T h e

U n i c o rn M e s s i ah

( C h a p t e r 1 6 )

A M y t h i c M e m o i r

O f S h a m a n i c K a b b a l a h

S p i c e d w i t h P a r a b l e s & P r o p h e c i e s

F o r t h e C o m i n g E a r t h C h a n g e s

J o s e p h - M a r k C o h e n

T h e U n i c o r n M e s s i a h

. . . . . . . . . .

2

Copyright, © 2015 - Joseph-Mark Cohen

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 0-9737068-6-4

The Unicorn Messiah 2015

Signed, Numbered & Limited

First Illustrated Edition

#_____________

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any

means, electronic or mechanical, without the prior permission in writing

from the author and the publisher (with the exception of short quotations

in the context of reviews).

Email: josephmarkcohen@gmail.com

Website: www.treeoflifeschool.com

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

3

Pra i se fo r

“The Unicorn Messiah ”

Joseph-Mark Cohen’s delightful novel, “The Unicorn Messiah” serves up a delicious buffet of mideastern appetizers: Sufi stories, astrological prophecies, earth mysteries, lucid dreams, biblical midrash, plus tongue-in-cheek parables garnished with authentic Kabbalistic teachings. You will discover within it a Rumi-like caravanserai of characters that is reminiscent of what touches the heart in Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet or the films of Truffaut. The Unicorn Messiah is visionary fiction at its finest.

Barbara Black Koltuv, Ph.D. Jungian Analyst, author of “The Book of

Lilith” and “Amulets, Talismans & Magical Jewelry”. The Unicorn Messiah weaves an intricate, cryptic yet charming

tapestry of Sufi-style teaching stories, new age channelling, wicked spoofs and assorted esoterica. This book is soul food for anyone captivated with kabbalistic lore, astrology, Tarot, UFOs, or life in the Mideast, circa 1975, before the arrival of terrorism.

Dr. Carlos Warter, Founder of The World Health Foundation, author

of “Recovery of The Sacred & Pathway to the Soul”. Joseph-Mark Cohen is likely the “last of the troubabours” walking

among us. His Unicorn Messiah is a richly crafted epic, an extraordinary kabbalistic guide-book that offers 1001 “translations of the untranslatable”.

Samuel ben-Or Avital, founder of the “Centre du Silence”, author of

the “Invisible Stairway”. Deze eenhoorn Messias deelt zeldzame kabbalistische mysteries.

Yvonne Milinsky, Graphic Designer

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

4

Mια γλυκιά και μαγική ιστορία γεματη με σοφούς και διασκεδάζοντας

χαρακτήρες. Λαμβάνεστε στα μυθικά και εξωτικά εδάφη της θάλασσας

κατοίκων της Μεσογείου όπου θα ενώσετε το συγκρότημα όπως

περιπλανιούνται σε αναζήτηση της αγάπης, της αλήθειας και της χαράς!

Alexandra Karacostas, Professional Astrologer, Founder of OPA

François Truffault pourrait bien revenir comme un "walk-in" rien que pour faire de The Unicorn Messiah son dernier film!

Nathalie Amkraut, Feng Shui Healing

“ Se você for apaixonadopelos mistérios da Kabbala, da astrologia e do

poder da cura, ou tem curiosidade sobre o mundo dos sonhos e dos

segredos na sexualidade , você amara este romance repleto de viagens

pelo mundo e grandes aventuras."

- Joelle Maslaton Oster - JoelleMagazine.com

The Unicorn Messiah proves that prophetic voices are still coming out of

the wilderness (with a brilliant sense of humour tucked away in the

camel-bags.) This book is ancient/new storytelling at its finest, magical &

enchanting...

Mitchell J. Rabin, A Better World TV Host & Huffington Post Columnest

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

5

An Astrological Guide for the Cast of Characters

The Arians:

Jared: Our Irish wit, with eyes that dart about like swallows, angular Viking

cheekbones and a silver tongue as agile as a lizard’s. Mr. Jared is a wandering insult to the

prevailing dress code of whatever country you find him in. He is the consummate coyote

walking backwards, breaking into slow motion at the drop of a hat. His clothes are

invariably mismatched and likely to have been fished out of a flea market. He may appear

to be the resident court jester but one should never underestimate the intelligence lurking

in the provocative soul of Mr. Jared.

Jeremy: Vancouver’s beloved gastronomical gourmet, whose recipes appear weekly

along with cheeky reviews of ethnic eateries. Jeremy sports a modest paunch for someone

so devoted to the epicurean lifestyle. He was often in the public eye probing about the

markets in search of secret ingredients for his outrageous tapas and mezze extravaganzas.

Janev, who knew him well enough to know such things, maintained that her partner was

often the guest chef at Vancouver's Hollywood North cafe.

Rashelle: Speaks with a charming New England accent that disarms all those who

approach her. Rashelle has black, hypnotic eyes, and a lithe athletic body. Her deft hands

could crack a safe or pick a pocket of an innocent passer-by. She emanates mysterious

pheromones that have a powerful magnetic effect on Taureans in particular. Rashelle’s

dress code is upscale bohemian. She is the American businesswoman en vacance.

Margo: A gypsy emerging out of the jungle in her martial-arts outfit. She is a self

sustaining, blue-eyed, black-haired Scot with teeth as white as the moon. Margo is the

outdoors Aries woman as pioneer and adventurer. She takes herself lightly and wraps

herself in serapes, sweaters and shawls. She is known to break into Gaelic poetry or song

on festive occasions.

Sari: The laid-back hippie mother of Zohar. Sari most often wears Bedouin dresses

with reds and magentas stitched in geometrical patterns on a shiny black background that

matches her dark eyes. Sari is a strange One by Yossi’s Enneagram count. She is a leader

who has left her family of origin behind to live the bohemian life in Rosh Pinah. She has

theatrical gifts but is often silent, likely conjuring up some mischief in her wild Aries

imagination.

Antonio: Antonio Olivetti is a mercurial Italian documentary filmmaker who began

his cinematic explorations shortly after his career as a soccer player came to an abrupt end.

Antonio walks with a slight limp and takes his soccer ball with him wherever he goes. He

is a highly charismatic man with deep-set eyes that make him look like he is wearing

scuba-diving goggles. His love of foreign woman often proved to be his downfall.

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

6

The Taureans: Bilaami: The talking donkey who arrived in Rosh Pinah at the exact moment that

Yohannah was drinking the cup of the prophet Elijah at the Passover Seder of 1975 on Har

Tzion. The spirit of prophecy rested upon them both like the saddlebags of sexual duality

on two rare seers born out of the Primordial Unity of Pure Being. Yohannah pointed out to

her disciples that Bilaami seemed happiest when under the care of one naked Yeti.

Milton: An impeccably dressed member of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra who

had only two passions in life: perfecting his violin solos (known for their abrupt stops and

starts) and perfecting his meditation practice in Tibetan tantric Buddhism. Milton told

Yohannah that he was game to try anything once, even if he was a bachelor, a voyeur,

almost a virgin. Janev felt that listening to Milton play Genesis on the violin was more

ecstatic for her than tantric sex.

Yohannah: The androgyne with a page-boy look that keeps everyone she meets

guessing whether she is a boy dressed in girl’s clothing or a girl playing tomboy for the fun

of it. Yohannah’s signature is a wicked Luciferian chuckle that lets everyone know that she

has just seen into the mysterious workings of the universe and decoded the cosmic joke.

Yohannah often uses kohl to line her large blue-grey eyes, which radiate like laser beams

into the human heart or the starry night sky.

Yossi: A five-foot tall Moroccan man weighing no more than 111 pounds. He could

be mistaken for Avelino Gomez, the great Canadian racing jockey. Yossi had a career going

in the theatre before leaving to build a new life in upper Rosh Pinah. He is often seen

rolling a cigarette, sipping mint tea or contorting himself into a sphere like the biblical

prophets who practiced meditation after the fashion of Elijah. Yossi is an Eight by the

Enneagram personality map. He has a hybrid leadership style that falls somewhere

between Krishnamurti’s and Houdini’s.

Eliyahu: Another Moroccan with healing hands and the plaintive voice of a Berber.

He wears a white galabeya with silk stripes and only shaves on Friday afternoons. Whether

he likes it or not, Eli finds himself surrounded by children who enjoy tugging at his tzitzit. Eli is a sturdy-looking being who has studied aikido to keep away mischief, and to prevent

muggers and nudniks from attacking the holy ones of the Old City.

Jezebel (a.k.a. Salome): A serpentine dancer and mesmerizing performer at the 1975

Banyas Bellydance Festival. Salome uncorked a full bouquet of Taurean seductions and

sensualities to entrance the eyes and seduce the souls of all those were lucky enough to

witness her charismatic and shamanic Dance of the Seven Veils. Her ethnic origins remain

a mystery to this day.

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

7

The Geminians: Akiva (aka Akiva ben Zoma HaKatan): A secular Jew from Chattanooga Tennessee.

Akiva is a handsome young lad is his late twenties or early thirties who takes what comes

his way at the a la carte buffet. He sports a goatee and owns a vast collection of tacky

American vests, jeans, shorts, and t-shirts. He exudes cologne and aftershave, even in a

hundred-degree heat. He is known for his full belly, his pocket full of jingling coins, and

his eye for the exotic and erotic.

Pinhhus: Rosh Pinah’s feisty pot-bellied Polish painter with crooked teeth and an acid

tongue. Pinhhus marinates himself in the victim consciousness of a Holocaust survivor. He

is usually found in either aggressive mode attacking whoever might be standing nearby or

passive horizontal mode snoring away a hangover that resulted from a binge of self-pity.

His voice grates on everyone he meets, yet Pinhhus is reluctantly loved by his neighbours,

like a dog who hobbles around on three legs.

Alexander: An elegant, eighty-four year old Italian Catholic immigrant to Israel from

Manhattan. Alexander is in tip-top shape, meandering about the Galilee with his walking

stick and his satchel. He is six feet tall and could be mistaken for Joe DiMaggio if you were

looking at him from the bleachers. He often wears suspenders and carries a gold pocket-

watch, his prize catch from his spell as a refuse collector in Central Park.

Levanah (aka Hhashmalita): The companion and dancer to the magic flute of Daniel.

Levanah spent a year in India studying kathak dance and the art of snake charming. She

dresses in a vast array of saris and transparencies that enhance her wistful, delicate

features. Levanah’s signature is a silver moonstone that asterates from its permanent nest in

her belly-button.

Tamara: Levanah’s younger sister hides behind a waterfall of raven-black hair that

cascades over her nimble kama-sutra body. She was often mistaken for a Sri Lankan

goddess, even though she was one hundred percent Israeli. Tamara carries an Indian

satchel wherever she goes, filled with dates and figs and magical aphrodisiacs. She was

voted Tel Aviv’s most popular and photogenic yoga teacher in 1975.

Sunji: A mischievous gymnastic Gemini who arrived in Israel as a coach and trainer

on a film shoot. Sunji was recruited and obtained very highly paid work, courtesy of

Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. He was sent on assignment to the village of Rosh

Pinah to upgrade the self-defence capabilities of the mercenary Nimrod (aka Scarface).

Sunji chose to live a simple life as a cave dweller in Rosh Pinah when he was off duty. He

is very short, somewhat stocky and wears bizarre hats.

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

8

The Cancerians: Hhamdi: A well-known and well-liked Egyptian guide who specialized in Nile boat

tours that allow for lengthy shore leaves at temple sites. Hhamdi was the guide of choice

for independent, maverick tour groups visiting Egypt or for those interested in “the

mysteries” who required special permits to accomplish their goals. Hhamdi was a cagey and

often charismatic Cancerian with eyes that darted about like Horus hawks or falcons. He

had mastered the art of baksheesh for gaining access to crypts and temples that had been

temporarily closed for repairs. In his heart, he had a love-hate relationship with much of

his clientele.

Ivana: A Hungarian gypsy trained by the Jesuits to enjoy all the paradoxes that life

has to offer. Ivana is dressed in shawls and is dripping with amber. Her laugh is infectious.

She knows the imagery and myths of the New Testament inside and out. She offers an

iconographic slide show concerning Mary Magdalene’s visit to the south of France for

those who are interested but her pet project is an oracle deck she calls “The Lover’s Tarot.”

Mark promised her that should it fall out of print he would republish it in the year 2007.

Cherubim: A joyful, simple Coptic priest, Cherubim lives like a desert monk in his

meditation cell in downtown Jericho. He sees the world through the eyes of a child,

looking up in wonder at every chickpea, Egyptian lemon, or jasmine flower that falls into

his open palms. He is often surrounded by saints or icons of saints with full halos.

Hillel: A young Jewish Buddhist in his mid-twenties, Hillel arrived in Israel for a one-

year walkabout and found a messiah who offered transmissions and teachings to his liking.

Hillel is a shy, sensitive lad with soft brown eyes and a heart of gold. He is ready and

willing to learn from everyone, whether they be sober or drunk, wounded or healer,

androgynous celibate or Dionysian celebrant. Hillel’s physical signature is his lunar face,

his cherubic cheeks and his hairy hobbit-like feet.

Rahheli: A petite Israeli waif, Rahheli is willing to become the vessel for whatever

the spirit world might pour through her. She has a tenuous hold on the physical world and

prefers to allow the ruahh hakodesh (sacred spirit breath) and the Hebrew fire letters to

pass through her until she dissolves or becomes one with beings from another world.

Rahheli’s gift for surrender to the spirit world is seen in her mystical eyes and heard in her

musical voice.

Omphallisa: A belly-dancer of Egyptian and Greek origins, Omphallisa was the

founder of a school of dance in Alexandria that explored Egyptian temple dancing, Sufi

trance practices, and Gypsy folk theatre. Omphallisa has the ability to balance candelabra,

swords, coins, and lemons while she dances. In a moment of excitement that was out of

character for a shy Cancerian, Omphallisa asked the bold Akiva if he would like to become

her business manager.

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

9

The Leonines: Alexandra: Our Greek astrologer carries an air of authority about her, along with a

folio of charts that she has cast for her most famous clients. Alexandra’s eyes gaze into the

future and make even the most self-assured character feel somewhat naked. She likes to

wear leotards, mini-skirts, and bikinis which throw the men who gaze lustily at her off

balance. She also wears unique jewellery with large gemstones set in geometrical designs.

Christos: A poet and art dealer who inherited a family home on the island of Hydra in

the mid-sixties. Christos provides hospitality and lessons in Greek mythology for visitors to

the island who are concerned with such things. He holds the keys to the all the churches

and art galleries on the island. Christos projects an air of impish curiosity towards all the

émigré expatriates who have settled on Hydra. Sam claims that he looks like an image he

once saw on an ancient urn of Poseidon, surrounded by dolphins and mermaids.

Zayeed: An aristocratic Palestinian with hands like tree trunks and a heart as big as

the Mediterranean. Zayeed emanates a mysterious aura of silence and chi. One glance

from him can shatter the illusions of his clients or any meandering passerby on David

Street. Zayeed has an unbearable temper, which he keeps under control, thanks to his

martial-arts practice. He hates window shoppers.

Bat Nefsha: Leader of the Mideast Magi tribe and a linguist who speaks Hebrew,

Arabic, Farsi, Aramaic, Spanish and Italian. Bat Nefsha studied ballet as a child before

following in the footsteps of Gurdjieff to study the sacred Sufi dances of the Near East. Her

raison d’etre is to heal all the unresolved karmic squabbles on planet Earth by sharing her

Dances of Universal Peace. Bat Nefsha has a classic Semitic nose, raven-black hair, and the

unpredictable grace of an ancient camel. She is an old soul.

P’ninah: A petite painter, sculptor and theatrical set designer with a passion for fallen

angels. P’ninah travels frequently to both France and India to find inspiration for her art.

The semi-orthodox school of sacred geometry painters in Tzfat doesn’t know what to make

of P’ninah’s pantheon of small time gods and goddesses from alien cultures. Her publicity

photograph shows her precariously mounted on a large wooden statue of Ganesh, whom

she calls the guardian of her Garden of Eden.

Richard: A tall, mysterious and handsome figure from Los Angeles who was found

exploring the Giza plateau in 1975. He was on a reconnaissance mission for a film

concerning a holistic doctor who had a series of powerful revelations during an Egyptian

sojourn. Richard had managed to bribe his way into the King’s chamber of the Great

Pyramid for a night and enjoyed meditating at the very summit of the pyramid in his

attempt to attain “capstone consciousness.” Upon meeting Yohannah, Richard decided that

she was a much more interesting subject for his film than the holistic doctor.

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

10

The Virgoans:

Dr. Milo: A Hungarian Jewish merchant who settled in Cairo, Milo worked for some

years as an ethnomusicologist for the university, until he was thrown in jail in 1956. He

tells stories about the exploits of members of the twentieth century Kabbalah School that

flourished in Alexandria. His teahouse gallery in Jerusalem’s Old City is an oasis filled with

killims and classical music. Milo is a very large man with a shiny bald head and floppy

cheeks. Imagine a slender Semitic cousin of Alfred Hitchcock and you have a decent

resemblance of Dr. Milo. He speaks Hungarian, Arabic, Hebrew, English, and French.

Robert: An amateur astronomer whose family originated in France, Robert was

educated at Oxford University before deciding to hitchhike around the planet to

photograph and write about the archeological sites that had captured his imagination. He is

known for his ability to hold one fractal or shard from an ancient site and describe in detail

the civilization it represented. Robert wears a pair of binoculars as a necklace and sports a

handlebar moustache. There are at least a dozen pockets on each of his well-pressed shirts.

John: Robert’s sidekick wears thick John Lennon-style glasses and a safari hat to keep

the Egyptian sun from frying his brain. A raconteur and gourmandizer, John tends to find

his pet theories misrepresented in archeological journals and the tabloids. His passion for

sacred geometry keeps him stationed in the local coffee shops, where he writes reports for

a number of travel magazines and guide books. John had a near-death experience when he

almost drowned at the age of four. He claims that his total recall of an Atlantean lifetime

was triggered by that event.

Mr. A: A very well-known and beloved figure among the Let’s Go backpack set who

passed through the Jaffa Gate from shortly after the ’67 war until the early eighties. Mr. A.

is often seen caressing his own bald head. His curious eyes survey the scene as he shuffles

about with a shot glass of arak in his right hand. Mr. A. speaks primarily Armenian or

broken English that is understood across Europe and Asia. He has the large nose of a

disciplined alcoholic.

Ramona: A Marrano of Dutch and Spanish descent, Ramona was the most enigmatic

of Rosh Pinah immigrants, reclusive except when her husband Nimrod is away on one of

his periodic field trips. She is a master of herbology and a student of the martial arts.

Ramona was a touch shy by Rosh Pinah standards: she actually wore a two-piece bathing

suit on her rare visits to the mikvah. She was teased by her neighbours for her fair Dutch

complexion and curious Spanish birthmarks.

Marianne: A blond-haired, blue-eyed Nordic goddess who had bought an abandoned

windmill on the island of Hydra and renovated it in style. Marianne swam daily like a siren

in the Bay of Kimini in her electric-blue bikini. She had captured and taken in a number of

sailors and poets who fell hopelessly in love with her. Marianne had mastered the art of

reading the grounds at the bottom of the cup of Turkish or Greek coffee.

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

11

The Librans: Aviva: Wife of Yossi, mother of Pela and source for the deepest layers of gossip

minted in the summer of ’75 in Rosh Pinah. Aviva is full of milk and honey. She is always

nursing someone with her good humour, liberally laced with sardonic remarks that go to

the heart, chik-chak. Aviva is a touch plumper than she cares to admit. She is a graceful

Libran often found gazing into a cool Moroccan mirror. Given that Aviva had her moon in

mysterious Scorpio, she became the keeper of the sexual secrets of Rosh Pinah.

Geulah: Geulah’s mission in life was to guide those who were interested in all the

circuitous pathways that lead back to Gan Eden. Yossi claimed her magnetic field could

keep the keruveem from touching one another with their wingtips. Her Libran curiosity

had led her to a number of unique living arrangements on kibbutzim, moshavs, communes,

and communities of kindred spirits. Geulah and Yossi had attempted a polyamorous

relationship but good old-fashioned jealousy had scuttled their experiment. That happened

long before Geulah discovered her dolphin friend Ulli.

Meeka: The keeper of the major arcana of eighteen different tarot decks from around

the Mediterranean world. Meeka’s eyes are open to the etheric realms and soul histories

that envelop those who knock at her door. Meeka is Turkish, an earthy woman of the

world whose contract with “the guides” keeps her from considering marriage, Israeli style.

Nurit told Mark candidly that she thought Meeka was just as androgynous as Yohannah.

Mark: The first of a wave of west-coast hippies to make their migration to the upper

Galilee to crack the codes of the Kabbalah. Meeka examined Mark’s palm and discovered a

wandering Russian Jew, a cross between Tolstoy and Rasputin. Mark used to say that the

humans most deeply in search of balance were likely the Librans, born under the sign of

the zodiac most prone to falling out of balance. Nurit begged to differ, noting that his Tai

Chi practice would surely keep Rosh Pinah’s scorpions from stinging the Libran she most

adored.

Daniella: Graced with a full head of bronze henna-tinted hair and the voice of a

natural hypnotherapist, Daniella was the caretaker of the most beautiful garden in Ein

Kerem. She was born in Brussels and graduated from L'Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris, where

she was also a student of mime. She has a way of speaking without words using only her

fingertips, her hips and the glance of her eyes. Qiara fell in love with the collection of

fountains and pitchers that adorn her patio.

Yakov Kochavi: A psychedelic pioneer from the Berkeley scene in the sixties, Yakov

had made aliya to the mystical mountain village of Tzvat, put on his kippa and his tzittzit, and painted his portal to prosperity courtesy of the Californian tourists who came his way.

Yakov pretended to be a humble waiter in his studio gallery as he incanted his daily

mantra: ness or nanna? Yakov’s passion for and artist’s skill with sacred geometry had

earned him both respect and cash-flow. He fancied himself a visionary capable of guiding

neophytes into altered states of consciousness.

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

12

The Scorpions:

Avi (aka Gavi): Rosh Pinah’s reluctant keeper of the hive. Avi is a bit of a misfit; a

gingi red-haired Israeli with a thousand and one freckles strategically placed on the

landscape of his gawky, wiry body. Avi prided himself on being as the most provocative

and sexually oriented of Rosh Pinah’s Scorpio tribe, at least until the time of his self-

proclaimed near-death experience at the Banyas Belly Dance festival.

Tzipporah: A Scorpio who tortured the Scorpio in Avi. Tzippi is a mysterious, elusive,

seductive, migratory bird who disappears for weeks at a time. Avi feared that she had

succumbed to one of her addictions at the hermitage in the wadi run by Moussa. Troubled

by the faraway but satiated look in her eyes, Avi accused her of abandoning him for either

the brothel or the opium den.

Farkas: A holocaust survivor who wandered through Rosh Pinah at the most

awkward moments to disturb the peace and equanimity of its residents. Farkas was half

Israeli hobo and half Ashkenazi shtetl shmuck. He had a way of pushing people’s buttons

and stealing the things they were most attached to. Hillel maintained that Farkas did him a

favour by stealing his watch. That was before he had a dream that Farkas might one day

detonate an Egged bus.

Nimrod: Rosh Pinah’s resident martial artist, boar hunter, ex-mercenary, and

rumoured member of the Mossad. Nimrod had his own kind of charisma that had managed

to capture the devotion of the Virgo Ramona. Nimrod’s seven scars marked him as

someone destined to be the ultimate survivor. He travelled with his Uzi the way the British

carry a walking stick or an umbrella.

Tami: Ostensibly the keeper of the mikvah, Tami’s cavelike dwelling was next to the

little creek that fed it. Ramona liked to call Tami Shamanita as she was most often seen

giving or receiving a massage near the mikvah by day or smoking a joint on the steps of the

synagogue at night. Tami was known to disappear now and again from Rosh Pinah. Her

neighbours speculated that she was polyamorous and had lovers tucked away in Eilat, Tel

Aviv and Haifa.

Hatifa: A dark skinned Yemenite Israeli whom Avi referred to as Malka Sheva, the

Queen of Sheba. Hatifa was a silversmith by day and a singer and leader of folk dances by

night. Her father was a well-known kabbalist who had settled in the village of Ein Kerem.

Hatifa inherited her father’s mystical temperament but had managed to add her own

Scorpionic intensity and sensuality to create something new: a Jewish Sufi. Hatifa jingled

silver coins and radiated a gold light from her probing eyes. Myrrh served as her perfume.

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

13

The Sagittarians:

Ibrahim (aka Accent Circonflex): Ibrahim’s family came from Transjordan to settle on

the Mount of Olives before the birth of the state of Israel. Ibrahim opened up his shop on

El Wad Street near the Damascus Gate selling all manner of things Bedouin. He had a gift

for impersonating every tourist who passed by his little shop. He sported a Chaplinesque

moustache, a purple kefiyah, and an eternal supply of stylish British waistcoats. He was in

love with the Egyptian singer Oum Kal Soum and often sang her tunes to his clients.

Ibrahim the Egyptian: The gentle proprietor of an ancient Fiat taxicab and guide to

the sacred sites of Cairo. Ibrahim took great pride in his collection of cassettes and he

made sure that each of his guests would inscribe some memorable words in his journal for

him to share with his eleven children. Ibrahim had a most infectious smile which

displayed his eleven teeth, most of which were filled with gold. He was a saint among taxi

drivers.

Reb Moshe: The leader of the Sinai vision quest and guest cantor for most of the great

Shabbat potluck dinners of upper Rosh Pinah. Reb Moshe is a good-natured, generous,

Jupiterian, Sagittarian pundit and guru with a gift for bringing all those around him a little

closer to their authentic self or at least offering them the chance to behold their very own

shadow. Nurit pointed out to Mark that Reb Moshe was the only one who truly

acknowledged the spark of moshiahh within Yohannah. He was one of the first of the

ecumenical Rainbow Rabbis to appear in Israel.

Dhyana: Janev’s dear friend and channel of the high priestess Aset, better known as

Isis. Dhyana is a wise Welsh bard with flaming red hair. She is able to read palms, coffee

grinds, the iris of the eye, the auric field and, of course, tarot cards. She takes great delight

in showing her clients all that appears in their rear-view mirror, treating what she sees

there as the seed or kernel of what is to come. Dhyana makes her living as a vibrational

healer and energy worker. Her soul readings served as either appetizers or dessert for her

clients.

Uncle Moustache: The proud owner of an impeccably well-preserved Peugeot station

wagon suitable for ascending and descending the hills of Galilee. Uncle Moustache’s given

name was Moussa bin Yusaf. His family migrated from Fez, Morocco to the mystic

mountain village of Tzvat in Northern Israel, on a magic carpet, according to his own

report. His golden-yellow teeth and handlebar moustache were photographed often by

Akiva, who tipped him handsomely with coins and colognes.

Shlomo: One of the eight members of Yossi’s Ancient and New Ancestor Circle. Reb

Moshe had appointed Shlomo as a cherub and cantor for chanting the Zohar one night

near the entrance to Mount Sinai. Shlomo was a gifted cook, bodyworker, musician, and

gardener. He was a direct descendant of Adam Kadmon in the mythological mind of Yossi.

Shlomo taught the s’fat autiot, the letter dance that took possession of his friend Rahheli.

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

14

The Capricorns:

Qiara: A tomboy who looks like an altar boy, or perhaps an Italian peasant who has

become at one with her garden. Qiara is a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl who likes to busy

herself with mundane tasks left undone by her neighbours. If she spends too much time

lost in esoterica or scriptural mythology, she tends to get edgy and confused. Qiara is a true

Capricorn; she prefers to act first and think about it later. She has a knack for making

others feel guilty.

Moussa: Certainly the most handsome of the men living in or near Rosh Pinah.

Moussa is half Turkish dervish and half Spanish troubadour. His self-reliance and tenacity

are balanced by his nurturing side: he gives great massages. Moussa takes frequent

journeys to the Negev desert and he religiously journeys within himself under the

influence of his stash of Bakka valley hash and other rare entheogens. He operates a

foreign exchange service offering low interest loans to those Israelis who have outgrown

their local culture or customs and decided to go hhutz l’aaretz.

Yeti: The mother of a funny-looking child named Lufa. Yeti was the proprietress of a

growing loofa sponge business. Her home resembled some kind of Israeli pawnshop; she

had a habit of borrowing whatever and whenever she could from her neighbours and

seldom returned the items. Yeti was the local Rosh Pinah nudist, for which Pinhhus was

eternally grateful. He once painted a vision of Yeti with breasts hanging like a cluster of

ripe grapes from her heart-vine.

Arik: The local Russian spoonbender, jeweller and designer of an unusual

psychotronic ark of the covenant. Arik had a husky and gruff look about him. Even if he

failed to bend metal with his mind, he was certainly capable of bending it with his bare

hands. The deep melancholy at his core was birthed by several unrequited relationships

with women who sensed danger in his auric field. Arik used this as a form of space-age

rocket fuel or a renewable energy to fund his experiments with vortex technology.

Yaqub: Yossi's most devoted fourth way student and an elder in his Ancestor Circle

group. Yaqub's devotion to his beloved Rahheli was what made him tick. Yaqub was like a

bodyguard to the delicate Rahheli: protective, nurturing, jealous, and stubborn as a

mountain goat. Yossi hinted to his circle that Yaqub’s attachments were standing in his

way like Bilaami with saddlebags, stubborn impediments on his path to enlightenment.

Jabrane: An old friend of Mr. A.’s who owned his own Mercedes taxi and spoke all the

languages and dialects of earthlings created after the great earthquake tumbled the Tower

of Bavel. Jabrane’s powerful constitution made him an indefatigable driver, bodyguard,

mountain-climber, and guide to the earth mysteries of the Holy Land for whoever

commissioned his services. His business card read: Jerusalem-Jericho-Qumran-Amman-

Petra: Very Safe Shuttle with Jabrane Pasha.

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

15

The Aquarians:

Janev: Five-foot-three, a sexy, cheeky, mischievous stick of dynamite, loved by

everyone. Janev took her work seriously: that is, the task of scouting out new recipes for

the book she had convinced Jeremy that he needed to write. Jared and Yohannah both felt

that she was a perfect match for Mr. A, who gave her a secret bottle of arak and refunded

her rent as his way of supporting the Armenian cookbook project. The real reason Janev

considered leaving Israel, according to Mr. A, was that she had gained fifteen ungainly

pounds during her stay there.

Sam: A renaissance man, the quintessential, urbane, upper West Side New York

émigré. Sam was the keeper of the best liquor cabinet on the island of Hydra, and

according to the report of his friend Christos, he was the best chef on the island as well.

His humble studio radiated a magnetic field offering a cultural oasis for guest archeologists,

anthropologists, artists, and mystics who had made the Mediterranean world their base of

operations.

Sarah: A young woman in her mid-twenties who, when she takes off her glasses,

resembled Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Sarah is doing the best she can to let go of her orthodox

Jewish childhood with all its rules and laws, mitzvot and misheggas. When her maternal

duties are complete for the day, Sarah lets her hair down and begins to feel at home with

whatever nocturnal adventures her partner, her Piscean neighbour or Bilaami have

managed to conjure up for her.

Daniel: A troubadour from Toulouse in the south of France. Daniel told his

neighbours in Rosh Pinah that he had been training to be an astronomer at the

aeronautical and space centre there when he had a series of dreams in Hebrew that guided

him to make aliyah. His mastery of the flute and detached irreverent Aquarian bedside

manner inspired Levanah to fall in love with him. Daniel had the toned body of a modern

dancer topped by a pilaf of tangled, curly brown hair.

Damo: A double-jointed shape-shifter who has the power to transform herself into a

crane, a siren, a Sybil, a swan, or even the Sphinx. Damo is a true amphibian equally at

home atop Mount Olympus or swimming in the sea caves of Crete. Mark told Nurit that he

had never met an empath like Damo, who had the fire of prophecy burning in both heart

and mind. She is remembered by everyone who meets her as the Greek goddess with wild

medusa-like hair breaking in waves over her bosom.

Hakeem: The keeper of the Giza Plateau. Hakeem came from a family of Bedouin who

knew all the secret entrances and exits to the tunnels and tombs that surround the Great

Pyramid. Hakeem shared photographs with Mark of a number of celebrities whom he had

guided around Giza, including Jimmy Carter, Meher Baba and Jerry Garcia. Hakeem is a

giant among Egyptians; he has five different solar smiles like Ra, two wives and eleven

children. When he is not guiding guests about Giza, Hakeem can be found playing with

children or smoking his hubble-bubble waterpipe not far from the Sphinx.

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

16

The Pisceans:

Delilah: The catalyst for the great experiment that put Yohannah on the road to Rosh

Pinah. “Delilah is the door of darkness, the void each of us must enter one day, the

wormhole at the core of the galaxy, a total eclipse of the sun, a gigantic solar flare, and a

daughter of Lilith (who knew Adam before he was planted in the Garden of Eden).” She

was all this and more in the mind of Yohannah. Delilah was a re-incarnated Aztec priest

cum contemporary psychotherapist. Yohannah called her “a dark queen from Orion” who

specialized in planetary rites of passage.

Derekh (aka Darhhai Noam): Derekh speaks biblical Hebrew with a British accent and

Shakespearian English with Israeli speech rhythms and inflections. A scholar,

contemplative, poet and philosopher, his excursions into the world of mysticism have

resulted in a number of wounds and accumulated psychic scar tissue from astral battles he

adamantly refused to talk about. It was evident to Hillel and Akiva that Derekh’s

wheelchair was the vehicle for his disciplined imagination, propelling his merkavah

chariot into dangerous waters and the uncharted dimensions of consciousness.

Talya: A successful actress, masseuse and hash dealer, Talya left Amsterdam to live the

quiet life in Rosh Pinah where she added homeopathy to her array of skills. Talya is a

dreamer and recluse who fears that she might disappear inside herself unless she begins to

participate more deeply in the life of the village. She points to Nurit’s verbally abusive

relationship with Pinhhus to explain why she avoids men. She considers her life to be a

series of fascinating alchemical experiments.

Batsheva: Talya’s wild half-sister who sees and speaks with beings that live in other

worlds. Batsheva left her position as lead dancer in the Bat Dor dance company shortly

after the ’67 war when she lost her partner Daveed. She travelled to Turkey to spin with

the dervishes and a year later went to Indonesia to let her soul fly with the spirits during

latihan with the Subud mystics. When Batsheva was neither spinning nor in trance she

used her sexual exploits as an aphrodisiac for her soul.

Nurit: As spicy a Pisces as you could find, Nurit swims like a mermaid and her kisses

taste like wine. There is a touch of the cave woman about her; her face is decidedly Dutch

Neanderthal and she has the mouth of a rare fish found not far from Sharm El Sheikh. She

seldom had a shekel to her name and declared that the relationships she wove into her life

were her way of paying off debts she owed from other more adventurous lifetimes. Nurit

hosted at least four sub-personalities: possessive Jewish mother of her boy Uri, muse to her

alcoholic husband Pinhhus, Dutch-speaking neighbour and spy for the prophetess

Yohannah, and poetess-lover whispering gossip and dreams to her scribe in the wadi.

Latifa: A Jewish Berber nomad who used her belly-dance rhythms as a passport to

Persia and beyond. Latifa was a petite, bronze-skinned green-eyed Fish, swimming in the

mystical waters of Northern Israel. She had hesitantly left her anthropology career to

follow the bold Bat Nefsha in her bid to bring peace to the Holy Land through hypnotic

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

17

16.

Who has one voice & four feet in the morning two at noon three feet in the evening? Is this Tefnut Aset? Asnat? Miriam at the mikvah? or poker-faced Ra-Harmakhis? Staring down Shemesh Hhor-m-ahhet one ear missing now Hu one ear listening For the play of pulsars pole-stars gamma-rays ghosts in the grand gallery Cairo Traffic. The call to prayer, Song of Akeru aku: the first ehiyeh echoing Adam El Aha Whisperings from Ha’olam. What secrets lie hidden in Saharah sand? Starship Asar? The boat of Ra?

Come dream with us between the paws of the Sphynx Scan the records Touch etheric pillars carved out by sound balance the hemispheres Pass your hands over Autiot Ha’Kodesh fire letters inscribed On star tablets watch Vela X flare up like a second sun in the sky Supernova remnant ot the tribe of Benyamin astronomer-preist of On Come feel vibrations dispatched in the star-quake of 69

(From : Aleph 2160, A Zodiac Oracle)

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

18

eaving Mount Sinai was not as easy as Mark had imagined. Damo’s driver with

the Mercedes was a no show. She was incensed. “Give me a stubborn Greek

donkey or a lazy Egyptian camel any day. Hamid probably fished up some

Scandinavian scuba divers in Sharm who were willing to pay three times our

price.” Alexandra mentioned she had learned that Hamid had two wives and eight

children to feed, so how could they blame him. That seemed to settle Damo

down. Akiva did the chivalrous thing by offering to go to the tourist village

reception to track down alternate transportation. He returned to the gate outside

the monastery an hour later in an ancient Peugeot, with Ibrahim at the wheel. It

was a tight fit getting all the gear tied to the roof.

Ibrahim pleaded gently with Akiva, “You can rest, let me handle it.”

Akiva took photos of the seven tries it took to get it all tied down, but

Ibrahim was evidently a patient man and never once did he swear at his ancient

Peugeot.

Mark took the opportunity that morning to catch up with Damo who had

decided to winter in Cyprus in a little villa not far from her friend Theophanos.

Mark almost envied her, her sweet village life on Cyprus. He asked about

Daskalos. The big stir that winter had to do with one of Daskalos’s researchers-of-

truth who was given a green light to write a book about his teachings. Mark felt

that it would be a very good book and he mentioned to Damo, candidly, that he

was hoping to do the same thing one-day around the teachings of their fellow

traveler, Miss Yohannah. Mark did his best, in the time it took Akiva to find

Ibrahim, to fill Damo in on what had transpired in the six months since they had

last seen one another. It was impossible. Damo did enjoy what she heard of the

Passover Seder, the Jericho retreat, the garden of Mary Magdalene and the recent

vision quest with Reb Moshe. She had known all along that the gods and

goddesses had arranged an exchange: she was destined to bring him and Sarah to

Daskalos; he was destined to introduce her to Yohannah. Mark had wanted to

connect her to Rahheli as well so that she could experience the dance of the

letters. Unfortunately, Rahheli was busy that morning working out some

relationship dynamics with her partner Yakub.

Once the last of a few rounds of good-byes was over, the packed Peugeot

with six passengers (counting Ibrahim as a passenger as well as a driver) began its

full day journey to Cairo. Mark felt like he was on a ferry once again that

connected Mediterranean ports. Alexandra was an Athenian, originally from

Samos, who had friends on the island of Hydra where Sam lived among all the ex-

patriot poets and painters. Damo now had a kind of duel citizenship between the

L

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

19

islands of Lesvos and Cyprus. Akiva was certainly a citizen of the planet at large,

but somehow represented Tel Aviv or Yaffo in Mark’s mind. Ibrahim told them

that his family came from Alexandria where Alexandra was bound to live one

day.

“So what port or portal am I the guardian of in your budding cosmology?”

Yohannah inquired without really expecting a reply.

“On, the Egyptian Heliopolis,” Mark stated matter-of-factly.

“By your own report, you are Dutch, born from the tribe of Benyamin?”

Yohannah nodded. “Benyamin was initially called Ben Oni, son of my power,

by his father Ya’akov before his name was changed to Binyamin, son of my right

hand. So, Ben Oni was a child of On where the priests lived and made their

journeys to the realm of the imperishable stars. You like to go star-walking, do

you not? I bet you were visiting your friends in the Milky Way all last night, from

Sirius at one end to Lyra at the other.”

Yohannah smiled. “A scribe you’re not, but as a detective in the tradition of

Inspector Clouseau, you have great potential. I gather you’ve had a chance to

browse through that Egyptian guidebook that Mister Jared, friend of the

starwalker Enoch, gave you at the airport before he departed for Dublin.”

“You bet” was Mark’s reply.

It is possible to learn many things about your fellow traveling companions

during the course of a twelve-hour journey by taxi through the desert. Mark

learned that their impish and charming driver Ibrahim was the father of eleven

children and that he had many dental problems. Ibrahim liked to smile at his

passengers often and display the eleven teeth that were left in his mouth. Damo

discovered that Yohannah was much more fun and easygoing to be with on a

daily basis than her beloved Daskalos. However, Yohannah was unpredictable

and tended to poke and prod when she least expected it. Alexandra found out that

that the prophetess was a Taurus born on May 3rd. She discovered that Mark was

an astrologer like her, but there were some serious bones of contention between

her astrology rooted in the pantheon at Olympus and Mark’s version associated

with the spheres of the kabbalistic Tree-of-Life. Alexandra knew that “gematria” was a Greek word that referred to a kind of number mysticism that Pythagoras

had explored. But the use of it in astrology with harmonics, quintiles, septiles,

noviles and the lot were “Hebrew” to her. She was interested in casting a chart

for the day that Yohannah expected to disappear from the earth plane: September

26th, 1975. Akiva learned that there was more happening inside the mind of a

Greek woman than he ever imagined. He immediately applied a primary

Pythagorean principle to long segments of the journey: “silence is golden.”

Yohannah discovered that the Red Sea wasn’t red at all. It was blue like most seas

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

20

she knew. She learned that the isthmus or the tzar, the narrow road that the

Hebrew people and the mixed multitude had crossed to get to the Sinai, had long

since closed up. But when she went for a swim in the Red Sea or the Sea of Reeds,

she swore that she could hear the voices of the Egyptians who had drowned,

when the sea which had parted for the Hebrews, engulfed them. Ibrahim

discovered that he had the good fortune to have found a group of new friends

who really knew very little about the country he was taking them to. That

pleased Ibrahim to no end.

Yohannah sensed that their chauffeur was the quiet kind of guide who

would become a great treasury of wisdom and esoterica, but only if he was asked

the right questions at the right time. She asked him where he would take her

friends if they only had five days to explore in the environs of Cairo.

Ibrahim contemplated the assignment, massaged his bald head three or four

times and replied, “Well first I must take you to Saqqara. It is the temple of

healing and your group seems to have some kind of interest in healing, yes? Your

friend Akiva, he has enough baksheesh to buy you some private time between the

paws of the Sphinx. You will enjoy that, I am sure. Old Cairo is a must for the

Coptic churches, the synagogue and the mosque. And no one ever leaves Cairo

without placing their traveler’s checks on the altar at the Khan-El-Kalili. The two

places I could take you that not many find are the monastery of Macarius in wadi

Natrun on the desert road and a church at Mattaria where Mary, Jesus’s mother, is

appearing to those who can see her. Of course, I have a friend, Hakeem, who can

help you get into the pyramid in the middle of the night when no one is looking.

Excuse me, Miss Yohannah, why only five days? Egypt is a fascinating country.

We have feluccas and cruises on the Nile from Aswan to Abydos. I can take you

home to my family in Alexandria. Who knows you just might find the lost

library. Your friend Akiva made me promise to take you to as many belly dance

performances as we can find. Five days is nothing. It will pass, as the Israelis say,

‘chik chak’.”

Yohannah gave Ibrahim a loving caress to his bald head, “Ibrahim, you will

be our guide.”

Ibrahim was the only one awake for the last three hours of the drive into

Cairo. As his little Peugeot made its way towards the Giza village, one by one his

passengers awoke to the jazz cacophony emanating from the Cairo traffic. Damo

had asked him to take them all to the Mena House Hotel where her friend

Theophanos had reserved a double room for a few nights on her behalf. Prophets

have been known to go thoroughly mad when they return from the desert to

civilization. Going from Mount Sinai to the metropolis of Cairo was quite the

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

21

shock for Ibrahim’s passengers. When they arrived at the hotel, Damo took

charge of the proceedings, got keys for the room, and gave Ibrahim the hug of his

life. Yohannah asked him to come fetch them after breakfast for a day trip the

next day to Saqqara. The hotel room had a balcony with what the bellhop called a

“pyramid view.” Yohannah was delighted and claimed the balcony for her

sleeping accommodations. That still left four ragged minor prophets to figure out

how to share two double beds. Once Yohannah was out of the way, the great

mystery was who would sleep with whom, in what bed. Damo cut the ice by

asking who in the room would like to sleep with her. There was no lack of

interest among her friends. She made her decision the Aquarian way, by

divination. Mark picked number seven and had the good fortune to sleep that

night in the bed with Damo. Akiva and Alexandra went for a long walk,

ostensibly to check out the restaurant situation and marvel at the architecture,

the woodwork and the magnificent chandeliers of the Mena House. Yohannah

jumped over the ground floor balcony that night and took a stroll by moonlight

right to the Great Pyramid. She took note of a few adventurers, riding beautiful

Arabian horses through the nearby desert before returning back to her balcony

for a night of lucid dreaming.

The tribe awoke early enough the next morning to unpack, shower, catch a

hearty buffet breakfast and prepare for their day trip to Saqqara. Ibrahim had

been waiting for them patiently for at least an hour. The ride to Saqqara was

magnificent. Akiva shot a whole role of photographs of polluted canals, water

buffalo, goats, water wheels, carpet shops, smiling Egyptian children and fertile

fields en route to Saqqara. Ibrahim made one stop for them at a site he said was

older than Saqqara itself. He took them into a field of large stone sculptures of the

Egyptian goddess Hathor.

Akiva freaked. “It’s her!”

“Her who?” asked Alexandra.

“The goddess with cow ears that I dreamt about that first night in Sinai. This

is the one that appeared out of the fire instead of the golden calf.”

Yohannah did what she could to calm a somewhat hysterical Akiva down.

She explained that Hathor was a goddess in Egypt who was revered with dance,

music and objects of beauty.

“The jewelry that the Egyptians gave to the Hebrews when they left was

most likely the property of the goddess Hathor. When Aharon had all the gold

melted down, it just went back to its original owner.”

Everyone laughed at Yohannah’s wild theory, except Akiva.

Ibrahim smiled and spoke with conviction, “This is something our

Egyptologists really should consider.”

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

22

Ibrahim handled all the entrance passes and paperwork required at Saqqara.

He told the group to take as long as they wanted. He would be waiting at the

entrance for them. He apologized to them, saying that he would like to

accompany them but he was not a government approved guide and it was illegal

for him to do so. Saqqara was reasonably deserted that day except for one

talkative French tour group. Yohannah caught a little of their tour guide’s rap and

combined with Mark’s guide book, plus Damo’s oracular radar, they had all the

resources they needed to explore the ancient healing academy of Saqqara. Saqqara

was the home of the legendary Imhotep who was revered as Sage, Architect, High

Priest, Astronomer and Doctor. Damo reported that Imhotep and the Greek

founder of medicine Asclepius were one and the same.

At the entrance to Saqqara, there was a series of pylons in clusters of two and

four that everyone had to walk through before entering the central courtyard.

There were forty-two columns in the colonnade, thought to represent the

provinces of Egypt. The columns had been reconstructed painstakingly from bits

and pieces found buried in the sand by a French archeologist who was devoting

his life to this work. Damo did a quick count of the pylons and counted twenty-

two pair with some kind of break between the eleventh and the twelfth pair. She

intuited that the pillars were guardians. She claimed she could clairaudiently

hear the voices of each of the major arcana from the tarot. Then Damo moved

through them as a dancer sensing energies with the palms of her hands. At the

sixteenth pair of columns, she began to shake quite dramatically. Mark caught up

with her to see what was happening. Damo had fallen into some kind of trance,

which she came out of quickly after Mark threw water on her face. Everyone

from the group tried out Damo’s energy experiment between the columns,

including Yohannah. When they arrived in the courtyard, the consensus was that

the experience was one of balance, with the exception of the sixteenth column.

Mark suggested that if the pillars represented tarot initiations, the sixteenth

would have been The Lightning Struck Tower. He encouraged his friends, given

that they were entering a healing temple, to focus on the lover’s card or perhaps

“Temperance” instead.

The group walked slowly in a kind of procession led by Damo toward the

Step Pyramid of Zoser. As they approached the pyramid, a young British man,

named John, introduced himself and asked if he might join their group for a bit.

“Be our guest, better we should be a six rather than a five.”

She introduced John to her friends. John explained that he was writing a

book on the pyramid texts and asked Yohannah if they would like to join him for

a visit to the pyramid of Unas. He explained that Unas was a king who reigned

from 2356 to 2323 B.C. At the mortuary temple before entrance to the tomb

itself, John pointed out the lion headed neter Sekhmet (sculpted in basalt), the

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

23

goddess of death in her aspect of consuming fire, the destructive aspect of

femininity often connected to mortuary temples. Damo gently corrected John,

proposing her idea that the trinity of the Ptah-Sekhmet-Nefertum represented

anabolic-catabolic-metabolic energies at work in the universe. John gave a

knowing look to Damo as he lead them down a passageway, through an

antechamber, past three huge granite slabs into the burial chamber of Unas, with

every inch of the wall inscribed with hieroglyphs. He explained that the glyphs

were cryptograms that later became known as the Egyptian Book of the Dead. He

mentioned that the book (which really was not a book) should really be called

“The Book of the Coming Forth by Day” or “The Book of What is in the

Underworld” or “The Book of Gates.” Both Yohannah and Damo had begun to

scan the glyphs with their hands. Mark tested the acoustics of the chamber,

which startled John. Akiva and Alexandra began to climb into the empty tomb

but Yohannah stopped them with one hand gesture that let them know it was not

their time. Yohannah asked the group to meditate with her for a moment. She

whispered that if they were willing, she would guide them, like Unas, to the

realm of the imperishable stars.

The group emerged from the Tomb of Unas into the heat of the sun. John

asked if they would like to join him at a special spot he had discovered behind the

step pyramid called the Sokar mound. He felt it was the most ancient energy

available at Saqqara. He mentioned that no one had yet found the tomb of

Imhotep at Saqqara, although every archeologist worth his salt knew that it was

there. He asked his friends to attune to the energies of the earth and all that was

stored beneath the Sokar mound. After about five minutes of meditation, Damo

began to speak in a language that was foreign to them all. She spoke for no more

than a few minutes but the power of her words shook each of them to the core.

John experienced unexpected tears of joy. He told Yohannah that Imhotep

himself had spoken to them through the vehicle of Damo.

John mentioned that he was staying at the Mena House for a few days and he

hoped they could connect in another day or two. Damo disappeared for about an

hour as everyone made their way back to the entrance where Ibrahim was

waiting for them with refreshments.

“You look like a mummy who has come out from the underworld, Miss

Damo.” She smiled at Ibrahim, caressed his bald head the way Yohannah had

done the day before and received a gift from him, a little circular ceramic disc

with a cross and four dots on it that he had found in the sand that afternoon.

“This is for you, Miss Damo, a gift to remember your friend, Ibrahim.

”Damo held it tightly as she read her translation of the Pyramid Texts en

route back to the hotel:

F r o m S i n a i t o S a q q a r a

. . . . . . . . . .

24

Atum, this, thy son is here, Osiris, whom thou has preserved alive-he lives!

He is not dead, this Unas is not dead: he is not gone down, this Unas is not gone

down. He has not been judged, this Unas has not been judged…

The Father of Unas, Atum, seizes the arm of Unas and assigns Unas to…the circumpolar stars. Thou art to purify yourself with cool water of the circumpolar stars.

Thou hast become being, thou hast become high Thou hast become Spirit! Cool it is for thee in the embrace of thy father, in

the embrace of Atum. O Unas, thou art not gone dead

Thou art gone alive to sit on the throne of Osiris.

Utterance 219, 269, 214, 213 from: “The Pyramid of Unas”

By Alexandre Piankoff.

T h e U n i c o r n M e s s i a h

. . . . . . . . . .

25

16.2 A Camel Ride to Atlantis

t was late afternoon by the time Ibrahim dropped his weather-beaten tour

group at the doorstep of the Mena House. Yohannah felt that an afternoon nap

might do everyone the world of good.

“Who knows what might surface in the dream state?” she mused with a

clairvoyant twinkle in her eyes.

So each member of the Saqqara expedition fell into a coma that afternoon,

with the exception of Akiva, who had decided it was time for him to dive into the

Mena House swimming pool. Akiva enjoyed something like four hours of iced

karkedi, tahhina and pita, Egyptian pastries and conversations with beautiful,

exotic women from around the Mediterranean world. He was having a grand

Gemini time of it, practicing the Arabic he had picked up from Ibrahim, his guide

to “shopping, sightseeing and eating out.” Akiva had learned how to say aiwa, shukran, dayyet tariki, baksheesh, mumkin, and mishmumkin, by the time his

friends had arisen and made it to the pool. The afternoon dreams were just as

deep and as lucid as Yohannah had predicted. Mark reported a conversation he

had with Ptah himself about the science of acoustics. He returned from his

dreaming with the feeling that kabbalah had been taught in Saqqara. Mark told

Alexandra he planned to write his friend Ivana when he returned to Rosh Pinah;

he had an idea for creating a deck of cards called “The Tarot of Saqqara.”

Alexandra shared fragments from her dream that had taken her to both Saqqara

and the Asklepion in Greece. She described a strange place where she had seen

mummified bulls from the age of Taurus. Damo let her know that the place

existed, but there just wasn’t time to visit it that day.

Damo humbly confessed to her friends that the experience on the Sokar

mound with Imhotep was the deepest channeling that had ever come through

her. She wanted to know what it was that had come through her. Yohannah let

her know that her companions had very little cognitive understanding of the

ancient Egyptian dialect she was speaking, but the healing vibrations that

emanated from her heart as she spoke were very powerful. Damo related her

dream that afternoon of being taken aboard an extraterrestrial space ship. She

painted a picture of what Mark sketched as a fountain at the core of the ship that

converted the energy of hydrogen into fuel for the craft.

Yohannah’s dream put her in touch with a number of healing modalities that

she assumed were part of the curriculum at Saqqara. She claimed that Imhotep

had taken her on a ceremonial voyage that incorporated essential oils, vibrational

elixirs stored in coloured glass bottles, sonic frequencies that modulated her

brainwaves and a vril staff like the one Moses is reported to have used for crossing

I

A C a m e l R i d e t o A t l a n t i s

. . . . . . . . . .

26

the Red Sea. Akiva didn’t have any dreams to share that afternoon but he was a

good listener.

The day was beginning to cool off and Damo invited her friends to an early

dinner at the Felfella near the hotel. Yohannah led a stroll to enjoy sunset near

the pyramids before catching a taxi to the restaurant. Damo took them to a place

called the “Sun Boat” where they watched Ra set in the west over Libya before

falling into the underworld for his nightly round in the duat. Ibrahim found them on the way back from the great pyramid and took them

to the Felfella restaurant where he joined them for dinner. There was live music

and a great spread of appetizers, but no belly dancer that night. Akiva was

heartbroken. Alexandra recommended they might still catch the sound and light

show. She had a new friend, Jamil, who owned a perfume bazaar at the entrance

to Nazlat-el-Samman, with a perfect view of the Sphinx. Jamil’s youngest

daughter met them at the door and happily escorted them to the roof where they

found an international gathering of esoteric types mingling and excited to catch

the show in both its French and English versions. John was taking photos for

friends with his British traveling companion, Robert. He said dryly that the show

conjured up the ghost of Cecil B. Demille more than the ghost of Cheops.

Jamil welcomed his visitors from Greece, Israel and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The light show projected upon the sphinx and the great pyramid was majestic,

even if the soundtrack was orthodox egyptologically ‘tacky’ according to John.

“Who knows who this Sphinx really is?”

Robert’s query precipitated a great debate as to whether the sphinx was a he

or a she. John was convinced that her profile was not the face of Chephron.

Yohannah surprised them all by suggesting that she was the goddess Tefnut

awaiting friends from her home galaxy to arrive on Spaceship Earth. Jamil took

them down to his shop for mint tea and samples of his perfume oils. Damo asked

for one called oud; the oud Jamil brought her was not the real oud that Damo was

looking for.

“Malesh” said Jamil as an idea passed through him, “How would you like to

take a camel ride tonight by moonlight to Atlantis?”

It was an invitation that no one dare refuse.

Jamil went to the nearby stable with his moonlight camel tribe, and secured

as many camels as were available that night. It was necessary to double up on two

of them. Bed companions were instantly transformed into camel mates. Alexandra

hung on tight to her Tennessee cowboy and Mark hung on for his life to his wild

Greek goddess, Damo, for fear that she would fall into trance once again. Jamil

confessed he was allergic to camels himself and came by horseback. Yohannah

A C a m e l R i d e t o A t l a n t i s

. . . . . . . . . .

27

decided to join him, on his horse. Jamil took it as a compliment. John and Robert

each had their own camel and filled the group in on the significance of the solar

cross.

John pulled a battered map out of his shirt pocket, waved it in the moonlight

and explained, “A man named Rocky was the first we know of to discover the

site. He meticulously mapped out the Giza plateau to find, to his amazement, that

the pyramids all lined up along a Fibonacci spiral that has its epicentre in the

desert a mile or two from the great pyramid. There is a shaft that goes down into

the depths of the earth at the epicentre. You will see it when we get there. There

has been much speculation about the alignment of the pyramids on the spiral.

Robert feels that the pyramids make a picture from deep space that would show

visiting aliens the position of planets in our solar system at the time of the

Zeptepi.”

An unsteady Robert loosened his hold on a finicky camel and managed to

catch his hat just before it fell off.

“I’m looking for some seed money for a film that will require high level

animation to pull it off. I’m going to need a team composed of the best psychic

archeologists on the planet. The first half of the film takes place on a space station

or a mother ship with a group of beings from Vega or Ma’at who have returned to

free some of their friends who got left behind after an accident many thousands of

years ago. The placement of the pyramids on the plateau is the access code for

finding their friends. The animation part of the film works like a zoom lens to

open up the records of a lost civilization that exists intact spreading out for two or

three square miles underneath the Giza plateau. I had my first glimpse of this

civilization during a meditation at the solar cross three years ago. If you see

anything interesting on your inner vision screen, do let me know. It’s worth a

dinner at the Indian restaurant in the Mena House or an evening of belly dance in

the heart of Cairo.”

Akiva let Robert know that he planned to take him up on that evening of

belly dancing. He promised to introduce him to his favourite cousin in England

who just happened to be a crack animator.

“Funding shouldn’t be a problem for a project like this,” Akiva mused, oozing

self-confidence.

Robert acknowledged Akiva’s offers with a tip of his cowboy hat. Jamil was

the first to arrive at the sinkhole, which was only visible from a sand dune above

it. Yohannah beat him to the site, as Jamil had to tie up his horse by putting its

lead rope securely underneath a pile of rocks. Yohannah was peering down the

sinkhole as the group arrived. Once they were all there and before Jamil or John

or Robert could say a word, Yohannah threw a stone down the sinkhole.

Everyone listened intently, but no one ever hears it land.

A C a m e l R i d e t o A t l a n t i s

. . . . . . . . . .

28

Akiva made a go at Robert’s prize for psychic acuity. “I can tell you exactly

where that rock is landing: Antarctica. You heard me right, Antarctica. I have it

on high authority that is where Plato’s Atlantis really is. Not offshore Santorini,

not the Azores, not Bimini, just north of the South Pole.”

Robert looked at him sternly and demanded that Akiva add a few grand to

the film-funding project. “We’ll need it to arrange for your private belly dance

show on your own iceberg. John chipped in that Antarctica could be melting as

they spoke and that “the oceans may rise more than a few meters, just as Mr.

Cayce prophesized.”

Yohannah assumed a meditation posture as her way of putting an end to

unnecessary banter. Damo followed suit. The silence was punctuated with the

howl of the desert wind, the howl of an occasional coyote, the barking of stray

dogs, the neighing of a horse and the drone of Arabic music pouring out from

homes in the Giza village.

After a few minutes of meditation, Damo offered her report. “Your film

project is reasonably sound, but it could use a little fine-tuning. There are many

temple structures or what you could call time capsules beneath the plateau. That

group of aliens had some misfortunes with their attempt to create a colony here

on earth. They knew that they were trapped and could see far enough into the

future to know that our civilization could have the same fate. They left us their

technology. They thought it might prove useful. One of their spacecraft, which

was going as Yo here says – nowhere fast – is buried beneath these sands.”

Mark noticed that both John and Robert are taking notes as Damo spoke.

Yohannah asked her if what she was viewing was what had been called by

channels “The Hall of Records.”

Damo tuned in for a moment with a faraway look in her eyes and reported

back, “Yes and no. The whole city beneath the plateau holds records that will

astonish all those with a myopic view of earth history. But what you call “The

Hall of Records” is much closer to the Sphinx. We may have occasion to visit it in

the very near future.”

Damo made some unusual mudra like hand gestures as if she had been taking

dictation from invisible guides. The coyotes were howling once again and Jamil

suggested that the group should return. Yohannah protested, claiming that they

needed at least another twenty minutes of meditation. Jamil replied courteously,

“be my guest” and wandered off to have a chat with his horse. Akiva mentioned

to Alexandra that in Israel, he had a donkey that he had chats with just like Jamil.

A C a m e l R i d e t o A t l a n t i s

. . . . . . . . . .

29

There are no more channelings that evening, but every member of the group

returned to Jamil’s perfume palace in an altered state of consciousness. John

looked at his watch and noticed that it was past midnight. He invited Yohannah

and whoever might arise early the next morning to join him and Robert for a

sunrise meditation at the Sphinx.

Akiva found the group a local taxi to take them back to the Mena House.

Alexandra and Akiva went back to the room exhausted from their camel ride to

Atlantis. Yohannah, Damo and Mark stayed up for another hour in the lobby bar,

discussing all that was buried in the sands beneath the Giza plateau.

T h e U n i c o r n M e s s i a h

. . . . . . . . . .

30

16.3 The Riddle of the Sphinx

amo, Mark and Yohannah made it to the rendezvous point about an hour

before sunrise. John bought their entrance to the Sphinx with an American

fifty-dollar bill drawn upon “The Bank of Baksheesh.” Farag didn’t understand

John’s dry British wit but liked his client nonetheless. Farag needed some time to

get enough Egyptian pound notes to pay off the half dozen or so guards that

patrolled the area. He also needed his morning pack of cigarettes, which he

offered to his clients on a number of occasions. Their entrance to the Sphinx

involved a circuitous route with a little ducking behind rocks and occasional

pauses to let a guard or two pass without notice along the way. Mark imagined

that it was a game that most adventurous tourists to Egypt played at one time or

another.

“Fascinating little sub-economy,” was Robert’s sole remark. Farag took them

to the rump of the Sphinx and whispered something about an entrance there. It

would have to wait for another occasion in the middle of the night. The price

would be a fair bit higher as well. The destination that morning was a spot not far

from the belly of the Sphinx, technically somewhere just above the paws. Mark

noticed that the head of the Sphinx had a much different texture from its leonine

body. He noticed that the hard outcrop that forms its head suffered not from

natural exposure, but from something else. Farag pointed out that it had been

used for repeated artillery practice during the 18th century. John reminded his

friends that Edgar Cayce once had a trance vision suggesting that there were

empty chambers hidden beneath the paws of the Sphinx.

“The idea is that the chambers create a resonance that we pick up in the

hemispheres of our own brain.”

John picked up a kheper beetle and mumbled something about how

topographically it resembled the floating cranial plates on a baby’s skull. He

examined it closely letting it know that it had a little more work to do if it wanted

to get Ra out of the duat and over the horizon.

“It could be the Atlantean way of accessing deep memory.”

Everyone settled in to find a meditation spot that felt just right. John and

Robert stationed themselves closer to the paws. Yohannah, Mark and Damo chose

a more elevated spot up against the Sphinx itself. Farag was just around the

corner, making sure that his clients went undetected and undisturbed.

The meditation that morning served as an entrance into a vast emptiness.

Mark felt himself plummeting like the stone Yohannah had thrown down the

sinkhole the night before. There was no place to land. Damo had no words to

D

T h e R i d d l e o f t h e S p h i n x

. . . . . . . . . .

31

speak. Her animated Greek repertoire of facial expressions became frozen in time,

mimicking the Sphinx herself. Yohannah was tracking something. Mark could

feel it. Robert and John fell into a kind of telepathic synchronization. Mark

sensed they were exchanging information about measurements and dimensions of

cavities beneath the paws of the Sphinx. Farag let them be for a few minutes after

the sun had risen. Then with a signal, he let them know that their time was up

and they needed to follow him back to the village by way of one of the horse

stables. Mark managed to leave one of the smoky quartz crystals he had purchased

from Mordi in the Sinai as a kind of radio receiver in a pocket that he had found

on the surface of the Sphinx.

John took the group for breakfast at a little coffee shop across the way from

Jamil’s perfumery. He found a table nested amidst a regular clientele more

interested in their morning hooka than food. A friend of Robert’s named Abdul

was there and asked if he could join them. Robert was candid.

“Perhaps later, we have some unfinished business to discuss.”

The morning’s business was one of the unanswered riddles of the Sphinx, the

whereabouts and the contents of “The Hall of Records.” John was going by the

assumption that there was a chamber not far from the right paw of the Sphinx as

mentioned in the channelings of Ra-Ta, an earlier incarnation of Edgar Cayce.

Robert felt that it was farther away than that, perhaps underneath one of the

homes in the Giza village. Yohannah gazed curiously at the Sphinx for a few

moments before speaking.

“You would be wise, my friends, to look for the Hall of Records within your

own being. Consider that the emerald tablets you are seeking are the left and

right hemispheres of your own brain. Yes, in this physical dimension, they will

one day be retrieved from the chamber of records. The time is drawing near.

What is required of us as initiates is the transcendence of the world of duality.

There is a change coming in the nature of the human species towards what you

call “androgynous”. When that takes place, your brain hemispheres will function

far differently than they do today. You might call it “The Crown of

Enlightenment.” Ra-ta would have called it the establishment of “The Law of

One.”

John was a little taken aback by Yohannah’s words; he had been hoping for

detailed psychic archeology from his new found friends. Damo did her best to

read his mind and provide him with a more nutritious breakfast.

“The time capsule you are stalking is entombed somewhere between the

Sphinx and an ancient canal that led to the Nile River. It contains the records of

Atlantis right up until the final destruction. What is stored therein is a record of a

dying race that chronicled their mistakes. We will find formulae and instruments

T h e R i d d l e o f t h e S p h i n x

. . . . . . . . . .

32

for the renewing of the earth set aside in a tomb. All the smog you breathe as you

drive about Cairo could be vacuumed up with one small device from the time

capsule.”

Damo glanced at Robert for a moment before continuing, “You have done

some reading I am sure about the science of harmonics and the setting up of

standing waves. The secrets of anti-gravity were known and used by the

Atlanteans. If I were to go into the capsule today and bring out the prototype for a

free energy device that would replace our addiction to electricity and fossil fuels,

do you think you could find a people or a government that would use it?”

John shook his head reluctantly.

“Too much greed and vested interest in the planet right now, I’m afraid.”

Yohannah took a different tack, as she took note of the impact of Damo’s

channeling,

“Axial wobble. Watch for the slippage of the crust of the earth. Tampering

with the atmosphere will cause serious weather disturbances and the melting of

the polar caps. All this is possible and more: unless humanity wakes up, and

begins to treat the earth with respect. The earth’s spin is slowing down, my

friends. The oxygen for our biosphere is disappearing. Akiva was not far from the

truth when he said that we would find Atlantis in Antarctica. He must have been

seeing the polar ice melting.”

Yohannah deftly plucked an ice cube out of her iced tea and gazed intently

through the hole inside it, back at the Sphinx. Mark laughed at her symbolic

gesture while John and Robert were still chuckling over the memory of Akiva’s

antics from the night before.

John had had enough channeling for the time being.

“Why don’t you go back to the Mena House and check it all out in the dream

state. I’ll see what I can do about setting up a visit to the shuk and an evening of

belly dancing later tonight.”

The Prophetess was surprised to find that her prophecies were sending her

friends to the marketplace for cover. Mark shook Robert’s hand formally in the

grand British manner. “Sounds like a plan, old chap.”

The visits to the solar cross and the Sphinx sent Damo, Mark and Yohannah

all back to the Mena House to dive under cover of deep sleep. They arrived to

find Akiva and Alexandra arising from their separate beds and preparing to go to

breakfast. Yohannah commended Akiva on both his newly found psychic gifts

and his “good form” at keeping his libido at bay. Akiva gave a curt “thank you

ma’am” before heading out the door. Yohannah and Damo decided they would

sleep and dream together that morning. Mark decided nothing; he just collapsed

T h e R i d d l e o f t h e S p h i n x

. . . . . . . . . .

33

into a near comatose state. The dream that awaited him that morning was the

most frightening one of his life. It was more like a volcanic eruption than a

dream. Mark shared it with Damo later on, as he awoke, while Yohannah was

taking a shower.

“I was a child maybe fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old. My parents had

died when I was very young and I had been taken into the mystery school training. The priests and priestesses were very fond of me and encouraged me often. I was very bright. What they were training me for exactly, I did not know. I remember all the secrecy and the mystery that enveloped the Hall of Records. I knew we would be taken there at some point during our training, but I was impatient, very impatient. I wanted to know everything about the past, the history of the planet. One night, my desire to know got the best of me. I imagined that Ma’at and Zehhuti came to guide me. The moon was full and I had one candle for light. The guardian of the entrance had fallen asleep. It took extraordinary courage, daring and, in retrospect, arrogance, on my part. I entered the Hall of Records on my own, without a guide. What I saw, felt, heard, touched and remembered in the two or three rooms I explored before the guardians came to fetch me, was beyond my wildest imagination. I met beings from other times, places and races, different than what we know on earth today. I re-experienced the deluge and all the chaos and terror that took place at the time of the sinking of Atlantis. Whatever thoughts I entertained in my mind immediately manifested as visions before my eyes. I have no idea how long I stayed in that hall. All that I know is when I saw the face of Ra once again; I wept and wept and wept. The priests and priestesses were very kind and did whatever they could to restore me, to heal me and turn me back into the bright, curious child I had been before I had entered the hall.

“Damo, I went mad, never really recovered from it all. I’m still hovering like

Horus on the edge of insanity. Yohannah was the priestess who would have

initiated me in that lifetime, and here she is again and I have failed her as a scribe

and the vibrations of the Hall of Records are more than I can bear. Please, help

me if you can, Damo.”

The seer embraced Mark until his sobbing subsided. She placed her left hand

at the nape of his neck and alternated with her right palm, holding it first at his

forehead, then over his navel, back and forth, forehead to navel, forehead to

navel, forehead to navel, three times. Then, she placed her left hand on his spine,

behind his heart and her right hand on his chest over his heart. Mark began to

weep once again, but this time his tears were tears of healing and release.

T h e R i d d l e o f t h e S p h i n x

. . . . . . . . . .

34

Yohannah came out of the shower naked to find Mark like a child under

Damo’s care and loving attention. She wrapped herself with a towel, before

speaking.

“Have you discovered some unfinished business in the dream state, my

friend? Become innocent as a child, and you just might re-enter the kingdom.

Ma’at says: When cosmic shit happens, healing can come lifetimes later.”

Mark looked up at her to see a double exposure: his Initiator (wearing a

golden necklace) from the time of the Hall of Records and his friend, the

prophetess, Yohannah, in his present lifetime. It was all very confusing. Mark

thanked Damo from the bottom of his heart and exclaimed that it was now his turn to take a shower.

Dervish on Fire

Dervish on Fire

T h e U n i c o r n M e s s i a h

. . . . . . . . . .

35

16.4 There are no Accidents in Cairo

unch at the Mena House restaurant was just what the doctor ordered.

Yohannah humoured her crew saying that she felt it was time that she treated

them to lunch, otherwise Akiva would run out of money and the three of them

would have to hitchhike back to Rosh Pinah. Mark realized that he was often

dealing with two different Yohannahs: Yohannah the prophet, channel and

would-be-Messiah and Yohannah the whimsical Dutch magician and playwright

with her nurturing Cancer ascendant. Mark always enjoyed the playful side of

Yohannah that emerged shortly after the thunderstorm of her prophecies and

channelings. Akiva and Alexandra had already taken their morning dip at the

pool and a tour of the tourist shops not far from the Mena House. Akiva had

bought a huge brass ankh that he was wearing as a necklace. Alexandra had

discovered her first papyrus shop and was busy guiding Akiva through the

mysteries of the Dendara Zodiac. She wanted to know where everybody had been

that morning and was heartbroken to find that she had missed the meditation at

the Sphinx. She demanded a recap from Damo. Damo explained that not much

had happened that morning.

“The ‘pyramid boys’ from the British Isles read both palms of the Sphinx for

clues as to the whereabouts of the Hall of Records. Mark discovered it in the

dream-state this morning, but it was a little overwhelming. We are debating

which way to go this afternoon, the desert road to the monastery of Saint

Macarius or the not so deserted road to the Khan-el-Khalili market. You two look

like you’ve already been to the market.”

Mark and Yohannah returned from the buffet with a full plate of appetizers.

Alexandra returned to her Dendara Zodiac and began to explain what she knew

of the “star religion” that existed in Egypt for thousands of years.

“There were thirty-six stars used to demarcate the Zodiac in Egypt which

was broken into thirty-six decans. Egyptian astronomers took note of them and

used them as a kind of starclock, watching for the light of each star as it would

shine down a passageway in a pyramid or perhaps an underground cavity, to be

reflected on a pool of water. I have good reason to believe that each of the

Egyptian gods and goddesses served as the mythological portal to one of these

stars. You can find some of this material in translations of the pyramid text we

saw in the tomb of Unas at Saqqara. I am almost certain that the goddess Isis is the

star Sirius. The goddess Ma’at was once the polestar Vega. Hathor, with her cow

ears, is the great feminine source of all nourishment. There was even a book about

her called “The Book of the Divine Cow”. She likely represents Alcyone or all of

L

T h e r e a r e n o A c c i d e n t s i n C a i r o

. . . . . . . . . .

36

the seven stars of the Pleiades – you can see them right here in the Taurus

constellation of the Dendara Zodiac. Look opposite the leg of Nuut and you will

find the sign of Cancer, the crab. Sometimes you will see all the Zodiac signs

arranged in a rough spiral with Cancer at the centre. The ancient Egyptians began

their Zodiac with the sign of Cancer, as far as we can tell. This would place the

moment of the Zeptepi at around ten thousand B.C. The Egyptian New Year was

celebrated at Dendara. If Hathor is a Pleiadian, then Osiris is the one from Orion.

I don’t have all thirty-six yet but I’m working on it. It’s a mystery to me as to

what particular star the goddess Nuut represents. She might just be an emissary of

the whole Milky Way, the star river that runs between Sirius and Vega or Isis and

Ma’at.”

Damo pulled a papyrus out of Alexandra’s pile that showed Ma’at with her

wings spread out. She mentioned that “beings from Vega in the Lyra star system

may have emigrated to Sirius or Isis many galactic moons ago.”

Yohannah poured from a pitcher on the table a wineglass full of iced karkadi

for her friends and proposed a toast to galactic immigrants and stranded

starwalkers. Robert and John arrived at that very moment.

“We have Ibrahim waiting outside with a shuttle bus. His little Peugeot

needed a touch of engine work and his favourite mechanic isn’t coming back from

holidays in Alexandria until tomorrow. I’m afraid we’ll have to rideshare and put

up with a little air conditioning. Hope you haven’t gotten addicted to carbon

monoxide fumes here in Cairo.”

Robert would have gone on with his sociological report but John forced him

to drink the karkadi instead. John asked dryly if anyone discovered The Hall of

Records during the morning dreamtime.

“As a matter of fact, all three of us made it there but Mark got trapped for a

few centuries. He had a hell of a time getting out. Tell Ibrahim we’ll be right with

him. Just have to settle the bill and collect a few snacks for the road.”

The traffic en route to the Khan-el-Khalil was intense and for those who

weren’t used to it, downright scary. Akiva said it was worse than Mexico City,

New York and Tokyo combined. Mark found it all very charming, the way

ancient French and German vehicles shared the right of way with horses,

donkeys, camels, wagons, trucks, bicycles and buses with people hanging off them

and jumping on and off at any moment. What fascinated him the most (and

terrified Akiva and Robert) was the way a vehicle was able to dart across six lanes

of traffic using only its horn and some telepathic signaling that was invisible to

foreigners. Mark claimed that the only mode of transportation that he had yet to

see on a Cairo road was something called a “pogo stick.” John caught the

reference, thought he was referring to a cartoon strip, and went on at length with

his theory that hieroglyphics were really the first animated cartoon language on

T h e r e a r e n o A c c i d e n t s i n C a i r o

. . . . . . . . . .

37

the planet. Ibrahim had brought a few of his cassette tapes along for the voyage

and told his friends that he would take them to a music store in the shuk if they

wanted one. He parked the shuttle bus with some difficulty and announced that

this was as close to Khan-el-Khalili that he could get. John’s trusty driver Sayeed

had come along for the ride. He offered to watch over it for an hour or two or as

long as the group was lost in the market.

Yohannah suggested that it might be a good idea for the group to break up in

small pods and connect with one another at designated rendezvous points now

and again. She decided to join up with John and Robert, sensing that they would

have some savvy in the shuk. Mark told Yohannah he needed to be a very small

pod of one for about a half an hour; he found a shopkeeper who knew the

whereabouts of an ancient synagogue that he was intent upon visiting. Ibrahim

decided it was time for him to learn about astrology so he chaperoned Akiva and

Alexandra through the shuk. Akiva told Ibrahim he was offering ten percent

baksheesh for all purchases at kiosks that their shopping guide would take them

to. Akiva said that he hoped Ibrahim was getting a kickback from the shops as

well. Ibrahim asked if anyone “liked real essential oils, not the fake perfumes you

get in the shops out by the Sphinx.” Alexandra and Damo were quite interested.

Akiva tagged along. Mark returned from his side-trip with a mysterious gift for

Akiva. Ibrahim took them to the shop of a friend of his named Mohammed.

Mohammed was a very charming and courteous man whom many

considered the father and formulator of perfumes and aromatherapy blends in

Cairo. Mohammed’s slow, seductive invitations to the world of incense were

interspersed with unique little phrases that he had picked up from his

international clientele.

He spiced his aromatic tour with his polished poetic English.

“Take your time, habibi . . . open your heart as you inhale . . . always put a

little time and space between fragrances . . . musk from the Sudan, the sweat

glands of the gazelle . . . lotus from the Fayuom oasis to open your crown chakra .

. . one drop of Turkish rose will transport you to the Garden of Eden . . . my

special blend for attracting the angels.”

It took but a few mint teas, some angel incense and Mohammed’s alchemical

genius to put his new clients into trance. He asked if they had intended to visit

the Turkish Bektashi monastery built out of solid rock on the Mokattam hills.

“You might find a Dervish performance tonight in the church across the

square if you are lucky. You don’t want to miss it.”

Mohammed looked at Damo with a sudden glance of his mischievous eyes,

stroked his chin and asked if he might touch her with a very special fragrance.

Damo gestured with her articulate hands for Mohammed to proceed. He very

T h e r e a r e n o A c c i d e n t s i n C a i r o

. . . . . . . . . .

38

slowly reached beneath her rib cage and touched her lightly for a moment

somewhere between her heart and her spleen. Damo burst into tears and began to

weep for at least five minutes. Akiva was perplexed. He speculated that she’d

sustained some kind of wound and ran out onto the street looking for Yohannah.

Alexandra placed her hands on the back of her spine and sang Greek songs to her

to soothe her. Mohammed disappeared into a space no bigger than a closet where

he was busy blending up a new perfume. Mark waited for Damo to return from

her weeping; sensing that it was his turn to be a healing presence for his friend.

When Damo returned from the place Mohammed had touched within her, she

shared just “an iota” of her journey.

Damo had visited Istanbul once when she was in her teens. This was

something that a young Greek girl just would not do. Not on her own, without a

male companion. She had fallen in love at the age of seventeen with the sound of

the ney and the Turkish musician who played it for her. Damo recollected it as

the moment when dance entered her body in her present incarnation. She hinted

that she had met Mevlana Rumi himself in the midst of her spinning to the sound

of the ney. She had longed to have a child with this young Dervish but when he

emerged from his trance to realize that she was a guest from across the sea, he

proclaimed that they could be lovers for one beautiful night only. Damo told

Alexandra in Greek and Alexandra translated for Mark that that night was the

most beautiful loving that Damo had ever experienced.

Mohammed returned with a blend that his guides had asked him to prepare

for Damo. It was something very valuable as both a resin and a fragrance

throughout the Islamic world. Mohammed gave Damo the gift of oud. Damo

burst into tears a second time with laughter pouring out of her eyes. She

explained that this was the aroma of her Turkish lover. She had been looking for

it all her life. Mark asked if it was possible to buy a little oud. Mohammed shook his head.

“It’s far too expensive for you, my friend. Buy my sandalwood instead. If

Damo loves you, she will give you a drop or two of her oud to blend with your

sandalwood.”

Mohammed accepted what Mark offered him for the sandalwood, sold three

or four sachets of his angel blend to Alexandra, kissed each of his three guest magi

on both cheeks and escorted them to the door.

Ibrahim was outside the shop playing sheshbesh with John. Yohannah,

Robert and Akiva were lost somewhere in the market. Ibrahim said there was a

café for them to go to that was what Yohannah called “the designated rendezvous

spot.” The group made it there amidst much jostling and a thousand and one

T h e r e a r e n o A c c i d e n t s i n C a i r o

. . . . . . . . . .

39

invitations from shopkeepers inviting them in to “just look, no buy, just look.”

Damo was still very much with her lover in Istanbul. Mark and Alexandra held

onto her tightly, one at each arm. John managed to locate the café and soon

enough, all the missing members of the group arrived. Akiva was loaded like a

camel with his new acquisitions: an antelope leather knapsack, a gazillion zills for

belly dancers he planned to court in the near future and a strange brass

geometrical chandelier that would one day become the centerpiece of his

“pyramid suite” back in Chattanooga. Alexandra had stocked up on white

galabeyas, a few for the group and a few for her girlfriends back home. Ibrahim

had a dozen cassettes with him of Arabic and Nubian music that he picked up

from a friend of his who specialized in bootleg tapes. Robert had taken John and

Yohannah to his favourite spice store, tucked away on a side street off the main

artery of the shuk. Yohannah was delighted with the expedition, mentioning that

her Dutch ancestors had pillaged Indonesia for its culinary delights centuries

before. All of them had stashes of saffron, nutmeg, karkadi tea, frankincense and a

strange root that Robert guessed was an hallucinogen used by the ancient

Egyptians in a ceremony he called “the litany of Ra.”

Yohannah wanted to know what exactly had transpired in Mohammed’s

shop. Akiva’s version of the event had Damo being molested by an unscrupulous

shopkeeper with psychic powers. Damo was indignant and told Yohannah in so

many broken English-spiced-with-Greek words that Akiva couldn’t have been

further from the truth. She explained that Mohammed was “a Sufi in the

marketplace” who had seen into the recesses of her heart and had gifted her with

a healing that she had longed for, for over half her life.

“Do you think he could heal me?” asked Yohannah naively.

“Heal you of what?” barked an astonished Akiva.

“I’m not sure, gastronomical distress, I guess.”

Yohannah was holding her belly as she spoke. Robert commissioned the

waiter to bring her a cup of Turkish coffee with lemon juice in it. Yohannah

asked Damo if there wasn’t some essential oil that she should add to her coffee as

a topnote.

“Try this,” was Robert’s reply as he added one drop of fennel oil to her coffee.

Yohannah quoted something she had heard Mark say en route to Mount Sinai,

“Today is a good day to die.”

At that moment, a friend of John’s who was a guide for tour groups that did

the boat cruise from Aswan to Abydos and back to Luxor walked in the café.

“Hhamdi, what are you doing in Cairo? I thought you had a group of new-

agers from America this week.”

John was obviously delighted and surprised to bump into his friend. He gave

him the loving British handshake and karate chop to the shoulder blades.

T h e r e a r e n o A c c i d e n t s i n C a i r o

. . . . . . . . . .

40

Hhamdi, who was a small but durable Egyptian with fire pouring out of his

eyes, survived.

“It was a nightmare. I’m thinking seriously of becoming a taxi driver in

Alexandria or taking up residence with the desert monks at Nag Hamadi.”

Robert humoured him with trumped up concern, “What the hell happened?”

Hhamdi was visibly upset. His eyes were watering.

“I had a group of eighteen Americans. Three got dysentery and expected me

to be their doctor. One from my tour group tried to go fishing near Aswan but

unfortunately fell out of the felucca. My felucca crew played a trick on him and

told him to swim to the shore immediately; otherwise he’d been eaten by a

crocodile. That one demanded a refund for the tour. He said he would sue us. He

flew back to Chicago the next day. Two young women from San Francisco were

trying on galabeyas in Aswan at my friend Gamal’s shop. They returned to the

boat in hysterics. They loved their new galabeyas, which they got at a great price

but they claimed that Gamal had almost raped them when they were trying on

the dresses. I know Gamal, he’s a gentleman. He adores the female body. I don’t

know what their problem was. And he gave them the galabeyas at half price.

Malesh! Then there was the little one from New Orleans with the sexy voice who

left the tour because she was upset that the boat was going in the wrong direction. There was a couple from New York City who were really into Egyptian

mythology. They kept talking about how often they’d been to the Museum of

Natural History. When I told them that the real Dendara Zodiac had been taken

by the French to the Louvre, they demanded all of the tips and baksheesh they’d

given me up to that time, back. Can you believe it? I had a travel writer in my

group from Berkeley who got invited to a Nubian wedding in Aswan. He was on

the verge of seducing a seventeen-year-old Nubian girl and got upset when I had

the tourist police escort him back to the boat.

“Abydos, I forgot about Abydos, the yoga teacher who managed to keep

everyone quiet for an hour or two each morning, had a full on kun-da-lini experience in Abydos. She ran out of the temple yelling that the cobras were

climbing up her spine. The doctor on board the cruise ship couldn’t help her. Her

roommate, the hypnotherapist, was worth his weight in gold. He convinced her

that she was an Ophite in a past life. Luxor was the real nightmare. A couple from

California decided to go “skinny-dipping” in the sacred lake after the sound and

light show. They said it was the most romantic moment they’d had in Egypt and

they couldn’t resist. I told them that they just jumped in to the waters of the Nun, the primordial ocean and that their purification ceremony would likely land them

in jail. They thought that a hundred-dollar baksheesh bribe would save them.

When I refused it, they accused me of “framing them.” John, tell me, what does

this mean?

T h e r e a r e n o A c c i d e n t s i n C a i r o

. . . . . . . . . .

41

“The final scene from my new age group took place on the West Bank of the

Nile. I had four theatre students who were amateur Egyptologists from Phoenix,

Arizona. They decided that their raison d’être for coming to Egypt was to chant

their translation of the whole of “The Book of What is in the Duat.” I made the

mistake of informing them it was perfectly preserved on the walls of The Tomb of

Tuthmosis the Third. It took me four hours to get them out of the tomb, they

could have perished for lack of oxygen, yet they all swore at me later and blamed

me because they had missed dinner.”

Hhamdi was shuddering at the memory of his recent fiasco. He begged John

to buy him a bottle of Arak. Hhamdi proclaimed, with tears in his eyes, that he

had just handed in his resignation to Mafiche Moushkayla Tours and Travel.

John gifted his friend with a bottle of Arak. Yohannah suggested that perhaps

he should just give up guiding American groups. She assured him that Dutch

travelers would be more appreciative of his services. Mark asked for his business

card or his telephone number just in case he returned to Egypt one day and had a

chance to do the boat cruise on the Nile. Alexandra encouraged him to take that

vacation to Alexandria as soon as possible.

The group finished their dinner, said goodbye to their friend and headed for

the little Church across the square where Mohammed had told them there might

be a Dervish ceremony that night. They arrived just in time to find their seats.

The lights went out and the sound of the Turkish Ney filled the Church.

Alexandra and Mark held Damo tightly, knowing that her memories of the young

Turkish Dervish that she loved so dearly would likely pour through her once

again. The hypnotic chanting began slowly at first to the beat of invisible

dumbeks offstage. A single light illuminated the one Dervish onstage who was

folded up into himself with his arms held tightly over his heart. As the pulse of

the music increased, he slowly began to unwind and spin to his left. At first, he

spun slowly, but the pace of the music quickened and the Dervish began to spin

faster and faster and faster. His gown was multi-coloured and soon the Dervish

was nothing but an expression of pure longing spinning in a pool of flames. His

companions joined him onstage and began to swirl one by one with him until the

whole solar system was in orbit that night in the little Church. Damo did what

she could to hold back tears, but her memories overwhelmed her once again.

Yohannah caught Damo’s eyes for a brief glance, putting her hands over her heart

to let the seeress know that she now understood what had happened to her at the

perfumery. Akiva took some great photos of the event, which he developed upon

returning to Israel.

Damo asked to be taken back to the Mena House after the Dervish

ceremony. She claimed she just wasn’t up to an evening of belly-dancing that

T h e r e a r e n o A c c i d e n t s i n C a i r o

. . . . . . . . . .

42

night. Yohannah bowed out as well saying that she needed to be with Damo.

Alexandra wanted to stay as well but Damo wouldn’t let her. She felt the boys

needed her to escort them to the club. They drove back through the chaos of

Cairo traffic, dropped the women off at the Mena House and proceeded to a

famous restaurant not far from Giza village called “The Back of the Moon.”

Ibrahim introduced them to the proprietor of the establishment and announced

that he had an important game of sheshbesh to play and that he would be waiting

for them outside the club. Alexandra entered the club and found a table for her

four companions as close to the stage as possible.

The show was in progress. Appetizers and drinks arrived quickly. The dancer,

Omphallisa, a descendant of Cleopatra according to the program, was a Greek

woman who had settled in Alexandria. She was accompanied by three musicians

who were playing oud, kannun and dumbek. Omphalissa performed an exquisite

folkloric dance called balladee with a cane. She balanced a candelabrum atop her

head with seven lit candle flames. She danced with a sword on her head, on her

chin and on her hips. Omphalissa made eye contact with Alexandra, one Greek

woman catching the eyes of another. She came to their table, threw scarves and a

headpiece that she wore over Robert, John and Mark respectively. She invited

Akiva to dance with her, but he declined shyly as he tucked a twenty-dollar

American bill scented with rose oil not far from her belly. She smiled innocently

at Akiva and exclaimed, “I like the smell of your money!” Then she grasped

Alexandra lustily and the two of them danced like sisters who had been dancing

with one another for lifetimes. Akiva joked with his friends saying that he knew

all along that Alexandra was not just your ordinary astrologer. Alexandra and

Omphalissa came down from the stage to get Mark and Akiva up and dancing.

The musicians began a slow wave of percussion that built momentum, making it

much more challenging for their new dancers. Robert remarked that the really

great dancers in Egypt were often male. John insisted that his buddies would need

to rent a flat in Giza and do some serious practicing. During the dance, Mark had

something bizarre happen to him, which he waited until the next day to discuss

with Alexandra. Akiva seemed satisfied with his excursion into the world of belly

dancing and offered Omphalissa an inexpensive pair of zills that he picked up in

the shuk before leaving. He did manage to extract a business card from

Omphalissa before leaving ‘The Back of the Moon’.

On the road back to the Mena House, a man riding a donkey nuzzled out in

front of Ibrahim’s shuttle bus and three other vehicles, crossing three lanes of

traffic before finding its exit ramp. The reflexes of each of the drivers were

astonishing. The startled rider was initially annoyed by the sound of their horns

but gave a victory smile before leaving the highway. Akiva complained that Cairo

traffic was insane. Robert and John agreed with him but told him not to worry,

T h e r e a r e n o A c c i d e n t s i n C a i r o

. . . . . . . . . .

43

that spirit guides would take care of both him and any oncoming traffic that he or

the donkey might happen to meet.

Ibrahim turned and looked back at Akiva with a tooth-filled grin, “You

know, Mister Akiva, there are no accidents in Cairo.”

T h e U n i c o r n M e s s i a h

. . . . . . . . . .

44

16.5 The Bones of the Prophets, & Pyramid Prophecies

he tribe arrived just in time for breakfast the next day. Damo and Yohannah

had apparently bonded in a new way. Alexandra had come alive from her

time on the dance floor the night before. But it was Mark who had the story to

share. “Omphalissa is a master. When she got me up to dance, she kept gazing right

at my belly button. My navel began to get hot and when the tempo of the music

picked up, I began to feel waves of energy rippling out in circles from my navel

the way waves ripple out on water when you toss a stone in a pond. The sensation

was soothing, energizing and erotic all at the same time. Within about a minute,

the pulsations and vibrations reached to the palms of my hands, the soles of my

feet, the base of my spine and the top of my head. It was better than sex, not that

I can remember what sex is like these days.” “It looks like we’ve got some pretty serious sublimation happening in the

camp of the prophets,” Akiva quipped.

Alexandra reminded him that Eros was a concept and an experience rooted in

Greek mythology. “It takes a Greek woman to help a man to grasp the concept,

that’s for sure.”

Yohannah was gazing at Mark with a quizzical look as she spoke. “How is

your bellybutton doing today, is it still tingling?”

Mark reported that everything in him was still tingling and swirling from all

that went on the day before. He asked Damo if she would be so kind as to add a

drop or two of oud to his sandalwood oil. Damo gave him a big hug, added three

drops to his sandalwood bottle, asked him to close his eyes and put a little oud

mixed with sandalwood right inside his bellybutton.

Mark feigned ecstasy, “At last, I’ve finally found a doctor I can trust.”

Yohannah had had enough of his morning shenanigans.

“The caravan to the desert road and the monasteries in Wadi Natrun is

departing in approximately twenty minutes. Please gather your water bottles,

photographic equipment and daypacks. Meet me out by the taxi stand. Ibrahim is

waiting. Latecomers will be left behind. Please meditate on that story I once told

you about the two Zen monks who were crossing a river and saw the most

beautiful naked woman in the world swimming in it. Please remember to forget

Amalek and do what you can to keep all your thoughts in the present moment.

Asalam aleikum.”

T

T h e B o n e s o f t h e P r o p h e t s , & P y r a m i d P r o p h e c i e s

. . . . . . . . . .

45

Ibrahim was out in front of the Mena House hand polishing his borrowed

vehicle with great pride. The tribe waited for ten or fifteen minutes before

Yohannah decided that John and Robert were the latecomers. They were the ones

she was leaving behind today. Mark did his best to get back into the flow of

things by playing tour guide and letting his friends know what he had found out

about the monastery at Saint Macarius from Cherubim. He had been carrying a

letter in his backpack for almost four months from Cherubim to deliver to a

friend of his at Macarius.

“Wadi El-Natrun is a long desert valley below sea level that is home to four

Coptic monasteries built in the fourth century. Macarius, if I understood

Cherubim correctly, was a renegade monk who escaped persecution and settled in

the wadi to grow oranges, grapes and even corn. Cherubim led me to believe that

there are secret chambers to be found somewhere on the grounds of the

monastery. Perhaps our resident team of psychic archeologists might like to

explore this one.” Mark offered a knowing look to both Damo and Yohannah.

“My conversations with Cherubim lead me to believe that a portion of the

Alexandrian library was taken by monks in secret compartments of their camel

bags from Alexandria to the monasteries in Natrun but Macarius in particular.

Cherubim promised me that we would not be disappointed by our visit to “his

monastery.”

Damo could feel the change in vibration when they were within five miles

of the monastery. She could smell jasmine flowers in the air. The monastery was

virtually deserted when they arrived. The parking lot was empty. The group gave

a small donation at the entrance and began to meander about the courtyard.

Eventually, a young monk arrived who spoke a touch of English. He explained

that he was working in the kitchen that day, disappeared for five minutes, and

returned with an elder monk who had a long white beard and torchlight eyes that

felt like they could gaze through the eons with ease, according to Alexandra. He

asked Yohannah, whom he gathered to be the leader of the group, if they would

enjoy a tour of the monastery. Mark could feel, in his manner, a resonance with

the simplicity and sweetness that he had felt in Cherubim’s presence. The elder

monk, Justin, was a learned and loquacious man, who spoke with the authority of

the Oxford English dictionary. He gave them an orderly tour of two rooms filled

with paintings and icons of Jesus and his disciples; the gardens where Damo found

the most fragrant jasmine flowers on the planet and one or two chapels that were

in use for daily prayers. Justin then walked with them to the perimeter of the

grounds of the monastery, pointed to some caves and “burial chambers” and

reported that the bones of both the prophets Elisha and John the Baptist had been

T h e B o n e s o f t h e P r o p h e t s , & P y r a m i d P r o p h e c i e s

. . . . . . . . . .

46

transported from Israel to be preserved at the monastery. He mentioned that

Macarius had chosen the spot himself.

Father Justin spoke with an air of authority and deep humility, “There are

many other scrolls and records that the world will be very happy to find when

the time is right. They are stored in the desert region adjoining the monastery.”

Mark asked Father Justin if Father Nathaniel was still alive. Father Justin was

startled for a moment and replied, “Yes, he is alive and he is threatening us with a

plan to go by camel to visit his brother in Jericho before he dies.”

The disoriented courier rummaged around in his backpack for the letter that

Cherubim had asked him to deliver some months ago. He handed it to Father

Justin with the knowledge that this was the reason he was sent to visit the

monastery. When Father Justin saw Cherubim’s handwriting, he was moved. He

asked to be excused from their presence for a few minutes. He returned with joy

visibly emanating from his heart. Damo said she could see something like a

golden helmet around his head, similar to the one she saw on the icons of

Macarius himself. Father Justin expressed his gratitude, blessed Mark formally

and the others in the group informally and offered two sachets of miniature

lemons that he had just harvested from a tree in the courtyard. One was for his

guests. One was for Mark to deliver or send to Cherubim when he should return

to Israel.

The group wandered about for a few minutes, but then Yohannah insisted

that they had accomplished their mission and needed to return to Cairo soon. In

the van, on the way back to Cairo, Yohannah told Mark she found it interesting

that the bones the monastery was famous for were those of the Prophet Elisha

and John the Baptist. She said that according to Edgar Cayce, the latter was the

reincarnation of the former. She spoke of how the early authors of the Christian

texts had done their best to model the relationship between John the Baptist and

Jesus, after the Hebrew story of the prophets Elijah and Elisha.

Akiva inquired if she thought that the only way Jesus would have been

received as a messiah in his day was if someone believed that John the Baptist was

indeed the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah.

Yohannah stroked the hairs of an imaginary beard before replying, “Your

guess is as good as mine, my son. But let me ask you this one question. If John the

Baptist was really the reincarnation of the prophet Elisha, as Edgar Cayce

suggested, then who, pray tell, is Jesus the reincarnation of?”

After a moment or two of silence, Yohannah stroked her mythical beard a

few more times and announced to her friends that they had until September 26

1975, to submit the answer to her riddle.

Damo asked innocently what the reward was for the correct answer.

Yohannah pulled out a lemon from the bag that Justin had given her and a bottle

T h e B o n e s o f t h e P r o p h e t s , & P y r a m i d P r o p h e c i e s

. . . . . . . . . .

47

of wine that she had purchased at the monastery. She said that whoever

understood the answer to her riddle would taste “the new wine” that had been

aged for approximately 2160 years during the Age of Pisces.

When they returned to the Mena House, Akiva steered the group to take

lunch by the pool and cool off. That was fine with Yohannah as long as everyone

promised to stay awake for a teaching she had in mind that afternoon on what she

called “pyramid prophecies.”

Mark’s ears perked up like a coyote that could smell a rabbit nearby.

“Does this mean that you finally got around to reading the books that Jared

donated to our own Alexandrian library? Or are we about to be treated to a

channeling from Zehhuti or Thoth himself?”

Yohannah was curt, “Go take a shower and return to the pool in a half hour.

What will be, will be.”

Akiva took care of ordering the necessary appetizers and drinks for the

afternoon session of a laid back group of disciples in bathing suits. He complained

that his level of concentration was going to be split that afternoon between

“pyramid prophecies” and the “sacred triangles” he was discovering in the Greek

bikinis.

Yohannah chided her cheeky Greek disciples that they were “risking it” by

wearing a two piece bathing suit and a bikini in an Islamic country. Once

everyone had settled in, she pulled out a chart of the paths and chambers inside of

the great pyramid of Giza. Her friends gathered around a small circular table as

Yohannah began an explanation. She pointed at the entrance to the pyramid

which was dated 2623 B.C. on her chart. There were three primary pathways

illustrated on it. One descended to what was called the pit, which was located,

somewhere beneath the pyramid itself. One led up through the grand gallery to

what was usually called the King’s Chamber. There was another path at the

beginning of the grand gallery that went directly to a chamber that the guides

called the Queen’s Chamber. Akiva asked her if the names of the chambers came

from British or Scottish pyramidologists.

Yohannah finished her lemon juice and made a miniature pyramid out of the

ice cubes at the bottom of her drink before replying, “Masons have taken an

interest in the Great Pyramid of Giza for many centuries now. The locals, on the

other hand, stripped the casing stones off of the pyramid and used them for other

building projects. I imagine there are a few disgruntled space ships out there that

have had serious navigational problems ever since the casing stones were stolen.”

She returned to the markings on the chart.

T h e B o n e s o f t h e P r o p h e t s , & P y r a m i d P r o p h e c i e s

. . . . . . . . . .

48

“The chamber that goes to the pit, you can call “the way of the dead.” Here,

look at this chamber, the timeline goes from 1914 A.D. to 2004 A.D. The author

called it the “redemptive age,” or the age of total reincarnation and the age of

“hell on earth.”

Yohannah pointed to the chart where the ascending passageway levels off to

a straightway that eventually leads to the King’s Chamber. She chuckled to

herself as she reported that the author of the book the chart came from refers to

the period from 1914 to 1999 as the “catalytic era of the Messianic Initiative.”

Mark took a closer look at the chart and noticed that the ascending passage

begins with a date of 1453 B.C. He reminded Yohannah that Rutherford, in his

Pyramidology treatise, gave the morning of March 30th as the exact moment for

the departure from Egypt. The crossing of Yam Suph was symbolized by what he

called the “hidden lintel”, a removable limestone block concealed at the entrance

to the Ascending Passage. It represented a hidden doorway or exit for the Hebrew

people out of Egypt.

Alexandra interrupted Mark, “The beginning of the grand gallery is marked

at 33 A.D., obviously the timing for ‘the crucifixion’.”

Alexandra asked Yohannah if the chart showed any correspondences to

Cayce’s pyramid prophecies. Yohannah invited her to let the group in on what

she knew of them.

She innocently adjusted her bikini before answering.

“Cayce saw the forty years from 1958-1998 as a period of geological upheaval

leading up to the shifting of the earth’s axis. He said that there the most critical

earth changes would be heralded by a major volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius

or Mount Etna. He predicted that during this whole period of time, many of the

great souls and initiates from the time of Atlantis would reincarnate. Cayce dated

the great pyramid at 10,490 B.C. He saw the rise and fall of nations and the

evolution of world religious thought mirrored in the passage angles and the kind

of rock used within the pyramid. So much for Cayce; what I am most interested in

isn’t even on the chart. I want to know where the pyramidion is, and when that

missing capstone will be returned.”

Akiva offered Alexandra an iced-karkedi tea, tehhina, pita and a salt shaker

that was in the shape of a small pyramid.

“Why don’t you just use this for now, I believe it is a miniature alabaster

capstone created by monks in Wadi Natrun to store salt until the one who dubbed

them “the salt of the earth” makes his return.”

Damo gazed at Akiva with a mixture of wonder and admiration.

“You’re really getting the hang of things here, aren’t you?

Yohannah shook her head and offered her own aside, “Akiva’s on the fast

track to something, we just don’t know what it is. I fear that our boy is analyzing

T h e B o n e s o f t h e P r o p h e t s , & P y r a m i d P r o p h e c i e s

. . . . . . . . . .

49

the New Testament for marketing purposes. He’s planning to use the

disciple/testimonial model to market ankhs, icons, pyramidions and other

chutchkas to aspirants in North America.”

Alexandra returned to the pyramid prophecy map where the antechamber to

the King’s Chamber begins in 1999. Yohannah had noted in her own

handwriting, a major event booked for the year 2033. Alexandra prodded Mark to

find out if he’d ever taken the time to draw up astrology charts for some of the

critical dates on the chart. Mark teased Alexandra by asking her if she had any

interest in visiting Rosh Pinah after her time in Cairo. She declined the invitation,

confessing that she had a growing astrological practice in Athens. She promised to

send him charts stardated for the birth of the Age of Aquarius in 1961,

Yohannah’s mysterious September 26th date in 1975, a Mayan calendar prophecy

date for August the 17th of 1987, plus galactic events on 24 October 2007, 28

October 2011, 21 December 2012, 17 December 2013, 3 May 2017, 21 Sept. 2017,

8 April 2024, and October 17, 2033.

Yohannah expressed her delight in being surrounded by a team of

astrologers, magi and new age business moguls. She attempted to steer the group

back to her map of pyramid prophecies, but to no avail. Robert and John had

found them out and created quite a stir as they arrived at poolside. John was

excited.

“My friend Hakeem can get us in to the pyramid for a private meditation at 3

am tomorrow morning. I’m in charge of logistics and protocols. We need to come

up with forty or fifty dollars each for baksheesh. I’m assuming we have a group of

eight. Are your pod of initiates ready to enter the pyramid?”

Akiva let out a howl, “Ready or not, here we come.”

Alexandra wanted to know if the group should wear their new white

galabeyas for the ceremony. Robert eyed her provocative swimwear before

responding.

“Why not, as long as you don’t throw us out for wearing Levis and tee-shirts,

we’re old hat at this you know.”

Yohannah inquired where they were to meet Hakeem. John promised that

they would bring Hakeem to the Mena House lobby to meet at 2 a.m.

“The entrance is good from 3am to 5am. If we are lucky and I can track down

Farag, we might be able to climb the pyramid as well. We’re going to take an

early dinner, go back to our room and sleep until midnight if we can. I suggest

you do the same.”

Robert and John declined Yohannah’s invitation to offer their input on “the

pyramid prophecies.”

T h e B o n e s o f t h e P r o p h e t s , & P y r a m i d P r o p h e c i e s

. . . . . . . . . .

50

“Perhaps later, over breakfast, after we’ve been inside.”

Robert and John headed for the Mena House café. Everyone at poolside was

very excited by the good news. Yohannah let all the excitement die down before

sharing one more item relating to the passageways and her own dating of the

pyramid prophecies.

“One last numerological note, before we prepare to meet the guardians of the

great pyramid. It is 1975, if I’m correct. Not sure if we can really rely on the

Gregorian calendar, it’s been tampered with as well. Add 42 years to 1975. I

suggest you check out that date as well. The one who is speaking with you is 42

years old. Eighty-four years is the full cycle of the planet Uranus. The ancient

Egyptians held a ceremony in Abydos where the soul, at death, was required to

answer 42 questions by the 42 assessors of Maat in the bardo state. Only when all

42 questions were answered was entrance allowed into the afterlife. If you look at

the book of Exodus closely,” Yohannah gave her retired scribe an assignment with

her laser beam eyes, “the Hebrew Tabernacle is set up exactly 42 times during the

passage through the wilderness of Sinai. It just might be that Earth’s collective

bardo state or solar journey through the galactic duat will last 42 years from the

time this one before you leaves this planet.”

The galactic gate-keeper gathered up her books and charts and made a

dramatic exit from poolside. The excitement over the news of the private

entrance to the great pyramid precipitated a moment of anxiety and tension in

the camp of the prophets.

Mark invited Damo to join him in an important meditation before dinner.

“Sure, but I wouldn’t mind going for a swim first.”

Akiva, with mischief in his Gemini eyes, invited Alexandra for a drink to

celebrate “happy hour.”

He took her “why not” as a sign that happy hour had arrived, called over the

waiter and placed in his order for two “pina coladas”. The playful Nubian waiter

asked him if he wanted “virgin pina coladas” or ones with rum in them. He

appeared distracted or mesmerized by Alexandra as he took the order. He

proceeded to take a few steps backwards before landing, tray and all, right into

the pool.

Damo looked on in astonishment.

She informed Akiva that Yohannah had been right all along.

“It must be the power of our sacred triangles.”

T h e U n i c o r n M e s s i a h

. . . . . . . . . .

51

16.6 Initiation

View from the Missing Capstone

In that day shall there be an altar to YHWH, in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to YHWH. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto YHWH’s constellations in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto YHWH because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour and a great one, and he shall deliver them.

Isaiah 19:20

ark woke up in a sweat from a surreal dream that night. It was exactly

1:37am, the gematria of the Hebrew word kabbalah. It was a bit of a

scramble for the group to get dressed and gather all that they needed to gather in

preparation for their time in the Great Pyramid. They met with John, Robert and

Hakeem in the café at the Mena House a little after 2 am. Hakeem was a tall

Egyptian man with Bedouin ancestors whose family had served as guides at the

Giza Plateau for at least three generations. He had a childlike presence and

enough charm to put everyone at ease. Yohannah connected with him

immediately as if they had been old friends in another lifetime. Mark was happy

M

I n i t i a t i o n

. . . . . . . . . .

52

to see Hakeem as well; he had been irritated when John and Robert had kept him

and his hooka from joining them at breakfast after the meditation at the Sphinx.

Yohannah introduced him to her group. “You have time for tea, but remember, there are no washrooms in the Great

Pyramid and you will be there for a very long time.”

Hakeem smiled at each potential initiate and asked Yohannah if she would

like him to join the ceremony she had in mind.

Yohannah extended a rather perplexing invitation to him, “Absolutely, you

have been with us since the creation of the Universe, just like Abraham, before

this creation, in Barah Eloheem.”

Alexandra caught Yohannah’s allusion and added one of her own.

“Like Iasos was reported to say, “Before Abraham was, I am.”

Hakeem smiled at Alexandra. “Don’t forget Wasr-Heru, he died and

resurrected a few thousand years before anyone knew about your Iasos.”

Akiva brought tea and tried to lighten things up with a scriptural joke or two

of his own that nobody could understand. Mark found a hole in the conversation

that was large enough for him to share what he still remembered from his recent

dream.

“Remember that passage that Rutherford found in Isaiah 19:19 and 19:20 that

speaks about meezbeahh l’Yod-Hay-Vav-Hay, the sign and the witness to Yah Tzvaot. A guide came to me in the dream-state to tell me that it was important

for me to chant this passage from the prophet Isaiah in the Great Pyramid at

exactly 4:41 this morning.”

Yohannah pointed out that 4:41 was the gematria of the Hebrew word emet or truth.

Mark nodded, “The gematria of the whole passage is 5449, which is the

measurement from the base of the pyramid’s exterior to the crown, not counting

the capstone. I’d like to know the height of the capstone if that is possible.”

Alexandra offered to research the measurements of the capstone and Damo

whispered to Mark that she actually heard them chanting during his dream.

Hakeem added his note of gentle urgency, “Many unusual things can happen

during our time in the Chamber of the Resurrection. It is good if each of us has

the opportunity to lie in the open coffer for at least five minutes. There will be

time for your silent meditation and there will be time for chanting. It is time for

us to go now, ya’aalah.”

Hakeem led the procession of his seven guests to the entrance of the Great

Pyramid. He was at the head with Yohannah at the tail. Robert gave him an

envelope stuffed with baksheesh that would take care of all the night watchmen,

their families and a few local gossips that needed to be tipped as well. Everyone

I n i t i a t i o n

. . . . . . . . . .

53

offered his or her own moment of attunement before following Hakeem into the

pyramid. The entrance to get inside the pyramid they were using was not a true

entrance but a passage forced by El-Mamum the Caliph of Cairo in the 9th

century, according to Hakeem. He suggested that the true pyramid entrance lay

concealed behind a secret stone indistinguishable from the others but hung on a

swivel that opened on a touch. One by one, the group began their climb up the

ascending passage. John noted that there really wasn’t enough room for the

manipulation of a sarcophagus or for carrying on funerary rites as orthodox

Egyptologists had suggested. He reported that the ascending passage rose at an

angle of 26 degrees.

“If Hakeem can stay crouched over up the ascending passage, we all should be

able to do it without bumping our heads.”

Once the group arrived at the Grand Gallery (157 feet long and 28 feet in

height) they felt a sense of accomplishment and relief. There were no figures of

gods, goddesses or offerings to suggest worship of any kind. Akiva felt like he was

inside some enormous instrument used for astronomical observation or a

sparkplug for an earth energy generator. At the top of the Grand Gallery, Hakeem

pointed out that the passageway they were taking to the King’s Chamber was too

narrow for any sarcophagus. The antechamber had three grooves cut in it, plus a

pair of granite leaves set in grooves above the entrance, where the limestone of

the pyramid gave way to the granite of the King’s Chamber. The group entered

the chamber one at a time and it took at least five minutes for everyone to catch

their breath. Yohannah and Hakeem chose to sit with their backs up against the

open granite coffer. Mark and Damo sat to their right. Akiva and Alexandra sat to

their left, John and Robert found a spot exactly in the middle of the chamber.

John pointed out a few features of the chamber, including one ventilation shaft

and the cryptocrystalline content of the granite that came from Aswan.

Hakeem offered a short invocation in Arabic before tapping on the coffer

three times. A musical note was released into the chamber that John said was A

according to the Pythagorean scale at 432 cycles per second. He mentioned that

the chamber itself vibrated at middle C or 256 cycles per second. Damo toned the

vowel Hu in middle C and the chamber was filled with the resonance of Hu for

what seemed to be an eternity.

Alexandra lit some of the angel incense that Mohammed had given her on a

small piece of charcoal. The incense served to banish a stench from an unknown

source that was in the air when they entered. As the vibrations from Damo’s

chanting of Hu subsided, and the fragrance of the angel incense filled the air, each

member of the group was transported slowly but surely, into a profound

meditative state. After about twenty minutes, Hakeem began to shepherd each

one of his guests to the open granite coffer. He had placed a blanket, which Akiva

I n i t i a t i o n

. . . . . . . . . .

54

had brought from the Mena House, in the coffer for them to lie on. Yohannah

had explained to her group during the ceremonial walk to the entrance of the

pyramid that the initiation in the King’s Chamber could be, if they allowed it, a

journey to the realm of the imperishable stars. She whispered to her crew that it

was an opportunity for a profound ego death experience and a taste of one’s

immortality once the fear of death had been overcome. Yohannah was the first to

dive into the coffer for her near death experience and subsequent reincarnation.

Hakeem proceeded to tap the coffer three times to indicate when it was time for

someone new to enter. The meditation grew deeper and deeper. Mark heard or

imagined he could hear the voices of discarnate spirits speaking with one another

at the entrance to the pyramid below. Damo kept looking up at the ventilation

shaft as if it were a tunnel for her soul to travel out to the star realm and back.

John and Robert continued their telepathic exchange of measurements that they

had begun at the paws of the Sphinx, two mornings earlier. Alexandra was

evidently receiving some kind of instructions in the midst of her meditation that

she needed to write in her journal. Akiva busied himself by lighting and re-

lighting the angel incense. It took almost an hour for everyone, including

Hakeem, to taste death and resurrection in the coffer. When Robert came out and

sat back down, Hakeem let Mark know that it was approaching 4:41 am.

Mark opened the Hebrew text of the prophet Yeshayahu and began to chant

the phrase B’yom Hahu. The acoustics in the King’s Chamber were unlike

anything he had ever experienced before. The chamber took the vowels of his

cantillation through a profound resonance that returned in sonic waves that

hinted of other dimensions. Mark learned how to allow the vowels to fill the

chamber with what Damo later called “overtone harmonics”.

When it came time for him to chant the Hebrew name for the “Holy One”,

he began to tremble like a cantor or the Hebrew High Priest might have trembled

during Yom Kippur. He chose to chant the letters one at a time. Something

extraordinary happened in the chamber during the chanting of this passage.

Everyone discovered later that they had had an experience of a powerful beam of

light spiraling in at the crown of the head and anchoring at the heart. A similar

thing happened when he chanted the Hebrew word moshiahh (saviour,

redeemer). Toward the end of the chanting, everyone felt comfortable enough to

join in. Hakeem seemed right at home with the Hebrew. The harmonics that

filled the chamber were “just awesome”, according to the initiate from

Chattanooga. Eight voices filled the chamber completely until there was a choir

of sixty-four voices blending into one harmonic synchrony. The ceremony lasted

perhaps a half an hour. The energy in the room was so intense that Akiva’s head

started to shake uncontrollably on three or four occasions. Hakeem went over to

I n i t i a t i o n

. . . . . . . . . .

55

him and helped him transform the shaking into a circling motion that resembled

a Sufi zikr practice. Damo found herself channeling once again. Her lips were

moving but no audible sound came out of her. Alexandra was given a language of

hand gestures and postures that she later called Egyptian yoga. John and Robert

both saw constellational patterns appear like holograms in the centre of the

chamber. Robert told the group the next day that he had seen the belt of Orion

vibrating above the apex of the pyramid in the vision that came to him in the

King’s Chamber. Yohannah asked if anyone had seen the Eye of Horus in the

moment that the audible chanting ceased and silence filled the chamber with a

golden light.

Hakeem led the group out of the King’s Chamber and back down the Grand

Gallery, teaching them to walk backwards for the time when the passage

narrowed. They made a stop for no more than ten minutes in the so-called

Queen’s Chamber.

Damo said something quite strange upon leaving this room. “I feel myself as a

light body returning to earth once the Age of Aquarius has been anchored.”

When the group exited the Great Pyramid, it was early morning and the sky

was beginning to lighten. John was ecstatic to find Farag waiting for them at the

entrance.

Farag cleared his throat, tossed a cigarette at Akiva’s feet and announced,

“Everyone coming with me to the top before Allah puts the capstone back on. We

have less than an hour. Ra is almost up.” John did a quick hand-count to find that

there are a few dropouts. Hakeem smiled, thanks his neighbour for the invitation

and invited him for a game of sheshbesh later that night. Damo whispered that

she’d like to connect with Hakeem, maybe later in the day, but she was going

back to the Mena House to take down the channeling that was waiting for her

from her time in the King’s Chamber. Akiva hesitated before asking Farag if seven

people could actually fit at the top of the pyramid. Farag must have been asked

this question before as he had a ready answer, “If a thousand angels can fit on the

head of a pin, I’m sure we can squeeze seven onto the top of Cheops.”

Akiva realized that enlightenment aside he had an extraordinary

photographic opportunity. He signed up and forked out a few more American

twenty-dollar bills for his friends. Yohannah joked with him, mentioning to Farag

that her friend, Lazarus, had just resurrected from the coffer in the pyramid and

had yet to gain his “climbing legs.” Farag swore on his packet of cigarettes not to

push Akiva beyond his limit.

The agile Capricorn goat chose a kind of corkscrew spiraling path to ascend

the pyramid that used two of the four faces to reach the top. Some of the blocks

I n i t i a t i o n

. . . . . . . . . .

56

were as much as two and a half to three feet from one step to the other. Farag was

a seasoned guide and seemed to know intuitively at what stations the group

needed to rest. He even gave them a few tips on proper breathing techniques for

what he termed “oxy-jinn-aysian”. Alexandra suffered a bout of vertigo about two

thirds of the way up the pyramid. She said it wasn’t about height, her astral body

was capable of flight but she just didn’t know where to fly to. When the group

reached the top of the pyramid, they were surprised to find someone awaiting

them there. A boyish face emerged from the chrysalis of his keffiya, coming out

of his meditation with a warm smile.

“Thought you’d never make it, I’ve been here all night waiting for you. My

name is Richard. I have completed my meditation but I’m not quite ready to make

the descent. Do you mind if I join you for yours?”

John said the fellow looked very familiar. “You remind me of a doctor friend of mine who lives in Glastonbury.”

Richard nodded like a man who is well known throughout the world but

enjoys going places incognito. The group of eight arranged themselves in a circle

to begin their silent meditation. Farag offered to leave but Akiva asked him

“where would you go?” Farag pointed to the Sphinx, but stayed. Mark reached

into his daypack and brought out a set of twenty-two quartz crystals that a

channel passing through Vancouver had suggested he might want to “charge” one

day at the top of the Giza Pyramid. He layed them out on a silk batik scarf that

Sarah had made for him with the pattern of the Tree-of-Life upon it. Farag

informed him that more and more people were bringing crystals to the top of the

pyramid and that he had quite a collection himself from the tips that people gave

him.

The group finally settled in for a twenty-minute meditation that came to

conclusion with Mark offering a few Atlantean tonal chants, more for the benefit

of his crystals than for his friends. Yohannah had obviously experienced a

powerful realignment during the meditation; Alexandra said that she could see

“beams of light” radiating out of Yohannah’s temples. Mark shared that he felt

connected to many spiritual friends at the top of the pyramid who were living in

diverse places on the earth grid. Akiva felt “charged up like a battery” and asked

Farag if there were any camel races outside of Cairo that day that he could go to.

Richard was silent at first, but did smile and engage in a private conversation with

Yohannah as the group snaked its way back down the pyramid as the sun rose in

the east over Cairo, illuminating the face of the Sphinx.

Akiva tipped Farag handsomely for his services that morning. He thanked

him, explaining that it was people like Akiva that were putting his two sons

through university in Germany. He gave his benefactor a big hug and slipped a

I n i t i a t i o n

. . . . . . . . . .

57

St Macarius Monastery

couple of Egyptian perfume bottles into his pockets as a gesture of goodwill and

friendship. Richard thanked the group for letting him join their meditation and

headed towards the pyramid of Mycerinus as Yohannah, Mark, Akiva and

Alexandra meandered back to the Mena House. Robert and John decided to spend

a little time with Farag and visit Hakeem for breakfast before returning to the

hotel.

Damo was already in a deep sleep when the rest of the group finally arrived

back at their room. Everyone went comatose until noon when the heat of the day

became oppressive and the phone rang with a wake-up call. Damo had written

half a book by the time her friends arose. Each member of the tribe sailed through

his/her own zone of silence that afternoon. Yohannah made one joke only,

suggesting that Zehhuti or Thoth was with them and would keep them busy with

visions to scribe down until sunset. Alexandra promised to treat the group to

what she called a farewell dinner, at the Indian restaurant that night at 9 p.m.

Damo and Mark took a walk over to the Sphinx to have a few words with

Hakeem, Jamil, and the Sphinx herself before returning for dinner. Mark found

Ibrahim playing his eternal game of sheshbesh outside of the Mena House and

invited him to join them for dinner that night. At first, Ibrahim declined, but

when he realized that the group was disbanding the next day and leaving for

various destinations, he decided he had better come. John and Robert dropped in

for dessert claiming they liked the food at the Felfella better. They teased Akiva

saying that he had missed a great belly dance show that night. Akiva hinted that

he might have a date with Omphalissa at midnight, if Yohannah would allow it.

Ibrahim had the choice of taking Mark, Akiva and Yohannah to the airport late

the next morning for a flight to Tel Aviv (Akiva’s treat) – or taking John, Robert,

Damo and Alexandra to Alexandria in his recently reconditioned Peugeot.

Ibrahim was masterful, a diplomat after the style of Anwar Sadat.

“My heart is flying to Israel, but my trusty vehicle will be driving to

Alexandria.”

T h e U n i c o r n M e s s i a h

. . . . . . . . . .

58