#2 Joyful Beliefs 2022
Welcome to the River of Joy, 2022
“Faith is the courage to say yes to life.”
—Paul Tillich
“River Dance,”
encaustic by Pat Heck
EXCURSION TWO:
SEEKING—AND FINDING—JOYFUL BELIEFS
February 10 to March 21
During these forty days afloat on the River of Joy, we explore what seems possible and feels rewarding to believe about joy. During the first month of this joy year, we traveled through a paradise of our own imagining, remembering and celebrating the sources of joy, aboard our own versions of Noah’s Ark..
For this month, we float out of paradise, and change crafts in order to meander comfortably onto the Nile, that notably mythic river on our river-rich Earth. Our craft is now a felucca, perfect for experiencing this magical river as a River of Joy. The gentle breezes caress the bright sail as we wander back and forth across the water, looking for stories rich in joyful beliefs.
What finer source for joyful beliefs than this very river, whom the ancient Egyptians perceived as guided by a form of divine energy they called Hapi. (The name means Inundation.) For five thousand years, this beneficent being regularly carried an annual flood of fecund soil into Egypt, providing the people with nourishment, clear seasons for planting and harvesting, and joy in life restored. “Hapi, River Spirit, flourish and return!”
Said to be the longest river on earth; the Nile has two sources: Lake Victoria (one of the world’s largest lakes, touching the countries of Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya) which marks the beginning of what is called the White Nile, while Lake Tana in Ethiopia provides the world with the Blue Nile. The two come together in the city of Khartoum, flowing north, bringing with it rich soil that over thousands of years formed a huge delta growing into the Mediterranean Sea. Hapi is sometimes shown with two breasts pouring out the riches of these two rivers.
Along the Nile, Hapi’s people watched innumerable varieties of birds, fish, other amazing forms of wild life, as well as processions of gods with priests and priestesses come to bless them. They saw building materials for strange buildings — pyramids and lesser structures. They gathered papyrus, discovered its usefulness for building boats, and most important for us, created with it a kind of paper — holder of art, stories, hymns, recipes, magic.
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- Leaves of papyrus
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- Detail of ancient Book of the Dead (1070 BC)
For you to consider in these 40 days:
Create images and/or words, possibly to share in the comment area below:
What words, images and ideas come to you as you entertain a flood tide of happiness, nourishment, creativity, new life for our world and time?
What words, images and ideas come as you imagine the River of Joy carrying such riches into your life as the River Nile poured itself into ancient Egypt?
What words come as you create a hymn of joy to celebrate times of recovery, resilience, delight?
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EXCURSION TWO AND ONE-HALF:
EXPLORING JOYFUL BELIEFS
During the first weeks of this forty-day month, we found ourselves afloat on the world’s longest river, the Nile, sensing it as a River of Joy and Joyful Beliefs. For this second part of the month, we deepen our adventure by daring to believe in joy – its presence, its ebullience, its gift of energy. Our focus is discovery: we will look at some beliefs held by ancient wise people, the people of ancient Egypt. For me, these beliefs themselves provide joy.
We accomplish this by continuing to travel aboard a traditional Egyptian river craft, the felucca.
Our traveling companion is this gentleman. He is here to guide us toward believing in the joy of creation, and encouraging us toward that joy by making new expressions from our own hands, hearts, and minds. His name is Khnum. Known as the Lord of Destiny, he is Maker of Heaven and Earth and All Things.
More intimately for human kind, he gathers rich dark Nile River clay from mud carrying many varieties of richness for thousands of miles from its sources. Khnum then shapes that clay on his potter’s wheel into human form, creating both our bodies and our souls. These he then magically inserts into our mothers’ wombs.
Here are some words of a hymn to Khnum, translated by that wise knower of all things Egyptian, Normandi Ellis.
God of the potter’s wheel,
Who settled the land by his handiwork…
He has fashioned gods and men,
He has formed flocks and herds;
He made birds as well as fishes,
He created bulls, engendered cows.
He knotted the flow of blood to the bones…
He makes women give birth when the womb is ready.
So as to open the flood gates of life…
There is delight in considering that the One who made all things also used his hands to shape us, caring for us sweetly enough to endow us with a body and a soul.
There is joy in wondering how old that belief might be. It reminds me of the beautiful hymn/sermon, “The Creation,” by James Weldon Johnson, who found inspiration from a similar story in Genesis of the Hebrew Bible. Here is the final verse of that sermon.
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in is his own image;
Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.
The invitation is to believe that the flood gates of life open to new life, not just to being born as a baby, but always and all ways open to the one who creates and who cares for creation.
During this month of Joyful Beliefs as we continue our journey of imagining the River of Joy confluent with the mystery of the Nile, the invitation is also to imagine the hands of the Divine Potter capable of refreshing and restoring our human bodies and inspiring our human souls, all our lives long. How might that be?
PS. It is wonderful to read about your excursions on the River of Joy. Please keep your comments coming!
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PS. It is wonderful to read about your excursions on the River of Joy. Please keep your comments coming!
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February 6, 2022 @ 10:00 am
As I enter this new year, my hesitation at various points in making plans is greatly eased as I hold the image and feel the Nile’s beneficent flooding washing over me, green, warm and rich. That powerful seasonal, reliable dynamic strengthens and inspires me to remember that we are indeed in the “throes of the upstart spring” and that we are waking up. I believe it because I can feel it.
February 14, 2022 @ 6:20 pm
Well, Trish, it’s nice to have you as company! One of the primary ways I practice joy is through music– listening to it, dancing, playing it, or singing. I don’t know anything about Egyptian music. What comes to mind is Steve Martin singing King Tut. Which is probably only indigenous to Steve Martin.
So, today, on our journey down the Nile, I am going to lean over the rail of this beautiful boat and let the breeze that fills the sails fill me, and bring me the music of Egypt and the Nile. The first thing I hear is the soft, smooth slide of our prow gliding through the water. Then, I’m aware of voices along the shore as we pass small groups of people, some with carts, selling things, others in the water along the shore washing their clothes and speaking to one another, their voices rising and falling in a kind of melody punctuated by laughter.
As the water slides by, I feel taken back to an earlier time, imagine nomads and camels carrying trade goods. I can almost hear the sand as it shifts with the wind and sifts into every crack and crevice and fold of cloth. A man walks barefoot into the blowing sand dressed in white with a red sash carrying a small stringed instrument on his hip which he plays and the sounds mingle together into a sand song.
And then I hear murmuring sounds from very far away from all the mummies in all the museums of the world, saying, “I want to go home.”
February 19, 2022 @ 10:32 am
Thank you for this rich journey that opens my day. Colors, sights, the feel of the wind and sand, and then those murmurs of the mummies! Wow.
February 19, 2022 @ 2:28 pm
Thank you! I also enjoyed taking the plunge with you into the beneficent flood waters of the Nile. I could feel it’s warmth and fecundity as the soil prepares itself for spring.
Where do you suppose the rest of this crew is? Kidnapped?
I’m glad you brought your horse. I like seeing her trotting around deck getting her morning exercise — and wondering what planet those alien camel horses came from on the shore.
March 2, 2022 @ 3:25 am
Trish and Shannon
Yes the Nile the River that
is unusual as it flows North
up stream from the South to the North into The Mediterranean Sea!
That alone is a joyful aspect in my story book and I imagine that flowing in
a different direction gives the Nile a special current
maybe a longer life. Those
Egyptians from ancient times flooded the land on either side to grow crops
and the River was their highway and they did not have to build it, just maintain it . The Blue Nile sounds
so Peaceful and I always
associate the color BLUE
with Peace and of couse
Sky that expansive , endless
ABOVE . The Night Sky and the Arching NUT . I love to imagine her when I paint her in the night sky
with those twinkling
lights filling her Arch and below on the Blue Nile
all sailing vessels with billowing sails and cargo
with people sitting on bales of cotton enjoying the heavens above on a clear
full moonlit night , where reflections
of stars and that golden orb are seen on the face of the water. The sounds of water sloshes under the bottom wooden planks of the barge or boat .
I imagine laughing and singing folk, celebrating
this beauty. As Above and So Below this night . Perhaps being on the river is a wonderful way to be Joy
in a pyramid shape . The wooden vessel is the base of the pyramid and the night sky the point above with NUT the arching sides and
we are held in this embrace as we stare into the the brilliance above and the
Holy Hearts Affection
for the Joy of the imagination . Thank you both for your truly delightful Duet . Loved
Stargazing with you in this way . Inspirational and
so uplifting in a time when beauty is an expression
that smiles over this creation we dwell in .
So very happy to meet you both on this night journey
and your lovely descriptive
musings .
Thank you . Thank you
lovely posts to light and shine the journey of Nile as a River of Joy ! I hear you,
we connected this night
and I am grateful to flow
with you .
March 3, 2022 @ 6:51 pm
Thank you, Michelle, for your beautiful images. I especially loved the “Joy pyramid” with our boat as the base and the stars as the peak and he over-arching NUT– a true joy to imagine! And now I’m going to have to find out why some rivers flow north and others south, so you’re sending me on another journey. Thank you for joining this voyage and being such an inspiring companion!
March 5, 2022 @ 2:59 pm
Thank you Shannon for the first time you made contact by my first post on my ancestors. I loved your
reply and I am delighted that you enjoy your imagination as much as I do mine . Truthfully I used to paint mine years ago before my high school decided I needed to drop my 3 hour art classes twice a week in the afternoons that I loved so much . Because I was elevated ( is there such a
distinction ?) to Physics , Chemistry and Biology .
Really 3 hour art became 3 hour labs . My parents were delighted , I wept . Art was never considered a way to
make a living ! I knew differently so I painted in my mind and still do that to this day as a practice .
In times of stress it is a real companion because I can make silly cartoons !
When I am afraid , this helps me stay hinged on
and anchored in the present as opposed to
fear. What a gift is the mighty imagination .
What a gift is Peggy Rubin for this fabulous activity !
Love connecting with you here where we are in the open sky , the endless imagination .
Painting again with companions of enjoyment .
on the Rivers of joy . Lucky us .
March 8, 2022 @ 11:26 am
Hello, Shipmates, (Michelle, I am determined to learn how to paint in my mind! It sounds wonderful!) But this morning I was feeling sad as the beautiful Nile delta appeared and the end of our journey was approaching. I would miss my travelling companions and I would miss seeing the stark beauty along the shore that belies the richness of Egyptian history. Then, as I let out a long sigh of regret, suddenly, surprise! A stowaway! It was Jean! Appearing out of nowhere. She said she had not been a stowaway, but was here all the time, as well as elsewhere, because there is no time, only Now, but Now is Then, because it’s the Past as soon as we know it is Now, and someday, we would all understand, before it’s Too Late– though it can Never be Too Late, you see? We all nodded, of course. “Nowthen,” she began, “Let Peggy read you a poem.” And Peggy read us the most glorious and profound poem about Khnum, the divine potter, who created men and women and the whole world out of clay from the Nile delta– which we were fast approaching! And that gave me an idea as I thought about how when we were children, we all liked to play in the mud. We made mud pies and splashed each other and didn’t mind getting “dirty” a bit. Though our mothers did. So I suggested we all get out of the boat and go play in that rich, dark Nile mud that still contained all the riches of the past centuries and civilizations, and that we wiggle our toes in it and then make something New out of it. And we did! And then we all jumped into the Nile to rinse off and were baptized into the River of Joy! And we loved it.
March 11, 2022 @ 5:40 pm
I’m sorry — I’ve never been very good with dates. And I didn’t mean to rush to the end of this joyful journey. Perhaps we can all row backwards for awhile and give others time to add their thoughts on Khnum and the joys of creation before reaching the beautiful Nile delta.