Apech

Thanks Steve, I love my MacBook.

This is a very real effect to do with your interactions with the world/people and levels of assimilation. There will be emotional content to these conversations which is to do with energy stored in your being as a result of interactions. Don't identify but observe and allow the energy to be recaptured for your own benefit.

I can't find the Vortex quote - although I haven't looked that hard ... maybe he has edited it already. I hope so. I don't accept it's misogynist sounding tone.

Does this mean that 10% of men could get together with 90% of women on the basis of their star signs? Whereas the other 90% of men have to pick from the 10% left over? Perhaps I have misunderstood your point. I'm an Aquarian and misunderstand most things.

Yikes! Maybe you are right. I've never really been a Christian ... though raised in a Christian country (sort of) ... I was just thinking of sermon on the mount and the way jesus dealt with the woman 'taken in adultery' ... but its not my thing really so I will bow to your greater Biblical knowledge. I used to have a red letter bible where you can read just the words of Jesus himself ... most of what he says is 'judge not lest ye be judged' kind of stuff ... but there I go again eh?

It has always struck me as odd how those calling themselves Fundamentalist Christians love to quote the Old Testament and more or less ignore the New. Its so easy to label and condemn people instead of forgive. Jesus always seemed to find an answer to these questions which did not involve damning people but actually saved them. Often people just do what they have to do in the circumstances given.

On the last two/three lines Wang Bi adds commentary: If a tree is stiff, it will be attacked, It will be imposed on by creatures The stiff [strong] and great occupy a position below. This refers to the trunk of the tree. The soft and pliant occupy a position above. This refers to the branches.

I was taking my date from Eva Wong "Shambhala guide to Taoism" Ch. 1 Shamanic Origins (3000 - 800 BC) ... you could trace pre-Dynastic Egypt back to even earlier (by many thousands of years) ... but I was talking about when they wrote things down or attributed themselves to earlier times. I have been thinking about another eight fold arrangement of alternating gods and goddesses as found in the Canopic Jar Chest: the figures facing each other are the Sons of Horus and on the corners if you look closely you can see the protecting goddesses (the one closest is Neith). The male figures are jars containing the main organs of the body and are associated with the cardinal points. The whole forms a kind of mandala of alternating male and female energies. This pic is of Tutankhamun's Canopic Jar Chest. The Sons of Horus are sometimes related to the Pillars of Shu which in turn are sometimes called the Heh gods which originate with the Ogdoad. So maybe we have two arrangements which are the earlier primeval Ogdoad >>>> later Canopic Jar Chest ... its tempting to think Earlier and Later heaven (?).

The traditional standard orientation from Egypt is from the perspective of standing (or lying backward) facing south. So that East is on your left and West on your right. In fact the words for East and West were the same as those for left and right (iabet and amenet). I think I am right in saying that the earliest Taoist shamanism and the earliest Dynastic Egypt are contemporaneous (i.e. 3000 BC +/- a few hundred years). Any similarity -- and there is a lot not just the Ogdoad can be explained by postulating a common source which is the shamanism practiced by all peoples spreading out of Africa after the last ice age ... or if you prefer remembered knowledge from an older civilization now lost to us.

Religious leaders get to wear colourful frocks and strange hats while scientists just have white coats. If they meet we all know who will look the more interesting. No competition really.

Is wishing the death an destruction of hundreds of millions (or billions) of people a good position for a spiritual person?

That's a good example of what I was saying because Shu and Tefnut are the first born of Atum in the Heliopolitan Ennead and Nun and Nunet are from the Ogdoad ... they are used together ... and this is the very earliest writing. Your idea of comparing this to the Bagua is interesting and I hope you explore it further.

The primeval waters are called Nun in the Heliopolitan cosmology. The name is spelled using the wavy/ zig zag line which is the sign for water and sometimes with pots indicating containers of water. So the name Nun refers to this water. In the Ogdoad it is a term used for the wateriness or fluidity of the infinite pre-creational state. In essence its the same term used in two slightly different but related ways. The reason I said that I didn't think the two cosmologies were rivals is because if you read the Pyramid texts (the oldest extended religious writings from Dyn. 5) you find both the Ennead and the Ogdoad used side by side with no conflict. The Egyptians were very both/and and not either/or in their thinking. I'm not sure when Thoth because central to Khmun ... but Thoth is a very ancient deity with references going back into pre-dynastic times. Obviously the name City of Eight suggests that the original cult related to the Ogdoad but this does not rule out Thoth as well ... in the same way as above ... its a matter of complementarity. There is a relation between what you might call the Thothian view of reality and the Ogdoad. Just as there is between Ra and the Ennead. The Egyptians would have accepted both. They even had more than one ultimate creator god ... without conflict ... in what is termed henotheism or sometimes monlatry (by Egyptologists). For instance Amen who originally was one of the Ogdoad in later times became 'top god' Amen Ra ... that is the hidden power behind the sun.

Steve, If she's not wearing a cowboy hat Marblehead won't be interested ....

I'm glad that you are glad ... but she's from Cap Verde so technically its African music ...

The body of Ra is the 'itn' or aten disk. (not to be confused with Aten the god worshiped by Akhenaten). Sorry but I can't follow the rest of what you say ... its a bit cryptic ... could you elaborate a little? Thanks.

Osiris N is you and me .... an individual person not the god Osiris. The Egyptians had a word for this state of being (in the void) and that was 'wn' ... Osiris was called Wn-n-nfr (Wenenefer or sometimes Onophris) which means 'continually good/beautiful being'. The other state of being where you evolve and become something is 'kheper'.

No. The earliest representations look like a yellow wagtail but later almost always a grey heron. The Thoth bird is the sacred ibis. Grey Heron Sacred Ibis

yogaś-citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ ||2|| I take citta-vrtti to refer to modifications - specifically 'whirlpools' - that is stabilised cyclical forms in the mind-stuff (citta). Yoga being the 'control, suppression, cessation?' of these. or to quote Bharati:

I can see where you are coming from but I don't see the Hermopolitan and Heliopolitan views as in opposition but more complementary. Heliopolis ... Atum (the complete one) emerges from Nun and creates from his own body Shu and Tefnut. Hermopolis - the Ogdoad describe the Nun and then the intelligence of Thoth calls forth forms from the void with his voice and gives rise to Ra on the Island of Fire. They are different images of the same process.

The site of their worship is usually written Khemenu and means 'City of Eight' a reference to the Ogdoad ... it was called Hermopolis by the Greeks because it was also the centre of worship of Thoth = Hermes (Greek) ... this gives link to the moon also which was sacred to Thoth. Nun & Naunet = primeval waters >>> waxing quarter Kuk & Kauket = infinite darkness >>> waning quarter Heh & Hauhet = eternal space >>>> Full moon Amun & Amaunet = quintessential invisibility >>>> New Moon ... I would suggest ... but I don't think I've ever seen this given authoratively. Will look it up when I have time.

Hello friends, Imagine this. You are floating in an infinite dark watery expanse which spreads in every direction for ever ... such that there are no directions, there is no up, down, left, right and so on because there is no difference. It is dark, fluid, infinite and without any reference points at all. Slowly this water is dissolving everything associated with you which is not essential to your being. Your possessions, your friends, your thoughts, your feelings, your body .... what is left? Your residual awareness, your sentience is all. If it can be said to be yours since it is itself of itself. How can you exist with just this awareness in the void? ... sorry run out of time ... more later ...