Unbeknownst to me, it turns out that this is an actual piano score! It is called Toc-cat-a in B for Pawiano and was written by Noam Oxman in honour of a cat named Latte! Here is a recording of it --
Thanks to intrepid blogging buddy Jim of Road to Parnassus for researching that meme and letting us know the results! More whimsical animal compositions by Noam Osman are found here.
This month's altar honours the Nile Goddess, whose small figurines have been found by archaeologists in graves and tombs throughout Egypt and Libya. Her image is 6,000 years old, predating the pyramids and pharaohs. I have placed her on an altar cloth representing desert sand and the banks of the river Nile. The life-sustaining river is also represented by the blue ribbon and candles. Behind the Goddess is a pyramidical structure (because, even though anachronistic in this setting, nothing represents Egypt like the pyramids!) The intersecting circles of the candlesticks create vesicapiscis ovals, the ancient sacred geometry vulva symbol of the Divine Feminine.
The Goddess' pose forms the Egyptian hieroglyph which means "The Soul." A Goddess of primal divine power, she does not have a human face but instead, the head of a bird or serpent. Her presence in graves and tombs suggests she is a Goddess of Regeneration and Rebirth, helping to guide the dead on the sacred journey to their next life.
After creating this altar, life took a very synchronistic turn. Out of the blue, I was contacted about an old friend's passing. Born in Egypt but living abroad as an adult in France and Canada, she was a lifelong priestess of the Goddess, devoted to the Divine Feminine who was her constant muse in both art and writing. When I first came to Edmonton 28 years ago, I was part of her spiritual circle of five women. In a few days, we surviving three Circle Sisters will meet at our friend's graveside to drum and sing in her honour as she returns to the Great Mother of All.
