#opet

da jos si nesto najljepse

And here is the second video:

So, the Opet Festival Parade surpassed the parade from the Pharaohs' Golden Parade for a lot of reasons. First, the temples were an efficient time machine, and everything else, from the light reflected from the water onto the temple walls at the very beginning, the very start of the music and the ethereal reverb, the subtle harp, the subtle movements of the dancers, the mystic lighting, the incense smoke, the attire, among many other things, including the overall atmosphere, put one in a state of trance, it was ethereal in every way, but most importantly, it is entirely about the rituals. And the woman on top of the temple, she made me feel like a "naddaha" is about to call for me. Like I said, the Opet Festival Parade was ethereal. I hope Dr. Khaled el-Anany (our Egyptian minister of Antiquities and Tourism) manages to make it into an annual event, he expressed his desire to do so; if there is a festival that deserves to be an annual celebration, then it is the Opet Festival, for many reasons, including that it is still alive to this day in Egypt, see below. Now, the hymn to ı͗mn (the great god Amun), and the hymn to queen Hatshepsut (ḥꜣ.t šps.wt, may her name be forever spoken) were absolutely magnificent and beautiful, and all of us Egyptians got goosebumps while listening to them, they, too, were ethereal, they were like a call from the ancient past. So, when I maintain, and I'm sure the majority of Egyptians will agree, that the hymn to ꜣs.t remains unsurpassed, this only attests to how much the hymn to ꜣs.t affected us Egyptians, it was just a moment of pure worship. But still, the hymn to ı͗mn and the hymn to ḥꜣ.t šps.wt from this event were mesmerizing, and made me feel like I was dreaming, a moment of worship befitting the greatness of ı͗mn, and the decision that a male voice is the proper choice for that part of the hymn to ı͗mn is genius; my spirit was elevated into a trance every time he chanted "ı͗mn-rꜥ". I can’t stop thinking about the event, and the one thing I can't get out of my head is the following. The single most important thing that all of us Egyptians should pay attention to is, there is an artistic style that has taken shape, from the two events; the choreography, the ritualistic atmosphere, the attire, the characteristically Egyptian compositions that use Egyptian musical instruments and captures the spirit of us Egyptians in characteristically Egyptian orchestras coupled with the hymns in our beautiful ancient Egyptian language, the decorations that has ancient Egypt written all over it, etc., are becoming definite, any subsequent event, and by the way there will be many more to come, should maintain the basic elements from that style, with variations and innovations of course, there is something that has developed here from the ancient traditions, and it is magnificent. These are crucial steps toward culture revitalization, as in this is part of how it actually starts to happen. The most crucial step however is our ancient Egyptian language, that must be taken to the next step, if not by our government, then by us Egyptians, and I'm aware that many Egyptians, including myself, are already fully engaged with our ancient Egyptian language. Another thing that is crucial to any cultural revitalization is the architecture, and that too has been developing in the new administrative capital of Egypt, but that requires another post, which I'll probably make at some point, but suffice it to say here that the architecture of the new capital of Egypt has ancient Egypt written all over it. I'm certain the Egyptians behind the making of these events are indeed fully aware of these things, given the speeches that our president has been giving regarding the Egyptian identity, the visual identity, and the freedom of religion; one of his most important statements which he made several times is that "every Egyptian has the freedom to believe or disbelieve"; I consider this to be the single most important statement from an Egyptian president in the history of modern Egypt. The single most important one. I just hope the rest of the institutions follow in his footsteps, but I also hope he is willing to take this to the next level; he has the sweeping majority of us Egyptians by his side, specially the youth, but the religious institutions are engaged in a witch-hunt, let alone that medieval "law" which the religious institutions rely on in their witch-hunt; that medieval "law" has to be completely removed. I mentioned in my previous post about the event that the Opet Festival is one of the ancient festivals that survive in Egypt to this day in new clothes, so let's talk about the rituals of Abu-elHaggag's Moulid. The moulid of Abu-elHaggag is one of thousands of moulids in Egypt, its rituals are the same rituals of the Opet Festival. I'm quite happy that they talked about this in the event itself. It is not just Abu-elHaggag's moulid that I wanted to talk about, the "moulid" iself is an Egyptian invention, and the moulids in Egypt are going on almost all year long, we have thousands of them, because we Egyptians glorify our local figures in a tradition that is traceable back to ancient times, the rituals of the moulids are also traceable back to ancient times, Egyptians build "domes" for these figure, and visit them constantly, they are considered a connection between the Egyptians and their god, just like the ancient tradition, this has nothing to do with the vile things that came from Semitic West-Asia (all of them), this is an ancient tradition, these figures do not mean anything to anyone outside the Egyptian village, and certainly none of these figures mean anything to anyone outside Egypt. We not only celebrate the moulids (births), we also have rituals for death, some of them are, peculiarly, called "moulids" too! These nomenclatures are important, because they say something about our worldview and its ancient origin. The worldview of rural Egyptians in particular has nothing to do with the vile things that came from Semitic West-Asia (all of them), except in a very shallow manner, our worldview is mythological in character, specially rural Egyptian women, but I won't talk about these things; whenever I decide to talk at length about these things it will be in the language that we speak. I should also mention in passing that we parade the dead from their homes to their tombs before burying them, but that is a very long story for another time; just a single word/hint to the hypothetical Egyptian that is reading this: “fly”. When they were showing Abu-elHaggag's moulid in the event, at 52:20 in the second video, the chants were something I'm quite familiar with; being a rural Egyptian myself, I was constantly surrounded by these voices and rituals while growing up, my village (which is in Middle Egypt; Middle Egypt is usually considered part of Upper Egypt by the way) had its own figure that was celebrated, a village next to ours had two, and both villages celebrated each other's figures. As a young teenager, I participated several times in what is known as Zikr/Zar rituals in my village, so these sounds and chants made me feel like I was sitting right there with them, because these are the typical voices you hear in these rituals. In my previous post about this event, which was 26 days ago, when I wrote that I was going to go into details about the survival of the Opet Festival in new clothes, I intended to share a few things here, and I'm extremely happy that a lot of Egyptians have beaten me to it and shared these things on Twitter, this makes me truly happy, because the numbers of Egyptians fighting for their history and heritage and for its revitalization are exponentially increasing. Here is a video, made in 1925 and shared by the MET, that shows Abu-elHaggag's moulid, as well as showing the overall cultural continuity between ancient Egypt and modern Egypt, specially rural Egypt, I'm familiar with everything in this video:

And here is a video showing Abu-elHaggag's moulid from 1975:

And here is a video showing Abu-elHaggag's moulid from 2015:

Again, as I mentioned in my previous post about the event, ancient Egyptian culture is not dead in any sense, it survives in every inch of Egypt. Back to the event. One of the things that should always be mentioned is, the magnificence of Egyptian women. I will always say this over and over again: Egyptian women have an amazing sense of Egyptian culture. And this is prevalent even in a simple clapping of the hand. They naturally excel at whatever they do. May they be freed from the shackles put on them by the vile things that came from Semitic West-Asia (all of them). Oh, and let's not forget to mention the "tahtib" that was quickly shown in the event, at 39:17 in the first video, and it is in the video from 1925 above, in which it is called "single stick contests". Tahtib is an ancient Egyptian practice, it is practiced in Upper Egypt, including Middle Egypt, exactly the same way as it is depicted on temple walls. I wish they focused more on it in this event, but they had so much to do, if they focused on everything that was shown the event could easily become about 10 hours long or something, I myself wouldn't have minded this event being 10 hours long. The music throughout was just magnificent, each part/movement actually has the potential to be developed into an entire work in and of itself, certain parts felt like an overture. I hope our great Nader Abbasi collaborates with other Egyptian composers and actually develop these into further pieces; it will not happen, but I just thought I should put the idea out there. Also the subtle mention of the Nile waters, and its absolute importance to us Egyptian, both on a spiritual level as well as all other levels. There is a subtle nod there if you are following the current events in the region. I will think of this event as a seed, and if there is something a rural Egyptian knows, it's what happens to a seed when it gets planted and cared for. Here are a few photos I snapshotted from the event for documentation purposes; I have successfully resisted the urge to put every single frame from the Opet Festival Parade here:

The Opet Festival Parade: