You might be surprised to see I’ve titled this with three Exclamation Marks instead of Nombre 3. I just wanted to show how I feel! 😁
I have mentioned, as I had a look back on the latest two chapters, that I have really a problem to write this story, my life story. I have known it as I read them, again and again, I’ve just thought: “what the hell; this man has a problem!! ” 😛
You know, I have learned in my life to get out of me, stay beside and look at myself as another person, I think it helps to get knowing oneself better and here I found this memorandum somehow poor. Here I must really thank you, dearest and adorable friends, despite all these poorness did support them. I am deeply grateful and appreciated.
As I might take the advantage of your kindness, let me analyse why I have such a problem with this story; since I got known psychology through Sigmund Freud, I have found out that I have many complexes in my life; When our mother lied us about father’s death, my unconsciousness knew there’s something wrong as I remember Al, who somehow got it clearly, tried to help mother’s secret on one side and to stop me not putting so many questions there all about, dear brother. I have found it out after some months later when I looked into the old magazine and saw the memorial ceremonies of the funeral which took place after father died (he was a famous writer in his time) and I asked her about the matter, her answer was just “get out and let me alone!” I went out, and of course, she came after me and we’ve taken us in arms wept together.
But these all have remained in my inner soul like deep tracks which I had to work with them, as I am still working on.
It’s surely a big problem but to this comes my inexperiences on writing too and also, two foreign languages which I have to struggle with; English and German. You know, I have learned both by myself; Al and I have learned English at home in Iran when we both began to work as a journalist and when we came in Germany, I’ve noticed that no matter if I can live and communicate in English with people I must learn German to better understand and be understood, therefore, bought some grammar books and did it myself! Now when I begin to think or write in English, both languages mixed up together; I am living here in Germany since 1985 and I speak, think, dream in German and when I want to switch into English, the conversant words for me are mostly German words; I have to translate them in English in my head! If you might notice in the last chapter, I’d written in the title; “Fufty” + Loneliness (2) It is just a mixed-up Fifty in English and Fünfzig in German!!
Here is an example by Master Dr Freud 😉😄
4 in German, is vier (sounds fear) and 6 sounds sex!
You might ask why I don’t write in German, and I might answer; I have the English language almost in my blood, maybe because since my childhood I’m listening to the English music and to be honest; writing in German is not so easy as the German believe in by themselves. 😉
Anyway, I wondered how many mistakes I’ve made, not only because of the languages but also my extremely humbleness plus a lot of excitement cause of lack of self-confidence.
Therefore, I dicided to make a stop to write about my life, I am sure I will back on this soon, thank you all again and again for your wounderful, inspiring suports and kind words. Blessing 💖🙏💖🙏
I just can’t go by any posts about this Queen without rush on to it and swallow every cell of this wonderful Goddess. Honestly, in my youth, I fell in love with some famous characters; the first one as I clearly can remember was Angela Cartwright; who got famous as Brigitta von Trapp in The Sound of Music and surely was known as Penny in the TV-series Lost in Space. And there it happened. I have fallen in love with her….
Anyway, the next one as still remains in my memory was Brigitte Bardot (I think that my old male friends can well have understanding!) though our love has a short time and with no success.
Now, I tell you that I have all forgotten and left all my old lovers behind but; this Goddess of painting is unforgettable (I still believe that my male friends all are agreed!)
So, now let’s enjoy this wonderful post by the very agreeable culture site http://www.openculture.com/ Thanks and,,, I love you all 💖💖🥰😘
What the Iconic Painting, “The Two Fridas,” Actually Tells Us About Frida Kahlo
I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality. —Frida Kahlo
You may be forgiven for assuming you already know everything there is to know about Frida Kahlo.
The subject of a high profile bio-pic, a bilingual opera, and numerous books for children and adults, her image is nearly as ubiquitous as Marilyn Monroe’s, though Frida exercised a great deal of control over hers by painting dozens of unsmiling self-portraits in which her unplucked unibrow and her traditional Tehuana garb feature prominently.
(Whether she would appreciate having her image splashed across shower curtains, light switch covers, yoga mats, and t-shirts is another matter, and one even a force as formidable as she would be hard pressed to control from beyond the grave. Her immediately recognizable countenance powers every souvenir stall in Mexico City’s Coyoacán neighborhood, where Casa Azul, the home in which she both was born and died, attracts some 25,000 visitors monthly.)
A recent episode of PBS’ digital series The Art Assignment, above, examines the duality at Frida’s core by using her double self-portrait,The Two Fridas(Las Dos Fridas), as a jumping off place.
Kahlo herself explained that the traditionally dressed figure on the right is the one her just-divorced ex-husband, muralist Diego Rivera had loved, while the unloved one on the left fails to keep the untethered vein uniting them from soiling her Victorian wedding gown. (The vein, originates on the right, rising from a small childhood portrait of Rivera, that was among Kahlo’s personal effects when she died.)
It’s an expression of loneliness and yet, the twin-like figures are depicted tenderly clasping each other’s hands:
Bereft but comforted
Fractured but intact
Lonely but not isolated
Broken but beautiful
Humiliated but proud
Kahlo’s boundaries, it suggests, are highly permeable, in life, as in art, drawing from such influences as Bronzino, El Greco, Modigliani, Surrealism, and Catholic iconography in both European religious painting and Mexican folk art.
As for the new thing learned, this writer was unaware that when Kahlo married Rivera—her elder by 22 years—in a 1929 civil ceremony, she did so in skirt and blouse borrowed from her indigenous maid… a fact which speaks to the end of her popularity in certain quarters.
Hi, my dear friends. I must apologize for my failures in the last post, as I noticed them in the night in bed!! Anyway, I have a serious situation this time as I have to work and coordinate my household; my wife is a woman of the world. Just let’s begin.
As I mentioned in the first part, it’s not easy to be born and grow up by sensible parents; a writer as a father with a lot of wishes and dreams and a bookworm as a mother whose biggest wish was to be left alone in a room fulfil with books and glass water and a loaf of bread would be enough for her!
Mother in everlasting position, Dreaming.
Here, man can say that God saves the soul! And yes, my childhood was based on a lot of trauma. Especially after my father died, it became much more complicated, but the very beginning;
It is, of course, not so much to explain; I have written there about in my some memories a time of love, happiness, a time of also, strike, strife, discord and again love and forgiveness.
You might read my post, “A CHARACTERISTIC LOVE STORY.” There, I have described the crazy beginning of this family’s foundation, which can result in mostly chaotic high-spiritual tensions in our lives.
Let’s begin after the father’s death because I can remember better. I don’t know why; maybe because I had to work on this. My father died the night after we returned from a wedding ceremony very late at night, and both “Al and I” knew nothing about what happened. In the morning, Mother told us he had travelled (He did travel often, but surely not after a party where he was almost drunk!). This wrong announcement was acceptable to me, but for Al, it wasn’t enough. He was a thinker even 9 at age ( I was 7 when my father left this Earth.), but of course, we both took it as a fact and, according to the mother’s order, went to the uncle’s house with a pool a big garden and so on and on. It was an offer which no child could refuse.
Those were the days, I’d bet! 😉
The main tension began after this time because Al was almost sure there was something wrong with this and me, the bloody child; I might have mentioned something but surely wanted rather ignore it! Therefore, it began a funny, and it might be better to say a tragic play between us three: Mother, Al and Me, and it was and still remains a trauma, which I will try to tell you about next. Thank you to all who read this, and forgive me for my failure. Take care and be safe. 🙏💖🙏
To pay homage to a broken destiny, to hope of shattered greatness, you have to go to the quarries of Aswan, about 2 km south of the city, near the Fatimid cemetery…
In this place lies the one that could have been the highest obelisk in Egypt,… Wearing its sparkling pyramidion, it would then proudly bear the name and the cartouches of the pharaoh who ordered its execution…
But, “in Antiquity, at the time of the extraction, the team in charge of the operation discovered cracks on the block and tried several times to reduce its size. These attempts were unsuccessful and the monument was abandoned “(Nessim Henry Henein – BIFAO 109).
Cracks on the block of the unfinished obelisk in one of Aswan granite quarries, about 2 km south of the city, near the Fatimid cemetery
Florence Maruéjol reminds us of all the symbolism of the obelisks: “Like most elements of religious architecture, they are loaded with symbols. They materialize the Benben, the sacred stone venerated in antiquity in the temple of Heliopolis. They also embody the primordial hill on which the sun landed at the beginning of the world. They are also assimilated to petrified sunbeams “.
Giving up all hope of embodying this, he remained forever “fused” connected by one side to this stone bench of Syene, name of the ancient city of Aswan.
Overview of the Aswan granite quarry, located approximately 2 km south of the city near the Fatimid cemetery
Clot Bey informs us about the mineralogical and geological composition which gave it its name: “Around Aswan, there are these varieties of granite, so famous in antiquity, known as syenite. We find in this mineralogical bench syenites pink, porphyritic, pink and yellow, grey, white and black, grey and pink, veined and black; porphyritic gneiss, white and quartz granites. Most of the huge monoliths left to us by the Egyptians, the obelisks, the colossi, are red syenite; we also see many statues and emblematic monuments of a smaller volume in black or grey syenite “.
Unfinished Obelisk is one of Aswan granite quarries, about 2 km south of the city, near the Fatimid cemetery Photo dated 1890 Aswan, half of the year obelisk in quarry – circa 1890
Jean-Jacques Ampère, in his “Travel and Research in Egypt and Nubia” published in 1848 describes his visit thus:
We wandered curiously in the quarries of Syene. These quarries are a plain of granite cut in the open air for the needs of Egyptian architecture and especially sculpture. Egypt offers, in fact, very few monuments built in granite, but all the obelisks, many statues and sphinxes are of granite and of this pink granite peculiar to Syene, from where it took the name of syenite. It is from here that these famous monoliths came out, which, after decorating Thebes or Heliopolis, now embellish the squares of Rome and Paris. We understand how these masses could be detached. Holes that can still be seen arranged along with a horizontal slit show how large pieces of granite were separated from the rock. In these holes, the corners were used to break the rock.
We even see in Syene’s quarry an obelisk which has not been entirely detached; it is there lying on the ground, to which still holds by one side. By contemplating this living testimony of a work which has stopped for so many centuries, it seems that we are witnessing this work and that we see it being interrupted. One can believe that the workers, after taking their nap, will come back and finish their work; the unfinished work still seems to last. “
For many years this notion of the use of “corners” persisted, even Marcelle Baud in his Blue Guide will echo it: “They (the old quarries) show the process used by the Egyptians for the extraction of These notches, which delimited the surface to be extracted, received wooden wedges which were then wet. The swelling wood caused the block to burst in the delimited places and this obtained roughly smooth surfaces ready for polishing”…
In the 1920’s, Reginald – Rex – Engelbach, Egyptologist English, devoted several seasons to study the unfinished obelisk Aswan and restore its findings in three reference books
But the truth about the exact technique used will emerge from 1920 – 1921, thanks to Pierre Lacau, then head of the Antiquities Service, which entrusted the study of the unfinished obelisk to Réginald Engelbach.
In his Report on the works carried out during the winter of 1920-21, he made the following observation:
“In Aswan, all the tourists knew the unfinished obelisk which still lies in place in the granite quarry. The sand had invaded it and it had to be cleared again. I took the opportunity to try to clear it in a complete way, in order to examine closely the technical procedures of the Egyptian quarrymen. M. Engelbach, the chief inspector for Upper Egypt, was charged with the work and he was pleasantly surprised to see the enormous needle stretch out in a disproportionate way; the part currently cleared of the debris which covered it is already 36 meters long, and the work is not finished. It is therefore already the largest of the known obelisks (we have one of thirty and one meters only). One cannot help but think of the well-known text by Deir el Bahari which tells us about obelisks of fifty-two meters; this surprising figure is much less likely now to be only an exaggeration. “
Rex Engelbach, an English Egyptologist of Alsatian origin, remembers: “Although its existence has been known for centuries, the unfinished obelisk had never been cleared until the end of this winter of 1922 when my department allocated the sum of LE 75 to do it. In this work, I was assisted by Mahmûd Eff. Mohamed and Mustafa Eff. Hassan of the department of antiquities who supervised the workers”.
He initially trained as an engineer and finds there a very interesting subject of study: he seeks to understand why this immense long-form mass carved in granite, this monument of more than 1100 tonnes was abandoned there in the New Empire.
Unfinished Obelisk in one of Aswan granite quarries at about 2 km south of the city, near the Fatimid cemetery Partially quarried “Unfinished Obelisk”; 18th Dynasty 1539-1292 BC gold. (Underwood & Underwood Co .; entre pictures taken in 1900 and 1920). These photos show the obelisk as it was when Engelbach began to study
He senses that what in antiquity might have appeared as a catastrophe, a waste of time for workers and sponsors, contains a wealth of information, a source of knowledge and understanding of the work and extraction of these materials. monoliths from the Pharaonic eras.
He devotes several seasons to exploring the site, he excavates, clears, clears the pit that surrounds the obelisk, drawing information, remarks and conclusions which he will reproduce in three works.
In “The Aswân Obelisk”, “he provides a complete and detailed description of the obelisk. Far from being limited to a description of the boulder, the trenches surrounding it, the wells and certain details which struck it on the site, he develops hypotheses and tries to elucidate the way in which the various operations relating to obelisks were to be conducted, from the marking on the surface of the granite hill of the quarry to their erection in front of the pylons of the temples. “
Dolerite balls made near the obelisk incomplete in one of Aswan granite quarries about 2 km south of the city, near the Fatimid cemetery
In “The Problem of the Obelisks”, “he explains the stages in the production of the obelisk in four points: – equalization of the upper layer of the block obtained by thermal shock; – use of Dolerite balls to equalize the surfaces; – drawing of the contours of the obelisk traced on the upper surface after levelling; – realization of the trench which surrounds it “.
He came to this staggering observation in particular: “We used neither scissors nor wedges to detach the obelisk from the quarry; the dolerite balls were the only tools used. In other words, the obelisk was not cut but excavated … Not only the sides but also the underside of the obelisk were detached by percussion. “
And finally, in “The Wonder of the Obelisk”, he summarizes all the knowledge acquired during his excavations.
If this obelisk did not illuminate a temple with its presence, it served many other functions. Thanks to Engelbach, he shed light on the “making” of his fellows. He also brought to our attention the excellent level of technicality enjoyed by tailors, and he always recalls the almost philosopher’s relationship that the ancient Egyptians had with stone…
He had always won though rather mentally and not physically! (in the background; cousin, and mother wash the dishes).
Yes, I dare! You, I mean some of you my friends here, who intensive were interested in me as an individual person, were much interested in my life story somehow, but to put it bluntly, as I am, somewhat, a humble person, it was very difficult for me to write about it, though, I have a memorial note with the same title on work.
But, what else!, I thought I begin here with you all (who interested of course) to tell my story;
A big head but remains raw for too long!
I have begun the story with the picture of me and my brother Al, no chance without him. He is a part or better to say; a huge part of my life… no doubt.
Okay, let’s begin with a daisy lazy vision in front of my tired old eyes and dig into my memory; I can see into a foggy scene a large yard and a big house in there we’re both born or may re-born.
I see at first, a gate for driving in and a veranda for parking lot and after you walked into the yard and passed a pool which rests between two big rose garden with some trees of peach and apples, you’d reach the main door to enter into the house.
I regret not to have a pic of my birthplace, I had it surely but it’s out of hand!
It sounds all big and great, of course, it was because of my father’s lucky goal after his success in publishing a book in which he had not only made a difference between Persians and Arabs way in their religion but also he put an old costume called Sufi’s with his translation or better to say a gathering of the quotes by the first Imam in Shiites; Ali. It was more a sanctify about Ali as an Imam, he made him as a legendary.
Therefore, he became famous in a night (I think it is a wish of every writer) though I am sure that he was not even religious; he was all in his life against mullahs and their teachings in the Mosque, he was never welcome there! that was his chance to hit the goal and did it.
Therefore, we were born in a big house with a big garden a great yard and rich building without any religious influences.
It is not easy to be born in a family with so many sensibilities, as an artist can have, I tell you, the children take it most!
I must end this part and look for the next, hopefully you too 😊 Be safe and have a nice WE🙏💖🙏
First I must say; Yes, I am at home! Because I have not a full-time job anymore but am a short-time worker. 😁
The reason why is that everything is in a still-stand or interruption modus as you’ve surely known it.
Anyway, today at nine o’clock the Spring has begun and in old Persian, it was and still is, the beginning of a new year, but I have put a question mark after the word “happy” that I think it might be really under a question while in these days it is hard to be.
Nevertheless, I gave the title also the Persian words; (translated) “New Year be Succeed” that is much fitter than” be happy” and could be a wish for the new one.
Then let me say;
Happy New Year to all #Persian allover Earth. Though it’d not be so happy as it’d be! somebody might say last years; what could be worse than this?! Now we see it can be worse!! But anyhow, stay strong and together (with distance😁 ) as we know; this too shall pass 😏Hoping for a better year 💖🙏
سال نو مبارک به همه #پارسیان روی کره زمین. گرچه آنقدر مبارک نمیتواند بود! ممکن است کسی سالهای گذشته بگفت؛ چی ممکنه بدتر از این پیش بیاد! حالا می بینیم که می تواند بدتر شود !! اما به هر حال ، قوی و در کنار هم باشید (با فاصله 😁). همانطور که می دانیم این نیز بگذرد 😏به امید سالی بهتر
I think Vincent van Gogh, as he belongs to genius artists in this world, was one of the rare ones who had mostly suffered in his short life.
I might have a half-dozen art in me but as I have been among to a family of artists, I know how they suffer as ingrained artists and trying all in their life to bring out all these energies to create in the form of books, paintings or music etc.
Some months ago I saw in a TV magazine an announcement over this movie; Loving Vincent, and I have recorded it. But I had got barely time to watch it and almost forgotten. two days ago in the evening, my wife asked me if I still have kept the movie and could we watch it. Of course, I have responded!
This is an amazing product because it isn’t fixed on van Gogh personally, even it shows him almost as a third person. The most weight of the movie is on his suffer and in a fascinating form by his own works.
Now I understand What you tried to say to me And how you suffered for your sanity And how you tried to set them free They would not listen, they did not know how Perhaps they’ll listen now
To commemorate the 131st anniversary of the discovery of the tomb of Sennedjem (TT 1) at Deir El-Medineh, a conference was organized by the Ministry of Antiquities on Sunday, February 5, 2017, at the Mummification Museum in Luxor. The communications were made by Dr. Moustafa Waziri, director general of Antiquities of Louqsor, Dr. Moustafa el-Saghir, of the Department of Antiquities, Dr. Laurent Bavay, director of the French Institute of Oriental Archeology as well as Drs. Anne-Claire Salmas and Cédric Larchet, from the same Institute, and finally, John Shearman from the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE). The interventions are unfortunately not available at the moment.
The scientific conference of February 5, 2017. On the left, some of the speakers: Laurent Bavay, Mostafa al-Saghir, Mostafa al-Wazery (photos Ayman Amer)
The village of Deir el-Medineh – then known as Set Maât (the “Place of Truth”) – was founded at the beginning of the 18th dynasty under the reign of Thutmosis Iᵉʳ, and then expanded and enlarged several times, especially under the reigns of Thutmosis III and early ramessids.
There lived, sheltered by high walls, the community of artisans who worked on the digging and decoration of the eternal dwellings of the Valley of the Kings and of the Valley of the Queens. He remained active until the reign of Ramesses XI.
Ptolemaic temple of Deir el-Medineh in 1900
“Rediscovered” in the 19th century, he saw “scroll” many “researchers” then Egyptologists: Bernardino Drovetti, Henry Salt, Karl Richard Lepsius, Auguste Mariette, Gaston Maspero … Ernesto Schiaparelli will undertake excavations there in 1905, then the German Georg Christian Julius Möller. The site concession was then definitively awarded to Ifao in 1917; for thirty years, from 1922 to 1951, Bernard Bruyère methodically explored the site and made wonderful discoveries.
The Door to the tomb of Sennedjem Egyptian Museum in Cairo
The tomb of Sennedjem was discovered in January 1886 by ‘gournawis’. Indeed, “in 1886, Salam Abu Duhi, a villager from Gournah was granted a concession in an area of Deir el-Medineh close to his home. After only a few days of excavations, Salam and three of his friends made a spectacular discovery : at the bottom of a still unexplored burial well, they found a wooden door whose ancient seals were intact. Salam immediately informed Maspero, who happened to be in Luxor for his annual inspection visit. ” (Hidden treasures of Egypt, Zahi Hawass).
Gaston Maspero’s correspondence with his wife Louise (Gaston Maspero – Lettres d’Égypte) gives us the extraordinary adventure “live” … So the great Egyptologist wrote to him on February 2, 1886: “They come to get me to go to the mountain: a tomb that we have been working on for eight days has finally been opened. It is virgin! It is a tomb of the XXth dynasty: the wooden door is still in place, and we have already counted eleven mummies. is a big find. I probably won’t have time to write before the post boat leaves because I don’t think we can be back before ten o’clock. ”…
He continues his story on February 3: “The cellar is about 5 m long by 3 wide. It is vaulted, with a very low vault and painted in the most vivid colors; unfortunately, the paintings and texts are only extracts from the Book of the Dead. It was filled to the top with coffins and objects: eight adult mummies, two children’s mummies, a family of those cemetery priests I told you about in the letters I wrote from Turin in 1880 (?) The mummies are superb, of a beautiful red varnish with very neat representations, but they are only the least interesting part of the find.
sarcophagus of Khonsu, son of Sennedjem
You know that we carried the mummies to the tomb on sledges, carried by men or dragged by oxen. Our tomb contains two of these complete sledges: first the floor, with the rings intended to pass the sticks, when we wanted to carry, then the movable panels of the catafalque in which we locked the coffin, then the ledge cover … and it is how we will exhibit everything at the Boulaq Museum. Besides that, the complete furniture: eight large canopic jars, forty small boxes with funeral statuettes, a hundred charming limestone figurines, twenty painted earthenware vases, a new different bed for the shape of the first two … In addition, a beautiful armchair with a canvas background imitating the tapestry; two stools with canvas bottom imitating red leather, a folding chair, bouquets of flowers, a cubit, an ostracon containing a very curious, although very short, historical novel. Insinger and Toda photographed the magnesium chamber and will photograph some of the objects. “
Masks of the mummies of Sennedjem and his wife Egyptian Museum in Cairo
Jan Herman Insinger is a banker from the Netherlands who came to Luxor in order to benefit from a climate which can soothe his tuberculosis. Before having a castle built a little flashy on the edge of the Nile, he lives on board his dahabieh “Meermin” (the siren). He became close to Maspero and, during his inspections, offered him his services as a photographer. As for Eduard Toda I Güell, Consul General of Spain in Egypt from 1884 to 1886, real friendship and a relationship of trust linked him to Maspero, which led him to entrust him with important responsibilities within the archaeological mission. This is how he is at his side during the event which we relate and which is described by Jules Daressy as “one of the most interesting events in the history of excavations in Egypt”. Better still, the diplomat-archaeologist is entrusted, by the director of Antiquities called to another excavation site, with the “immediate responsibility” for clearing the tomb.
Box of oushebtis and oushebtis from the tomb of Sennedjem Met museum
It should be noted that, in the letter previously quoted, Gaston Maspero specifies: “It goes without saying that we bought from the fellahs the half that was due to them: it cost us 46 guineas. Once we have chosen all that is good for the museum, the sale of mummies and superfluous objects will bring us at least 60 guineas, maybe eighty who will go to the excavations of Luxor and the Sphinx. It will have been a good deal in all ways, good from a scientific point of view, since it gave us monuments of which we had no specimen, good from a financial point of view, since not only will the objects end up costing us nothing, but that we will have gained enough money for new excavations. “
Eduard Toda, with objects from the tomb of Sennedjem, on the boat “Boulaq”, en route to Cairo (1886) Toda Fund Library Víctor Balaguer Museum (Vilanova)
In the “Bulletin of the French Society of Egyptology” – 1988, Josep Padro reports: “In three days and with seven workers, (Toda) completely excavated the tomb and carried out the transfer of its contents on-board the ‘Boulaq’, the vessel of the Antiquities service. Once the transfer was completed, (he) drew up an inventory of the funeral furniture on the boat, with the objects collected and the mummies before his eyes. Toda also took 15 photos himself in the tomb, with the technical assistance of Insinger, which are engraved after the plates which illustrate his memoir; and he copied and translated the hieroglyphic texts, with the help of Bouriant. “
According to Bernard Bruyère: “Tomb No. 1 is not only one of the most beautiful and best-preserved in Thebes; but it is also a perfect, complete and typical example of a large family tomb comprising the four components regular, the courtyard and chapels accessible to the living, the well and the vault reserved for the dead. “
Sennedjem in adoration in front of Horus with the head of a falcon, followed by two of the four fis of Horus, Amsit and Hapy (Osirisnet.net)
The eternity home of Sennedjem is one of those open to the public in Deir el-Medineh: by the scenes and colours that cover its walls, his visit leaves an unforgettable memory!
Sources :
Gaston Maspero, “Lettres d’Égypte, Correspondance avec Louise Maspero”, Elisabeth David, Seuil, 2003
The title is a good question; I am not an interpreter as I have always wished to be. I can’t even remember my dreams in the latest years as I did in my youth.
Yes, the Master tells the truth. My brother Al had the talent of the interpretation, as one of my aunts; Rakhshi. When someone talked about her/his dream, they could analyse it so well that one could be agreed immediately.
Now I want to share here with you a great article by Dale M. Kushner MFA, who is founder of The Writer’s Place, a literary center in Madison, Wisconsin. She has an MFA in poetry from Vermont College and has served as poetry editor for The Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling. http://dalemkushner.com/about/ It is much worthy to read.
Can Dreams Be Prophetic? How might you tell if your dreams are predicting something?
Posted Feb 28, 2020
Cover of the last issue of The Strange World of Your Dreams (1953) by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Source: Prize Publcations/Public Domain
In September of 1913, Carl Jung, the great pioneer of depth psychology, was on a train in his homeland of Switzerland when he experienced a waking vision. Gazing out the window at the countryside, he saw Europe inundated by a devastating flood. The vision shocked and disturbed him. Two weeks later, on the same journey, the vision reoccurred. This time an inner voice told him: “Look at it well; it is wholly real and it will be so. You cannot doubt it.”
Years later, in his memoir, Memories, Dreams and Reflections, he recalls the event and his concern that he was having a psychotic break.
“I was suddenly seized by an overpowering vision: I saw a monstrous flood covering all the northern and low-lying lands between the North Sea and the Alps. When it came up to Switzerland I saw that the mountains grew higher and higher to protect our country. I realized that a frightful catastrophe was in progress. I saw the mighty yellow waves, the floating rubble of civilization, and the drowned bodies of uncounted thousands. Then the whole sea turned to blood.”
The following spring of 1914, he had three catastrophic dreams in which he saw Europe was deluged by ice, the vegetation was gone, and the land deserted by humans. Despite his awareness that the situation in Europe was “darkening,” he interpreted these dreams personally and feared he was going mad. However, by August of that year, his dreams and visions were affirmed: World War I had broken out.
Some fifty years earlier, President Abraham Lincoln had a prophetic dream. Three days before he was assassinated, Lincoln conveyed his dream to his wife and a group of friends. Ward Hill Lamon, an attending companion, recorded the conversation.
“Abraham’s Dream! Coming Events Cast Their Shadow Before.” Lithograph by Currier & Ives (1864)Source: Library of Congress/Public Domain
“About ten days ago I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Think I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. It was light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. ‘Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded of one of the soldiers. ‘The President,’ was his answer; ‘he was killed by an assassin.’ Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which woke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.” (Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847-1865 by Ward Hill Lamon, published 1911.)
Two weeks later, on April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. As in his dream, his casket was put on view in the East Room of the White House and guarded by soldiers.
These are two chilling examples of dreams that occurred during periods of collective crisis which accurately predicted historical turning points. Do prophetic dreams occur more often during turbulent times? How does the dreamer know if a dream is to be interpreted personally and symbolically or as a warning for others and the world at large?
I asked these questions to Dr. Murray Stein, a renowned author and Jungian analyst at the International School for Analytic Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland. Dr. Stein replied that he had no statistics on whether people have predictive dreams more frequently in times of crisis than at other times. In his experience, one can’t know if a dream is precognitive until after the event. After 9/11, he told me, people reported precognitive dreams that foretold the disaster. He said people also reported that dreams foretold the financial crisis of 2008, which he called, “a black swan event.” According to Investopedia:
“A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, their severe impact, and the practice of explaining widespread failure to predict them as simple folly in hindsight.”
The recent outbreak of the coronavirus might be considered a black swan event, and perhaps we will soon hear about people who have had prophetic dreams of its manifestation.
Daniel Interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream (c. 1670) by Mattia Preti (1613-1699)Source: Sothebys/Public Domain
While there is no simple answer or proven method to discern whether a dream should be interpreted personally or more broadly, we can go about exploring its contents with both aspects in mind. For example, if I have a dream in which I am a child who has been put into a cage. I might ask: What aspect of me feels “caged” right now? Noting that I am a child in the dream, I might further inquire: Is there something from my childhood that is still confining and constricting me? I might try to estimate the age of the child in the dream and reflect back to when I was that age and try to remember if something significant happened then. Maybe my parents had begun to think about divorce at that time and I felt caged by their emotions. I might then inquire if there is something similar going on in my life right now, not necessarily a divorce, but an imminent disruption or the loss of a treasured relationship. When we go back into a dream to amplify it, each question generates other questions that can lead to deeply buried insights. (For a more complete explanation of Jung’s use of amplification as a technique, please see Michael Vannoy Adams’ description on JungNewYork
But what if I dream that I am a child that has been put into a cage, and a few days later, I discover that children of immigrants are actually being held in cages in detention centers? My dream, while personally relevant, would carry a collective, or more public meaning, as well. This collective meaning of the dream attests to the interconnectedness of our species, to our capacity for empathy (we see a horror on the news and we feel it enter us) and to the common values we share about the quality of human life.
If we had lived during the early part of the last century, or in an Indigenous culture, or in ancient Mesopotamia, we might examine our dreams for deep wisdom and as augurs for the future. These days we are more likely to look to neuroscience to understand our dreams. Neurobiology tells us that sleep is a complex neural activity of the brain that stays busy activating and deactivating complicated neuro-systems while we doze, including consolidating memories, regulating mood, restoring immune function, and many other important utilitarian tasks. But neuroscience tells us nothing about the meaning of dreams or why our dreaming life has carried significance for humans since we first walked the planet.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight the Bull of Heaven. Gilgamesh cylinder seal, Assyria, c. 7th century BCE.Source: British Museum/Public Domain
About thirty thousand years ago, toward the end of the Paleolithic Era, our hunter-gather forebears descended into the subterranean darkness of caves to enact rituals of trance and dreaming. Recently, archaeologists and ethnographers have speculated that the artifacts found in the caves of southern Europe—bone flutes, whistles, and types of drums—and the now-famous discovery of cave wall paintings indicate that ancient shamans may have used these caves for ceremonial dream retreats (See in particular the work of David Lewis-Williams). We can speculate that the depictions of bison and large and small game along with scenes of hunting painted on the walls may reflect shamanic dream content. Perhaps the shaman ascended from his retreat having had visions about the abundance and location of prey, which would be crucial information for the clan.
Later human societies continued to transcribe their dreams. The oldest written dream recorded is in the Sumerian epic poem of Gilgamesh (2100 BCE). Not unlike King Nebuchadnezzar’s frightening dream in the Book of Daniel, Gilgamesh, the king of the Sumerian city Uruk, has violent nightmares about death, which shake him to the core and send him on his quest for immortality. But Gilgamesh cannot interpret his own dreams, and like many of the dreamers in the Old Testament, he is in need of an interpreter. How telling that from ancient times the one who receives the dream and the one who knows its significance are different people.
Nicholas Black Elk with his daughter Lucy Black Elk and wife Anna Brings White.Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain
In some contemporary cultures, dreams are thought to be a way of receiving messages from the spirit world. A holy man or medicine woman, an elder or shaman is the receiver of the prophetic dream, which is given for the benefit of all and linked to the survival of the tribe or people. Black Elk, the holy medicine man of the Lakota Sioux, stated this when he said a dream is worthless unless it is shared with the tribe.
How can we relate to the dreams that pursue us? Are they simply the result of complex neurological activity and without real meaning, just as we know the moon is no enchanted sphere but a mere rock in space? What might we miss if we cast our lot with a viewpoint based wholly on the material world? Is it possible to consider the two worlds as being equally meaningful, the world of science and—to borrow the phrase John Keats used to characterize adventurers on the threshold of a new frontier—the world of “wild surmise”? Can we think of ourselves as vessels open to receiving wisdom through non-ordinary means? Can we be our own shamans?
I don’t know if you have ever think about it? I do! Maybe because of the age… or maybe because I have a lot of loose (death) in my small family that I just can hardly wait for my turn.
Sorry for not dying! He said; in one of his latest concerts. Yes, Leonard Cohen had a feeling of it. Mike Steeden – MIKE STEEDEN – surely can sing a perfect song on him and his life but I do it as well.
I don’t believe in life after death though, the whole energy which we still have, in my opinion, is a miracle, and would certainly do it’s best to survive!
First, we take Manhattan, then We take it All.
Now let’s again have a nice trip on the master to describe his thoughts on this unknown… position…
A month before Leonard Cohen died in November, 2016, The New Yorker‘s editor David Remnick traveled to the songwriter’s Los Angeles home for a lengthy interview in which Cohen looked both forward and back.
As a former Zen monk, he was also adept at inhabiting the present, one in which the shadow of death crept ever closer.
His former lover and muse, Marianne Ihlen, had succumbed to cancer earlier in the summer, two days after receiving a frank and loving email from Cohen:
Well, Marianne, it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine. And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.
The New Yorker has never shied from over-the-top physical descriptions. The courteous, highly verbal young poet, who’d evinced “a kind of Michael Corleone Before the Fall look, sloe-eyed, dark, a little hunched” was now very thin, but still handsome, with the handshake of “a courtly retired capo.”
In addition to an album, You Want It Darker, to promote, Cohen had a massive backlog of unpublished poems and unfinished lyrics to tend to before the sands of time ran out.
At 82, he seemed glad to have all his mental faculties and the support of a devoted personal assistant, several close friends and his two adult children, all of which allowed him to maintain his music and language-based workaholic habits.
Time, as he noted, provides a powerful incentive for finishing up, despite the challenges posed by the weakening flesh:
At a certain point, if you still have your marbles and are not faced with serious financial challenges, you have a chance to put your house in order. It’s a cliché, but it’s underestimated as an analgesic on all levels. Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable.
He had clearly made peace with the idea that some of his projects would go unfinished.
You can hear his fondness for one of them, a “sweet little song” that he recited from memory, eyes closed, in the animated interview excerpt, above:
Listen to the hummingbird
Whose wings you cannot see
Listen to the hummingbird
Don’t listen to me.
Listen to the butterfly
Whose days but number three
Listen to the butterfly
Don’t listen to me.
Listen to the mind of God
Which doesn’t need to be
Listen to the mind of God
Don’t listen to me.
These unfinished thoughts close out Cohen’s beautifully named posthumous album, Thanks for the Dance, scheduled for release later this month.
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