Quote from the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead

"Weighing of the Heart"--Book of the Dead of Sesostris

Death was not quite the same thing for Ancient Egyptians as it is for us modern folk. Their attitude towards it didn't engender fear, revulsion, existential questioning, or late-night rounds of Jack Daniels. It engendered wonder, reverence and a deep connection to the Spirit World whence we issued forth at birth and where we return at death. It brought awareness to the Ancestors who came before and the place of the long-ago time that still lives in the Duat, the place where souls travel after death and where their Gods live.

As someone who works with the dead and dying, I found the following quote from the Egyptian Book of the Dead to be moving and meaningful. This passage was written for the person who dies and thus re-enacts a ritual/transformation of his/her return to the origins. It speaks of some of the awesome beings who assist the dead. It is written from the perspective of a dead soul who stands "naked" before his/her Ancient Progenitors--death having stripped a soul of any cloak that hides the truth of who they are. And it puts the life of that soul into a greater context.

It shows what many Middle World practitioners understand: that death has aspects (some glorious and beautiful) that are understandably missed by the survivors who are in their grief.

Perhaps these words will be meaningful for you too.

I stand before the masters who witnessed
the genesis, who were the authors of their
own forms, who walked the dark, circuitous
passages of their own becoming. . . I stand
before the masters who witnessed the 
transformation of the body of a man into the
body in spirit, who were witness to
resurrection when the corpse. . . 
walked out shining. . .when he came forth
from death, a shining thing, his face white
with heat. . . I stand before the masters who
know the histories of the dead, who decide
which tales to hear again, who judge the
books of lives as either full or empty, who are
themselves authors of truth. And they are. . . 
the divine intelligences. And 
when the story is written and the end is good 
and the soul of man is perfected, with a
shout they lift him into heaven.

Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead
(Normandi Ellis Translation)