The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

Five components of the soul in Egypt

Ren, your name
lives for as long as you are remembered,
or can be read about on inscriptions,
or included in prayers for the ancestors and their achievements.

Ka, the vital essence that makes the difference
between the living and the dead,
between life and dead meat,
between a warm body and cold clay.

Ib, literally the heart,
formed from a single drop of clotted blood
extracted from your mother's heart
at the hour of your conception or birth.
Heart, also the seat of your soul,
the good directing force in your life,
searching after truth, peace and harmony.

Ba, makes each of us unique and different,
that which makes us strive and achieve,
the motivator
but also the hungry elemental force
that needs food and sex.
In some form, your Ba is destined to survive after death,
often depicted or imagined as a human-headed bird,
which with good fortune will go forth by day to enjoy the light,
but might also end up existing only in the dark,
like the bat or the ruin-haunting owl.

Sheut, your shadow,
and by extension the other you,
also used to describe a statue,
a model or a painting of a human



Hope you enjoyed this. I love the Ib...what a rich legacy they've left us.

Unique and quirky, I found it engaging and vastly informative, coupled of course with the trips down google lane that it prompted.   I learned that this conceptual framework is pretty much the backbone of psychoanalytics.  I hope Marcel comes by this and comments.
 
[I also couldn't keep from thinking of other verses -- So - a needle pulling thread, Fa - a long, long way to run.  But I digress.]

It is interesting to wonder what traditions and belief systems predating the Egyptians were drawn upon-- perhaps as Christianity drew so heavily on the religions, beliefs and practices of its predecessors.  The human consciousness has been in development for somewhere between 30,000 and 300,000 years, with only the last 2,500 leaving any records.    

Thanks Colm.  Found poems are quite the critters.  I generally like them.

T

Colm, 
Tracy sent me to your Found Poem.  I am pondering the brilliant insight and imagery of ". . . a single drop of clotted blood extracted from your mother's heart."  Your poem dropped me into the archetypal world.  Imagine if all the world religions, large and small, accepted that they have all influenced one another and come from an evolved perennial wisdom. We human would lose our rational for war: my g-d against your g-d, mine is bigger than yours!!!!!!!!!!!!!   You encourage me, as has Tracy, to put forth a form poem. 
Marcel 

Tracy Mitchell wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:53 pm

[I also couldn't keep from thinking of other verses -- So - a needle pulling thread, Fa - a long, long way to run.  But I digress.]
I did exactly the same thing 

It is interesting to wonder what traditions and belief systems predating the Egyptians were drawn upon
And what else has been lost. The two (currently) dominant religions taste a bit bland if you compare their descriptions of the soul to the Egyptians. But I'm sure there are still many 'minor' religions with equally rich belief systems; ones that haven't been crushed by Europe and the Middle East. 
Still humming Do, a dear, a female dear'    
  

 

Lecram06 wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 26, 2022 10:10 am

Colm, 
Tracy sent me to your Found Poem.  I am pondering the brilliant insight and imagery of ". . . a single drop of clotted blood extracted from your mother's heart."  

Isn't it such a fabulous image. The depth of their analysis, the respect and humanity. Kind of looks like we haven't evolved much in the last few thousand years...materially or spiritually. Ok, we can land a man on the moon, but I doubt any nation could build a Giza pyramid. Although, if Trump gets in again....