Amazing, awesome, inexplicable. Two weeks I spent in Egypt but the trip seemed timeless, even formless. We began in Cairo, staying at the Oasis Pyramids Hotel – a large sprawling property with beautiful sculptured gardens, a swimming pool and lots of space. I even had a bathtub in my private room. No hint of the chaotic urban craziness of Cairo city outside our walls. The drive to visit pyramids each day was a sharp contrast, full of noise and traffic jams.
The second day of our program we went inside the “Bent Pyramid” which was newly opened for tourists. There was a long round narrow tunnel we had to pass through which triggered an old childhood claustrophobia. I briefly considered skipping it but decided to experience it as a kind of initiation. Too small to stand in, I opted to go up on my bum using the handrails and bracing my feet on the wooden rungs. It was long and tedious with no view of the tunnel’s end.
Yukia, our fearless leader, had gone up first with ease and grace and had already begun her angelic sound activation when I and two others from the group reached a second tunnel after a series of step ladders. We stayed on a lower platform and did our own sound activation. The entire pyramid vibrated with energy. I felt I was in the place I was meant to be.
Starting down I felt totally free. When I reached the top of the long tunnel, I went down with unusual ease using my hands and feet moving like a puma, beyond fear in perfect harmony with the place.
Later during our group sharing, one of the women who had stayed outside commented on how we all looked different coming out, like a rebirth. It was then I remembered the root of my claustrophobia from my breach birth, doubled in half rear end first – and I was a nine pound baby. I had gone into the pyramid in that same way – feet and head facing the womb, doubled in half, and jubilantly exiting head first excited and ready for new life!
The next day we went to the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid with Shahrzad who grew up a stone’s throw away, learning the mysteries of that famous site from her renown Egyptologist father who was one of the first to say the pyramids were not tombs for the Pharos but rather had mystical and cosmic purposes.
Climbing into the Great Pyramid was a breeze compared to the day before. As we entered the King’s Chamber there was another group already chanting so we joined in. I was able to lay down inside the sarcophagus, a large stone coffin-like structure which Shahrzad said was a resonance chamber. When I laid down inside and closed my eyes, I saw a cone going up and up and up, lifting me into the cosmos.
A guard was coming as I climbed out, feeling calm and protected, even as the guard yelled and chaos reigned. We went to Shahrzad’s house afterwards where she showed us an Egyptian Energy Healing technique and served us lemon mint tea. I invited her to come to Peru to share her teaching and learn the connections with the Sacred Andean Tradition of Peru. To my delight she accepted.