Cleopatra Occult by Peter Joseph Swanson Read Free Book Online Page B

I know that much. My army is too far away for now but I have ten loyal men in Suez. From there, pray to the gods that I get to my throne directly.”
    “We pray for your speedy journey. Everyone must converge at the palace on the first full moon of the year. It’s midsummer soon, when the Nile overflows her banks—the Egyptian New Year. All the gods of all the lands marvel at the Nile’s consistency.”
    Cleopatra said, “The New Year is best to begin new things, yes.”
    “My magic will be strongest at that juncture, as all the gods watch the Nile. The resurrection story of Persephone is universal to all farmland and must play out.”
    Cleopatra asked, “ Play out … for them or me.”
    “For us all. Out of death comes new life.” Iset began to sing an ancient work song of the field peasants, “ Bury the seed, a burial today, the dead seed must be buried for a springtime resurrection... ”  
    As her singing echoed in the dark, invasive bats filled the tunnel in a teeming aerial flush. Cleopatra followed the sounds of the wings.
     
    ~
     
    Overground in the Sinai Desert, Cleopatra found herself amongst the fourteen Mounds of the West where spirits traveled to be rejuvenated for a new life of eternal death. Cleopatra prayed, “Magic Stars, appear upon the sand and lead me away. Be my guiding light.”
    She remembered what Iset had instructed, “…follow the locusts from dune to dune or you will go in circles.”
    Cleopatra watched the horizon. Finally, far away in the sky, two swarms of locusts lifted, merged and mingled. She waited to see where they’d head and then she followed them off.
    A vaporous skeleton flickered before her, crying, “Don’t go that way, you’ll step off the turtle’s back and fall off the face of the earth… the real earth!”
    Another phantom skeleton appeared long enough to warn her, “Don’t follow the demons of lust, stay with us! Don’t let their wings brush you or you go mad with lust and all manner of desire!”
    Cleopatra answered, “Fly the teeth of the wind. Share my wings. Follow them to the gardens of life.”
    Skulls blew in the wind and begged her not to go.
    She maintained, “I will go where there is life blooming!”
    A skeleton rose out of the sand and said, “The fallen angels are those who wanted flesh and blood for their own arms and legs. They trick you into thinking those are good things! Stay in the greenless garden east of Eden where all things are still unborn and holy—where everything is still a perfect seed!”
    Many skeletons appeared, to cry, “You will make barren all that was green! Stay away from the garden of evil!”
    Cleopatra said, “I’m hungry and it’s growing for me to eat it.”
    “No!”
    “I will eat with the locusts and I will give thanks!”
    “No!”
    Cleopatra insisted, “That is the way of the tree of life. We grow so we can consume. You go to Hades. I am still alive so must follow the demons to the garden. I must go to where there is green. The devil is all things made physical.”
    “ No ! The Hebrew Garden of Eden! The Nubian Mound of Benben! The Zoroastrian Tree of Gayomard! It is all one place of one sunrise and one birth! Stay behind! Stay away from the world of growth and pain! Come back into the realm before the womb… the eternal state of unconsciousness and peace!” The flying bones became bright and solid, clanking together loudly.
    Cleopatra picked up a handful of sand. “You are as unsubstantial and as uninteresting to me as this sand! Go back to your eternal oblivion! Go back to how you were before you were born!”
    “No! You don’t want to rot!”
    She yelled, “The seed is not as interesting as the tree!”
    “The branches break!”
    She yelled back, “At least that is change !” She threw the sand and all the screaming bones were gone.
    As Cleopatra stepped through the veil of life and death, and entered mundane desert, she saw that the sun was in a different place in the sky. Two white