How I Spent My Summer Vacation.

I haven’t written one of these since I was in the 6^th grade, so bear with me…

It’s the end of August, and here in Europe, at least, the summer is winding down. Traditionally, it’s the end of the summer “vacation” season. Never mind that the planet’s circuit around the sun still has another 21 days to go before the summer is actually over – when the equinox returns us to daylight parity once again.

Why let facts get in the way, right? Twenty-some-odd days to go under the sun, with the surf and the sand still there. While one watches the crowds at the beach beginning to thin – those with employment have to return to the city – those without… Well, outside of the locals without, there are probably not that many at the beach to begin with. That's because going on vacation with the kids is probably the second largest expenditure in a family household (after the mortgage), at least, it used to be for me.

Like the Greeks after the 2008 “Greatest Depression,” the poor Spaniards (I live near Barcelona, Catalonia) can’t spend their vacations out and about in the world at large any more. They now flock to the local beaches, long enjoyed by those who came from Germany, the U.K., and points farther afield. And naturally, what’s left of the petite bourgeoisie, whose bank hasn’t reclaimed and confiscated their second and third vacation homes – they’re back to where they started vacationing 30 years ago.

Well, this got me musing about how absurd our whole approach to work and leisure really is. Especially now, when we have to live with the “new normal” – i.e., with a shrinking economy, loss of employment, and its consequent diminished standard of living. Even if one is to believe in the published GDP numbers as Gospel, it doesn't look good (the criteria for those who are Polyannish or bullish about economic prospects in the long-run is usually summed up in categorical denial and suspension of disbelief), Even India’s GDP is only 7% – i.e., not much work or production going on there either! China’s GDP shrunk last year to 7.4%).

A Life of Idle Pleasures

Back to Spain. The majority of people who are in their most productive years (18-35) and at their highest-earning potential are unemployed. In Spain that age group has a 62% unemployment rate. Talk about wealth elimination and another “lost generation.” GDP, of course, doesn’t tally the costs of the unemployed on society (with its concomitant boozing, drug addiction, gender-violence, shootings, depression, destruction of the family unit, etc.), these negative social effects actually add to GDP growth! How dysfunctional can you get? Keeping up appearances can be a costly endeavour.

For good or ill, people have finally been made free by the System (made “redundant” would be the more accurate word). I would imagine a pealing cheer of joy ought to be heard around the world as the chains of slavery are heaved off and a future of couch potato-ing and leisure can resume. NOT!

It’s no longer a matter of choice, especially in the West. The System doesn’t need “workers” only enough refugees and immigrants to keep wages painfully low (and thus keep wealth distribution, as always, to its barest minimum). 

As a result tens of millions are forced to enjoy a life of idle leisure, penniless…

One would think that in a post-industrial world spending time on leisure would be the ultimate in “self-fulfilment.” After all, didn’t they promise us a “jobless” economy? Why the financiers and the captains of industry have certainly delivered on that one! But where are the robots and wonderful technology that was going to make life easy as eating cake? Where are the innovations that actually produce something and which would free us from drudgery and boredom? We always want to grow fat, dumb, and happy (or some unreasonable facsimile of it), and there's no better time than the present for it.

Judging by the great amount of flabby flesh pouring out over the skimpy bikinis and swimming trunks at the beach, it appears to me that the “fat and dumb” portion of the program is right on schedule… Capitalism seems to have delivered more than it promised. So why aren’t we happy about it?

Got Time on My Hands

This set me thinking about how different the approach to leisure and economic life must have been in the past, especially in antiquity. The Ancient Egyptians, for one, had a “production” based economy, probably the last one to have actually worked well in our planet’s history. Yet they had far more leisure time (and time to themselves) than we do… Didn’t they build the pyramids on their time “off”?

They had so much time on their hands that even as they were made idle, during the Season of Inundation (Nile flooding), they built huge monuments. And, here is precisely where the difference between us is most appallingly great – wider than the Grand Canyon. Even in their leisure time, the Ancient Egyptians were nothing if not productive. Just like the bees build their honeycombs during their “down time” (when they’re not foraging and gathering honey), the Ancient Egyptians built up their sacred infrastructure outside of their “working hours.” In other words, in their leisure time – they “worked for fun.”

What a concept! That’s another good habit we’ve lost as we’ve become a sedated and sedentary people.

Actually, the Ancient Egyptians made of their work an offering. An offering they made with desire and joy in their hearts (because they wanted to, not because they were slaves, as we’ve been told by historians). And, since there was no money involved, the offering gave much in the form of dividends for life. (Money made a very late appearance in human affairs, and in Europe, not until the end of the Renaissance in any measurable or practical way).

What's Your Work Schedule Like?

So what did the Ancient Egyptian's “work schedule” look like? From what Egyptologists and archaeologists have found, labouring appears to have had the following rhythm, especially during the New Kingdom (but most likely from much earlier in their civilization):

·         The year had 12 months.

·         The year is divided into three seasons.

·         Each season was 4 months long.

·         The month was divided into 30 days.

·         Each month was divided into its third – ten days – or three "decans” (a long week).

·         Out of this “decan,” two days were reserved for leisure and rest. These were called “offering days.”

·         A full season (four months) during the year there was no “work” done. (Season of Akhet or Inundation Season.).

Funny how working 24 x 7 with barely 10 days off a year, we can’t feed a single town! In fact, with our System, we manage to starve, at least, 50 million people a year. The Ancient Egyptians fed over 4-5 million souls every year (estimated population during the New Kingdom) and probably two or three times that number year in and year out for 15,000 years! We have very few relics and archaeological samples to go on to even make a good guess on population counts… But keep in mind that without the modern invention of war and disease, and taking into account the far longer lifespans of individual members of the group (72 years was only 1 year of Râ), as well as higher fertility rates, ancient peoples were likely more numerous than our modern research reveals.

What Are You Doing On Your "Offering Days"? 

Needless to say, this is not the “conventional” view. It is, however, the way it was. Like in every beehive, there are no more and no less bees (workers, drones, or queens) than are absolutely necessary to the harmony of the hive. Otherwise, nothing can be accomplished.

During these two “offering days” – the Egyptians’ weekend – they “kept going,” because this was the time one had to him-herself. What did they do during their “free time”? It’s difficult to know with any precision what the Ancient Egyptians did for pleasure. But there’s no doubt that they were both as wise and intelligent, and infinitely practical, in their work as they were in their play.

The Ancient Egyptians probably invented many ways to give themselves pleasure, both spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Seemingly they converted “work” into a kind of play. And the reason for this, I believe, is linked to the concept of work as being nothing other than one’s offering to the Neteru (the gods) – not something lucrative. And this making play out of “work” is probably what made the Ancient Egyptians so dog-gone intelligent.

Next time, we’ll get back to the slavery polemic – and who actually built the pyramids.

Historical Sense and the Reversal of Values

Or, Did Ancient Egyptians Let Slaves Build Their Pyramids For Them?

This is the second in a series that I’ve started on the subject of Slavery. Unlike most modern folks, I’m not an adherent to the fable that slavery has been abolished – on the contrary – it’s stronger now than at any prior time in History. As promised, I wanted to deal in this blog with the touchy issue of slavery in Ancient Egypt. But it could be about any other matter related to History or ancient civilizations because my criticism is broader than that leveled against modern Egyptologists and archaeologist (poor folks, they’re just trying to get a job done!).

I feel I should disclose right up front that I’m not in the least interested in changing people’s “belief systems.” You can believe whatever tickles your fancy, and that’s perfectly alright with me. I’m not in the brainwashing business (I leave that to the powers-that-be who already excel in that department). If you believe in Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and Little Red Riding Hood – that’s fine too. It’s certainly less harmful to do so than to believe any number of other fairy tales that pass for “unconditional truth” in our modern age.

My only concern is to make sense of what nonsense I read and hear... Unfortunately, that’s not that easy given the copious amounts of gobbledygook that passes for “non-fiction” these days, especially in archaeology and history books. We live in a muddled-up, unthinking age in which History is not based on facts or actual events, not even on memory or oral tradition, but on the made-up fairy tales we’re told in school and which are reinforced through the media.

Our modern culture is opaque, not transparent as most folks believe. It’s not even a question of how much of any film, novel, or whatever the general public has read in the non-fiction section at the local library, is actually historically accurate. With respect to Ancient Egypt, with very few exceptions (and there are only a handful of them!), almost none of the interpretations made by scholars and academics are particularly accurate, reliable, or credible. And the reason it isn’t accurate is because everything has a “modern” focus – everything is seen from a modern perspective (and judged “good” or “bad” merely on that basis). All else is discarded...

No effort is made to actually THINK. Our modern interpretation of past actions, especially very old ones, tends to become a kind of “knee-jerk” reaction. If it’s very old we feel we are obliged to judge the ancient culture more harshly, as if we are capable of judging anything that presents itself before us from the distant past. But our prejudices are typical surface judgments, full of errors and absurd notions that hold no water. No effort is made to “walk a mile” in someone else’s shoes – not even the very subjects of the academic studies undertaken. It’s not so much that the “facts” are “wrong” as much as the interpretation(s) are way off the beam.

I suppose that much of this error can be laid at the doorstep of the Victorian Egyptologists of the 19^th Century, with all of their prejudices and “a priori judgments.” They simply couldn’t come to grips with a Civilization so advanced that wore skirts. Their prejudice was that only people wearing trousers were capable of “greatness” (they were, of course, referring to themselves – that’s how our “historical sense” became so narrow and pithy). As a result, men wearing kilts was not their idea of “intelligence” or “manly” virtue, etc. Any wonder why the Scots want their independence?

Who Built The Pyramids? Aliens or Slaves?

Clearly, according to our modern view – anyone but the Egyptians themselves built them! I don’t find such notions even whimsical (because they’re not). What misplaced craving makes us seek to explain the real with the unreal? Are we so attached to the abstract and to flighty notions that we can’t come to grips with anything real, “earthy,” or manifest?

We have one glaring fact before us – human beings built these incredible stone monuments in the form of a pyramid. From this singular fact Egyptologists have made their interpretations. These are not very revealing since they usually have to coincide neatly with what is acceptable to the academic institution that hires them. If anyone believes it is otherwise, for example, that there’s such a thing as “academic freedom” in the modern world, I have a nice red bridge I want to sell you... yep, it crosses San Francisco Bay...

Therefore, all the interpretations fall effortlessly in line with the “fable agreed upon” by those who went before (or those who pay for the meal ticket). And Egyptologists are wonderful in this sense too, they tend to “circle the wagons” whenever an “alternate” interpretation is possible. It’s to be expected.

After the initial laugh, I’m always left cold with the “alternative” interpretations which reach the same conclusion: Only alien spacemen – why not spacewomen? – built the pyramids.

Unfortunately, some of these “alternative” interpretations, are no less silly than those proffered by alleged “scientists,” academics, scholars, and archaeologists. It seems to come down to this: The pyramids were built either by slaves or aliens (the aliens turned everyone into slaves first – that’s how little imagination enters into “thinking” these days). In other words, the “alternative theory” is just the “establishment theory” regurgitated by folks that should have better things to do with their time.

Neither the “scientists” nor the “alternatives” are much interested in “truth” or “facts,” they’re only interested in “interpretations” that match their world view (i.e., their ‘a priori’ judgments). In the case of academics, they also have to match their bosses’ prejudices as well as their corporate sponsors’ opinions. And, need I add, that the latter are generally of a “racist” nature, in the vain of: “Africans couldn’t have possibly built these things” and opinions of that ilk, which are still very much with us.

Inquiry for “truth” along these lines is a clear “reversal of values” from the Enlightenment Age, when Science took its greatest strides forward. But we all know we don’t live in an age of “enlightenment” any longer, but rather in its opposite (i.e., a “dark age” of ignorance and neglect).

The “fable agreed upon,” the breakthrough of modern Egyptology, is that slaves built the pyramids! This modern interpretation is insisted upon even when the facts aren’t there to back it up. Even when Egyptologists have unearthed entire “middle class” craftsmen’s villages in the Giza plateau with interior plumbing! (The only thing missing is the satellite dish!)

Why is the proposition that slaves built the pyramids wrong? There are many reasons why... Not the least of which is that as modern herd-animals we don’t care to exercise our faculty of thinking! We’re not just physically couch potatoes – we’re mental “couch potatoes.” Thinking is indeed heavy lifting! Who wants to break a sweat these days? It’s not cool... and it stains your undergarments.

As a result we have no “historical sense.” Not even the historical sense that people had in the 17^th Century – at the beginning of the Enlightenment. Consider what the literacy rate was back then – in England and France it was about 30% max! For women, the perennial “second class” citizens, half that! Therefore, “books” and “learning” had little to do with creating in people a historical sense.

Perhaps we were made of sterner stuff then and people knew instinctively that the “golden age” was in “the past” and that back then, things were better. Who can blame them? Europeans of that time, after emerging from the Middle Ages (“Dark Ages”) and then passing into a cultural “dream,” which was the Renaissance, knew well they were the dregs of the Greeks and Romans, since they didn’t live anywhere close to their standard of living. And, the “intellectuals,” the learned of the Church (the Scholastics and their universities) from the Middle Ages on knew and felt it most keenly – they were doing the “learning” from the Greeks and Romans directly (well, more accurately through the learning of the Arabs!).

Therefore, even since the Enlightenment there has been a “reversal of values” – about 180° – with respect to “scientific truth” and its diligent pursuit. We stand on the shoulders of giants and we think we’re better than those giants. We actually believe we’re better than people in the past and we barely have indoor plumbing!

Indoor Plumbing and the Standard of Living

In my mind, indoor plumbing is a good gauge of the “advancement” of a civilization. Forty years ago, we certainly had less indoor plumbing per capita than the Ancient Egyptians had. I checked! I walked from Greece to Thailand (Indochina) and found few toilets on the way – literally a dearth of indoor plumbing. I doubt that even today we have bested that earlier high standard of living of the Late Bronze Age. They certainly produced far fewer poor people than we do! And it’s because they produced far fewer rich people too!

Talk about a “reversal of values” – Egyptologists believe that the Ancient Egyptian society was structured like a “pyramid” with the Pharaoh on top and everyone else down the line – at the base of the “pyramid.” Even if you look at children’s books about Ancient Egypt (I’ve looked at probably around 50 titles) 90% of them have this nice little graphic – a pyramid with Pharaoh on top and then the priests, scribes, and soldiers, and the peasants at the bottom. Is this some kind of criminal conspiracy?

Again, it’s just faulty historical sense. Much of this erroneous thinking can be attributed directly to the Victorians of the 19^th Century – many of the renowned names in Egyptology. Since they lived in such an absurdly “pyramidal” society themselves, with strict, straight-jacket hierarchies, it was only natural to assume that a pyramid was the right “structure” to run a society (easier to keep the rabble under control). It was certainly obvious to Queen Victoria, sitting with her fat bum at the very top, that it was the right thing for her – and that everyone else throughout history would have the same exact social structure (after all, didn’t Britannia rule the waves?). I’m sure the Egyptian pyramids were a great comfort and inspiration to the Victorians.

Of course, this was another up-side-down interpretation of the facts. In Ancient Egypt what we would call today the “peasant class” or “caste” was at the “top” of the pyramid – Pharaoh was “at the bottom”! That’s why the King (or Queen) was called the Life, Health, and Strength of the Two Lands. The Pharaoh was the “servant” and the peasant was the “master.” Or said another way, everything Pharaoh did from his station in life was to make life “easier” for the farmer.

The most important “individual” in Ancient Egyptian society was not the Sun King, but the farmer (or peasant). Why? Ancient Egyptian civilization was NOT structured like Victorian England, or like a modern American corporation, wherein the CEO makes 5,000 times the salary of the skilled worker who designed the dumb shoe (i.e., the “intelligent” worker) and a billion times more money than the most productive worker in the organization (i.e., the child slave in Pakistan making the crappy shoe itself).

Because we’re in love with Slavery (it gives us all these gadgets!) we have to turn the world up-side down to justify it. But that doesn’t mean the Ancient Egyptians had such a social structure! The Black People didn’t have to conform to our false values – they had real values! Why waste precious time and resources just to make a cheap lie true?

What am I trying to say? Simply, that the hubris we feel as modern herd-animals that we are the “greatest” and most “advanced” civilization on earth has its comeuppance when we first encounter the Ancient Egyptians and their long-standing culture and achievements.

Why? Because we know intuitively that we can’t do anything that they accomplished – not even the most inconsequential of things (such as making sure that everyone has decent shelter and food to eat). Since we’re shallow herd-animals we feel they can’t be better than us... That’s our pride talking. Hold on to your britches – they were not only more advanced in every conceivable measure (including indoor plumbing!) but they were so to a sublime degree!

How did they pull it off? That’s gist for another mill. The fact is, we just don’t understand them because we have exactly the opposite values that they had! And because we don’t “get it,” we relegate them to the trash heap of history.

Yeah... I’ve heard all the arguments. They’re the typical bleating noises of modern sheep – the holier than thou crackpots out there. And some of this squealing comes from people who should know better... It goes something like this: Look what a piece of shit – forgive my French – this 6,000 year old clay pot is (an artifact in a museum, let’s say). (The fact that it’s likely that that clay pot was made by a teenager (or younger) should give us fodder for many further discussions.)

Well, that clay pot may not be up to your modern tastes (but then again, do modern herd-animals have taste?). Let’s say that whatever clay pot you can make (oops, you can’t make a clay pot can you?) won’t last two years of daily use... even with reverential care, should be a wakeup call. And guess what? Neither will your laptop or TV set! (And the laptop is yet something else you can’t make!) You’re lucky if your car, dishwasher, or any other “tool” of modernity lasts ten years...

Frankly, I’m unimpressed. I fail to see any proof of our vaunted superiority... On the other hand, everything the Ancient Egyptians made, from the most simple of tools, utensils, clothes – even paper! – have lasted millennia!

One could say that the Black People’s “motto,” back in the day, was something like this: “Deal with the real and the rest works itself out...” or “Make your offerings to the Neteru (gods) and they will make it happen for you.” Unfortunately, these things got reversed and we only got: “God helps those who help themselves.” And not surprisingly, the folks at the “top” of the pyramid today “help themselves” alright!

The Bees Do It

Fortunately, for the Ancient Egyptians, their civilization was structured in a “circle,” or better said, as an “oval.” Ancient Egyptian society was structured exactly like a beehive... What happens in a beehive?

When all the buzzing is done, we see the result of their collective intelligence in a by-product – honey! This honey is possible because of one overriding “drive” (or instinct, if you will), the beehive acts in the present (here and now) for the benefit of the future. That’s the “prime directive.”

For the Ancient Egyptians, it went beyond the proposition “do no harm,” which the Greeks adopted from them. It’s the opposite of our modern “prime directive” – i.e., short-term profits!

The arrangement of the hive is such that it feeds the worker bees first! In fact, as they fly back to the hive, the worker bees are already turning pollen into honey! As in any sane arrangement of individuals into a whole, the one who does the work, gets the goodies first – then the larvae in the honeycombs are fed next (because they’re the future). The Ancient Egyptians, who used the Bee as their symbol (even as a royal symbol), knew this also: the queen gets fed LAST! The “master” only eats after the “servants” are fed.

Gee, I don’t see that happening today. Do you? I only sense the reversal of those values – the opposite of what needs to happen for things to work out on the material plane... in “reality.”

You can see now how we fall into error when interpreting “facts.” We can see how we modern herd-animals have everything upside down – especially our vaunted “values.” In antiquity, values were reversed. Even Christ taught us such when he washed his disciple’s feet! Not to mention that truth which all Christians denounce as a vile lie – “The meek shall inherit the Earth.”

Who is really the “master”? That’s a question we never ask because we don’t like to hear the answer to it. To be a “master” means to serve – that’s why “slaves” (or better said “servants”) were the real masters. And this explains why there were no slaves to begin with – it’s a modern invention!

Now that we have the facts straight, we can proceed. Next time, we’ll take a practical example to determine, once and for all, why the pyramids where NOT built by slaves, and why they could never have been built by them.

Some of My Best Friends Are... Slaves!

I have a confession to make... I am a slave. My next door neighbors are slaves, the people across the street, and my best friends are slaves. I have yet to find a “free” person anywhere (and believe me, I have traveled the world). Perhaps the last “free soul” I met was Krishnamurti, but that was forty years ago, and he is no longer with us!

Some of my neighbors are slaves because they have visible chains around their necks, hands, and feet. They’re chained to their mortgages! I can see their desire and their debt weighing them down as they drag themselves to their place of employment every morning. 

While it’s still dark and grey out they clamber into their shiny metal boxes. When they return home in the dark and grey of night, they look glum. Those are the “lucky ones,” of course, the ones who still have “employment” (a rapidly vanishing commodity – at least, in the Western post-industrial world ).

In the distant past, when I was a teenage slave – as I said, I am one of them – you toiled in a factory, in an assembly line, in a processing plant. The conditions of which were barely better than those at the turn of the 20^th Century (except for the eight-hour day). 

Granted, there were some begrudging concessions made along the way to labor unions and “safety” regulations. But on the shop floor you’d breathe in all the carbon monoxide and all the toxins of the “industrial process,” and then, on the short breaks allowed, you ran to the “rec” room to soothe your lungs with more smoke from as many cigarettes as you could possible inhale. Only then did you feel a little better, but only until you returned to your work station (and that wasn’t a fancy cubicle with a big color screen to play Solitaire on and do your shopping online – as it is today!). People I knew lost fingers, sawed off their hands... I was lucky not to be in their shoes!

Who or what a slave is today depends on your definition of the word... More specifically on what movies you’ve seen. We tend to want to see “history” as a novel (History is already a “convenient fable”), as a pageant of dramatic events with no real consequences (on real people). Slavery as practiced in the last 400 years, and especially the last 200 years in the Northern Hemisphere, would make a Roman cringe (and they weren’t afraid of a little blood, mind you, like we are today!).

My biggest dictionary (Webster’s modern college “lexicon”) defines a slave as: “A human being who is owned as property by another and is absolutely subject to his will.” My Random House version states: “A person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant (a person bound to service without wages).”

For expediency, we can probably “agree” on Noah Webster’s definition. Coincidentally, Mr. Webster was an Anti-abolitionist, he may or may not have been a slave owner, but his relative Daniel Webster (the politico and also “Founding Father” of the Thirteen Colonies) certainly was!

Little to quibble about as far as a definition goes. What’s the key word in both definitions? If you said “property” you’d be right! (I love having intelligent readers!). Keep that word in mind as you read on...

Old Habits and Modern Tastes (the Reversal of Values)

Nonetheless our “repugnance” of slavery is a relatively new-found “value” – part of a “reversal of values” that begun to impress itself on the population at large in England around 1783 with the Abolitionist Movement. And, this “reversal” in the values of Western Civilization, from the Greek and Roman ideal, was a meager start (as I mentioned, slavery in 500 B.C. was qualitatively very different than the bondage Blacks endure in the 18^th to 21^st Centuries). As we’ll see, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions...

The Slave Trade Act of 1807 was a milestone, yet it did next to nothing to slow the trade in human beings coming out of Africa. It was simply not enforced (even in 1838 when slavery was outlawed) – it’d slow down profiteering. In fact, the Act was quite useful for the “princes” of slavery – it got them off their buff to seek “new markets” beyond the African/Arab monopoly that covered the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Eventually, by the mid-19^th Century, those “new markets” included China (“coolies” became a prime export, despite laws against it, probably as a direct result of the Qing Dynasty’s (1644-1912) decline following their resounding defeat in the Opium Wars).

Old habits die hard and new tastes take time to catch on... Our habits tend towards the parasitic – towards living off of others. Modern tastes have not repudiated that tendency, but rather increased it – we do less work because we “live off” of others who do – and agriculture is not the only example.

My contention is simple, given historical trends and the materialistic lifestyle of a Globalized world, there’s more slavery today than there has ever been... And, I’m not talking just about the so-called “third world.” As I said, I see the slaves parading before me all day. Lest we forget that in Europe, as opposed to the Colonies, serfdom was well entrenched by the Middle Ages. Slavery then took on the form of “indentured servitude”; i.e., Debt! In the 17th and 18th Centuries, tens of thousands of such slaves (mostly White) were sent to the Colonies to “pay off their debts.”

Human Beings as Chattel

This historical anomaly – property – as something “belonging” to an individual is something striking and very modern. Today, no one questions why property has more “rights” than a human being. We don’t question how a legal fiction like a “Corporation” is legally a “person.” As if by the miracle of spontaneous combustion, inanimate things acquire more legal rights than a human being. Another ugly trend, which tends towards slavery...

But the confluence of property and human beings, as property being more valuable than human beings and in the end interchangeable, is a dastardly “legal fiction.” The pretzel logic that makes a Corporation more important than a single human life is not surprising given our materialist culture and bent of mind. Yet, once a person becomes synonymous with property (especially in law), then we have extended the glorification of egotism and avarice just a tad beyond any proportion – well into ad absurdum really. But I’ll get back to that odd development and quirk of History in my next blog.

This led me to do some thinking... a decidedly dangerous activity (in fact, one could say that it’s so frown upon today that hardly anyone does it any more). The laws that regulate modern society are usually legislated statues (as we call them in America), and these take on a common form (they’re boiler-plates!). Ninety per cent of these statues govern property. The main purpose of these laws is to make it easier for the rich to accumulate property and to protect it.

Therefore, we are indeed living in the “Age of Property,” and if this is so, then we’re also living in the “Age of Slavery” – when human beings are nothing more than chattel in the eyes of the law (what else are people in this materialistic world if not simple automatons?). And we’re not at the end of this cycle, but rather about half way through it... From here on in, humanity will continue to lose value, and that value will be transferred to lifeless objects denominated “property.” Something to look forward to, eh?

The Root of Our Dystopia

According to the United Nations (UN) there are approximately 50 million slaves in the world today (2011 – their numbers must rise so fast each year that they can’t keep up with them!). According to their institutional wisdom this is due to the fact that most of the “slave population” stems from about ten nations which still have slavery “in their books” (it’s legalized). Then the UN tells us that there are 30 million (mostly young girls) involved in “human trafficking” – a legal grey area. What else can these poor girls be but sex slaves? Why don’t they just say so?

Easier said than understood... What can you say about “institutional wisdom”? Thank God I can still do arithmetic. Summing up, I can see that as far back as 2011 there were officially 80 million slaves in the world. This number is probably closer to 100 million in the countries where it’s legalized (the UN is notorious for under counting everything – especially the number of starving human being on this globe!).

In light of the facts, one must ask some inconvenient questions. Slavery is such an insidious thing that it sometimes boggles the mind. It escapes both imagination and our clear understanding of it. What is sinister about it is that the direct “cause” of Slavery is well known – it’s Capitalism stupid!

I may sound like an old-fashion Abolitionist, but with the huge increase in slaves one has to wonder what one can do. Slavery is certainly a huge economic issue – free labor for the few skews the economies of many countries (as it has always done). It’s certainly far more important today to end slavery than it was back in the period between 1780 and 1860!

The number of slaves today far exceeds any historical level – even in the Deep South of pre-Civil War America (the largest plantation on earth at the time) – especially as a percentage of the population. In 1860 there were 31,183,582 Americans of which 3,953,761 were black slaves (12.6% of the population). By 1900 there were 10 million Black slaves in the U.S.! (Yeah, I know that’s quite a few years after the “Emancipation Proclamation,” but that little ditty didn’t free a single slave!). And in spite of “legislation” to the contrary, these men and women were worse off than their forefathers who were legal slaves (“sharecroppers” was the euphemism for slaves even into the 20^th Century!)

The difference today, of course, is that the slave population is much younger than it was then – the work in the sweatshops is done by children and young women. In those countries to which our vaunted and beloved Corporations have flown off to, in order to avoid those pesky “labor laws” and thus continue the 500-year practice, have all “legalized” slavery to accommodate the profitable trade in human beings by multinationals.

How “Free” Are We?

Yet, even such an obvious fact escapes us because we’re not mindful of how things are interrelated. We never think consequences through to their ultimate effects in the real world. We live in a world of intellectual abstractions and we never get to the nub of things. Historically, our alleged “freedom” in the “pursuit of happiness” was nothing short of rapacious consumption (trade from far-flung Colonies supplied exotic goods to markets in Europe and America in great quantities – on the backs of the slaves that made the “Middle Passage”). Therefore, our “freedom” to consume is the direct cause of Slavery.

The problem, ultimately, is that the mere existence of Slavery, and its ongoing spread, proves only one thing: no one has Freedom – either economic or political freedom. If a single Pakistani girl is oppressed, we all are...

Knowing what we know, why are people under the impression that they are “free”? What evidence do they have to support such a wild assertion? The surprising thing is that the people who consider themselves the “most” free, who believe their existence (and even the government they live under) is one of “ultimate freedom,” are the least free... (Small children and Americans come to mind – well, they’re the same thing, aren’t they?).

It only stands to reason that both sets of “individuals” are the folks who have done the least to win any rights or freedoms for themselves, yet are the most vociferous in demanding them. (Temper tantrums aside, it doesn’t mean they may exercise those rights in fact). When they grow up and they find out “Freedom of Speech” (or any other “right”) is as extinct as a dinosaur, maybe they’ll reconsider...

Slaves With Credit Cards Enslaving Others

What is the extent of our “pursuit of happiness"? In the Age of Slavery (in our wanton Consumerism) what is it that we really crave? Ultimately, we only want for “things” to continue as they are – a vain hope, naturally – we want to continue consuming without thinking, without responsibility, without “effects” (at least, those immediate effects which would make us wise to how our actions hurt other people – including ourselves!). Let’s take a mundane example from real life to see how slavery is death to the slave (or, at the very least, ongoing torture!).

When you buy Nike tennis-shoes (or an iPod, or any other Corporate commodity) the fact that you’re perpetuating the slave trade simply doesn’t enter your mind... Slavery is death – people involved in that trade do not survive long (their life expectancy is very short – in 1900 England or America a factory worker or sweatshop worker (again, mostly young women) had a life expectancy of 25 years. By 1925 it was still 25 years. Ending the life of someone in their prime is nothing short of murder (plain and simple). Yet, how many factory owners were ever tried for murder in the 20^th Century?).

What is the life-expectancy of a slave in 2015? No one knows. China and Pakistan, two countries with legalized slavery have high life-expectancy statistics (75 and 67 years, respectively), but their slave populations are estimated to be less than 2% (by the UN). If you believe that, I have a nice red bridge I want to sell you. Damnable lies and statistics are not going to give us the whole story here... Only intuition will.

How exactly were the plantation and then later the factory system any different than a concentration camp in Nazi Germany?

Well, of course, the answer is obvious – the former were Blacks and the later Whites! But beyond that aleatory distinction, there’s no difference.

And if Jews who survived as prisoners in those Nazi camps were compensated by German Corporations for their brief stay, why aren’t Blacks (and poor Whites) not compensated by U.S. Corporations for the concentration camps they maintained – not for the few short years of the Third Reich – but for over 250 years in the North and in the Southern states of the United States?

Oops! Don’t bring reality into it... we’re in denial about Racism in America... We have a “black” president so everything is Kosher now... Millions of black slaves were killed, but we don’t want to deal with the real Holocaust!

The same Oligarchs that benefited from Slavery are still the elites of today... White males still hold all the wealth they stole from the labor of Blacks and they’re still thumbing their nose at Justice...

But back to our plight... for the present, unfortunately, always nudges out the past. When we purchase a Corporate product – especially those consumer products that tend to be “personal” apparel and such, we’re propping up slavery. In other words, we’re paying to maintain a slave trade!

As we already learned, slavery is murder (although it’s worth repeating). And when you buy those $200 Nike shoes it’s as if you just put the barrel of a gun to the temple of a little Pakistani girl (about 8 or 10) and pulled the trigger yourself, in cold blood!

Maybe, under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t shoot a kneeling girl of eight, with half her fingers missing, if the gun were placed in your hands. But since you’re not there, and slaves and their misery is kept from your purview by thousands of miles, then it’s fine... But if the only way you could “get at” those shoes in the mall was by taking a gun in hand, then that’s what you’d be doing – murdering that little girl. And for a lousy pair of tennis shoes that won’t last you a single running season!

In fact, buying one lousy pair you’re actually killing not just one little girl, but all the girls in that “factory.”

Forget that it’s “legal” to purchase slave products, or that the whole consumer culture made possible by Slavery is condoned by the mass media. That anemic excuse isn’t going to save you or I. Instead, I’d be worried about a different set of “laws” – the law of Karma. We’ll all have to pay for those crappy shoes when the time comes... it’s what happens every time we purchase something from slave owners!

It bewilders me how people can be so flippant about such facts of life... unless, of course, they believe those Nike shoes are being manufactured by fairies or Santa’s helpers. They must! How else can they buy them in good conscience? Or do humans lack anything like conscience anymore? Where else do these products come from? They know darn well they come from Pakistan, China, etc. – it’s on the bloody label! Well, we all know where they come from – and who makes them – ignorance is no excuse.

Tit For Tat And There Goes The Quid Pro Quo!

That little Pakistani girl was willing to not only sacrifice her childhood, but her fingers to make that shoe for you. Well I’m willing to sacrifice not buying that Corporate shoe, so she won’t have to lose any more fingers – and none of her fellow slaves need to either – that’s the real quid pro quo!

As far as I’m concerned, if it’s not made by unionized American workers (or their local counterpart, be it European or wherever I live), I’m not interested in purchasing it, thank you!

I may be a slave in fact, but I’m no longer a slave to fashion and I’ve ceased being a logo “worshiper.” I’ve gotten over the worship of Moloch...

While I’m on the Abolitionist soapbox I thought I'd throw this out there too... Folks only have “a priori judgments” about most things, especially anything of an economic (political) nature. And who’s the genius who’ll argue that slavery doesn’t exist – that it’s a figment of my imagination? I’d like to hear from a defender of Slavery as to why it’s a good thing for me to buy products produced by slaves...

And, I’m not speaking of “mental slavery” either, for if I were, then that would reduce the entire human race to the level of bleating sheep – 7 Billion and counting!

40 Acres and a Mule...

Slave stories... I have plenty of them... and songs too. After all, I am a slave. Forty acres and a mule... I’m still waiting...

They tell me I’ve been “emancipated,” that I have “human rights.” I’m told I have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In theory that may be a quaint sentiment. But sentiments are less substantial than feelings, and when compared to hard reality... well, what candle do you want to hold up? As long as my “happiness” resides in and depends on the accumulation of assets, in the acquisition of greater amounts of “property,” I’m pledging my allegiance to Slavery.

We all know how far that goes... and where that path ultimately leads. One has rights as long as one can buy them! Words and abstract theories don’t change anything “on the ground.”

Emancipate Yourself From Mental Slavery...

In this, our dark, Materialistic Age, there are slaves far worse off than I. My neighbors, my friends, they are slaves to more than one master. Can you imagine anything more ornery?

In the old days there was only the Man. Usually represented by the foreman – the big, ugly bully with the whip and the shotgun. Now my friends are slaves to ugly, empty people in Armani suits. They’re slaves to a financial institution and their taxing government (in more ways than one). Additionally, and more directly, they have their employers – O.K. that’s the financial institution that owns the company they work for. And that’s piled on to a list of “bond holders” the size of which is directly proportional to the number of individual pieces of “stuff” they have purchased on their credit cards.

As Garvey and Marley have long told us... “None but ourselves can free our minds.” There is more than physical slavery to keep us in bondage. There’s mental slavery to overcome too.

My friends are kept in bondage by a simple lie... That’s mental slavery! They actually believe they “own” a house – even when in their mortgage contract it explicitly says the opposite. They believe they own the cars they’re paying off. I simply tell them: Be patient, when they downside again, or outsource your chair, you won’t own that stuff anymore. Instead of “owning,” you’ll be “owing.”

No one wants to hear that! I shudder to think we’re in the 21^st Century already and slavery is more rampant than it has ever been. A mounting pile of inconvenient facts always obstructs our delusion, doesn’t it?

Well, there are many lessons to be learned from our earlier historic experience. And, the further back in time we go, the more we learn, for the picture is clearer the farther one goes to the source. A lot can be learned from what Egyptology has always labelled a “Slave State” – Ancient Egypt.

The first thing to glean from their alleged example is that slavery is not all that it’s cracked up to be... except for the 1% (or more accurately today, the 0.001% - the 2,000 families that owns what the 99.999% worked for!). Yeah, I know, there are folks with paper stocks issued by financial institutions (like Goldman Sachs), for which they paid good money, as well as heaps of codes to electronic transactions, who believe they “own” something... After I stop laughing at the suckers, I’ll tell you something even more unbelievable...

What if I were to tell you that there was no such thing as Slavery in Ancient Egypt (as defined by Webster’s and your Funk & Wagnall’s)? What would you say then?

To be continued...

Tomorrow Never Knew

Although we may not be aware of it, the concept of ‘Time’ is directly linked to a civilization’s “success”; i.e., the longevity of a civilization in the historical record depends first and foremost on how it understands time. The notion of time, as expressed in the calendar is far more ancient than the historical record shows us, which explains why we have cultures and civilizations in place long before they come up with a serviceable calendar.

Every civilization, or large grouping of people, started off with a “calendar” – an accurate accounting of time passing through seasons and so forth (otherwise Agriculture would not have been possible). If you think about it, the calendar is a fairly sophisticated expression of an essentially human function, which is not shared with our animal cousins – the function of memory – the ability to remember. Because we are the only creatures that can observe, count, and then remember our observations and our counting, this knowledge of time, seasons, years, etc., is innately human. And in ancient peoples it was probably knowledge of a highly intuitive nature.

From the time when groups understood the calendar to when their particular “calendar” was formalized into carvings, monuments, or steles, etc., one must assume the passing of considerable time. It is basically wrong, therefore, to assume that a civilization depended on some king – a warlord – in order to rally the people and through war “coalesce” them into a semi-uniform “people” (not to use the trite term “nation” – a concept born of the Enlightenment in the 18^th Century). Not kings and political might (a concept that did not exist in the early Bronze Age) make civilizations, but “star watchers,” “shamans,” and “priests,” were the foundation of civilization. Without them, there were no kings... because there would be no civilization (or tribe) to speak of.

If the concept of ‘Time’ is directly linked to a civilization’s success (over time), does that explain the success of the Ancient Egyptians? Could it be that the Ancient Egyptian civilization lasted as long as it did because they understood Time better than we do? How is the conception of Time related to its success – it’s 10,000 years of continuous “pre-historic” success before our own reckoning of the historical record began for them ca. 3150 B.C.? That’s the date given by modern historians and archaeologists for when Ancient Egyptians began to coalesce. If you ever tried to “coalesce” people (it’s easier to herd cats!), you can easily understand why the notion of starting the clock on a civilization at the point where they have left us their “first trace” is absurd.

So what made the Ancient Egyptians so successful? What was their concept of ‘Time’?

I ask myself this question often enough, especially when I’m not as productive on the keyboards as I should be, and that forces me off my chair and up on my feet. After pacing a bit, I find I have to go outdoors and consult the matter with the chirping birds that wake me every morning. After all, time keeps on ticking, doesn’t it? Or does it?

It all depends on what religious persuasion you happen to adhere to... When it comes to defining ‘Time,’ it’s not a matter of indifference whether you believe in the prophets of modern science or if you’re an accepting idol worshipper of older religions. ‘Time’ will have a very different meaning to you depending on whom and what you worship. Outside of my avian friends, most of the sources I’ve consulted on the matter, and they are many and varied, they all seem to project our modern idea of ‘Time’ upon the Ancient Egyptians. I categorically reject that idea – as do my feathered companions, might I add!

In their totality, the Egyptians expressed cosmological functions as a union of pairs. We glean this “opposing pairs” concept from Hermetic tradition, which the Ancient Egyptians established, or “seeded,” through the “Thrice Greatest” Djehuti, or Thoth (Hermes Trismegistus), the Neter of Wisdom. One of the “Seven Hermetic Principles,” associated with Hermeticism and the Corpus Hermeticum (attributed to Djehuti during the Renaissance, or to an all-wise Egyptian priest) is expressed in the Kybalion (published in 1912 by “Three Initiates”) as the “Law of Polarity” (may also be known as “law of duality,” or the “law of opposites”):

“Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.”—The Kybalion.

The Ancient Egyptian tendency to pair “opposites” is intuitive and not intellectual. Keeping in mind, of course, that at that time, let us say >5,000 years ago – intellectualization; i.e., taking ideas from the real world and converting them into pure abstractions, was neither possible nor desirable. Therefore, we can only discuss these abstractions amongst ourselves (i.e., all this “reasoning” we do, as in this very blog entry, to an Egyptian of that time, would be but total and utter nonsense! They would see it as one hand talking to the other hand about nothing).

Since the Ancient Egyptians were anything but frivolous individuals, their thoughts about the wonders they witnessed, were grounded on ‘Reality,’ and therefore, were centred on the sun’s course and were expressed as a “sailing journey” across the sky. That is how their “thinking” has come down to us, “mummified,” as it were, in papyrus scrolls, tomb paintings, and stone carvings – the “traces” which they left for us of their symbolic way of thinking (which explains why we don’t understand them!). The concept of Time is no different; it’s based on the observed “duality” or “opposites” which comprise the observable phenomenon (dawn-sunset, midday-midnight, etc.).

We, on the other hand, surrounded and submerged in “intellectual abstractions” from the time we are born, can only regard things linearly – without its opposite poles, or extremes, present simultaneously (thank the Greeks for that logical impediment). The ancients did not have that narrow limitation.

One of the few credible exceptions, which I found both cogent and intriguing, was by the esteemed German Egyptologist Dr. Jan Assmann, in his book “The Search For God in Ancient Egypt,” which I highly recommend. In it, he has something very intelligent to say about time (actually, Dr. Assmann has many, many interesting things to say!). It’s something both highly reasoned and intuitive, and who will say those are not our decadent civilization’s rarest of high virtues? I suppose that’s what comes from being immersed for nearly sixty years in the ‘Wisdom of Ancient Egypt.’

“The fullness of time as a cosmic totality was expressed by a pair of words, neheh (nhh) and djet (dt)... Neheh and djet both have properties of our “time,” as well as of our “eternity,” and as a practical matter, either can sometimes be translated as “time” and sometimes as “eternity.” The terms refer to the totality (as such, sacred and in a sense transcendent and thus “eternal”) of cosmic time. To clarify this concept of time and its religious implications or semantic range, we must heed an important distinction. We are so accustomed to the notion of infinity that we think of “totality” as finite and bounded. The Egyptians, however, viewed “totality” as the opposite of finite and bounded. To them, the boundaries of totality were not contrasted with the unbounded, but with the “whole,” with “plenitude.”...

“Our dichotomy of time and eternity is based on Greek ontology and Christian dogmatics, and our concept of time rests on the system of tenses in Western languages, which express the notions of past, present, and future. Instead of these three temporal divisions, the Afro-asiatic family of languages has two divisions, called “aspects,” and therein lies the path to the meaning of neheh and djet... The closest that we can come is a pair of concepts such as “change” and “completion/perfection”....

“In Egyptian, “change” was kheper and “completedness/perfection” tem. Both concepts were embodied in the gods Khepri (the “becoming one”) and Atum (the “completed one”), who were combined into a dual god at an early date and who stood, in the theology of the course of the sun, for the morning sun (Khepri) and the evening sun (Atum). The two were identified with the temporal concepts neheh (change) and djet (completedness).”

How would we, today, view time (and ourselves), if we understood it merely as “change” – ongoing change? As something incomplete – as of yet imperfect – moving towards “completedness” and eventually “perfection”? Could we then see that we (ourselves) are in the stream of “time” because we are “incomplete” or “imperfect”? And that we live “in time” because we are corporeal and imperfect (whereas, presumably, we’d be “eternal” and “perfect” if, at the present time, we were only made up of spirit). If we were “complete” and “perfect” we would not be in the throes of Time, would we?

To make matters worse for our “linear intellect,” we have to take into account one further subtlety (and the ancient Egyptians were nothing if not subtle!). It has to do with the physical-sensory perception of “change,” which arguably, is the observation of contrasts (and differences) which take place in nature (and the environment) as the illusion of “time” passes from moment to moment.

One ancient concept of time which has survived in the region, through the wisdom of Islam, and which may adumbrate the concept of time for us, is the idea of “a day is a thousand years” (or “a day is one hundred years,” etc. as propounded in the Qu’ran). What do these words mean? These words speak to the concept of “Becoming,” which was an aspect of time (as we saw above, incorporated in the concept of neheh as “change” and the god Khepri as the “becoming one”) and it yields to our understanding, the idea of “evolution” (progression), in contrast to “completedness” or “perfection” (being djet) the final stop in “evolution.”

“One day is one thousand years” illuminates the dual union of neheh and djet very well, if you follow along. The contrast between the two “extremes” (i.e., one day and one thousand years – a leap in order of magnitude) also explains the way the Ancient Egyptians understood such things as “time passing” or even “history” (in the sense of memories of past events) as either in the “process” of change, or as already “perfected.” Once perfected, the thing, the event, or the process of evolution is no longer subject to Time, or change.

If one considers the ramifications of the “dual union” of Becoming/change and Completedness/perfection, one gets a far more “holistic” concept of Time. If we are able to assume this way of thinking, it would certainly lead us away from our current neurosis (or “discontent”) about time (and its lack) in our modern lives.

So why didn’t the Ancient Egyptians, or any other ancient peoples (up until the Late Bronze Age) not rush around like “chickens without heads” (as we run around today)? The answer starts, I think, in this understanding, this bridging of the “pair of opposites” – change and stasis – progression and perfection – as simultaneous realities and equally valid. Why it may even lead us as human beings, as a civilization/culture/society, to a “re-evaluation of values.”

How does this “intuitive thinking” work? It shows us both opposites at the same time. And, as in the Hermetic “Law of Polarity,” it tells us that either opposite, though valid, is only “half-truth.” Both are true by degrees. Sounds like “lawyer talk,” doesn’t it? (Well, lawyers should be able to take account of opposites simultaneously... otherwise; they’re not much good at what they do!).

But here’s the hitch: The ancients were “literal” in their expression (“matter-of-fact,” if you will) and not bent or seduced by “metaphors” as we are today (keeping in mind what a metaphor is – a clever little lie, a “way with words”). We today are far more prone to be seduced by lies than the ancients were.

There’ll be more to say about ‘Time,’ the calendar, and when “one day was one thousand years” long, shortly... Stay tuned!

Thank You Readers!

Well, it's been a while... over a full circuit of the Earth around the Sun! As usual, I've been neglecting “The Horizon Keeper” Blog for reasons both real and imaginary (I’d rather be writing than writing about writing – if you see what I mean). My immodesty forces me, however, to troll, tip, toot, and tout the virtues of my book. Who else will, right? 

All good books deserve readers. Good stories should be read. The more literature and literary stories become part of our culture, the more ideas are absorbed into the consciousness of the people, the better people we’ll all become. Too Pollyannaish for you? That may be. But can anything else arrest our slide into pure cultural decadence? 

Call me an optimist, but I think Art is redemptive, and thus humanizing. Assuming Literature is Art (I know Poetry is), then it follows that good books are likewise endowed with this special quality. There’s a mysterious link between the written word and us human beings. Something echoes within our hearts (or souls, if you will) when we read words that are put together well. When we fall under the spell cast by the author, we are, in a sense, “elevated.” We are taken “out of ourselves” and our daily grind and transported into the “fictive dream” created by a good book (as James N. Frey calls that magical spell).

When written words take on meaning for us, and they become sentences, paragraphs, pages of a chapter in a gripping tale, and we savour them inside us, then we have fallen under the spell. Like a person hypnotized, we follow along as the author “guides” us farther into the story. As the words become mental pictures and flow through our mind, they actually take on form (that’s what we “feel”) and then become “living ideas.” Living ideas are what makes us what we’re meant to be – human beings!

Seems straightforward enough – human beings have been storytellers, and listeners of stories, since we were conscious of our own ‘self’ as individuals within our environment, and that was some time ago... And when one thinks about how – especially since Guttenberg’s invention – the stories in books, and the ideas in them, have been absorbed across the world, in order to become intelligible to millions, one has to stop and think about the power words still hold for us. If I may be so bold as to claim that we still have anything like “culture” left on this planet, then words that become ideas are responsible and what enrich our existence.

While as an author I may have a dearth of readers (in spite of the fact that I have a great story to tell), nevertheless, I’d like to believe that someday other people will have and share these ideas in common... I’m not holding my breath.

In any case, I’d like to thank each one of those brave souls – especially on Smashwords and GoodReads – who have taken up the gauntlet and downloaded my novel “The Horizon Keeper.”

I’m especially grateful for those who have made a monetary commitment; i.e., put their money where their mouth is (or wherever physiologically appropriate appendage it might be) and thus keep the unoiled wheels of civilization grinding on... just in case we have a future as a “culture” or civilization (a rather dubious proposition, if you ask me). But without these forward-thinking people, we have no hope at all (climb onto the lifeboats and don’t get sucked under when the ship gurgles and heaves before it vanishes under the surface!).

Naturally, it’s from tiny seeds that great oaks grow, and from a first step that great journeys are undertaken. In that spirit, I want to thank all the readers that have given of their time to travel in their hearts and minds back in time to the frighteningly beautiful world of Ancient Egypt, where Neruamun and all the Black People live. I’m grateful to all of you who have read through a challenging text. I hope it was a trip worth taking for you as well. It’s hard to find tickets to travel that far these days – at any price!

Consider it a “one of” deal, since the modern world has become so small and narrow (minded) that Literature hardly stretches one’s imagination anymore.

Well, back to my shameful attempt at self-promotion. But I really have no other way to express my gratitude to the fearless readers who have purchased and downloaded “The Horizon Keeper,” except indirectly, through my Blog... It’s a half-measure, I know, but since most of my readers wisely remain anonymous, there’s really no other way. Even though the book is only nine months old (oddly reminiscent of human babies), “The Horizon Keeper,” has a strong pair of legs and has risen up in the “Historical Fiction” genre on Smashwords. So again, THANK YOU!

What am I prepared to do to thank these courageous people? I’m willing to begin selling the book to them online. Now that’s an offer you don’t hear every day!

Moreover, Akhet Publishing has reedited the volume and produced a “deluxe” edition of “The Horizon Keeper” – suitable for framing! What’s more, the special edition is going on sale this month!

Now, both the bold and the wary may go ahead and purchase “The Horizon Keeper” online at Smashwords, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and all the other eBook distributors. If enough copies of the novel are sold, so I can pay the rent and feed my kids, I can keep writing – otherwise... Well, the alternative, due to its unpleasantness, would best be left undisclosed.

My hope and desire is that new readers help out the old – the trailblazers – and together we can continue to tell the story of Neruamun (North Wind), Sadeh, Na’ahma, and Lord Rekhmire. It’s really “our” story, if you think about it. Therefore, if you’ve enjoyed “The Horizon Keeper,” it’s high time you had your very own deluxe edition on your eBook reader (until the paper edition comes out).

And don’t forget, the story continues... Book II is on its way!