Conversations with a Soul (38 page)

So reads one of over 700  'utterances' carved on the pyramid walls of King Unas’ tomb.

By the period of the Middle Kingdom, utterances, incantations and spells appeared painted not only on the walls of burial tombs but in and on the coffins themselves and by the period of the New Kingdom, inscribed on papyri and entombed with the dead person. This,
Book of the Dead,
a kind of liturgical cheat sheet, was designed to guide the deceased as they made that all important journey to the Hall of Judgment.

The ancient Egyptians believed the soul was made up of five different parts that survived death; principle amongst these were the
Ka
(The You as others knew you as well as the You that embodied the principle of life) and the
Ba
(The You as you knew yourself). Death followed when, for whatever reason, the Ka left the body.

After death and internment the person’s Ka and their Ba united for the fearsome journey to the Judgment Hall. There, before jurors with names like: 'Breaker of Bones, Eater of Entrails, and Embracer of Fire,' the trial commenced.

Judgment was made on the basis of weighing the deceased’s heart against Maat’s feather. It was the heart that recorded a person’s moral choices and was therefore an accurate historical record of their virtue. The lighter the heart, the greater the virtue!

If the heart proved heavier than Maat’s feather the heart was taken from the Judgment Hall and devoured by the monster Ammit, thus ending any possibility of an afterlife. However, if the heart of the dead person was as light as or even lighter than Maat’s feather, the soul passed judgment and entered a blessed state of being.

Yet, as terrifying as the prospect was, by following all the requirements and saying the prescribed prayers as well as reciting all the spells, the one on trial was assured of acquittal.

Thereafter the soul entered a state of being known as Akhu, a radiant and shining being who ascended to the heavens to live with the gods and journey amongst the imperishable stars.

The Ka journeyed far and wide and even hitched a ride on the celestial barge as it journeyed across the heavens; however the Ka was required to regularly return to the dead body and re-establish the relationship with the deceased. In this union the Ka gained nourishment from the food and drink left by the dead person’s relatives. Because the Ka’s continued existence depended on finding its way 'home' and 'recognizing its body' care was taken to preserve the body, finally leading to mummification, at least for those who could afford it.

We have indeed journeyed to a strange land and witnessed a foreign way of viewing death and the possibility of an afterlife. Yet if we are able to set aside the language and alien ideas, more suited to our dreams and even nightmares, we might be confronted by a moment of recognition!

In many ways nothing could be further from my world than that of ancient Egypt. A strange culture brought alive and made understandable only if I yield to its world view and squeeze myself into a landscape that violates almost everything I have learned about how things work: Tiny clay figurines entombed with the dead pharaoh so that they might serve him in the afterlife; miniature ceramic cows to provide their dead master with milk and food; spells, magic words and amulets to provide protection in this world and the next.

…
there were many things which could not be controlled by power over the earth and its elements – the sting of the scorpion, the bite of the adder, the rise of the Nile, sickness, the sudden onslaught of the enemy, the straying of cattle, the disfavour of the god. For these evils man’s only hope was magic, - the set words spoken in the proper manner which have power over all unseen influence. So in the case of life after death, all which human strength can provide of stores of grain and drink and garments must be secured for his use, but he must also be provided with the magic words to meet the chance evils of the future life.
¹⁰⁷

At the very moment that I am forced to acknowledge the gulf dividing my world from theirs, is also the moment when I catch whispers of an ancient civilization struggling against the finality of death. They reach out to grasp some evidence, some possibility, a few words of an ancient promise that could give rise to hope and I understand, and in their struggle I stand alongside them. Their words are not mine and their ideas and images are not mine but what is mine is a common warfare against the terrible finality that death so often heralds.

Not least amongst the echoes is a yearning to bridge the gulf between the two shores, a longing to see or hear or feel that my loved ones live on beyond death and that somehow, someday we will meet again.

Rock tombs, pyramids and mummification were all relatively late additions to the Egyptian need to preserve the body after death. Prior to the prosperity and stability of the Old Kingdom the dead were simply buried in the desert. Arid conditions soon dehydrated the body and preservation of the corpse was assured. However since no one wanted dead Uncle George to be chewed on by some mangy animal scavenging for a quick snack, pressure grew to secure the bodies of the dead in brick vaults, and later, in stone tombs. Of course this meant that poor old uncle George didn’t dehydrate quite as effectively as he did in the open air. The need to preserve and secure dead bodies ultimately launched a science that culminated in the elaborate process of building giant pyramids and the art of embalming.

Once the Egyptians mastered the technology of making bricks it became possible to build a chapel located above where the deceased was buried. Family members could then gather in the chapel and leave gifts of food and drink for their dead relative that would nourish that person’s Ka.

(The) tombs always show the same essential functions through all changes of form – the protection of the burial against decay and spoliation and the provision of a meeting-place where the living may bring offerings to the dead. Correspondingly there are two sets of customs – burial customs and offering customs . . . For the offering place the texts are magical formulas which
properly recited by the living, provide material benefit for the dead.
¹⁰⁸

If I close my eyes I can still see a little old lady, my Grandmother, kneeling over my Grandfather’s grave site. Every Saturday she would catch several busses to make the pilgrimage to the cemetery. She purchased a head stone, she could ill-afford, and fresh flowers always adorned the vase next to his name. The grass was always neatly trimmed, which she accomplished with a pair of scissors, after refusing permission for any mechanical grass cutting devices to go near his grave. Any mud or dust that fell on the tombstone was immediately rinsed off, which necessitated another physically demanding walk to procure water.

While these sniping’s and cleanings were going on she held a conversation with him. I was just a small boy and anxious to get on home but I wish today that I had paid attention to that conversation!

Of course a conversation with a dead person is about as far out as it is possible to go today! Our addiction to scientific fundamentalism will not tolerate such crazy ideas – which may be why we never hear about such strange things.

Sometimes, after awakening from a vivid dream in which a dead friend or relative was heard to speak, I wonder if it is possible that Fenwick’s idea of love creating a matrix within which the living and the dead might engage each other lay at the root of my dream?

“
Do you think I’m crazy,” he asks through dry,

cracked lips, oxygen pump whining quietly

in the background, aides banging doors down the hallway,

doctors being paged.

“
Crazy?” I ask.

“
Yes, crazy for missing Margaret so much. For turning in my chair

to ask her questions even though I know she’s gone.

“
I walk into empty rooms and look for her.

“
Sometimes I think I hear her breathing and speaking, and

I speak back.

“
I know she’s gone. I know my Margaret is gone.

“
Yet strangely, inexplicably she isn’t. She’s everywhere I turn, in the

subdued light in the family room, in hallway shadows, in the squeak

of the mattress.

“
Is that crazy?” he asks, earnestly searching my face as I kneel on the

floor by his bed, holding his one free hand.

In the short, full silence between us

I remember other conversations with

other people who over the years tell me

without embarrassment of seeing and hearing their loved ones now gone,

of having been visited in the night or as they drove along the

cliffs near Fort Funston.

I remember people in new-born grief speak of how they turn and call out

his name or hers, certain that they are not alone in that familiar room

with the dark furniture and the pictures on the piano.

I think too of the sound of the bell ringing from round the cat’s neck, long

after she was gone from our home, and

of the voice of my dead father speaking as I ran from my own

grief, hearing him say in a voice as clear and familiar as ever, repeating

over and again in stride with my breathing, “It’s okay, son. I’m okay. It’s

okay. I’m okay.” And how I laughed as I cried as I ran.

That’s why I said what I did as I knelt on the floor by the bed.

“
No, Doc, it’s not crazy. You’re not crazy.

“
You’re in love, Doc.

“
After 68 years you’re still in love

because love never ends. It never ends.

Love never ends.”

And a small tear tiptoed down his cheek to the

corner of his faint smile.
¹⁰⁹

Surely the offering of prayers assumes that someone hears them and the frontiers of death cannot prevent my feeble words from being heard by those to whom I pray. Why then should the love of a simple woman mean nothing, or prayers torn from deepest grief be without hope of an answer?

I want nothing to do with Ouija boards, séances, spiritism or the occult.

Instead, I find the most scientific of all the sciences - the pure wonder of Physics - to intrigue and beckon me and even hint at the possibility of an answer. Perchance the dead don’t simply disappear into nothingness but continue onto another sphere.
¹¹⁰

. . . if we had a super microscope that could peer into the heart of an electron, we would see that it was not a point particle at all but a tiny vibrating string. It only appeared to be a point particle because our instruments were too crude. This tiny string, in turn, vibrates at different frequencies and resonances. If we were to pluck this vibrating string it would change mode and become another subatomic particle, such as a quark. Pluck it again and it turns into a neutrino. In this way we can explain the blizzard of subatomic particles as nothing but different musical notes of the string . . . In this new vocabulary, the laws of physics, carefully constructed after thousands of years of experimentation, are nothing but the laws of harmony one can write down for strings and membranes. The laws of chemistry are the melodies that one can play on these strings. The universe is a symphony of strings. And the ‘Mind of God’ which Einstein wrote eloquently about, is cosmic music resonating throughout hyperspace.
¹¹¹