Descriptions:
Video Description
“Some songs are not just read, they are meant to wake something up. In this video, Lyam Christopher offers a full reading of the Hymn to Ra from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, translated by Normandi Ellis, and the effect is like watching a dawn rise inside a human being. The hymn says that knowing is both light and dark, and that every person is always dying and always waking, in a rhythm we call life. It is a strange and beautiful thought, the kind that makes you stop and wonder what the old mystics really saw.
“The poem follows the soul through the night as it turns to face itself, listens to the many selves still dreaming inside, and waits for the shape of truth to come. Then dawn arrives. Dawn always begins in the bones, it says, and the sun climbs while the eye opens, the heart opens, and all of time knots itself into a single golden moment. The speaker becomes Osiris shining, a creature of light, and blesses everything in sight: the boat of morning, the oars that stir the water, the riverbanks, the clouds, the goddesses, and even the discomfort of being human. Nothing is left out, because all of it is how the divine teaches us.
“The wonder underneath it all is the quiet claim that you are not separate from God. You are how God comes to know himself, the hymn says, his ears, his hands, his eyes. By the end, after all those blessings, the simplest line lands hardest: a creature of light am I. It is not an argument. It is an invitation to feel what the Egyptians meant when they called the sunrise sacred, and you do not have to believe a word of it to sense that this is magic made out of attention.”
Full Video Transcript
The truth of what we call our knowing is both light and dark.
Men are always dying and waking, the rhythm between we call life.
In the night I turn and face myself, the many howling, laughing, pausing in the body of one.
Some miracle’s about to happen, some new man, unseen, wishes to rise and speak.
I walk in the dark feeling darkness on my skin.
Dawn always begins in the bones.
The light stirs me to rise and walk.
Lightly I step around the sleeping forms, the bodies of the other selves still dreaming.
Nothing has been disturbed except my inner quiet.
I am restless, an animal sniffing the wind.
The shape of truth is coming.
Death matters, as does life.
As it ends, it begins again.
Knowing that is both my comfort and fear.
Perfection is a long road.
I shall never see its end.
the ribbon of life winds back on itself. At dawn, the threads of time unfurl. Sunlight streams
across the sands. Time reaches in both directions, knotted in the golden orb of the moment.
The eye opens. The heart opens. The navel yawns and takes the world into its belly. Beneath him,
the snake feels the movement of earth. Everything else is sky. This moment is eternity. This light
I call genius, noble being conversant with gods. He goes out, hears the hum of the world,
beings of light muttering in every stream, in every rock and tree he hears God’s songs.
Then he returns and tells me what the God said. I flow like blood from the God’s wounds. I am
the God’s life made visible. I am how the God comes to know himself, his ears, his hands,
his eyes. The dreaming selves stir in the dark and follow the distant song of the lyre.
We enter grace and beauty. I am Osiris shining. And at dawn, I leave my house and go into the field.
Stars fade like memory. Bless the boat of morning that carries us into light.
Bless the oars that stir the water, causing ripples of consciousness.
Bless the northern and southern edges of the sky. Bless the eastern and western banks of the river.
Bless the oarsmen in the boat, the God’s people, his faith, his creation.
Bless the face of the God above and the reflection of the God on earth below.
Bless the veil of clouds that guards his secrets.
Bless the life stirring on the surface of skin,
the discomfort of human weakness and mortality, loss and suffering,
the misunderstandings that prick consciousness and prod men towards truth.
Bless the goddesses, the wives, the daughters, the mothers, the priestesses.
Bless the house of Osiris.
Bless this body where the world is gathered.
Bless the light in this forehead, in his heart and hands.
Bless the sun that shines on every limb.
A creature of light am I.
Source: Lyam Christopher