- Egypt -

Egypt

“There are certain consistencies in life: the sun, the moon and the habits of birds, chirping at dawn…”-M. Young, Giza, 1994 

Many years have fallen behind me, since I was last in Egypt.  For last 12 days, I have taken a surreal journey back there and staying focused on the news taking place in Cairo. 

 Day Two, Tahrir Square (translation: Freedom Square) I watch the blow by blow events, alternating from the broadcasts on CNN and MSNBC.

The time difference between New York and Cairo, makes morning there my night here; my sleep-time is the Egyptian people’s hours of unrest.  It’s difficult for me to keep track of the  days, as I watch Egyptians peel the lid off their country revealing they have been living under a repressive government for thirty years, longer then most of the peaceful protesters have been alive. 

As the news report shows the damage done at the Egyptian Museum I have great concern about this, as  I am reminded of a 3000 year old Afro wig I saw there, early cuneiform (writings in stone), King Tut’s baby shoes, his chair and the throne the 17 year old monarch sat in before he was poisoned and died.

The other day I was in the subway. In this particular station there is wall art rendered in ceramic tiles.  On one is written "History” I noticed young musician playing a cello in front of this wall. I decided to drop money in his cello case laid open on the floor. “Where are your CD’s?”  I asked. He had none. Tariq is a Syrian student studying at Columbia University.  This opened the door for me to ask him his opinion about the situation in Egypt.

“It’s romantic.”

I shake my head in agreement to this young man's idealism.

The next day, I turned on my tee vee. I see men riding on camels and horses galloping in a fury toward the crowds gathered in Tahrir Square, heading directly toward the peaceful protesters, causing all hell to break out.

It’s Day Twelve. I continue to stay glued to the news – this history in the making, in the safety of my home.

In the dark early hours in Egypt, from New York I have been a witness to the Molotov cocktails and rocks being thrown by angry men at other men. The army tanks blowing smoke, The death, the despair , the tears the shock, the horror the blood and incongruity of Cooper Anderson and his crew being in the face of clear and present danger,  journalists who in a sense are warriors, in fear of their lives.

I had arrived in Cairo on Easter Sunday, and shortly after the murders in Luxor.  I am on a Shamanic Journey. I was one day that the group I was traveling with had left the city by bus and headed to the country side. We had the protection of armed guards. Some carried guns that were quite big and long. Behind our bus were men in Jeeps, pulling up the rear as we neared Egypt’s extant Antiquity, located miles away from the capital.

In the far reaching locations in the country my fellow travelers and I would excavate our lives and lay to rest our past and renew our intentions to be better for our selves and the world in the future. It is here where the ancient energies are very present and powerful, and where I am rendered to inexplicable sadness and convulsive crying.  My tears flow out of my eyes nonstop. As if all of my life is being cleansed, or altered in some way. My purging as I call it occurred at the door sill of Isis’ temple, where after our group meditation, I went outside and I laid my body down on the cold stone steps to rest. It is here where I am reborn in Egypt. Once again, I’m a baby sobbing in the presence of Mother Love. 

In the remaining days of this journey, as we toured the along the upper and lower reaches of the Nile River, we drove through the country side. It was there that I saw Egyptian women swathed in black cloth, their backs bent in the mint fields as they picked the leaves. Some were on their knees at the edge of the River Nile scrubbing their clothes clean against the river rocks. The men heaved bales of papyrus reeds on the backs of camels and fruit and dates in the back of carts, pulled by donkeys. While their shoeless children sat on the soft shoulder of the dirt road playing games with stones.  

The  evidence that these people lived in another reality were the telephone poles; which seemed out of place in the  pristine pastoral setting that sat on the fault line of Biblical Times undisturbed except by motor vehicles.

I looked out the windows on the bus we are on. I noticed large pictures of Hosni Mubarak nailed to telephone poles. 
His image repeated for miles and miles and miles, as the bus sped toward Abydos.

 “Egypt is under martial law...and over there you will see….” our Egyptian tour guide, Emile pointed out to us as we rolled toward our hotel the Mena House in Giza. 

Its February 4, the 12^th day of the uprising in Egypt. The Revolutionaries have labeled this the Day of Departure. “It’s tense but peaceful in Cairo – fear has been defeated”, reports CNN.

Moi, Mahmoudah

Brooklyn, NY