Daughter of Isis, Lilian Nirupa [books to get back into reading .txt] 📗

looked at each other in silence. They read each other’s thoughts. It was easy: It was a map, but where? The old man had mentioned the Isis temple, and the Nile with the cross on the City of Memphis seemed to confirm that, too, since the temple was close to that city. The great wall of the sunrise, they soon deduced, had to be the eastern wall outside the temple grounds. It was the first wall to see the face of Ra coming above the horizons every morning. But the feet and the hands...
They decided to explore it together. They also decided to keep it a secret. No one should know about this. If they found something good, then there was time to tell. Otherwise they might just make fools of themselves.
They departed each to his and her quarters, promising each other to meet at sunset the following evening. Everyone else was busy at dinnertime. Lizla promised to get some food for both of them. She simply would inform one of the slaves that she had to study and preferred to have dinner served in her bedroom. Even by the severe temple rules, a princess had certain privileges.
As she walked into her room, Lizla promised herself to find out three things, the two zodiac dates and the meaning of the Prince of Peace. She had never heard of that before. She might ask Ra-Ta, but for the first time in her life she felt she wanted to withhold this finding from him. After all, she had promised Mikos silence, and if the authorities of the Temple found out, they might take the engraved ancient coin from Mikos and use it for the Temple’s museum. Yes, that might happen. She felt that it was important to do that research alone, or with Mikos. Exhausted from such a strange evening she went to sleep.

Chapter 5 – The Pyramid of Light
Ra-Ta had been busy with the schooling preparations for his new disciple. It would take several months for Initiation. Originally a priest of Amon-Ra, God of the Sun, and dispenser of both human and divine fire, his presence in the Temple of Isis was a temporary one. His mission had been given to him directly by the High Priest of Amon, right after Lizla’s birth. The Pharaoh knew about it, so he was welcomed as a guest in the Royal Family as soon as the Princess turned twelve – Her mother had requested to be near Lizla a little longer, since she knew that her daughter was destined to strange and high level roles – That is why the normal procedure of match-making and betrothal was spared for her up to the utmost limit, her fourteenth year.
Lizla’s natural curiosity and dreamy disposition made her both flexible and original at the same time. For that reason, she never tried to imitate custom and tradition unless she was forced into it. An aura of mystery surrounded prophecies around her, and so she grew up with the constant premonition of not belonging exactly among her childhood peers. Due to the healthy-hearted and life-loving disposition of the Egyptians in general, her situation was not traumatic by any means, but rather an independent, free flowing one. She roamed around the palace with numerous brother/sisters and cousins like most Egyptian children of the high classes did, thus feeling loved and protected both by their homey families and the benevolent spirits of all things.
Then at the time of her fourteenth midyear, Mother had tried to mingle her with the worldly Babylonian girl, Mizzia, in an attempt to rescue her daughter from a destiny that she feared both mysterious and frightening. If she could just get her into the regular trend of flirting and merry-making, Mother thought, perhaps she could fall in love with one of the court princes. Thus, in marrying and childbearing perhaps she could be retained at the palace and lead what Mother would call a “normal” life.
But Ra-Ta had intervened on time and found no opposition from Pharaoh. Pharaoh’s beloved brother had died from wounds received in battle against the Assyrians. After his ascension to the throne, the old king had advised the new pharaoh to see that his niece’s education was entrusted to the Priests as soon as they requested it. He knew they kept watch on the stars and divine guidance through the seers and diviners. The rest was up to the Gods. Young Pharaoh had never forgotten that. His older brother’s Family continued receiving Royal treatment at his Palace. And he would allow no interference regarding his niece, as he had promised his older brother on his death bed.
Ra-Ta reflected on all this as he rose up from his morning meditation in the Amon-Ra chapel of Isis temple. He was not exactly concerned but keenly aware that the development of a magician was a dangerous task. The fires of the Spirit, that awakened could turn a man into a demi-God, were always full of risk and challenge. It was easier perhaps to set heavy tasks of discipline to a man, already tempered by the rough training in sports and battle –
But a woman, especially a princess, was a different story. Lizla had pleasantly surprised him, living up to her Capricorn rising’s discipline and determination. Her unusual healing and clairvoyant gifts made the task especially encouraging and rewarding too. However, this new request that Lizla had received in Meditation about Ishtar-la really puzzled him –
Why, she was the high Priestess of the Love Temple, a powerful, vibrant female, to whom a celibate monk like himself, deeply dedicated to the divine solar fire, managed to avoid cautiously. Now he would probably have to work in cooperation with her. He had to work hard on this, his own way. He decided to retire to three days of fasting and meditation. He was sure his Ka would bring an answer to his dilemma.
Lizla rose up early in the morning and walked to her favorite bath pool. It was still dark. The clear sky of the desert night would soon release its innumerable stars. Suddenly, beyond the silver streak of light against the eastern horizon, the pristine globe of Ra-Ta emerged in orange radiance. Lizla took a dip in the pool and a few minutes later she got out of it and quickly dried and dressed herself for the morning exercises. She went into the healing temple and joined the others. The sacred dances could be done with or without music.
When she learned them in the desert, to the sole accompaniment of a reed pipe, she hardly had paid attention to the music. It was necessary to learn the rhythmic exercises that coordinated all body parts into a harmony of progressive speed. There was a deep philosophy behind those movements.
But when she had asked Ra-Ta about it, she got no direct answer. Each position combined rhythm, rigorous counting, movement in coordination of arms, legs and head and different levels of speed. The same exercise was done first coordinating all left body parts, then the right ones and later both together. The whole procedure was repeated three times and each one in increasing speeds. The numbers had special significance, as she correlated them with the knowledge of numbers she acquired in her astrology classes. The numbers 1, 4, 7, and 10; these were representations of the controlling forces that act upon the human will were always done with the head straight, looking directly in front of one, like if looking for direction. No matter which coordination of movements, they always seemed to posses that characteristic.
Ra-Ta had told her to keep on paying attention to any suggestion the exercises or the music were giving to her body, as this was “body learning” of a special kind. It was meant to reestablish harmony and beauty to all body parts, but also to learn to accept the voice of intuition directly on the body-cell level, without intellectualizing it. Not even feelings were allowed to interfere with the “body knowledge.” That was the reason to learn the exercises, at the beginning, with minimum music. A healer should learn to listen to one’s body. It had a wisdom of all its own, and interpretation of the laws of harmony that no theory could comprehend. Then, as telepathy and psychic perception developed she could learn to “hear” other bodies as well, in order to heal them.
Here at the temple, the exercises were done with more music. A group of seven players of string and wind instruments made justice to the mysterious melody that alternated between melancholic tones and sharp, almost military passages. Lizla reflected on this as she joined the small group of students on simple white linen tunics and bare feet that were practicing with her in the music hall of the Isis Temple.
After an hour of dancing, they quietly left hall to enjoy a well deserved breakfast. Temple students ate silently as they were to commune all physical food with their Ka. In thus raising their soul vibrations, both food and mind became spiritualized. A warm, soothing feeling of peace enveloped the small group as they departed to their own respective tasks for the day.
Thankful in her quiet joy, so different from the palace, Lizla came back to her room to await her master instructions. To her surprise she found a letter from Ra-Ta on a small silver plate sitting on her table. It contained instructions to spend the next three days getting familiar with the Temple grounds and generally enjoying a short vacation by herself, as Ra-Ta would be involved in a special mission that required total seclusion.
Lizla remembered Mikos and his strange engraved ancient coin. Hoping to find him there, she decided to explore the temple grounds, beginning with the Eastern Great Wall. As she arrived, she was not altogether surprised when she saw Mikos, sitting cross-legged in deep meditation. Lizla stood up at a discrete distance of about ten feet. In a few seconds, he turned his head in her direction, showing a triumphant smile.
“You heard me,” he said as he rose to greet her.
“Heard you? When?” She pretended to be surprised, as she immediately guessed he must have been practicing some telepathic exercises.
“I was just thinking about you, but you did not seem to receive my message. Perhaps at a subconscious level you heard me though,” he answered rather stubbornly.
“Perhaps you are right. I’ve been practicing those exercises myself. But remember, you have to practice in three stages –” She stopped talking wondering if he had been really trained the “official way,” as he was a foreigner.
He answered: “Yes, I know: first you practice with the person in front of you. Second, with the same person at a distance, but at an accorded time. And third, with no appointment whatsoever.”
“Correct,” she sighed, relieved. It looked that their education was running parallel, at least in these techniques. “Let’s practice together, now, so we can have a better connection,” she added as she sat on the floor by his side. “By the way, where did you learn to sit that way?”
“Which way?”
“As you were when I came in, with each foot on the opposite thigh. It must be awfully hard.”
“Ah, back in my country I learned Yoga. This position is called the Lotus pose, because the feet rise up like the petal of a Lotus,” Mikos answered as he observed her intently. He could never figure her out. Sometimes she sounded imperious and demanding like a royal princess and other times, she shared his almost childish curiosity about all forms of knowledge. She could be Greek, almost, he thought to himself; she has this thirst for wisdom.... He could not deny he really liked her both ways. But a certain competitiveness, which he thought of as mere shyness, kept him from making