As I am struggling these days in the middle of different issues and reading many books simultaneously (time is short!), I found this topic which is one of my favourites. That’s because, when I look back on my life, I was an extrovert in my childhood and youth. But later, I have been changed to an introvert.

It might be because of my childhood trauma which I had to deal with. It pushed me always to try to please everyone. I loved going to school (only at the beginning years!), even when the schools were closed for two or three days because of heavy snow; I went there to see if I could meet some mates. Later in my twenties, I was the outer agent to have a connection to the external world as Al kept himself mainly hidden in the house. But it’s all changed. As I began to understand Al’s world better, we became closer. I merged into Al’s world, and we separated from the outer world. And there, I have become an introvert.

Of course, it wasn’t easy for me, as we escaped from Iran and came to Germany; I had to play the role of the outer agent again; I decided to find a job, and the only possibility was to get a Taxi licence and begin to earn some money. (You know, unfortunately, in Germany, you must have papers to be accepted for what jobs you are qualified to do. We had nothing to show!)

It was hard for me to connect all day long with the people. You might imagine I meditated every day early in the morning, preparing myself to go deep into my role as a taxi driver to do my job for almost thirty years, even though I had to prove myself repeatedly. Germans have certain opinions about foreigners (sometimes derogatory, maybe because of some bad experiences?!)), so I’ve always had to prove that I’m educated and look into their eyes at the same level. I wonder how I could do that for almost thirty years, although honestly, I succeeded with the help of my talent in playing roles and the power of; “making the people happy” after some years. Therefore, when I got retired, many were sad to miss me!

In any case, Dr Jung believed that one could change their behaviour in one’s lifetime;

“There is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in the lunatic asylum.””” Carl Jung

Let’s watch this video and see what he says.

The Attitudes of Consciousness; The Eight Function Types.

Here is the first (short) part about the feeling of an extroverted person: (Translated from his book Typology.)

The extraverted type

The feeling

Feeling in the extraverted attitude is oriented closely to what is objectively given; that is, the object is the crucial determinant of the way of feeling. It is by objective values. Anyone who knows feeling only as a subjective fact will not readily understand the nature of extraverted feeling, for extraverted feeling has liberated itself as much as possible from the subjective factor and subjected itself entirely to the influence of the object. Even where it appears to be independent of the quality of the specific lens, it is still under the spell of traditional or otherwise universal values. I may feel compelled to predicate “beautiful” or “good,” not because I subjectively feel the object is “beautiful” or “good,” but because it is appropriate to call it “beautiful” or “good”; and appropriately so in that a contrary judgment would somehow upset the general emotional situation. Such an appropriate emotional judgment is by no means a simulation or even a lie but an adjustment act. For example, a painting may be called “beautiful” because: a painting hung in a drawing room, signed with a well-known name, is generally assumed to be “beautiful” or because the predicate “ugly” might offend the family of the lucky owner, or because there is an intention on the part of the visitor to create a pleasant emotional atmosphere, for which everything must be felt to be pleasant. They are genuine as such and represent the entire visible feeling function. Just as extraverted thinking rids itself of subjective influences as much as possible, so too extraverted feeling has to go through a certain process of differentiation until it is stripped of every subjective ingredient. The evaluations made by the act of feeling correspond either directly to objective values or at least to specific traditional and commonly accepted standards of value.

I feel so close to this thought; I love it!

And let’s look now at the feeling of an introverted person: (From the same book.)

The introverted type

The feeling

The subjective factor mainly determines the introverted feeling. For emotional judgment, this means just as essential a difference between extraverted feeling and introversion of thinking from extraversion. It is undoubtedly one of the more difficult things to intellectually represent or even approximate to describe the introverted feeling process. However, the peculiar nature of this feeling is sure to strike if one is aware of it at all. Since this feeling is mainly subject to subjective preconditions and is only secondarily concerned with the object, it appears much less often and is usually misleading. It is a feeling that apparently devalues the objects, and that’s why it mostly has a negative impact. The existence of a positive feeling can only be, to say, indirectly deduced. It does not try to fit in with the objective but subordinates itself to it by unconsciously trying to realize the images on which it is based. It is, therefore, always looking for an image that cannot be found in reality and that it has, so to speak, seen before. It seems to glide over objects that never suit its target carelessly. It strives for an inner intensity to which the objects contribute, at most, a stimulus. The depth of this feeling can only be guessed at but not clearly grasped. It makes people silent and inaccessible as it is oversensitive and withdraws from the objective’s brutality to fill the subject’s deep background. To protect themselves, they pretend negative emotional judgments or a conspicuous indifference.

I will try to come more over to it later. Thank you all. 💖🙏🤗🌹

Images credit: Kara Walker / UX Collective / Johfra Bosschart (1919 – 1998)

As you might guess, I still keep thinking and am fully busy with what is happening in the country of my birth and how many young people and children get injured or die there. I try to help translate news and research and share as far as I can. What could I do more? Indeed that will be a true tragedy in our century. In the hope of the last win!

Anyway, I remain in Iran after this prologue, the ancient Persian and Zarathustra. I’m still wondering again and again why human needs religion(s), and I look at my past and the old God Ahura Mazda; I would say this one was surely more acceptable than the Hebrew Gods: (I say gods because there are more than one: Yahweh, God; Jesus’s father, and Allah.) I do admit that t is also a religion, but Ahura Mazda had only three commandments and not ten! “Good Thoughts, Good Words, and Good Deeds”. It sounds so simple and clean, but man-made religion has never been God-made religion!

Here I present a part of Friedrich Nietzsche’s book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It was not so easy for me to translate it from German to English, but I hope I have got the main topic!

The name of it is “Das Tanzlied”: “The Dance Song.” I hope you will enjoy it.

One evening Zarathustra went through the forest with his disciples, and when he was looking for a well, behold, he came to a green meadow surrounded by trees and bushes, where the girls were dancing together. As soon as the girls recognized Zarathustra, they stopped dancing; But Zarathustra approached them with a friendly gesture and spoke these words:

Don’t stop dancing, you lovely girls! No spoilsport came to you with an evil eye—no girl enemy. I am God’s advocate before the devil: but he is the spirit of heaviness. How should I, your light, divine dances, be fine? Or girls’ feet with nice ankles?

I am indeed a forest and a night of dark trees: But whoever is not afraid of my darkness will also find rose slopes under my cypresses. And he also likes the little God who is dear to the girls: He lies next to the fountain, quiet, with closed eyes.

Probably in broad daylight, he sniffed at me, the idler! Was he chasing butterflies too much? Do not be angry with me, you beautiful dancers, if I punish the little God a little! He will probably scream and cry – but he is still crying to laugh!

And with tears in his eyes, he shall ask you for a dance; and I myself want to sing a song to his dance: a dance song and a mockery of the spirit of gravity, my highest, the most powerful devil, of whom they say that he is the lord of the world.

And this is the song that Zarathustra sang when Cupid and the girls were dancing together. In your eyes, I looked lately, oh life! And I seemed to be sinking into the unfathomable. But you men always gift us with your own virtues – ah, you virtuous ones!

So she laughed, the incredible, but I never believed her and her laughter when she speaks evil of herself. And when I spoke in private with my wild wisdom, she growled: “You want, you desire, you love, that’s why you praise life!”

I almost answered angrily and told the angry one the truth; one cannot answer more wickedly than when one “tells the truth” to one’s wisdom. That’s how it is between the three of us. Basically, I just love life- and, truly, most of all, when I hate it!

But the fact that I am good at wisdom and often too good: That makes it! She reminds me very much of life! She has her eyes, her laughter, even her golden fishing rod: What is my fault that the two look so alike? And that life once asked me: who is that… wisdom? – I said eagerly: Oh yes, the wisdom! One thirsts for them and never gets enough; one sees through veils, one catches through nets. Is she beautiful? What do I know? But the oldest carp are still baited with it.

Changeable is she and defiant; I often saw her bite her lip and comb her hair again. Perhaps she is bad and false, and in everything a room woman, but when she speaks badly of herself, that is when she most often seduces.

When I said this to life, it laughed maliciously and closed its eyes. Who are you talking about? Said that, well, from me? And if you were right – they say that to my face like that! But now also speak of your wisdom! Ah, and now you opened your eyes again, O beloved life! And to us unfathomable ones, I seemed to sink again.

So sang Zarathustra. But he became sad when the dance was over and the girls had gone. The sun has long gone down, he said at last; the meadow is damp, and the cold comes from the forest.

An unknown is around me and looks thoughtful. What! Are you still alive, Zarathustra? Why? What for? Whereby? To where? Where? How? Isn’t it folly to be still alive?

Oh, my friends, it is the evening that asks me like this. Forgive my sadness! It was evening; Forgive me that it became evening!

saatchiart.com / Academy of Ideas / democraticunderground.com / via apkpure.com/ Aaron Lewis – Medium

Thus spoke Zarathustra!

Hathor might be the only supernatural being I wish to have as God”dess”. She indeed had everything good in herself to give to the subservient like us!

I once posted about this fantastic goddess, but now it’s about a dedicated mysterious votive tunic to her!

Egyptian Hand Painted Papyrus with Winged Maat & Hathor. (with Author Signed)

Often described as a child’s tunic because of its small size, this garment probably had a more sacred function. It is dedicated to Hathor, who is depicted in the shape of a cow and described as ‘Hathor foremost of Thebes, Lady of Heaven, Mistress of the gods’ in hieroglyphs above the animal. Such tunics would have been offered to the goddess, possibly to invoke protection for a child or a woman during labour. Liana Miate

Images credits: atlasobscura.com / Amino Apps

And her breathtaking temple shows with no wonder in recognition of her greatness, though the assumption that she and Isis are the same goddess and attribute both to each other isn’t the case! Hathor is the personification of the principles of love, joy and motherhood, and was the goddess of music, dance, fertility, and aided women in childbirth. Isis is revered as the underworld’s queen and the transformation goddess. She possesses the powers of a water goddess, an earth goddess, and a star goddess, the patron of nature, magic and divination. She’s known as a friend of slaves, sinners, artisans, and the downtrodden. She hears the prayers of all; none are forgotten or overlooked.

Egyptian votive tunic. Probably from the 19th Dynasty, about 1275 BCE. Possibly from Deir-el-Bahari, Thebes. The British Museum (photo taken at The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia)

Marie Grillot gives a brilliant description of this marvellous papyrus work and its beauty here. 🙏💖

A Votive Tunic Dedicated to Hathor

via https://egyptophile.blogspot.com/

This linen tunic, with a straight cut and an open round neckline, is dated to the 19th Dynasty (around 1275 BC). Besides its lack of a sleeve, it seems relatively well preserved, considering it’s more than 3000 years!

It owes its originality to the scene painted on the front, which stands out discreetly against a white background that has now partially disappeared…

It represents the goddess Hathor, in her cow form, emerging from the western mountain of Thebes, whose sides, behind her, are symbolized by red dots, just like the ground she treads with her paws.

With a thin line of red paint, the artist has traced the outline of the bovine silhouette and has, in the same way, enhanced the main characteristics that animate its light ocher coat…

Advancing towards the rising sun, she is wearing two large feathers with the solar disk at their base. The whole is surrounded by its high horns painted blue.

Her ears are so beautifully rendered, her black eye stretched with a line of makeup, her muzzle that we imagine vibrant, her long tail, her white hooves, everything contributes to giving her life…

Around her neck hangs a sistrum, one of the main attributes of the goddess… This rattling instrument is adorned with magical virtues: it can appease the gods, ward off evil spirits and attract protection. It is related to this representation of Hathor because it was supposed to reproduce the noise she makes when, in her cow form, she walks through the thickets of papyrus.

Hathor, the goddess of love, joy, beauty, and music, is here assimilated to the West’s summit. It is on the slopes of the beautiful mountain of Thebes that the necropolises are, and thus, symbolically, she receives the dead there… “In the Theban religion, Hathor, who is in the western mountain, becomes a funerary goddess; she then receives the deceased, who has become her child, into the mystical lap of the mountain tomb. She helps him to be reborn as, as Isis-Hathor, she watched over Horus in the papyrus swamp of Khemmis …” (Fernand Schwarz).

Also, the tunic is painted in black, with hieroglyphic inscriptions. “The first line of the inscription in the lower part gives the title’ mistress of the house and the name (unfortunately unclear but ending in ‘-Imentet’) of the woman who dedicated this tunic; the second line repeats the name and epithets of Hathor”.

To better “interpret” this garment, it is important to mention its dimensions: its height of 34.30 cm and width of 25.50 cm. These measurements could mean that it was intended for a child… but the interpretation can also be decidedly “religious”. Thus Nigel Strudwick (Masterpieces of Ancient Egypt) believes that: “it is more likely that it was specially made as a votive offering to the goddess. Many types of votive objects were placed in temples throughout Egypt as gifts expressing devotion to deities, which it was hoped would, in turn, favour the giver. This textile and other similar textiles may have been donated by women to worship, perhaps accompanying specific prayers for children or successful childbirth. However, none of the inscriptions refers to it. Another suggestion is that tunics may have been used to clothe divine images; there is evidence from the titles of the people named therein that only those connected with the cult of Hathor exhibited such garments. They presumably had to be carefully stored in temples to maintain and protect the decoration and effectiveness of the object”.

On the other hand, in “Clothing (non-royal), Pharaonic Egypt”, Aleksandra Hallmann indicates that: “Generally, the tunics encountered in the archaeological record are sleeveless, since sleeves have been found as separate garments…The Known exceptions of tunics with sleeves already attached are certain votive tunics for Hathor”.

The origin indicated for this tunic is Deir el-Bahari – Thebes. Indeed, if Ta Set Neferou (the Valley of the Queens with its sacred cave) and “Set Maât her imenty Ouaset” (the craftsmen’s village with its temple) were places of worship in Hathor, they were not the only ones … Thus, in “The Bel Occident of Thebes, Imentet Neferet”, Christian Leblanc recalls that: “It was under the reign of Mentuhotep II that, for the first time, the Belle Fête de la Vallée was celebrated on the left bank. , whose itinerary was modified over time. We know that on this occasion, the god Amon of Karnak went, in procession, to the West of the city, for a certain number of days to honour the dead there and to meet Hathor there. It also mentions the existence of a “Temple of the Cow”, which was: “Perhaps a late appellation of the temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir al-Bahari, where there is a Hathoric sanctuary, or the sanctuary of Hathor him -same”…

It should also be remembered that, during excavations carried out in the temple of Thutmose III for the Egypt Exploration Fund, Edouard Naville discovered, on February 7, 1906, the magnificent chapel of the sacred cow of Hathor. Dug into the rock to a depth of four meters, made of painted sandstone, it represents Hathor protecting the pharaoh Amenhotep II standing under her head. At the same time, from her udder, she “suckles a young boy, who is obviously Amenhotep II, the son of Thothmes III”, specifies Gaston Maspero. On the orders of the latter, it was patiently dismantled by Emile Baraize to be transported to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (JE 38574 – JE 3857), where it will be reassembled, identically, by Alexandre Barsanti.

The excavations will also deliver “a certain number of fabrics and other votive textiles (as well as many other votive objects) linked to the later cult of Hathor, practised there at least from the New Kingdom”, specifies the British Museum, which has acquired several objects from these excavations.

However, this is not the case for this tunic he acquired from the Reverend Chauncey Murch, a member of the American Presbyterian Mission in Luxor. The purchase occurred in 1906 (EA43071); the Museum does not exclude the possibility that “this tunic could have been discovered during a contemporary clandestine excavation carried out on the same site”…

Marie Grillot

Sources:

Miniature linen tunic; painted representation of the Hathor cow and Hieroglyphic text

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA43071

Nigel Strudwick, Masterpieces of Ancient Egypt, London 2006, pp. 208-9

G. Pinch, Votive offerings to Hathor (Oxford 1993)

https://www.academia.edu/3645492/_Votive_Practices_with_Geraldine_Pinch_

Fernand Schwarz, La grotte sacrée, Pharaon n°4, magazine

http://fernand.schwarz.free.fr/IMG/pdf/Ph4_grotte_sacree_FS.pdf

Christian Leblanc, Angelo Sesana, Le Bel Occident de Thèbes, Imentet Neferet, L’Harmattan, 2022

Gaston Maspero, Essais sur l’art égyptien, (1912?)

https://archive.org/details/essaissurlartg00maspuoft

Foucart Georges. Note de M. Naville sur ses découvertes à Deir el Bahari (Égypte). In: Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 50e année, N. 2, 1906. p. 110;

https://www.persee.fr/doc/crai_0065-0536_1906_num_50_2_71782

Statue de la déesse Hathor sous l’apparence d’une vache et chapelle

http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/record.aspx?id=15118

http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/record.aspx?id=15654

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I can’t ignore that I am still thoughtfully involved in what is happening in Iran and the bloodshedding of the brave youth, girls and boys, on the streets throughout the country. That is not patriotism, as I do not have such a feeling, nor for humanity only, because many people are oppressed or suffering from poverty or hunger around the world. It, at first, is because I had experienced such a situation those days. Al and I participated in the demonstrations against Khomeini’s tyranny a few months after the regime changed. Those days it was hard to fight against a brand new government which claimed freedom. But we knew what would be a regime with a mullah on top! We have suffered a lot under attack from the mercenaries of the regime.

Second, I am wondering how it can be possible that these youths who are born in a time of Islamic rule, so fearless, come into the streets and want their freedom. They must actually know only the law of Islam, but these young people know much more than we can imagine. Isn’t it worth enough to protect them? I surely do not expect to go out and shout out for them. I just wish for your consensus and sympathy for their deeds. You know, I am worried about the happening in the media; the internet in Iran is almost interrupted, and who is responsible? I discovered that it is by a German company named Arvancloud, based in Düsseldorf, Germany. What the hell is going on? It is always pleasant for a business person to have a dictator talk about business rather than confront a nation. I am afraid of lobbyism, an underhand act by the corrupted politicians to want to keep such a murder regime.

I have the link here, which is only in German! https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/die-carolin-kebekus-show/arvancloud-iranische-internet-zensur-made-in-germany/das-erste/Y3JpZDovL2Rhc2Vyc3RlLmRlL2RpZS1jYXJvbGluLWtlYmVrdXMtc2hvdy80NGUxY2Q3Ni0zMDE5LTQwMjMtYTY0MS0wODQ3ZWI1YzEwY2Y

I must think back to Plato’s cave. It is an issue we all may keep in mind: What we’re looking at might not be the reality. Rely on your soul and inner voice:

In the allegory “The Cave,” Plato describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners’ reality but are not accurate representations of the real world. The shadows represent the fragment of reality that we can normally perceive through our senses, while the objects under the sun represent the true forms of objects that we can only perceive through reason. Three higher levels exist: the natural sciences; mathematics, geometry, and deductive logic; and the theory of forms.

Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not the direct source of the images seen. A philosopher aims to understand and perceive the higher levels of reality. However, the other inmates of the cave do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life.^[1]

Socrates remarks that this allegory can be paired with previous writings, namely the analogy of the sun and the analogy of the divided line. Wikipedia

Now I tell you from my political experience: The regime change in Iran is not only affected Iran, but it also has a considerable influence in the West! It is for sure that after this bloody terrorist regime, a moderate government will change all the conditions in the middle east. It means peace and calmness in all relationships in the area, and it is good for the whole world. Also, a prayer, at least, will work. And it is always important to keep your eyes open.

Credits: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/An_Illustration_of_The_Allegory_of_the_Cave%2C_from_Plato%E2%80%99s_Republic.jpg/1920px-An_Illustration_of_The_Allegory_of_the_Cave%2C_from_Plato%E2%80%99s_Republic.jpg

https://medium.com/@nicholasamartinez732/the-allegory-of-the-cave-how-it-still-matters-when-it-comes-to-fake-news-810b391a3e88

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/iran-mahsa-amini-death-protests-morality-police-women-girls-rcna50308

In my confusion, I was busy with Khalil Gibran, and when I found this story (The Earth Gods), it reminded me of when I was fully busy making music and was daring even to combine songs. One of them I named (The God, Who was Condemned to Live on Earth), and I just thought, what a coincidence!
I also came across other posts with the same topics. Therefore, I thought, let’s share them both in one post.

The Earth Gods, by Kahlil Gibran

Second God:

The bee hums harshly in your ears,

And foul is the honey to your lips.

Fain would I comfort you,

But how shall I?

Only the abyss listens when gods call unto gods,

For measureless is the gulf that lies between divinities,

And windless is the space.

Yet I would comfort you,

I would make serene your clouded sphere;

And though equal, we are in power and judgement,

I would counsel you.

When out of chaos came the earth, and we, sons of the beginning, beheld each other in the lustless light, we breathed the first hushed, tremulous sound that quickened the currents of air and sea.

Then we walked, hand in hand, upon the grey infant world, and out of the echos of our first drowsy steps, time was born, a fourth divinity that sets his feet upon our footprints, shadowing our thoughts and desires and seeing only with our eyes.

And unto earth came life, and unto life came the spirit, the winged melody of the universe. And we ruled life and spirit, and none save us knew the measure of the years nor the weight of years’ nebulous dreams, till we, at noontide of the seventh aeon, gave the sea in marriage to the sun.

And from the inner chamber of their nuptial ecstasy, we brought man, a creature who, though yielding and infirm, bears ever.

Through man who walks the earth with eyes upon the stars, we find pathways to earth’s distant regions; and of man, the humble reed growing beside dark waters, we make a flute through whose hollowed heart we pour our voice to the silence-bound world. From the sunless north to the sun-smitten sand of the south.

From the lotus land where days are born

To perilous isles where days are slain,

Man, the faint-hearted, overbold by our purpose,

Ventures with lyre and sword.

Ours is the will he heralds,

And ours the sovereignty, he proclaims,

And his love-trodden courses are rivers to the sea of our desires.

We, upon the heights, in man’s sleep, dream our dreams.

We urge his days to part from the valley of twilights

And seek their fullness upon the hills.

Our hands direct the tempests that sweep the world

And summon man from sterile peace to fertile strife

And on to triumph.

In our eyes is the vision that turns man’s soul to flame,

And leads him to exalted loneliness and rebellious prophecy,

And on to crucifixion.

Man is born to bondage,

And in bondage is his honour and his reward.

In man, we seek a mouthpiece,

And in his life, our self-fulfilment.

Whose heart shall echo our voice if the human heart is deafened with dust?

Who shall behold our shining if man’s eye is blinded with night?

And what would you do with man, child of our earliest heart, our own self-image?

And down there, I’ve attached the other post with gratitude, translated from Greek. I hope you will enjoy it.

Highlights from the book “The Gods of Earth” by Khalil Gibran

by SearchingTheMeaningOfLife

– Man is a slowly rising god.
And between its joy and pain
is our sleep, and, therefore, our dreams.

– What is mortal is worth nothing if it remains mortal.
The innocence of childhood, the sweet ecstasy of youth, the passion of blossoming maturity, and the wisdom of old age.
The splendour of kings, the triumph of warriors,
the fame of poets, and the honour of dreamers and saints. All of them and what is in them is food for the gods.
And nothing of food will be unspeakable if the gods do not raise it to their mouths.
And just as the mute grain of wheat becomes love songs when swallowed by the nightingale,
so man, like the bread of the gods, will taste divinity.

– I would willingly comfort you, but how can I do that?
Only the abyss listens when gods call gods because the gulf that opens between deities
and empty space is immeasurable.
And yet I would like to comfort you,
to make your cloudy surroundings peaceful.
And although we are equal in strength and judgement, let me give you my advice.

– Yes, in your soul, your Redeemer sleeps, and in sleep, he sees what your watchful eye does not see. And this is the secret of our existence. Would you leave the harvest unharvested in your haste to sow again in the furrow of your dreams?

– It is not unbridled spending of the flesh
nor the crushing of lust
when lust fights with ourselves.
Nor is it flesh that takes up arms against the spirit.
Love does not rebel.
Only she leaves the multidimensional path of ancient fates that she brings to the sacred grove,
so that she can sing and dance her secret to eternity.
Love is a youth with broken bonds,
manhood freed from the soil
and womanhood fired with flame
and shining with the light of heaven deeper than ours.
Love, distant laughter in the spirit.
It’s a wild attack that leads you to your wake.
It is a new dawn on earth,
a day that eyes or mine cannot yet see,
but it has already been perceived by her own most incredible heart.

Credit images; https://greektraveltellers.com/blog/the-greek-gods, https://www.reddit.com/r/QuotesPorn/comments/1ac5b2/your_pain_is_the_breaking_of_the_shell_that/, https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-creation-i/,

This topic is not new to me, as I have been thinking about it since I was a young man. As you might know, I was born and grew up in a country in which Gender is an essential issue with the men ruling. Of course, Iranian women had many rights in the time of the Shah, but after the Islamic revolution, the Islamic rules have reduced almost all of them. Since I left Iran, I have given up any nationalism or ism at all, but maybe like James Joyce and his Irish feeling, I still have my Persian root. And now, it tears my heart apart when I see how the young girls are fighting and shedding blood to get their rights back.

Anyway, in my youth, I observed my body so often. My anatomy was more feminine than masculine. I wasn’t as hairy as a young man should be, and my skin was (or still is) soft and supple. It may be because of my mother’s wish to have a daughter. Of course, I had no desire for a man, but as I watched my body in the mirror, I missed a woman’s body near mine. Also, I am a man with all male and female feelings towards women. That caused me to think of it and have questions about these differences. And later, the theme of homosexuality and why it happens.

Some days ago, I watched a movie on TV (The Danish Girl from 2015), and I wondered why I had never heard about this one. It’s a well-made movie and touched me very much, not only because of its dramatic themes but also because it awakened my thoughts on the mysterious twilight of our Gender along the topic of Anima and Animus. I don’t know if any of you have seen this movie, but it is about transgender, based on the novel by David Ebershoff; it was a fictionalized account of the true story of Lili Elbe, one of the first trans women to undergo gender reassignment story.

You may watch this movie, though; I tell a summary; A married couple, both artists (painters), live happily together until the man discovers his inclination to be female. That shocked him initially, but the desire was much stronger than any appropriateness. (S)he decides to go towards his (or her) destiny, and the wife, though with a broken heart, decides to help.

I don’t want to discuss right and wrong or equality on this topic here, though it can always be essential. It only brought me back to my childhood and my own experiences with my own body.

The main question is: what is it about this nature failure? Why does a born masculine want to be feminine and vice versa? What has gone wrong? Especially the interesting thing is that this movie shows that a happy married man suddenly finds his (or her) true self to be a woman. If it is because of the hormones, they came very late, or is it because of the sudden awakened Anima? Are the hormones the same as Anima and Animus? Oh yes! There are a lot of questions which I can’t answer. Let’s look at what the master, Dr Jung, says.

We must also consider that we have two big problems to solve: first, to find the harmony between our body and soul, and second: to find the balance between our Anima and Animus. That is what Dr Jung calls wholeness, as the soul has and can’t have any gender! The main question might be this: have we forgotten something?

In “On the psychology of the child archetype”, Dr Jung talks about Child hermaphroditism, which I have translated from my book; Archetype.

He writes: It is a remarkable fact that perhaps the majority of the cosmogonic gods are bisexual in nature. The hermaphroditus means nothing other than a union of the strongest and most striking opposites. This union rejects the first and primitive spiritual constitution, in whose twilight differences and opposites are either only a little separated or blurred altogether. However, with the increasing sanctity of consciousness, the opposites become more distinct and irreconcilable. Therefore, if the hermaphrodite were only a product of a primitive and lack of differentiation, one would expect that it would soon have been eradicated with increasing culture. This is just not the case; on the contrary, the imagination of higher and highest levels of culture has always occupied itself with this idea, as we can see from Gnosticism’s Late Greek and syncretic philosophy. In the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, the hermaphroditic Rebis plays an important role. And in very recent times, we still hear of the androgyny of Christ in Catholic mysticism. (Koepgen, Die Gnosis des Christentums, 1939, S. 315 ff.)

Here it can no longer be a matter of the still-existence of a primitive Phantasma, of the original contamination of opposites. Rather, the primal idea is as we can see from medieval works. (v. Lapis as mediator and medium; cf. Tractatus aureus cum scholiis, in Bibliotheca chemica, 1702, vol. 1 p. 408 b; and Artis auriferae, 1593, vol. 2, p. 641.)

It has become a symbol of the constructive union of opposites, a real “unifying symbol”. In its functional meaning, the symbol no longer points back but forwards to a goal that has not yet been reached. Regardless of its monstrosity, the hermaphroditus has gradually become a conflict-solving saviour, an importance which, incidentally, it already achieved at relatively earlier stages of culture. This vital importance explains why the image of the hermaphrodite did not die out in antiquity. Still, on the contrary, with the increasing deepening of the symbolic content, it could assert itself through the millennia.

That is, however, remained a mystery for us all. May we be able to find the answer and can solve the enigma of our existence. Amen!

Here s also a video about this somehow fascinating and, at the same time, tragic occurrence.

It is inevitable to ignore the Myths of the feminine in ancient Egypt, especially this divine queen Ahmose Nefertari. I have already noticed that I shared several posts about this queen; however, she deserves another one, especially about this fantastic find of her statuette in such a beautiful form.

Ahmose-Nefertari was the first Great Royal Wife of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. She was a daughter of Seqenenre Tao and Ahhotep I and a royal sister and wife to Ahmose I. Her son Amenhotep I became pharaoh, and she may have served as his regent when he was young. Ahmose-Nefertari was deified after her death. Wikipedia

Let’s read this brilliant explanation by Marie Grillot about this excellent artwork. via: égyptophile

The great queen Ahmes (Ahmose) Nefertari at the Louvre

According to some sources, this votive statuette of the great Queen Ahmes Nefertari entered the Louvre in 1827, along with the Drovetti collection, made up of 1970 pieces, which Champollion had urged the sovereign Charles X to acquire. Other writings indicate it as having arrived in the collections “before 1852” without further details.

Referenced N470, 35.5 cm high, it is made of shea wood and was carved in one piece” except for the left foot “. The queen is shown standing with her left leg forward. Her left arm is bent under the chest, and she holds a sceptre (fly swatter?) in her hand. Its flexible stem passes between her breasts, and flowers and straps bloom from the armpits to the beginning of the front -arms. Her right arm rests along the body, and her hand clutches an object that has now disappeared.

She is dressed in a long tight dress which covers her body down to her ankles, revealing her elegant forms, in particular a well-defined chest – the tip of the breasts of which is “haloed” with a circle of black paint -the navel with the bulge that surrounds it, as well as the bones of the knees.

The face is beautiful, of an asserted nobility, with large almond-shaped eyes, an elegant nose and a sensual mouth.

If the statuette is offered to our eyes today in its soft blond wood, it was indeed polychrome, as evidenced by the touches of paint, red and black, which remain.

Ahmes Nefertari is the daughter of Ahhotep II and Seqénenré Taâ II. Great royal wife of Ahmose, mother Amenhotep I, she reigned for many years. She lived in Thebes and was buried in the necropolis of Dra Abu el-Neggah. The exact location of his tomb has been “several times questioned since Carter’s earlier excavations “.

Other statuettes, similar but of different sizes, are found in several museums, such as Turin or Berlin. Ahmes-Nefertari is the daughter of Ahhotep II and Séqénenré Taâ II. Great royal wife of Ahmose, mother Amenhotep I, she reigned for many years. She lived in Thebes and was buried in the necropolis of Dra Abu el-Neggah.

In his magnificent work “Les statues egyptiennes du Nouvel Empire au Louvre”, Christophe Barbotin describes precisely how the garment is made: “a tight-fitting fabric draped around the body tied under the right breast which leaves bare the right shoulder and covers the instep and the heel. The double fall of the fabric is marked by a braid starting behind the left shoulder and continuing behind the right shoulder (with a defective alignment from one shoulder to the other), constituting a diagonal on the bust on either side of the right breast. This braid is adorned with tight fringes on the left forearm and along the left leg to the heel. The covering of the drape is marked by an incised line connecting the knot under the right breast to the right ankle”.

Like the Valley of the Kings, this necropolis did not escape the looting that took place at the end of the Ramesside period. Around 1100 BC. AD (21st dynasty), the high priest Pinnedjem II, who then ruled the Theban region, did everything possible to preserve the royal remains. This is how he had them reinterred in his own tomb, dug in the rocky cirque of Deir el-Bahari, more precisely, in the rocks of Chaak el-Tablyah.

It was there, in the heart of the Theban mountains, that they rested until the summer of 1871, when the Abd el-Rassoul brothers, villagers from Gournah, discovered the tomb, its treasures piled up pell-mell, papyri, alabaster vases, shabtis and… forty-two mummies and sarcophagi.
They decided to seal this secret, to say nothing about it. “They went down three times in ten years to the bottom of their hiding place.” But years later, having noted the appearance of objects from clandestine excavations on the antiquities market, Gaston Maspero launched an investigation. After multiple and extraordinary developments, on July 5, 1881, in the presence of Mohamed Abd el-Rassoul in the crushing heat of Deir el-Bahari, Emile Brugsch, Ahmed Effendi Kamal, assistant to the Cairo museum, and Thadéos Matafian, supervised the “re-discovery” of this hiding place of royal mummies, now known as DB 320.

Among the mummies of the greatest sovereigns was that of the great queen Ahmes Nefertari. During the re-burial, she had been placed back in her 3.78 m sycamore wood coffin on which “she is majestically represented standing, arms crossed, covered with a mummy sheath and holding two ‘ankh’ signs in her hand. “.

She wears an imposing three-part hairstyle, painted black, composed of plaits braided in a very particular way which fall to the upper part of the breasts. This wig is surmounted by the remains of a vulture (painted in yellow), the emblem of the goddess of Upper Egypt, Nekhbet, whose wings are worked on three levels and whose head adorns the middle of the forehead. The whole is surmounted by a mortar, part of which is missing.

The face is beautiful, of an affirmed nobility, with large almond-shaped eyes, a long fine nose, and a sensual mouth. If the statuette is offered to our eyes today in its soft blond wood, it was indeed polychrome, as evidenced by the touches of paint, red and black, which remain. Thus: “according to the traces visible on the cheek of the lady, the flesh was painted in a dark colour, which is again a speciality of this deified queen”, specifies Christophe Barbotin.

She is “pegged” to an acacia wood base on which her name and titles appear: “The divine wife of Amon, the great royal wife, mistress of the double country, the beloved of her father Amon, the mother of the king, Ahmes Nefertari. May she live, be young and durable like Re, eternally”. It was dedicated by: “Djéhoutyhermaketef, who lived in Deir el-Medina and exercised the functions of quarryman during the reign of Ramses II (1279-1213 BC)”. The posthumous cult of Ahmes-Nefertari and Amenhotep I – very pronounced, especially within the community of workers of the royal tombs of Set Ma’at who made them their protectors – will continue for nearly five centuries after their “disappearance.”

The exact location of her grave was: “several times questioned since Carter’s old excavations”.

During the 21st Dynasty, the high priest Herihor who ruled the Theban region took care to restore the coffins and mummies of former rulers who had suffered from desecration or had been damaged by the robbers of graves. Their re-burial took place in the rocky cirque of Deir el-Bahari – more precisely in the rocks of Chaak el-Tablyah – in a tomb initially known to have been that of Princess Inhâpi.

This incredible “hiding place of royal mummies” was discovered in 1871 by Gournawis, the Abd el-Rassoul brothers. However, its “existence” will not be “officially” known to the Service des Antiquités until ten years later, in 1881.

Indeed, after an investigation with many twists and turns – prompted by the fact that artefacts arrived illegitimately and from unknown sources on the antique market – Gaston Maspero’s collaborators went back to the source of the traffic. This is how on July 5, 1881, in the crushing heat of the rocks of Deir el-Bahari, guided by Mohamed Abd el Rassoul, Emile Brugsch, Ahmed Kamal Effendi and Thadéos Matafian, supervised the “re-discovery” of this tomb – which will be referenced DB 320 -, which contained about fifty mummies – including about forty pharaohs.

The mummy of the great queen Ahmes-Nefertari had been replaced in her 3.78 m sycamore wood coffin (CG 61003) on which: “She is majestically represented standing, arms crossed, covered with a mummy sheath and holding hand two ‘ankh’ signs.

Marie Grillot

Sources:

“The Pharaoh’s Artists, Deir el-Medina and the Valley of the Kings“, Catalog of the exhibition at the Louvre Museum, April 15 – July 22, 2002, RMN

Ancient Egypt at the Louvre , Guillemette Andreux, Marie-Hélène Rutschowscaya, Christiane Ziegler, Hachette, 1997

Queens of the Nile, Christian Leblanc, Library of the Untraceable

https://books.google.fr/books?id=LgcKs7D2zYMC&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=N470+LOUVRE&source=bl&ots=8OuxeeKQwW&sig=zjntvF-hkHDx9TAgzyFbPwScmZY&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3lbebxujJAhWBSBoKHfLYAIEQ6AEILzAD#v=onepage&q=bois&f=false

“The wife of the god Ahmes Nefertary: documents on her life and her posthumous cult“, by Michel Gitton

http://www.louvre.fr/oeuvre-notices/la-reine-divinisee-ahmes-nefertari

http://egyptophile.blogspot.fr/2014/07/la-cachette-des-momies-royales-histoire.html?q=cachette+des+momies

Statue of Iahmes-Nefertari
http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=17793&langue=fr
New Kingdom Egyptian statues. 1, Royal and divine statues, Christophe Barbotin, Louvre Museum, 2007
The find of Deir-el-Bahari, Gaston Maspero, Émile Brugsch, 1881
General catalogue of Egyptian antiquities of the Cairo Museum N° 61001-61044, Coffins of the royal hiding places (1909), Daressy, Georges
https://archive.org/details/DaressyCercueils1909/page/n35
Maspero Gaston, The Royal Mummies of Deir el-Bahari
Maspero Gaston, Report on the find of Deir el-Bahari – Egyptian Institute – bulletin n° 2 – 1881
Pharaoh’s Artists, Deir el-Medina and the Valley of the Kings, Catalog of the exhibition at the Louvre Museum, April 15 – July 22, 2002, RMN
Ancient Egypt at the Louvre, Guillemette Andreux, Marie-Hélène Rutschowscaya, Christiane Ziegler, Hachette, 1997
Queens of the Nile, Christian Leblanc, Library of the Untraceable
https://books.google.fr/books?id=LgcKs7D2zYMC&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=N470+LOUVRE&source=bl&ots=8OuxeeKQwW&sig=zjntvF-hkHDx9TAgzyFbPwScmZY&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3lbebxujJAh=ILBos6KonefLYageqpagez&falqpagezADAf=ILBos6KonefLYAEQ
The wife of the god Ahmes Néfertary: documents on her life and her posthumous cult, Michel Gitton

With heartfelt greetings from Ibiza on the way to Formentera. Just for a week to clean (or better to say calm) the soul.

Have a great and lovely weekend all you dear friends.💖🙏🤗🌈🦋🌝☀️🌞

Thankful for Mahsa’s hair and sacrificed life. 🙏😔

It has been a long time since I posted on political issues. I think now is the time! I don’t know how much you have heard about what is happening in Iran nowadays. Although I do hope you did because it is now broadcast on many worldwide networks. Of course, it is a long story: since the Islamic Republic of Iran came into power (at the end of the seventies), the protests for freedom had begun (In my opinion, the revolution had failed before its victory!), as I took part in them, but the highest point was the so-called green wave in 2009; however, it didn’t come on the air in the West as we hoped, only there was a brief statement by President Bush as he said: don’t harm the young Iranian protesters! After that, there was unrest now and then, but still, the West remained silent. (I might mention it before several times (f.e. here & here); it is almost clear for an intellectual these days to know that the free press is under pressure; We all have the orders from above and at least have a “free choice”: to say and write what we think and live isolated, or be decent and care of our future carrier!) And now?!

The death of a young girl named Mahsa Amini exploded an old festering wound. She wasn’t the first one who was brutally grabbed by Islamic police on the streets and tattered in the police cars because of her incorrect hijab; it happened before with the other young girls, but her arrest and death after they hit her head violently, there was no waiting any longer.

Honestly, at the beginning of this year, I had a feeling (a prognosis?) that this Mullah regime would spend its last time because of the western media’s reaction toward the situation in Iran. There were unusually more reports in the press.

On the other hand, the pressure on people got much more violent. It reminded me of how the secret service of the late Shah, SAVAK, did the same increasingly brutality in their last year of reign. Those days Al and I and some other friends were under their observation. I have heard it from one of the members of this organisation. I got to know him from another friend who was interested in spy movies and wanted to be an agent! He told me he knew an agent and would like to talk to us. This Agent was very friendly and told us how he knew and appreciated our father. He was a great thinker, he added, and his children had to be the same. Therefore we watched all your actions and took pictures of when you left the house and where you went! We know you are harmless, but these days we have some new members; ill-minded and brutal! I don’t know why he said; I just warn you to be careful. That convinced me later when I heard many violently dragging and arresting young people from their homes at night. That usually is the way to make displeasure and dissatisfaction in society. Those days I thought it was the end of Shah’s regime, and I was right! Now I’d make the same prophecy! Amen!

Mahsa Amini just wanted to be free, like many other women in Iran. She was a Kurdish girl, and as I know through my life experience, the Kurdish people are a unique nation. They are challenged for freedom all through their life, especially during the time of Khomeini. Once I remember well that Al wrote an article about their courage and excellent knowledge of living equally between man and woman. (We must bow before the Kurds, he noted.)

Now it is time for hope again. May this dark time end for the Iranian people, and this pure blood spilt by brave youth gets the goal they deserve. Freedom is like a fresh breeze which every human needs to breathe.

https://time.com/6216091/photos-mahsa-amini-world-reactions/

PS: Next week here begins a two-week school holiday, and it clearly means I will be kidnapped again! One week in Formentera, Spain. During that time, I will take a break as I might deserve. Love and Peace and Freedom for you all.

Dream symbols of the individuation process; A contribution to the knowledge of the processes of the unconscious manifested in dreams. (1944) GW 7 – GW 13

facilis descensus Averni;
noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis-:
sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,
hoc opus, hic labor est. (It’s easy and effortless to climb down in hell’s depths,
Because the dark gate of the grave stands open day and night;
But the return upwards, to heaven’s bright air
Leads on a path of suffering.)
Virgil: Aeneid, Book VI, 126-129

I begin with the last words from the previous chapter.

Only below is the fiery source of life to be found. (Fig. 10) This “below” is man’s natural history; its causal connection cannot become a lapis or a self.

I had to note that Dr Jung does not intend to narrate all the dreams (His material consists of over a thousand dreams) but takes examples and the corresponding symbols to explain his thesis on mandalas symbols. As he wrote: The symbols I am dealing with here do not concern the manifold stages and changes of the individuation process but rather those images which refer exclusively and directly to the realization of the new centre. These images belong in a specific category that I call mandala symbolism.

Now let’s read about this dream and its symbol. “Seventh”.

The father calls out, worried: That’s the seventh!

In the migration of many ladders, an event referred to as “the seventh” appears to have occurred (Fig. 13). The seven corresponds to the highest level and would therefore be what is longed for and desired in terms of initiation (Fig. 14). In the sense of the traditional spirit test, however, the “solificatio” is an adventurous, mystical idea that borders on madness, because such nonsense was only thought of earlier, in the dark ages of hazy superstition, whilst the clear, purified world of spirits of our enlightened times is such nebulous things has long since overcome, to the extent that only the mental hospital houses Illuminati of this kind. No wonder the father is anxious, like the hen that hatched duck eggs and is now more distressed by the aquatic tendencies of his offspring. If this interpretation that “the seventh” means the highest level of enlightenment is correct, then the process of integrating the personal unconscious should actually be connected with it in principle. After that, the opening of the collective unconscious would begin, which would sufficiently explain the father’s concern as the representative of the traditional spirit.

After all, the return to the dawn of the unconscious does not mean that one has to completely abandon the precious achievement of the fathers, namely the intellectual differentiation of consciousness. The point is that the human being takes the place of the intellect, not the one that the dreamer imagines, but a more rounded or complete one. This means, however, that all sorts of things have to be included in the scope of the personality, which he still finds embarrassing or even impossible. The father shouting so anxiously, “This is the seventh!” is a psychic component of the dreamer, and its concern is his own. As a result, the interpretation must consider that the “seventh” can mean not only a summit but also something unfavourable. We encounter this motif, for example, in the fairy tale of Tom Thumb and the Cannibal. The “seven” have been the seven planetary gods since ancient times (Fig. 13); they form what the pyramid texts refer to as “paut neteru”, a company of gods (Figs. 15, 16), [Budge “der Gott von Egypt, 1904, Vol. 1 p. 87] referred to as {company of the gods]. Although a company is called the “newcomers”, it often turns out that there are not nine but ten and occasionally more. Therefore, Maspero {Etudes de Mythologie, 1893-1913, vol. 2, p. 245} says that the first and the last of the series, in particular, can be developed or doubled without doing the nine number entry.

(“Neteru means Gods/Goddesses, but to the ancient scientist of Kemet, the teachings of the Netru represented more than the modern concept of Divinities or Spirits. They also represented Cosmic Principles or Laws of the Universe.“)

Something similar also happened to the classic “paut” of the Greco-Roman or Babylonian gods in the post-classical period, when the gods had withdrawn partly to the distant stars and partly to the metals of the earth’s interior, degraded to demons. It turned out that Hermes Mercurius, as a chthonic god of revelation and as a spirit of Mercury, possessed a dual nature, for which he was regarded as hermaphrodite (Fig. 17). As Mercury is closest to the sun and therefore most closely related to gold. Mercury, however, dissolves the gold and thus extinguishes its sun-like brilliance.

Throughout the Middle Ages, he was, therefore, the enigmatic object of natural-philosophical speculation: soon, he was a servile, generous spirit, a “paredros” (literally: assessor, comrade) or “familiaris”; soon, he was the “Servus” or “Cervus Fugitivus” (the fugitive slave or stag) a sprite driving the alchemist to despair, evasive, deceptive and teasing (cf. the amusing dialogue between the alchemist and Mercury in the Dialogus [Theatrum chemicum, 1613, vol. 4, p. 509 ff.]) whose manifold attributes the devil has in common with him: for example dragon, lion, eagle, raven – to name only the most important ones. In the alchemical series of gods, he is the lowest as “prima materia” and the highest as “lapis philosophorum”. The “Spiritus Mercurialis” (Fig. 16) is the guide (Hermes Psycho pompous) and the seducer of the alchemist; he is his fortune and his undoing. His dual nature enables him to be not only the seventh but also the eighth, namely that eighth in Olympus, “of which no one thought” (Faust; 2nd part).

It may seem odd to the reader that we are bringing in such a remote area as medieval alchemy. However, “black art” is not as far away as we think; as an educated man, the dreamer must have read Faust. But this one is an alchemical drama from start to finish, even if today’s educated person only dimly suspects it. Even though our conscious mind is far from understanding everything, the unconscious remembers the “ancient” oddities to recall when the opportunity arises. Our dreamer felt the same about Faust as this did to young Goethe in Leipzig when he studied Theophrastus Paracelsus with Fraulein von Klettenberg. (Goethe: Poetry and Truth)

There the mysterious quid pro quo of seven and eight was impressed on him without his conscious being able to decipher it – as we may reasonably assume. The following dream will show that the memory of Faust is not far-fetched.

I appreciate your interest. I will try to post more dreams with Dr Jung’s analysis. 🙏💖