voyage in the end as the beginning & all the way through no such thing as time or life no such moment in either of these less death than any other no such thing as matter, no body nor brain only one substance now & forever shaped by our ideas into belief of being all things strive to persist in their own being man being powerful struggles to persist even in that being he no longer has embalmed pharoahs waiting for the starship mouldering bodies resting till judgement day memorials & coffins to mark what soon will vanish the measure of mans' fear is his denial of decay attend. i will tell you what you already know. this moment you are dead. only a belief like that which thoughtlessly brings breath back to empty lungs, draws back your life. **** thy way is towards restau. i am the great one grown up in the state of a chief for thy coming. i establish the things in abydos i open the way towards restau. i soften the things for osiris. i make the water be. i guard the seat of the eye of horus in the valley in the large basin. i am the image of the eye of horus **** down in scorched fields the ravens pluck their eyes the black flies clog their flesh, small beasts gnaw at their bones these who do not cry out or shudder on parapets the severed heads in stench beds those ripped wide at crossroads turning in the fevered mist these who do not scream or suffer swollen yellow by gas or black by plague left by the road in a trench all the same these who do not whimper or complain is it death you fear, or the dying, or just pain? *** i am a question and not to be answered i am serious and not to be taken lightly i am in all things and not in the one i am of essence and not to be denied i am endless and flow in all rivers in the crackle of shells, in the shedding of scales i am the guardian of the seed, the foetus, i am the one truth of all that is born i am the fixed face behind the mobile masks of the living i am the upholder of those closest to me my names are more numerous than those of all beings i bid all things to me and they call it release my religion is vast beyond that of life all who believe they are living, believe in me iu tehuti smaakheru ausar aufankh maat kheru khefti smaakheru ausar er khefti before the great circle of the gods in abydos on this night of calling the muster roll of the dead before the great circle of the gods of the highway of the danmed, on this night of judging those who are no more before the great circle of the gods of the ploughing on this night of joining with them before the great circle of the gods in ra before the great circle of the gods in osiris before the great circle of the gods of heaven & earth before the great circle of the gods of every god & god o thoth make truth osiris word against his enemies as thou makest truth the word of osiris against his foe *** anubis the jackal the dogface astivat disolver of bones thanates the submissive uriel the wrestler siva the 1000 named hades the gloomy later called pluto emmao dis sati durga oreus yen lo wang the first of ten math the benevolent kali ambika tartarus yama the green and red yami the unwed hel of the nine worlds beneath the great ash morana the icy kalunga walumbe devi uma tu of the turehu tialoc the watery mictlan the meaningless eni goh at gea the evil ahpuch the fleshless skull samedi, la croix et cimetiere grandfather tamu a rider, a pale horse *** children of change join hands and laugh, sing for there's but one dance, and while you live death is your dancing master leading the dance across the land, darkening bloodstreaked, towards a setting sun that also somewhere rises