Header Photo

I’ve temporarily removed the image from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, to celebrate life: spring, resurrection, color, the inevitable transformation of all things when death gives way to rebirth.

I shot this photo in late April, when Cambridge was just starting to emerge from winter’s sleep, outside one the dorms in Harvard Yard.

Not coincidentally, my mother completed her journey home less than twelve hours after I took this photo, “photo taking” something I rarely if ever do, a habit I’m trying to develop, these photos a rare exception to my normal practices, impelled by a silent urging to embrace life in the moment, no matter its anxieties.

Pink was her favorite color, a theme we developed in her life celebration.

She lives in these photos, shining in pink’s glory and the promise of life after death.

The original photo:

And two others shot the same day, from a different angle:

I discovered the date I took these photos while cropping the header, realized the time frame while writing this snippet, know without question that my mother and G-d are here as I realize and write these words on this discovery.

A tree blooming with pink, amid winter’s bareness, against a cloudless near shimmering blue sky.  Taken by me on a strange inner insistence that I go out and take photos, hours before her spirit was freed from her body.

Eternal love, visible, real, the wisdom of the Mystery unfolding long before we see it.

The universe is a magical, indeed.

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Information on my previous header photo from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, my Eye of Ra blavatar (blog avatar), and pertinent links follows:

The image used in the header is from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

I chose this image because it shows another way of looking at words or language; the script is rich and dense with symbols. If a picture is worth a thousand words, perhaps these particular words get more mileage as they are comprised of word pictures. Or perhaps “greater abstraction” in language symbols leads to greater theoretical fluidity, or at the very least, the illusion of it.

Having a love of language, art, and all things esoteric and arcane, I found a version of hieroglyphics from this ancient text an appropriate masthead; hopefully, the folks at The Schøyen Collection will take my appropriation in good will.

The uncropped original can be seen here.

According to the Schøyen Collection Website, this particular fragment is:

MS 125

BOOK OF THE DEAD, WRITTEN FOR THE DECEASED ANCH-HEPI, SON OF DJED-HER(FATHER) AND SHEP-SEPEDET (MOTHER), CHAPTER 17
ms125

MS in Middle Egyptian on linen, Egypt, 19th dynasty, 325-30 BC, 1 f., 19×64 cm, single column, (17×62 cm), 17 lines in a clear upright Hieratic script, reading from right to left.

Context: Another of Anch-Hepu’s mummy bandages’ set is at British Museum, M. London BM 75197.

Provenance: 1. Jacques Schulman, Amsterdam, list 236(1988):6.

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My WordPress ‘blavatar’ (blog avatar) is from the Eye of Ra, whose origin comes from the Goddess Wadjet, and who is associated with the papyrus and thus writing.