Tag Archives: Osiris

Immobilization

Sunday, about two in the afternoon, I was walking out of the bedroom after assisting Star with some of the Yule dinner preparations, and I was struck with a strange pain from the middle of my lower back to just above my knees. It was as if my spine and hips had been put in traction – I was unable to bend, turn at the waist, or stand completely upright. I was in severe pain whenever I tried to sit in a chair (and even moreso in the fifteen minutes it took me to get OUT of a chair. I convinced Star that I didn’t need to go to the hospital, and told her to go on and do the shopping/visiting/present deliveries she needed to do. While she was gone, I proceeded to cook the Yule feast, interrupted by watching TV and being in and out of pain. As the evening progressed, the immobilization got progressively worse – I was having to walk up and down the porch steps sideways, one hand on the wall, and finally I decided to lay down. After the first attempt to get out of bed later that took me twenty minutes, things got progressively worse. Still, I assumed that the situation would improve if I just relaxed, took some aspirin and slept. To no avail. So yesterday we went to the emergency room, me still in pain, and after waiting 4-1/2 hours there were told it was a muscle spasm. They gave me a pain-killer shot and prescriptions for painkillers and muscle relaxers. Things have definitely improved – where the pain was about the size of two basketballs it is now about the size of a softball after the meds kick in.

If I lay still, and try not to breathe deep,
let go of any thought of jig dancing
and do not dwell on bending at the waist,
the situation is not all that bad.

But a lingering fear plays fast and loose
with my calmness, jacks up my blood pressure
and tends to greatly exacerbate things:
like a recurring dream of Osiris,

laid stiff and motionless in his coffin,
I see myself immobile, able to speak
only with the subtle shift of my eyes.

And that limited vocabulary
cannot express the soft Music I hear
in each frozen moment of longing dance.

24 DEC 2002

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Sonnets of Osiris

As winter extends its grip on the land,
clutching with long alabaster fingers
and leaving remnants of a leprous hand
where its frigid probing touch still lingers,

deep in the cold soil, where the dormant root,
its life spark quiet but not void of light,
bides its time, holding back a probing shoot
while the surface world shimmers deathly white,

the soul of Osiris breathes deep and slow,
with soft gentle rhythm – a murmured sigh.
As the ice slowly thickens, and winds bring

sheets of freezing rain and flurries of snow,
it lazily twitches a sleep-closed eye
and dreams of its birth in the coming spring.

The parched land cries against this time of drought
like an old man beset by dusty dreams,
who finds his virile youth faded in doubt
and his best suit frayed at the seams.

In the dark months of weak and distant sun,
an ancient mist lies heavy on the earth –
unloosing thoughts that plague the mind, and shun
the knowledge of the coming spring rebirth.

The voice of Osiris speaks through dreams then,
to reassure the world it will awake,
and whisper secret words of life and power;

Like a sure promise of dawn coming when
the dank tendrils of night loosen and break,
he announces the coming of his hour.

Like a silver bullet against the night,
its potent magic cast in powdered mist
as the autumn warmth slips away in flight
and leaves only the memory of her kiss,

deep in the bowels of the hard frozen earth
where each buried fragment denies the whole
and hides itself from sunlight’s glowing mirth
seeking only the dark shade of the soul

the cold seed of Osiris is brought alive
by the earth mother’s fervent, warm embrace
and grows into new life in her womb’s void.

Now from that union the son will survive,
and in the heart of winter show his face;
the sacrifice shall not be destroyed.

13 DEC 2002

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Some ancient affirmations

I always see a lot of “positive thinking” sites on the ‘net that deal with giving yourself affirmations to empower yourself. So many of these sites seem to treat affirmation as something “new and exciting” that psychologists have just recently discovered, and that despite the efforts of Norman Vincente Peale has just recently been found useful to improvement of the human condition.

Well, I just recently purchased a new translation of a very old book, and was very moved by a particular section that I quote in part here:

May I stand amazed in the presence of the gods.
May the rhythm of my heart stir Music that enslaves darkness.
May my heart witness what my hands create, the words I utter, the worlds I think.
May my flesh be a sail propelled by the breath of dream.
May I ride in calm waters toward destiny.
May life flow through me as the seed from the phallus flows, with a shout of joy, life begetting life.
May I stand in the midst of celestial fire until my heart is molten gold.
May twelve goddesses dance every day about me, a circle of flesh aflame.
May I spin among them, my face flushed with heat.
May I walk on earth radiant, everywhere complete.
May the omniscient eye observe my deeds and know the law my heart knows, the zodiac of men and beasts alive, the call of angels, the word.
May my body bend toward the will of the heart.
May I not think and act diversely.
May truth rest on me light as a tail feather dropped from a falcon in cloudless sky.
May I create words of beauty, houses of wonder.
May the labor of my hands be mirrors unto the gods.
May I dance in the gyre and draw down heaven’s blessing.
May I be given a god’s duty, a burden that matters.
May I make of my days a thing wholly.
May I know myself in every pore of skin.
May the god’s fire burn in my belly and heart.
May I be stronger than these bones and bits of flesh.
May my health be the wholeness of divinity.
I remember the names of my ancestors. I speak the names of those I love. I speak their names and they live again.
May I be so well-loved and remembered.
In truth, may the gods hear my name.
May I do work with my hands worth remembering.

— from the speeches of Osiris, Awakening Osiris – The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Normandi Ellis

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