Ever since I accidentally face planted into Energy Work, I’ve always resonated with the Ancient Egyptians; not least because they loved a list just as much as I do.
This is how they're relevant to your life right now, right here, today. No, really.
And if you stick around, I’m also going to tell you a tale of horror and woe about my own personal experience with Scarab Beetles.
But first, back to the Ancient Egyptians. Admittedly, there’s plenty that they got wrong - the whole ‘lack of branches on the Dynastic family tree’ thing, for a start. But they were way ahead of their time in so much else.
They saw The Universe as a source of wonder, and Chaos as a combination of creativity and self-sabotage. They used Energy Centres (Chakras) and Sound to heal. And when Carl Jung visited Egypt in 1926, apparently he was struck by the way they’d worked with the psychology of archetypes, long before he came up with the concept.1
A lot of what the Ancient Egyptians considered to be important can be found in the symbols (and hieroglyphs) that they used. I’m sure you won’t be the least bit surprised to hear that I actually have a book called ‘How to read Egyptian Hieroglyphs’, but fear not, we won’t be doing any of that today.
Today, we’re going to talk about the Scarab.
Beetles that deal with dung, but not actual Dung Beetles. Stick with me here, it’s about to get useful, honest.
The Scarab, in Egyptian symbology (and specifically in the healing Cartouche cards that I use for pretty much everything), is representative of new life and a new start. And conversely, it’s also representative of being stuck.
If you’ve read any of my previous newsletters then you might remember we’ve talked about being stuck. And about the practical steps that I had to take, in order to get myself out of the mire.
The Scarab was at the back of my mind when I started that process. Not consciously, but it was there.
The card is very explicit in its meaning; the Scarab beetle is representative of Khepera, god of resurrection and immortality, and it signifies a new beginning or a new phase of life.
But at the same time, it suggests that if you are stuck in an old pattern or behaviour, or in an out-dated situation, the best thing to do is to stop struggling, stop trying to force things, and just take a beat to relax.
It sounds counter-intuitive - especially to people like the old version of me, who preferred to believe that she was in total control of her destiny and that if things weren’t moving, then all she needed was a Bigger Hammer.
But I’ve found that actually, if I want things to change, taking a beat is exactly what I need to do. There’s lots of reasons why it makes sense:
1. We don’t make good decisions from a place of panic. We can do SOMETHING, in fact, we can do ANYTHING, but it won’t necessarily be a GOOD thing.
Quite early on in life, I came to the conclusion that the world wouldn’t be safe if I got bored. I was going to be a Problem. Something was definitely going to happen, and it probably wouldn’t be GOOD.
I had to learn patience, learn how to let things unfurl before they started to improve. It took a loooooooooong time for me to learn that, and I was deeply unimpressed the entire time.
I also had to acknowledge that The Universe is quite a lot bigger than me, so actually, I needn’t have worried - it can look after itself.
2. If things aren’t moving the way we want them to, then there’s probably something we haven’t worked out yet, something that we are blind to. Probably it’s something that we really need to know before we can move forwards. AKA there’s a lesson there somewhere and what we resist persists, etc.
I love a project plan, and up until (alarmingly) recently, I refused to acknowledge that there even was a Messy Middle, never mind have the ability to accept that I was stuck in it. But sometimes we just are. Sometimes, in order to be able to move forward, we first have to accept what IS.
I always look at it like having the handbrake on in a car. You can rev the engine, you can spin your wheels, but one of two things will happen; you’ll break the handbrake because you’ve used too much force to get free, or you’ll destroy the tyres because the handbrake did its job.
Either way, you’ll end up worse off.
Instead, perhaps take the time to remove the handbrake, let the car roll back a smidge, ease off and release? THEN move away.
3. The Scarab’s message is that it’s the very acceptance of our circumstances for what they truly ARE that gives us the change in perspective we need in order to move on.
It was only when I had no choice but to stop and rest and percolate that I came up with my ‘what’s next’. I couldn’t see the whole, but as it turns out, I’d been building the parts all along.
My subconscious plays with me sometimes, it persuades me to do something that on the surface looks totally random. These days, I’ve learned to trust it and wait until all of the seemingly disparate, disconnected parts that I’ve built, in no discernible order, come together to form something so much better than my conscious mind could ever have created. And it’s only when it’s finished that I realise what it is. It’s only then that I see it for what it is.
It’s very difficult to believe that things will be OK, when you’re stuck somewhere you hate. You can only see the breadcrumbs when you look backwards, but I’ve learned to trust myself, because somewhere, something is always working out for the best.
I use the Cartouche cards on an almost daily basis, so that’s probably partly why the Scarab contributed to my journey back to equilibrium. But they’re not the only reason that the Scarab was scuttling around in the dark recesses of my mind.
My favourite film is The Mummy.
The one with Brendon Fraser and Rachel Weisz. I love it, and I love them in it. I know the words, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched it. When this incident took place, I must have already watched it dozens of times.
Context: I’m a Brit. My husband is American. When he moved to the UK, he was horrified by the size of my TV. Apparently it was similar to one he’d had about 30 years previously <insert obligatory joke here about everything being bigger in the USA>.
One day, he came home from a trip to Costco with a TV so big, it barely fit into the house. It took me a while to accept it, because it was so enormous that it made me motion sick - it WAS the horizon.
But the nausea was as nothing compared to the first time I watched The Mummy on it.
Up until then, I’d loved the kitsch nature of the movie. I’d settled in, cup of tea in hand to watch it again. Which was great, until I realised that all along, I’d been watching a HORROR MOVIE (yes, I am a bit melodramatic, whatever). It was GRUESOME, it was SCARY. The mummies were actually decomposing, the scarabs were truly terrifying. I spat my tea clear across the room (fortunately missing the TV).
Because I could see all of the detail on the huge screen!
There may even have been some screaming.
Inspired by The Way of The Scarab, I have since accepted The Mummy as it truly is, in all its technicolour, glorious gore, and I still love it. I’ve recognised that the gore was there all along, I just couldn’t see it. And I still watch it as often as I get the chance.
But now, when I do, it’s usually without tea.
Love,
Alli
P.S. if you want help with starting to trust yourself again, then here’s how I can help:
Grab your own copy of The Joy Edit. PSA, if you’d like a 95% discount off it, then hit the subscribe button below, and you’ll get a super secret discounted link in your Welcome email.
Part of learning to trust yourself is the ability to feel Safe & Sound, whatever happens, and I’ve got something tailor made to help you do that.
Imagining the World into Existence - An Ancient Egyptian Manual of Consciousness, Normandi Ellis, published 2012, p80