The Lion’s Gate

Many associate the “Lion’s Gate” with the Heliacal rising of the Sun with Sirius on August 8^th,  however this date is entirely a modern, numerological invention.  In ancient times, the actual date occurred sometime in the middle of the month of July just prior to the annual Nile inundation. 

A heliacal rising (the first day a star becomes visible in the morning sky before sunrise) is entirely dependent on specific geographic locations. Because the Earth is a sphere, people at different latitudes see the star break through the sun’s glare on completely different days.  For example this occurs today in Cairo, Egypt (30° N) around August 2nd or 3rd. In Southern US and North Africa (35° N) it occurs around August 6^th and in New York and Central Europe (40°+ N) it happens around August 12th or 13th. 

What we refer to as the “Lion’s Gate”—the heliacal rising of the star Sirius—was celebrated annually at the Temple of Isis at Philae as Wepet Renpet (the Egyptian New Year) and the Festival of the Inundation.

Because the ancient Egyptians directly identified the Netert Isis with the star Sirius (also known to them as Sopdet), the temple functioned as a massive, living astronomical clock. Its architectural axis was deliberately aligned to point directly at the eastern horizon where Sirius would rise at this auspicious moment.

Before the star reappeared, Sirius vanished from the night sky for 70 days which was considered the “70 days of mourning”.  Sometimes they labeled the annual flooding as “the Tears of Isis” mourning her deceased lover, Osiris.  Because the star “died” (disappeared) and was “reborn” (reappeared) over a 70-day window, the Egyptians mirrored this cosmic rebirth in their funerary practices. The deceased spent 70 days in the embalming area to ensure they, too, would be successfully reborn.

At Philae, the priests marked this period ceremonially. On the morning of the heliacal rising, the high priests climbed to the roof of the temple sanctuary to celebrate the great reawakening and the “Opening of the Mouth”.  As the first beams of the sun hit the horizon and the star Sirius rose just ahead of it, the Priests performed the Opening of the Mouth ceremony on the sacred golden statue of Isis-Sopdet.

This ritual was believed to ignite and reanimate the statue, infusing it with the first rays and energy of the returning star. 

The return of Sirius always coincided with the arrival of the annual Nile flood, which promised the return of the fertile silt as KMT, the black earth to the dry and desolate land. Priests at Philae sang litanies to Isis, praising her for role in the return of the life force, the waters to Egypt and they poured milk and wine onto the altars to celebrate the event. 

The ensuing Festival of Drunkenness or Tekh was a celebration of the return of the waters symbolically embodied by Tefnut (translated as “the Spit of Nut”) up and down the Nile, including Tel Basta in the Delta –as a massive festival of music, dancing, and deliberate intoxication. The ritual drinking was intended to mirror a myth where humanity is saved from the wrath of the distant goddess (in her lioness form, Sekhmet/Hathor) by tricking her into drinking red wine or barley beer to calm her rage wherein she passes out for three days (moments of silence) before she awakens and transformed into into a state of love and joy.   Scenes from this joyful celebration can be viewed at the Hathor Chapel within the temple of Isis. 

They imagined this as a rebirth and restoration of the heart and lifeforce of the sites, the land and its inhabitants. As all the temples and sacred structures were powered by and enlivened by the running water of the Nile as well, this was also a celebration of the surging waters resurrecting them as well.

A procession to Bigeh Island located directly across from the temple of Isis took place as the floodwaters reached their peak. Golden statues of Isis and Osiris were carried out of the temple gates and placed onto ceremonial barges to be rowed across the Nile to the sacred island of Bigeh. The priests would perform secret rites at what was said to be the burial of Osiris– linking the return of Sirius as Isis directly to his resurrection as well as the rebirth of all that existed near the banks of the Nile.  

This dynamic was celebrated many ways as a fractal and cyclical process that mirrored the foundational intake and outtake of breath emerging through an interdimensional portal (embodied by Hathor as the birth canal) between heaven and earth.  

Litany of RA – A Daily Celebration

Another similar celebration of rebirth was known as the Litany of RA.  The Akhet was known to be the place of “becoming effective” or ALIVE again after a moment of complete silence and unity consciousness. Light and reflection, spirit and matter, or conscious and subconscious merge into one absolute point of singular existence.  People who have had a near-death experience often describe this as– enjoying an incredibly blissful moment where they felt they were at-onement with everything in the universe- before they return to their physical bodies. This moment was also celebrated as Aten, the Sun at noon when we perceive the sun being still for a few moments before it’s declination. Aten represented the sun and the nurturing solar energy felt at its peak. The midday sun, or the sun at its highest declination during annual solstices, represented maximum clarity, illumination, and spiritual power.

These are the powerful potentials that are offered to us during the Lion’s Gate Portal.

In the ancient Egyptian understanding, RA, the Sun- and Osiris who dwelled in the Underworld as the Moon or the “reflected light of the Sun”, become one for a euphoric moment of bliss before the dawn when the sun is “born again” into duality. 

This is also illustrated by the Aker, or Ruti, the dual lion and lioness, Duaj and Sef.   Together, the pair, Sef (Yesterday/Past) and Duaj (Tomorrow/Future), represent the entry and exit points of the sun through the underworld. Once Ra leaves this unified state, his path across the ecliptic mimics a sine wave that divides the two hemispheres of the Earth.

This is later celebrated as the story of Adam and Eve and the Serpent.  We are born into Sin—the knowledge of Good and Evil (duality) when we choose to be effective, active living light within the illusion of form. We leave paradise behind to live and breathe in a material world. We fall out of unity consciousness into the dual world of polarization, the knowledge of good and evil, light and shadow, and right and wrong.

Solar and Lunar Eclipses

The Sun and the Moon are also unified for a moment of stillness during Solar Eclipses and Lunar Eclipses when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned in what Astronomers call  alignment syzygy. Interesting enough,  Solar Eclipses are happening this year, on August 12th and next year (even more significantly) on August 2, 2027 when the path of totality will stream through many ancient sites in and around Luxor, Dendera, Abydos and Siwa.

In  Egypt, this total solar eclipse begins as a partial eclipse at 11:40 am, reaches its breathtaking maximum totality at 1:05 pm, and ends completely at 2:26 pm local time. Total darkness and stillness (totality) lasts for roughly 6 minutes and 22 seconds before the Sun and Moon separate again and return to their cyclical movements renewed.

 According to Wallace Budge:

“This bird is said to have created itself, and to have come into being from out of the fire which burned on the top of the sacred Persea tree of Hieropolis; it was essentially a Sun-bird, and was a symbol both of the rising sun and of the dead sun-god Osiris, from whom it sprang and to whom it was sacred. The Bennu not only typified the new birth of the sun each morning, but in the earliest period of dynastic history it became the symbol of the resurrection of mankind, for a man’s spiritual body was believed to spring from the dead physical body, just as the living sun of today had its origin in the dead sun of yesterday.” 

We celebrate the Lion’s Gate Portal as the place where this first breath occurs (again!) at Zep Tepi. 

It is a celebration of new beginnings and infinite possibilities for a great and successful harvest annually, daily and when Ma’at as Harmonic Resonance is restored worldwide at a great moment of silence before a momentus transformation of mass consciousness and perception of Reality during the Precession of the Equinoxes.  

The Sphinx faces east to gaze at the rising sun on the Horizon during the equinoxes waiting for the Heart of the constellation of Leo to rise on the Horizon at a powerful and propitious moment within our Great Year.  In archaeoastronomy, Regulus, is the Lion’s Heart that opens the Lion’s Gate   Regulus is tied to this dynamic because slow shifts in the tilt of the Earth (axial precession) historically aligned Regulus with the Sphinx’s eastern gaze around dawn during key seasonal and equinoctial turning points.

The Sphinx, according to the renowned Wisdom Keeper, Abd’el Hakim Awyan, is Tefnut symbolizing Sirius — and the return of the Heart (heart-based perception of Reality) as the Pure Primordial Waters of Nut to Egypt and the Earth to offer us a new beginning… and Breath of Life.

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