Julia read the address to the Ennead first:
I got out the favorite reference book, and learned Atum is "the great primeval deity of Heliopolis. His cult was a very ancient
one and by the Old Kingdom he had risen to a very high level of importance in Heliopolitan theology." (Richard Wilkinson, The
Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, (Thames and Hudson 2003),page 98)
Later on, when Amun becomes perceived as a universal creator, the primeval god Atum is then considered "an aspect of Amun, the
same is true of the sun god Re." (Stefan Paas, Creation and Judgement: Creation Texts in Some Eighth Century Prophets
(Brill 2003),
page 131.
I read the next poem, which I'd written sometime in 1993 or '94, based by my rememberance of what house we were living in,
(which might have been faulty memory). I
had cause to think of it when encountering a hymn to the Netjer Amun, "Unique is Amun, who is hidden before them," "He is too mysterious for his mystery to be revealed,"
"the ba who hides his name according to his mysteriousness." (Andreas Schweizer, The Sungod's Journey through the
Netherworld, page 208, quoting Jan Assmann, The Search for God in Ancient Egypt)
If I remember correctly, I'd read this poem at my handfasting with Julia twenty years ago.
--- Joan Ann Lansberry
Julia had mentioned wanting a reading from Kahlil Gibran, and we found the perfect reading online. As she'd requested Gibran, she
read that. She'd also mentioned Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but her poems seemed too 'flowerly' for me.
One site had a poem by
Ray Croft I liked, so I chose that and read it.
There was a page with several sample vows, one which suited with a little personalization. I assembled
the selected readings into a pdf and printed them out. I read from that, while Julia read from the
minister's notebook, in which she'd neatly assembled the text.
|