ONLY BE REACHED BY CLIMBING A ROPE, SYMBOLIC OF THE SNAKE CLIMBED BY THE SAINT, AIDED BY TOE-HOLDS IN THE SIDE OF THE CLIFF.  HOWEVER WOMEN, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, ARE ALLOWED INTO THE CHURCH.  THE CURRENT NAME OF THE CHURCH IS DEBRE DAMO.  I HAVE YET TO FIND OUT HOW THE CHURCH GOT BUILT IN SUCH AN INACCESSIBLE LOCATION; ALL THE FOOD PROVIDED TO THE PRIESTS AND MONKS AT THE CHURCH ARE SENT UPWARD IN BASKETS.
IT SHOULD BE POINTED OUT HERE THAT ETHIOPIA HAS BEEN THROUGH SEVERAL NAME CHANGES SINCE SOLOMONIC TIMES, TO WIT:
1,200 BC TO 400 BC – SHEBA OR, MORE PROPERLY, SABA; 400 BC TO 400 AD – AXUM; 400 AD TO THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY AD – ABYSSINIA; EARLY 20TH CENTURY TO THE CURRENT DAY – ETHIOPIA, PROBABLY SO NAMED IN HAILE SELASSIE’S TIME OR THAT OF HIS PREDECESSOR. HAVING SAID THAT, THE GREEKS KNEW THE WHOLE REGION AS “ETHIOPIA” AT LEAST FROM THE TIME OF HOMER, 750 BC, THOUGH IT IS A NAME GIVEN ALSO TO CUSH, THE CIVILIZATION OF THE NORTHERN THIRD OF THE SUDAN SINCE 2,500 BC.  THERE IS A TRADITION THAT THE PROPHET JEREMIAH IN 7TH CENTURY BC MIGRATED FIRST TO UPPER EGYPT THEN TO ETHIOPIA TO ESCAPE PERSECUTION, BECOMING THE PROGENITOR OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY THOUGH MOST OF THE ETHIOPIAN JEWS DEPARTED IN THE 1970S TO ISRAEL TO ESCAPE THE PERSECUTION OF THE RULING MARXIST REGIME.
          ONE OTHER THING THAT SHOULD BE NOTED IS THAT LAKE TANA IS THE SOURCE OF THE BLUE NILE THAT FLOWS NORTHWESTERLY OUT OF THE ETHIOPIAN HIGHLANDS, EVENTUALLY JOINING THE WHITE NILE AT KHARTOUM, BEFORE FLOWING NORTHWARD INTO EGYPT.  THE BLUE NILE IS THE SOURCE OF THE RICH MUD DEPOSITED ANNUALLY IN EGYPT FOR MANY MILLENNIA PRIOR TO THE BUILDING OF THE ASWAN HIGH DAM CREATING EGYPT’S FABLED AGRICULTURAL WEALTH.  ONCE VISITING ETHIOPIA IT IS EASY TO APPRECIATE HOW IT REALLY CAN BE CONSIDERED THE LAND OF LEGEND.

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One has little (or no) idea of the power that resides in Africa; even most Africans in Africa seem oblivious to it.  Benin and Togo are the Land of the Vodũ and I would be willing to give a 100% guarantee that if one ever deigned to visit, especially under the guidance of Erick Gbodossou, one would be maximally impacted, willingly or no.  Gbodossou is a practicing physician born and raised in Benin – the epicenter of the old empire of Dahomey – who, however, lives and works just outside of Dakar, Senegal.  Under the tutelage of his grandfather he was deeply instructed in the world system of the Vodũ and today can be considered an adept.  The Vodũ are the spiritual Powers of the Fon and Ewe people of Benin and Togo of which there are 41 major ones.  Their direct counterparts elsewhere in Africa are the neters of ancient Egypt, the rabs of the Senegalese Lebu, the abosom of the Akan of Ghana, the nommo of the Dogon of Mali, and the orishas of the Nigerian Yoruba.  The destinies of the Universe and of humanity are directed by these Powers.  The Supreme Being of the Vodũ pantheon is Mawu, the Goddess of the Ocean, usually linked with Lissa, considered either her son or her husband.  Or both.

The place – Benin/Togo – is intense with spiritual power everywhere making one fairly vibrate every waking moment.  The tour starts with attendance at the annual Vodũ Festival (January 10th of every year since 1993), a day-long parade of chiefs, priests, priestesses, dummers, and dancers representing Vodũ temples from around the country.  Indescribable is what it is.  One co-traveler from the Bahamas wanted to leave straight-away to go back to Nassau so he could tell his countrymen who celebrate Junkanoo twice a year where their celebration comes from, virtually intact.  It is veritably a feast for the eyes and the senses.  The next day the rounds of the Vodũ temples begin, starting with the Temple of the Pythons, dedicated to Danh, the Rainbow Serpent of the Heaven.  One has the option of having one of the pythons draped around one’s neck.  These pythons, 4-5 feet long, are entirely tame and non-venomous.  They are not captives; when it is time to eat they slide out of the temple and into the bush in search of prey.  When they find one and make a meal of it, they then slither right back into the temple.  The group then enters the temple where 15-20 of them live and if one silently beckons them, they will come and slither across the feet.  One gets to like it, unaccountably so if one has customarily found snakes repellant as most people do.  I could have stayed longer; strange as it may seem it is like I could have had a dialogue with them.  It was that kind of place.  One comes away with a different idea about snakes, at least the non-venomous ones.

The next stop was to the Door of No Return in Ouidah, the major slave-trading port in old Dahomey.  Benin – formerly Dahomey – is one of several West African countries, Ghana is another, that has formally apologized for its role in the slave trade and has erected a memorial to that scarring historical episode.  The Beninois do not shrink from acknowledging the consequences of their complicity and culpability in the slave trade and will discuss it freely and frankly. The Dahomeyan empire was built on slave-raiding and slave-trading with the Europeans in exchange for guns.  Because of recurrent wars with the Yoruba state of Oyo in western Nigerian, Yoruba captives would be sold to slave traders by the Dahomeans and Dahomean captives would be sold into slavery by Oyo though each state raided for slaves everywhere in that part of Africa.  It is a deeply emotional place to visit for African-Americans in the same way as Gorée Island in Dakar and Cape Coast Castle in Ghana.  Periodically, offerings and prayers are offered oceanside to those African souls who died during the Middle Passage and lie buried in the sea.  The hurricanes that hit the Caribbean and western Atlantic every year actually form off this same African coast and apparently follow the routes of the slave ships to the Americas.  There are those who insist this storm pattern is caused by the as-yet un-reconciled spirits of those slaves who ended their lives at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

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WHILE THE AUDIENCE WAS LARGELY ENGROSSED IN THE ACTION, THE SET PIECES, AND THE STORY LINE, I FOUND MYSELF DRAWN TO OTHER LESS-NOTICED ASPECTS OF THE STORY.  I WAS PARTICULARLY INTRIGUED BY THE FICTIONAL COUNTRY OF WAKANDA, A JEWEL OF A NATION IN THE MIDDLE OF AFRICA, SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS OLD, UNIQUELY POWERED LITERALLY BY THE MOST POWERFUL MINERAL IN THE UNIVERSE, VIBRANIUM.  COOGLER AND HIS CO-WRITER DREW FROM SEVERAL STRANDS OF ANCIENT AFRICAN HISTORY TO WRITE THE SCREENPLAY.  FROM ANCIENT TIMES IN AFRICA, EITHER THE KINGDOM OF KEMIT OR CUSH – EGYPT OR ETHIOPIA – COULD HAVE SERVED AS THE PROTOTYPE FOR WAKANDA.  THESE, IN THEIR TIME, WERE AMONG THE MOST ADVANCED AND POWERFUL NATIONS ON EARTH, INSTRUCTING, AMONG OTHERS, THE PEOPLE WHO BECAME THE GREEKS OF HISTORY IN SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS, ENGINEERING, PHILOSOPHY, AND MEDICINE. 

THERE WERE INTERESTING MYTHO-TYPES WOVEN INTO THE STORY.  THE BLACK PANTHER, WHICH IS ACTUALLY A LEOPARD, WAS CALLED BAST, A NAME FOR THE CAT-GODDESS OF ANCIENT EGYPT, CLOSELY RELATED TO THE LION-GODDESS SEKHMET.  MOREOVER, THE PHARAOH AND THE PRIESTS OF BOTH KEMIT AND CUSH WORE THE LEOPARD (PANTHER) SKIN AS A BADGE OF OFFICE, LATER RE-MANIFESTING AS THE “LEOPARD MEN” OF INNER AFRICA, A SECRET SOCIETY OF NATIVE MAGICIANS.  SECONDLY, THE RIVAL KING WHOSE ARCHETYPAL REPRESENTATION WAS THE APE, CALLED THE APE HANUMAN, THE MONKEY-GOD OF INDIA.  HE MIGHT JUST AS WELL AS REFERRED TO HIM AS KAF, THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN BABOON, APE FORM OF THE EGYPTIAN GOD OF WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE KNOWN AS THOTH, OR HERMES BY THE GREEKS. 
FINALLY, THE ELITE COHORT OF WOMEN WARRIORS WHOSE SOLE MISSION WAS TO GUARD THE KING WITH THEIR LIVES, WAS MODELED IN PART ON THE ANCIENT PRAETORIAN GUARD:
 THE PRAETORIAN GUARD (LATIN: COHORTES PRAETORIAE) WAS AN ELITE UNIT OF THE IMPERIAL ROMAN ARMY WHOSE MEMBERS SERVED AS PERSONAL BODYGUARDS TO THE ROMAN EMPERORS.

THERE WAS SUCH A UNIT OF WOMEN SOLDIERS IN THE ARMIES OF THE WEST AFRICAN KINGDOM OF DAHOMEY (1626 – 1890) WHOSE PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY WAS TO PROTECT THE KING AND WHO WERE SO FIERCE AND LOYAL TO THE KING THAT IT WAS SAID THAT AN ENEMY COULD NEVER TAKE THEM PRISONER.  THEY WOULD NEVER SURRENDER AND WOULD FIGHT TO THE DEATH, WITH TOOTH AND CLAW IF NECESSARY.  THEIR TERM OF SERVICE WAS 25 YEARS BUT WERE NEVER PERMITTED TO MARRY UNTIL AFTER DISCHARGE. FEW MEN WOULD MARRY THEM HOWEVER FOR THEY CARRIED THAT INERADICABLE FIERCENESS INTO ANY MARRIAGE.
            IN ANCIENT EGYPT, A PARTICULARLY FIERCE AND IMPLACABLE WARRIOR WAS ALWAYS LIKENED TO “A RAGING PANTHER OF THE SOUTH”.   IN THE CLIMACTIC SEQUENCE OF THE MOVIE THE BATTLE TO THE DEATH BETWEEN KING T’CHALLA AND HIS DEADLY ADVERSARY KILMONGER WOULD HAVE BEEN DESCRIBED IN ANCIENT TIMES AS A GIVE-NO-QUARTER WAR BETWEEN TWO RAGING PANTHERS OF THE SOUTH.  THE OUTCOME – SINCE IT WOULD DETERMINE WHO CONTROLLED THE SUPER-METAL VIBRANIUM – WAS BOUND TO DETERMINE NOT ONLY THE FATE OF WAKANDA AND ITS PEOPLE BUT ALSO THAT OF AFRICA, AND INDEED THE WORLD.  THE IDEA THAT AFRICA HELD (HOLDS?) THE FATE OF THE WORLD IN ITS HANDS IS A WORLD-CHANGING IDEA.
 
CHARLES S. FINCH III
ELLENWOOD, GEORGIA
FEBRUARY 22, 2018

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There was something Hitlerian about this whole thing with the fascist-leaning provocateur Donald Trump sending out the modern equivalent of Nazi brown-shirts to take the government by a storm.  The man should be in jail and no mistake; he is a traitor and a criminal.  Craven Republicans cannot do what is necessary, their loyalty to their party and to the President “trumping” (pun intended) their loyalty to the country.  The matter is not finished, with state capitols all over America surrounding themselves with armed protection in the expectation of similar attacks against them.  There was a Ft. Sumter mentality among those mad men and the rest of us must get ready for what is to come.

Charles S. Finch, III
January 18, 2021

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To understand it – even if it requires a willing suspension of disbelief in most – one must look literally to the heavens, that is to say to the stars and their movements.  Any such discussion will be more or less contemptuously dismissed as “astrological superstition” by perhaps 95% of the population.  However, every nation and culture probably for as long as modern human beings have existed on the planet have turned their attention, usually with reverence, to the night sky and all of the heavenly bodies there with their movements.   That attitude began to change more or less decisively at the beginning of the 19th century with the ascendancy of the scientific paradigm.  All science, by the way, comes from ancient thinkers but that is a subject for another day.  In the event, the heavens and their billions upon billions of stellar and planetary bodies began to lose the awe they had instilled in human beings up to the rise of an exclusive science.

What does any of this have to do with Kamala Harris (and one could also ask with Amanda Gorman)?  To understand one has to turn to that much-maligned aspect of observational astronomy known as astrology.  This is not the place to go into a detailed explanation and defense of the “meta-science” of astrology but to use it to arrive at an explanation of what is to come.  Around the celestial equator – the earthly equator projected into space – there are 12 constellations.  Due to the counter-clockwise rotation of the earth’s axis each of these constellations rises at the dawn of the spring equinox for 2,160 years before being replaced by the constellation in front of it which, in its turn, will rise before the spring equinox for the ensuing 2,160 years.  This phenomenon is known as the “precession of the equinoxes”.  Since there are 12 such constellations, the equinox returns to the same constellation every 26,000 years and this is called the Great Year, 26,000 years long.  Every period of 2,160 years that an equatorial constellation inhabits the spring equinox is called an Age and every Age reflects the essence and impact of the constellation that rules it.  About 120 B.C. the constellation of Pisces, the Two Fishes, came to inhabit the spring equinox, replacing the constellation, and therefore the Age of Aries, the Ram.  Within 100 years after the onset of the Age of Pisces, the avatar known as Jesus Christ was born ushering in the Age of Christianity, symbolized by the double fishes.  Early Christians in fact were called “Pisciculi”, that is, “little fishes”.  In 2039, the constellation of Pisces will move away from the spring equinox and the constellation of Aquarius will take its place, making the “dawning” of the Age of Aquarius.  The approach of the Age of Aquarius is already being felt.  It has impacted the just- completed presidential election.

 To understand this one must understand that Aquarius, now represented as the ”Waterman”, was far more anciently the primordial Egyptian goddess Hathor-Nut.  Hathor in ancient Egypt was depicted archetypally in several guises:  the celestial Cow, the Moon, and the Tree of Life in Amenta – the Underworld – where she is seen pouring out water from a vase to the thirsty souls passing through Amenta.

Nut is the Egyptian sky goddess, the personification of the Waters of the Heavenly Ocean.  In reality, therefore, the Age of Aquarius is more fundamentally the Age of Hathor-Nut, archetypally the Cosmic Feminine.  The tangible influences of the Age of the Cosmic Feminine have been felt at least since mid-20th century with ever-increasing intensity.  These influences have been felt in all aspects of modern society – politics, the professions, and personal relations to name but a few arenas.  As we have seen, the political arena has been permanently impacted.

         Perhaps nothing has been so deeply affected as gender roles.  But what is lacking in all the millions of words written and spoken about this phenomenon is historical context.  Now – though change is underway – we take as given the rule of the patriarchy in family, business, politics and religion.  But it was not always thus.  Such evidence as can be unearthed showed that prior to the advent of the ascendant patriarchy 3-6,000 years ago, the matriarchy ruled, probably for 200,000 years.  Longer probably, and likely mediated by the female control over the production of new life.  Among other things, the first deities worshipped by human beings were undoubtedly goddesses and this primacy of the goddess held firm until Judaeo-Christian times in the western world.  Hebrew women in or around 600 B.C. told the prophet Jeremiah in no uncertain terms that they had no intention of abandoning the goddesses for Yahweh.  They could depend on and were valued by the goddesses unlike the emerging male deities of an increasingly masculinized religious universe.The goddess was marginalized where it was not outright suppressed and in the European Middle Ages untold numbers of women were burned at the stake because of their continuing adherence to practices and beliefs inherited from the ancient matriarchy.  But this terrible time was bound to pass and slowly it did. 

It is our contention that Kamala Harris’s rise is tied to cosmic events whether realized or accepted or not.  The Cosmic Feminine is itself re-arising after several thousand years of the being ignored and suppressed.  And not a moment too soon.  Donald Trump presented a clear and present danger not only to America itself but to the world.  If it is true that what we might call “higher forces” guide our individual and collective destinies, then we can say that they intervened before things really got out of hand in America. Donald Trump had to go and no mistake. Is it too much to speculate that President Joseph Biden sensed something in Kamala Harris that impelled his decision to run with her as his vice-presidential candidate?  Was she in some way chosen for him? Too much speculation I am sure.  However, what can be said without fear of contradiction is that both of them must be protected because their enemies are legion, as they say, a certain number of whom seem ready to cancel the election in the most violent way imaginable.


Charles S. Finch, M.D.
January 21, 2021

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