Emanations of the Self: 1 included some intriguing information about serpent vibration non-separable from Allness-no-thingness Origin (Nun), and Ben-ben stones which sometimes were created on larger scale creating pyramids or mounds, the relation of phoenix to these mounds (pyramids) and the rising sun/son, to the sense of identity arising within, formulating its edifice and structure of self, and learning to shine daily like the sun.

All this comes from the Egyptian creation myths depicted on the mural walls of tomb-temples and initiation temples. I am of the camp that the Egyptian legacy is far older than classical Egyptologists believe and that the Mysteries and secret teachings of the world source from there. Where Egypt got them from several tens of thousands of years ago, we will probably never know. What is written above is the obvious and surface set of understandings from these primal teachings about the primary and necessary sense of self.

What intrigued me is the meaning that Egyptian Wisdom gave to features around the world, most so ancient as to not be looked at by academia. Doing so would force the overturning of the apple cart of Darwinian theory regarding human evolution and the scales of time and expertise of said ancient human beings. Nonetheless, these are the elephant in the room of the world calling us to acknowledge the full monty of what a human being is and why humanity exists.

Serpent Mounds in Ohio, USA

Serpent mounds exist throughout the northern hemisphere, less so in the southern. Some are quite long, perfectly undulating across the landscape, taunting the mind to grasp how or why they were made. They are clearly non-natural in origin and at this point completely naturalized and therefore part of the landscape and its features. Serpent mounds often have consort single mounds. Again, due to naturalization, the single mound is not always easily determined to the untrained eye. They appear as simply a treed hill or grassy knoll. However, the word knoll might be an etymological hint to deeper knowledge.

The Egyptian creation myth tells us that Serpent was with and inseparable from no-thingness-Origin, Nun. This idea repeats itself in much later creation myths of the world. An excellent example is the Greek creation myth of Eurynome “born” from Chaos (the unformed, no-thingness) and dancing in/on these primal “waters.” She formulated the wind created by her dance into Ophion-Serpent by rubbing the wind in her hands. Ultimately, he coiled around her seven times, impregnated her and she birthed the Universal Egg. At this point, the mound of Mt. Olympus features in the story and Eurynome ascends to its summit. Serpent follows. Eventually, he begins to brag that he is actually the creator of the world which angers Eurynome. She kicks out his teeth and throws him off the heights to forever live on the ground.1

Serpent mounds mysteriously rise out of the flat plain landscape depicting origination which will become creation: out of No-thingness which is ALL (Nun, non, Chaos) a vibration is born. That vibration is inseparable-consort of No-thingness unformed Mulaprakriti, yet this vibration is the cause of all layers, presentations, and manifestations of existence including the vibration of Awareness-as-Itself. Awareness-as-Itself is also Nun, Mulaprakriti, Chaos, no-thingness-Monad-Brahman. Awareness-as-Itself is bliss and darkness profound. It is not yet Light because light is otherness and the ability to separate from Sourceless Source, thus fall and return with the light of self-awareness.

The single mound is phoenix rising out of its ashes. It will ascend from the ground of ignorance to the sky of knowing. The mystery of self-arising is a profound one. It displays in a man’s sunrise erection, in the arising of every sprout on the planet, and the self-reaching or self-standing of all animals soon after they are born. All expressions of life-self arise from nothing and return to the same. The single mound is the Ben-ben stone which is also pyramid, lingam, phallus, obelisk, and breast. It is interesting to note that throughout the world breast was before phallus, and mound was genderless representing both the nurture-always full-Source and the yearning for source-arising self. Bell is before vajra in Tibetan tantra. In other words, the song of Emptiness silent or sounding is before the thunderbolt (vajra/dorje). Thunderbolt describes the lightning serpent of enlightened realization born of the emptiness of vibrating self-illumining Awareness.

In the Egyptian source myth, phoenix follows upon scarab beetle. Khepera (scarab beetle)  represents the principle of becoming. Yet who or what is becoming? The sense of self on every scale and variation on the theme. Upon initiating that process, the scarab beetle will  lovingly roll the shit of the self over and over again, sunrise to sunrise, until the sense of self ignites and self illumines. The son becomes the Sun. The phallus/lingam produces the opalescent drop of sperm, the seed of a new Wholeness. The dorje/vajra elicits the spark of profound realization. The milk of the breast is for other, not self. This requires that the self understand other and its need for Source. Becoming begets separate identity, a sense of self. The shit of existence: density, karma, learning. loving, loosing all cultivate a sense of armored and hardened self identity. We are the scarab beetle, beautiful when the sun illumines our colors and not so pretty when shadow opaques our iridescence.

“In the beginning was the Word (vibration, Serpent). And the Word was with God (Creatrix, Nun, NON, Brahman, Samatbhadra). Word is the Light of the World. Through him all things were made.” Serpent-vibration-Akasha-wind* is the wave cresting on the universal waters of non-differentiation, and its cause. Single wave has no existence except as part of the greater water-body. Light is this as well. Light, ontologically, makes consciousness possible. Consciousness is self-derived and appropriated awareness.

All this suggests that Scorpio is a far more powerful and unrevealed mystery than most astrology acknowledges. Scorpio is scarab beetle-scorpion revealing the phoenix mystery of Self. The creatures related to the sign arise and transform from one state of self to another: snake, scorpion (beetle), eagle, dragon, phoenix.

One wonders if dragon-phoenix is a yab-yum inseparable pair or two presentations of the same refinement and mastery over the sense of Self. That mastery requires an emptying of ideas of single-self thus the phoenix self-pyre and dragon’s association with great wisdom (the wisdom of emptiness and its power).

Footnote and *
1 http://www.paleothea.com/Myths/Eurynome.html

* The Tibetan word for wind is lung. hmmm.