EGYPT – A PERSONAL OVERVIEW

Lauren in her Iseum / Temple of Hathor, Sekhmet and Anubis

I had wanted to travel to Egypt for the last 42 years, but somehow never managed to get there. Then two years ago, an Egyptian goddess dressed all in gold appeared to me while I was in a meditation, who encouraged me to go to Egypt as soon as possible. My boyfriend Paul and I had planned a three-month trip of sacred sites to Italy, Greece and Crete this year, so I thought it would be a wonderful idea to include Egypt in the itinerary.

I signed up for a metaphysical tour in March, which was abruptly cancelled after an attack on tourists. I thought to myself, "Somehow this must be perfect." Then one of our timeshare weeks in Italy was also cancelled suddenly. Again I thought, "This must be perfect, too."

Then my dear friend Lynn Maurine from Mystical Journeys contacted me with an amazing offer -- the "Ambassadors of Peace" tour -- 8 days in Egypt, including round-trip airfare from New York to Cairo, staying in 5-star hotels, all breakfasts, land transportation and air travel within Egypt – all for only $1,390!! "What a great deal," I thought and reserved my space immediately. It turns out this particular tour coincided with the cancelled timeshare week. Hmmm. Interesting creation.

Once I had signed up for the tour, I hardly thought about it. I mostly live in present time, so it’s hard for me to get excited about a future that doesn’t exist yet. However, an inner part of myself relaxed, knowing I was finally visiting the place I had yearned to see for so long, but had only traveled to in my dreams and meditations. I would later realize that no matter how much I could have imagined this mystical place, I could never have anticipated the unprecedented miracles, wonderment, beauty, synchronicities and memories I experienced on this trip of a lifetime.

Pardon me while I digress for a moment to cover a subject that has concerned many people I’ve talked to. My friends and relatives cautioned me about going to Egypt, because of the terrorist attack on some tourists last November. However, I felt perfectly safe both before and during my sojourn in Egypt. In fact, I walked through back streets of Cairo at 1:00 am with a new Egyptian friend and felt completely secure. I couldn’t say the same about Los Angeles!

Part of our tour included meeting with His Excellency, the Minister of Tourism. He told us the Egyptian government had taken extra precautions and commissioned special police and army personnel at all monuments and temples. He professed sadness that so many tourists were afraid to come to Egypt because of the media’s coverage. I think it would be similar to people being afraid to visit New York City because of the bombing of the World Trade Center, or Oklahoma because of the terrible tragedy in Oklahoma City. The Minister further indicated that many State Departments, including the USA, had come to Egypt after the incident and within a very few weeks had given Egypt a complete bill of health for tourism. Is Egypt safe? Absolutely! (The same is true years later in 2018 after the Egyptian Spring as spiritual tour groups can attest to)

Mena House Oberoi

In Giza we stayed at the Mena House, a 5-star hotel that was once the palace of the last King of Egypt, now turned into a grand hotel. This magnificent hotel fit for a pharoah is situated less than three blocks from the pyramid/sphinx complex on acres of beautiful grounds. From my hotel balcony, the Great Pyramid looked close enough to touch.

The vibrations emanating from the Great Pyramid were so intense I slept and ate very little. In fact, I was seldom hungry or tired during the entire trip. I found being in Egypt energized my body and spirit.

In Luxor we stayed at the wonderful Sonesta St. George Hotel. This luxurious 5-star hotel is situated on the banks of the Nile, just minutes away from the Luxor Museum, Luxor Temple (which has a fabulous Sound and Light Show), and Karnak Temple Complex,

I was gratified to find the people of Egypt extremely friendly, warm, and loving. Abdul, from the land operator’s group, greeted me when I got off the airplane as if I was a dear friend, returning after too long an absence. In fact, many of the people I met acknowledged me with a similarly enthusiastic reception. "Welcome home!" each one told me. Indeed I did feel as if I had returned home.

Mohamed Nazmy, whose agency runs the actual tour (hotel accommodations, buses, air travel and so on) turned out to be my spiritual brother and we embraced in a friendly hug upon first meeting. Mohamed’s focus is metaphysical and spiritual, while he has his two capable feet solidly planted on terra firma. Our tour ran smoothly without a hitch, thanks to his ability to run a cohesive operation as well as to flow and change when the energy wanted us to vary from the scheduled itinerary.

In fact, when I first arrived I discussed Dendera with Mohamed and told him that I had come to Egypt because of Dendera. I remembered three past lives there, so intuited that Dendera was an extremely important place for me to see. We weren’t originally scheduled to go there but our itinerary was eventually changed to include Dendera. Yippee!! (Mohamed Nazmy, Magician -- Quest Tours)

This particular tour had the good fortune to have Fathy Yehia on staff as our touring archaeologist

/Egyptologist. Fathy has a Ph.D. in archaeology and worked for the Cairo Museum. I heard from others (Fathy is much too modest to announce these things) that he assisted John Anthony West in the creation of SERPENT IN THE SKY, a stunning expose of new revelations and information about ancient Egypt. Fathy is not only a fount of ancient Egyptian knowledge and history, which he can recite from his prodigious memory, but he can also read hieroglyphics as easily as we would a book. Furthermore, Fathy is a fabulous storyteller, and narrates engrossing stories about the background of the monuments, details of excavation work, and information on Egypt’s famous pharaohs, queens, architects, and priests.

Before I left California, I had seen hundreds of pictures and photos as well as many TV programs on Egypt. However, nothing prepared me for the grandeur and absolutely stunning beauty of Egypt’s pyramids, monuments, temples and tombs when experienced in person. I went directly to Egypt after weeks in Italy and its art museums, as well as Greece and Crete. Although I loved these places, they paled in comparison to any one of the spectacles that we visited.

At every site there were gorgeous carvings on the walls and ceilings, frescoes, statues, even the pillars and obelisks were decorated and then painted with countless pictures and hieroglyphics. The desert with its dry air and sand has preserved these stunningly-beautiful artifacts with their gorgeous colors, pictures and hieroglyphics in a way that has not been duplicated anywhere else in the world I’ve seen. Unlike the artwork of ancient Greece and renaissance Italy, Egypt’s art is brimming with spiritual energy and retains immense dynamism. Egypt does not contain the dead and ruined remains of a by-gone civilization, but is still alive and pulsating with sacredness and mystery.

Speaking of mystery – much of Egypt is shrouded in enigma and unresolved questions. (When I typed in mystery in my thesaurus, the word sphinx came up.)

Who are the ancient Egyptians? Where did they come from?

Why is the pyramid complex at Giza aligned with Orion’s Belt, as it appeared in the sky 10,500 BC?

How could they build pyramids and erect obelisks that we, with our modern technology, cannot do? Is there some higher purpose to their creations?

Why does their ancient civilization with its amazing knowledge of science, medicine, religion, architecture, and art seem to emerge fully formed, without taking the necessary centuries or millennia to develop? In Egypt we catch glimpses of time and place before antiquity, where people knew truths that we can only guess at today. There existed, in the dim past, a cradle of humanity, where everyday life was rich in abilities and knowledge beyond our modern comprehension. And we stand in awe of the ancient Egyptians and their accomplishments.

Egypt affected me more deeply and profoundly than any other of the many countries and sacred sites I have gone to. Since returning to the USA, I ache, with inexpressible longing, to go back to Egypt, to my new home. American friends made during the tour express the same yearning; our hearts and minds are magnetized to go there again. Have we touched some buried memories deep within our soul’s roots or tapped into a sense of the divine? Those who visit Egypt are profoundly affected and irrevocably altered, as the beautiful art and architecture, loving people, as well as the still-existing spiritual vibrations and energies activate all our senses and command our spiritual selves to search for deeper truths.

In upcoming articles, I will guide you on spiritual journeys to other sacred sites I have visited on my spiritual travels.

Thyme, Lauren O. ALONG THE NILE 2009

Bauval, Robert & Gilbert, Adrian. THE ORION MYSTERY, UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF THE PYRAMIDS Budge, E.A. Wallace, THE GODS OF THE EGYPTIANS Cott, Jonathan, SEARCH FOR OM SETI Ellis, Normandi. AWAKENING OSIRIS, THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD Erman, Adolf, LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT Haich, Elisabeth. INITIATION Scully, Nicki and Ellis, Normandi. SEKHMET: TRANSFORMATION IN THE BELLY OF THE GODDESS West, John Anthony, SERPENT IN THE SKY, THE HIGH WISDOM OF ANCIENT EGYPT, Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, IL, 1993 Corteggiani, Jean-Pierre. THE EGYPT OF THE PHAROAHS AT THE CAIRO MUSEUM, Scala Books, London, England, 1986 [if !supportLineBreakNewLine] [endif]

Lauren O. Thyme is a spiritual and psychic counselor, healer, channel, lecturer, published writer and poet, professional astrologer, and spiritual pilgrim.

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free images of Giza Plateau and King Tut courtesy of pixabay