To the ancient Egyptians, the Ka was a concept of the animating life force within us all. It was conceived as a second image of the individual or in effect a spirit double. The Ka was a unique entity totally associated with the individual, coming into creation with the person's birth and remained bound to him or to her, even after death. It was not quite the same concept as the personal soul, which they identified separately and called the Ba. The Ba was actually the true essence of the spirit, and defined the person as a specific individual or entity with a place in the cosmos for all eternity. The ceremony of the opening of the mouth, conducted by the priests, either on the mummified corpse or on a statue representation of the dead person, was aimed to restore physical abilities in death and to release the attachment of the soul (Ba) to the body. This allowed the Ba to be united with the Ka in the afterlife, creating an entity known as an Akh. The union of Ba and Ka is symbolized by the looped cross - the Ankh, symbol of eternal life.
We often think of these ancient people as a nation fixated on death and morbidly terrified of its corrupting effect. A fear, manifest by a ghoulish fascination with embalmed corpses. Nothing could be more untrue! They were actually a people fixated on life. In all their works they really show how much they loved life and it is very clear that as a race, they celebrated it with a passion. In fact they did not even believe in a concept of death in the way we think of it. The end of their physical life was but a passing moment in an everlasting rush towards eternity.
This joyful celebration of life was brought home to me, when I came across a near life-sized wood carving of a man and his wife in a quiet corner of a European museum. They had been carved out of a single log and were slightly the worst for wear, but for some reason, these two tranquil figures moved me greatly, when I first saw them in the Louvre, over 30 years ago. Taken as individual statues, they were not great works of art; they looked timeworn and vulnerable, yet seen as a couple they seemed to hold an immense inner strength - a fierce bond that had somehow managed to safeguard the essence of their timeless union throughout all the long ages of their shared existence. It was as though they could endure anything that time could offer, just so long as they were left each to the other.
Who had found them and brought them from the warm sands that protected them to this cold and gloomy museum? Why had they been so disturbed. Like misty dreams, the busy years, in their never-ending passage had left these sleeping lovers untouched and unchanged as they rested, long forgotten in their secret hiding place below the sun-baked sands of their ancient homeland. They waited unseen and un-noticed as the desert land witnessed the rush of Alexander's spearmen, felt the tramp, tramp of Caesar's marching legions and shook in trembling awe at the thunder of Bonaparte's crashing cannonades. Powerful conquerors, beautiful queens, saints, scholars and many, many lesser men had come and gone - yet these two lovers still remained serene and secure, arms intertwined, always together - waiting for what?
It was with a growing sense of wonder that I began to understand just how old these two ancient figures actually were. They had been standing quietly thus - arm in arm, eternally watching the flows of time, while all the great religions of the world had had their birthing and entire civilizations had taken their turn to rise up and fall around them. Indeed, these small carvings had already been immensely old when ancient Greece was but a land of rustic shepherds and mighty Rome was only a dusty village straddling an unimportant river crossing. Their long watch had already stretched, not over centuries, but over whole millennia, before the great teachers, Abraham, Christ, Buddha and Mohammed each took their turn to preach love and understanding to generations of unhearing fools. Fools, blinded by distorted certainties, crippled in spirit who were ever eager to rush out to change the world, armed and justified by their garbled misread gospels and their fierce willingness to spill their brother's blood.
The museum was full of the greatest works of man, but neither the wealth and power of the kings, pharaohs and emperors on display, nor the exquisite beauty of the magnificent art treasures adorning the walls, impressed me ever so much as this very ordinary couple, who had left nothing but themselves. Their fundamental humanity, decency, and the love that they had once shared for each other was still so very apparent. Back then in Paris, I was young and also in love for the first time myself. My world was bright and wonderful and I thought it would last forever. However for those of us, who still walk this earth, life goes on, and time gradually takes its insidious toll on our bodies, our affections and the commitments that go with them. We get over our losses; eventually even the most poignant memories are just excess baggage to be put aside. For us, time indeed passes and never lightly. But then one day, opening a book on ancient Egypt, I was delighted to discover a recent photograph of these two old friends of my youth. There they were - just as I remembered them! Half a lifetime had passed for me and I was now a different person, "something lost and something gained, by living every day" - but for them nothing at all had changed.
How brief life is! The experiences of all those long years, since my joyful days in Paris, were but the blinking of an eye compared to the immense passage of time, since that distant Egyptian day, when the statues were taken west of the Nile to be prepared by the priests for the "opening of the mouth" ceremony. The ritual that would guarantee that the "ka", or life force, of each of the lovers would live forever in the statues and that they would be bonded to their chosen one for all of eternity.
Old feelings came flooding back to me and that was why I wrote my poem. My poem, Ka, can be found at http://ankhpatch.blogspot.com/2007/08/ka.html. I was once a builder of bridges, waterways and roads, but now like to call myself a writer. I am African, for my writing is usually about this vast ancient land of warm winds and far horizons that was once birth mother to us all. She is always untamed, always unpredictable and is forever softly whispering her hidden secrets into the wind that chases the racing storm clouds over her mighty hills. If you listen to the sound of the rain, you may hear the singing of these thousands of untold stories. They are just waiting to be set free. I grew to manhood in green forests, north of the Zambezi, but now gaze out over the waters of the restless southern ocean. Not far from my writing desk, the waves beat tirelessly against the fairest cape in all the world. My website is - http://www.how-to-publish-a-book.com
Come visit,
Steve
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