Opening the imagination - expressing the heart

Aker - by John Crabtree

'Oh Aker, I went your way, you whose forms are mysterious, open thy arms before me. Here I am, those who are within you call to me. I have seen thy mysteries, my sun disc and Geb, the earth god, are those whom I carry on my back. Chepera is now deep inside his envelope. Open thy arms, receive me. Here I am, I will chase away your darkness' (Book of Caverns) 

This article is in some way a recapitulation of the Aker article published in Liongate 1 by B. WaIker-John. It explores further the motif and image within Egyptian Mythology. The ancient Egyptian god Aker or Akerou is depicted as two lions sitting back to back with sometimes the sun-disc between them. He is a form of Geb the Earth. Aker's lion body symbolizes the solar principle immanent within matter. Figuratively he is shown as double lions, double dogs (jackals), double bearded heads or as yesterday and tomorrow (Sef and Duau). A small amulet figure in the Ashmolean Museum Oxford portrays a lion back to back with a bull. In the form of the jackals of Anubis an inscription found transcribes; "These are the openers of the ways, the agents of resurrection". The belly of the Aker figure is depicted as resting along the horizon or extending below and within the earth itself.. This is intriguing as certain groups of symbol correspond with certain regions and organs of the body as is well documented in Egyptian myth and hieroglyph. In psychology the belly corresponds to the instinctual world. In alchemy the belly was the laboratory, the place of transformation. The solar plexus/diaphragm is also relevant as it is one of the major diagnostic instruments of the body, the membrane that is sensitive to the subconscious waves and emotional tremors within us. The diaphragm is supposed to correspond to the earth's surface, and development behind this zone is coordinated with the rising-sun, the state of consciousness that has begun to leave behind the unconscious and all ties with it. ( I) This emphasizes the belly of the Aker figure in touch or connected to the underworld. The motif of the double lions can be seen as having evolved from the hieroglyph sign for ' horizon' which shows the two peaks of the mountain Glyph  with solar disc between them. The horizon thus embraced the idea of sunrise and sunset and was protected in early times by Aker. These symbolic images translated into architectural and functional forms. Aker looks both backwards and forward in time, the word Aker means the 'present moment'. Aker also represents the door to the Beyond to which the double versa. They are the guardians, the gates, the threshold to the Beyond." (2) The Egyptian word 'duat' is usually translated as 'netherworld', 'underworld', 'beyond', or , afterlife' .The underworld existed ritually in the subterranean temple, but in imagination it was often a great palace or city with ramparts and a hall where Osiris lay, or lions stand as doorkeepers, threshold figures and guardians to the eastern and western gates of the underworld. In traditional mysticism the east is the place of illumination and light, the west is the place of darkness and death. In the role of guardian Aker guarded the gate of dawn through which the sun passed each morning. The sun-god is described as passing through a dark passage which hid his light and created darkness while his emergence announced the day -the rebirth of consciousness after the night-sea journey. As Constant de Wit comments, "The double lion, the two horizons, the two world mountains, are different images symbolizing the crossing from life to death, from day to night and vice alternatively, presided over the court of the dead. This identification of the mythical and localized underworlds was deliberate. In Egypt the names of many of the major centers of Osiris worship were used for the underworld; for example, Busiris (in Egyptian Djedu ) .The underworld can be considered not so much as a physical or positional place but as a dimension of reality that reflects and mirrors the transcendental within the immanence of earth. It is the great field of spiritual transformation -it is the realm of subconscious or astral world. In death and rebirth of the sun-god it is the mysterious period of darkness. He (Aker) guarded the sun L- during this time. "His powers are mysterious", says one text "in him lie the deepest mysteries", he has "concealed of forms", he is "the one full of mystery who is not known" or "that which brings about the resurrection of the sun".(3)

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Last modified: November 09, 2003