More Madonna, Less Jesus

Egypt Today

I didn’t mean to mislead anyone, but since I have been traveling this year, I suppose that people weren’t surprised that I mentioned I was going to Egypt. What I meant is that I had been invited by a friend to get in on her discount tickets to the King Tut exhibit in San Francisco, and we decided to spend our Veteran’s Day holiday doing things Egyptian.

After the exhibit, we had lunch overlooking Sutro Baths at Louie’s Diner, and then decided to drive down Skyline Boulevard instead of the usual highways. Neither of us had taken that highway its entire length. It wasn’t that much longer, and goodness gracious it is beautiful. As beautiful as the Egyptian Afterlife, I’m sure, and I’m still alive and with my internal organs not yet in alabaster jars. Since we were in the neighborhood, we stopped and I showed Hilary where the Ohlone Winter Solstice rock is.

Then we dropped down into the Santa Clara valley and the Rosicrucian Museum off Naglee in San Jose. We decided not to go into the museum, but strolled the park there, which is peaceful and beautiful and a little odd. Odd, only because of my ignorance.

In both displays of displaced Egypt today, I wondered about my ignorance. I’m pretty ignorant about the Rosicrucians, but I could learn more. About the ancient Egyptians, I got the feeling that for all we know about them, doesn’t it make more sense that we really don’t understand what all the afterlife fuss was about? Everything that we learn about people in the past usually confirms that we are not that different from them. It makes sense to me that there is more to their beliefs and attention to preservation of body parts that were never written down. All those artifacts just didn’t add up to what the placards would lead you to believe.

My favorite object today? Tut’s diadem, thought to have been worn in everyday use. Yes. We should all wear diadem everyday.