Detail of Ramose from his stela

This finely carved limestone stela (60.5cm in height) comes from the Ramesseum, the mortuary temple of King Ramesses II. The stela was dedicated by an important man named Ramose, who held the title of Senior Scribe in the workmen’s village of Deir el-Medina during the reign of Ramesses II (c. 1279-1213 BC).

Ramose is known from over 40 individual monuments from the Theban area. According to accounts on ostraca, he was appointed by the Vizier Paser as Scribe of the Tomb in year 5 of Ramesses II – a role in which he served until at least year 38 of that king. His position afforded him the opportunity to commemorate himself in a range of monuments. The large number may have been motivated by the desire of Ramose and his wife for a child; the couple eventually adopted a son called Kenhirkhopeshef –…

The Daydream, 1880, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

“HIDING…

is a way of staying alive. Hiding is a way of holding ourselves until we are ready to come into the light. Even hiding the truth from ourselves can be a way to come to what we need in our own necessary time. …

We live in a time of the dissected soul, the immediate disclosure; our thoughts, imaginings and longings exposed to the light too much, too early and too often, our best qualities squeezed too soon into a world already awash with too easily articulated ideas that oppress our sense of self and our sense of others.

Magdalene with the Smoking Mirror, Georges De La Tour, 1640

What is real is almost always to begin with, hidden, and does not want to be understood by the part of our mind that mistakenly thinks it knows what is happening.

What is…

The Pleiades star cluster, from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Image courtesy of NASA, U.S.

“And then the sailors say, ‘The halcyon days are here. Let us be glad. There is nothing to fear’.”

~ Emma Firth, Stories of Old Greece, 1895

My friend Molly Hall mentioned Halcyon Days in a message this morning, and off I went, following that golden thread into the roots and magic of Halcyon.

Turns out, it’s very timely — as in, associated with now — and perhaps it’s very much what many of us yearn deeply for.

Halcyon refers to those idyllic, happy, joyful, golden days of old or yore or our own recollection — the days we fondly remember; those favorite story or movie moments that warm our hearts every time.

They might also be the days and times we might yearn deeply for, if we feel an acute absence of those…