Normandi Ellis
Normandi Ellis and Nicki Scully
Normandi Ellis is the award-winning author of Awakening Osiris, Dreams of Isis, and Feasts of Light. Normandi will be taking a year off from teaching to pursue her writing projects. She and Nicki plan to spend some time in Egypt together in 2004 to work on a book together on the Egyptian Mysteries.
Normandi Ellis partial bibliography:
Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Translated by Normandi Ellis. Phanes Press, 1988.Dreams of Isis: A Woman's Spiritual Sojourn. Quest Books, 1995.
Feasts of Light: Celebrations for the Seasons of Life
based on the Egyptian Goddess Mysteries. Quest Books, 1999.
read an excerpt from Normandi's book, Feasts of Light
read a new article by Normandi, What Egypt Still Has to Teach UsThe following is an excerpt from Dreams of Isis by Normandi Ellis:
To
stand at the foot of the Great Pyramid on a dark January night is to stand
at life's crossroads. It is to stand before a huge monument of thick,
enormous stone, knowing that the weight of any one of those two-and-a-half
ton rocks tumbling down would crush one in an instant. This is the weight
of the world itselfÜall one's longings, one's fears, one's hardened self
set down on a plateau and sculpted into the eternal shape of a flame flickering
up toward heaven. In a moment I shall enter the hard heart of earth. In
a moment, I shall enter into frozen fire. I am not ready to go; I will
go. The stars will vanish from sight, and I will be alone in a silent
grave of eternal stone, ensnared in earth, entombed alive in earth. It
is not hard to imagine the fearful cry of the newly dead Osiris who calls
out to the God he cannot see:
O Atum! What is this desert place into which I have come?
It has no water. It has no air. It is depth unfathomable.
It is black as blackest night. I wander help-lessly herein.
One cannot live here in peace of heart, nor may the longings of love be
satisfied!
Here is the great challenge. I have been called as Goethe said the soul
was called in his poem, "Blessed Longing," "Die and Become! Until you
possess this truth, you are only a dreary guest on the dark Earth." As
I stand on this plain overlooking the Giza necropolis, I find myself pondering
the innumerable stars, the innumerable tombs, grottos, caves in the cliffs,
the bodies of millions of kings, queens, men, women and children, planted
in the earth like seeds all up and down the Nile. This moonlit night all
those ancient spirits sigh and turn in the dark, stretching their arms
toward light. I climb the steps toward the portal, pausing in my ascent
to gaze east. On the plain below crouches the Sphinx, eternally vigilant,
sitting wide-eyed in the dark and waiting for dawn. Behind me, the desert
stretches out endlessly, equally; west is duat, the unknown, unfathomable
realm of the gods. I shiver in the night air, then turn away and climb
toward the darkened doorway that leads into the heart of the pyramid.
