XEPER: The Journey of a Modern Ancient Egyptian

It has taken a long time to come up with the name Xeper.

Many contesting names were considered for months to come up with it.

“But why is that so?” Someone may ask. “A name is a very serious thing,” I would reply. “Alice, with a name such as yours,” Humpty Dumpty told her, “you could have any form.. almost..”. And I guess this pretty much sums up why this weblog is not named “Alice”; for it wouldn’t tell you what it looks like, what it is about..

Yet it is also not named “Between Prophets and Profiteers”.. while I wish it to talk about our trap between spirituality and materialism. And yet BPP supposes not only the trap, but a choice among them. It presupposes an either/or mentality. You are trapped between Spirituality and Materialism as two extremes, and our choice is to choose to move towards one away from the other. Towards one, and away from the other. Supposing there are two extremes, old wisdom has it that the seeker of goodness would choose a middle path. And yet this is only if you are stuck between two extremes, hence we have You, Extreme Spirituality, and Extreme Materialism. My problem with that approach is at least two-fold:

First, it is linear. Here I use the term Linear as opposed to Multi-Dimensional. For as you ask me whether I choose right or left, I am compelled to wonder, aren’t there other options? Why not choose “up”??

Second, the model is very static. Would the extremes change in a while based on my actions? in this model I dont think so; for it presupposes three well-known entities that do not change nor interchange positions. This may befit a ball game where the playing field limits are predefined, and the ball is not expected to disintegrate nor multiply during the course of the game, which are plausible assumptions for a game of football, but not for my life dilemma. Prophets and Spiritualism are glorified in some places at some times, they are vilified at others, and all the time they have changing definitions and value around the globe and during the life of a single person. So are Profiteers and Materialism. Why don’t I also change, allow myself to be glorified at times, vilified at others, and change of definition and value to others?

One thing I am sure of, most if not all the cells that make up my body are different now from the time I was born. I am larger, filling in the gap between Prophets and Profiteers a bit. The distance to both extremes is becoming shorter in the same time, so the call became easier, yet the balance more precarious. Something else I am sure of; there are many things I could not do when the game started that I can do now.. another difference from football. For football matches presuppose two sides of static ability at least during the match and they supposedly meet to determine whose ability is higher. In our Prophet-Profiteer seesaw, we develop our abilities and grow physically and otherwise through the course of the game.

“Right or Left?” Someone insists on knowing.. “UP!” is my answer.

Hence Xeper.

X here is the Greek letter still found in Coptic with the same symbol. In Arabic and Modern Egyptian it is the letter commonly symbolized as KH (as in Ekhwaat – Brothers/Sisters), and more recently as 7′ or 5.

Xeper is how back home we say “Becoming”.. or “Developing”.. or “Multiplying”.. (actually we probably called it Xapara but let’s keep that for another talk). Xeper is “Growing”.. “(Ful)Filling one’s potential”.. It is a verb. It is a process. An Effort. A Dedication.

Xeper is the etymological root of Xepri (aka Khepera, Kheper, Chepri, Khepra); the spirit embodied best symbolized by the Scarab or Dung Beetle. The Scarab is a laborious animal. And humble. It goes around collecting dung; the most base of matters, and shapes it into a Circle, even a Sphere the most perfect of shapes. If I was a Scarab, I would stop complaining about the baseness of my worldly experiences but shape them into perfection. Nothing explains Becoming better than this. Moreover, not only would I focus on a shape, but also understand that in whatever is rejected there still is potential. And I could use this potential from refused ideas and efforts and people to continue, to have a new fresh start, a new Me can be born from the fusion of all those rejections and my pure essence, like the Scarab lays its eggs into dung and dead bodies, thus starting a new life from death, starting a new cycle from the end of an old one. Eternal re-creation. And each time I would try to start better, thus by re-creation I would reject the inadequate old Me and reshape its potential into a perfect shape. Spherical like celestial bodies. I would eventually become a Celestial body from the elements of my current life that I reject. I would eventually Become.

Hence Xeper.

Effort.

For the perfect shape.

Not almost any shape.

Not Alice.