Egypt, one hour’s flight from Tel Aviv was a totally different world. On arrival into Cairo we were greeted by dense, thick smog with very poor visibility.  Noise and more noise grated our senses.  It was a culture shock after the clean fresh air of Israel.   Hotel was reasonable and close to the Nile and the main 5 star hotels.  We were there for only half a day and one night prior to flying to Aswan. That was enough!

 In Aswan we joined our boat, the Nile Ruby, one of the 300 boats that traverse the Nile carrying curious tourists.  Our tour guide Mohamed is accompanying us.   It’s interesting that the two Egyptian (Muslim) men we have met, one near our hotel in Cairo and the other in Aswan, are both unmarried and intend to remain that way.  They are rebelling against religious doctrine and the huge responsibility of taking on a wife (chattel) for life.   They prefer freedom.  The one in Cairo has a successful business and the one here in Aswan is an excellent, informative, intelligent and questioning tour guide.  Both are self-employed.

Aswan is a breath of fresh air after Cairo.  Clean air, green grass, wide streets, calm, quiet - at least where we are on the waterfront! Our first tour was to the ancient temple of Phillae (The Temple of Isis).  Our guide described the hieroglyphics very well so we were able to read some of the stories engraved in the huge walls. 

One thing that our guide said connected the missing links to my understanding of universal ancient sacred wisdom. And this was that the Egyptian pantheon of Goddesses and Gods were worshipped as deities much like the Romans and Greeks worshipped their gods.   I instantly connected this information to western astrology, which has at its base the archetypal energies of the Greek and Roman gods.  

For example Venus is Aphrodite; Mars is Ares; Zeus - Jupiter; - Saturn - Cronus; Poseidon; Neptune; etc. Astrology is a tool to enable humanity to evolve into higher consciousness. So too was the Egyptian pantheon given as a tool to assist human evolutionary development.   This understanding excited and made sense to me!

I love to see the bigger picture, meaning and purpose behind my adventures.  They are always for my spiritual growth as well as the spiritual purpose given to me!  It’s my job to extract meaning and relevance.  I also love to see, and enjoy, the Great Cosmic Joke.

On our first grey day, as we cruised down the Nile, we watched a movie on Mohamed’s computer.  Guess the title of the movie lent to us by a Muslem Arab - Australia!  He had learned much about Australia from this movie and we learned a lot about him!  Good exchange! 

“What am I doing here?  Why was I directed to come to this ancient land?” were questions I asked myself on completion of our Nile cruise whilst we were being driven into the desert towards the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank of Luxor. Those same questions again came into my mind the following day.  I felt as if I might be losing connection to my guides and the mystical treasure hunt given to me.

And then I looked up and saw the next sign-post!  Nag Hammadi, the town where the important Nag Hammadi scrolls were found!  Excitement, gratitude and joy welled up in my heart.   Excitement and gratitude because I had no idea I would have the privilege of visiting this place. Joy because I knew I was on the right path.   It was in the caves around this town that the gnostic gospels were stored and possibly written by some of Yeshua’s disciples following his crucifixion.  Why did I momentarily doubt?

Self doubt vanished!  I knew we were on the right trail and that more would be revealed this day, the day of the New Moon and Solar Eclipse in Capricorn.   It would be a new beginning.

The first temple we visited was Abydos, two and a half hours drive from Luxor.   We were the first tourists there, reaching it at 9.00am.

I began to feel weak and strange in my stomach.  I knew then that ancient memories were stirring!   It was a magnificent old temple, dedicated to Osiris, with seven sanctuaries where only high priests/priestesses could go to worship their deities.  As we entered the sanctuary of Horus, the divine child of Osiris and Isis, the strange feelings became stronger and then, when we visited the sanctuary of Isis, I felt as if I might collapse. I also felt emotions of sadness and grief.  “Was I transmuting the psychological density contained within this temple on behalf of the mass consciousness?” I wondered because this has been part of my spiritual ‘job’ for many years, and “Am I feeling Mary Magdalen’s sadness and grief about her necessary exile from a land she loved?”   I believe the answer to both of these questions was yes. 

I could feel how Mary Magdalen would have wanted to come back here for the last time before she went into exile in Europe.   She wanted to express her gratitude to Isis, a symbolic representation of the Divine Mother Goddess, for her safe travels thus far and to receive blessings and strength for the continuation of her life journey. 

We spent a couple of hours in this temple before leaving to visit Dendera, a temple dedicated to Hathor, the beloved goddess who wet nursed Horus and later married him.   It was here we saw the famous ancient Egyptian zodiac on the ceiling of a small room high up in the building.  This temple was much younger than Abydos and had been completed in the time of Alexander the Great and the Romans who followed. Therefore the zodiac could have been a representative of the kind understood by Mary Magdalen that formed a necessary part of the esoteric training of the Priestesses of Isis.  The original of this piece of scientific art is found in the Louvre museum in Paris however the replica was intact and clearly visible. 

Karen and I studied it well but the room was very small and we couldn’t take it all in.  What we could see very, very clearly was that there were four goddesses represented at the four cardinal points.  Four goddesses! Our western astrology model has two feminine and two masculine deities with Ares, the god of war, as the rising planet!    Aggression and war has become a collective thought form that was deliberately created thousands of years ago to facilitate the state of our world today. Cronus -Saturn, the Lord of Karma and Time is the other god.  Maybe humanity needed to balance the karmic scales of past times before a return to Source/Oneness/Mother Goddess could be experienced?    When was the Dendera temple zodiac created, when was it changed, and by whom? 

Some of the answers to these questions were downloaded to me during 2007/8. I have recorded them and will publish them in one of my upcoming books. They are quite revolutionary.   

To be continued...