The Symbolic world of Fabulous Creatures is in an entirely separate realm from the solid world of facts and from the fanciful world of fiction. Fabulous (“almost incredible”) representatives are the Unicorn, Salamander, Monsters, Basilisk (reptiles), and the Fabulous Birds of Power. African Sages said the fabulous, as a science of ultimate reality, symbolized universal ideas bubbling up from the Amenta into human’s subconscious minds (Bailey, Common Sense p 197). Fabulous Creatures and Creations of Ancient African mythology–e.g. the Sankofa and Phoenix birds–contain elements of reality and non-reality. The name “Phoenix” means a god of Phoenicia and the Greeks developed it from Bynw, Benu (“phoenix,” a date palm), an Egyptian bird (Walker, Myth p798). But its Egyptian mythological story pertains to the first dawn of Creation. The Benu Bird, an aspect of Atum, skimmed over the waters of the Nun until it came to rest on a rock. As it did so it opened its beak and a cry echoed over the unutterable silence of the Nun. The world was filled with “that which it had not known.” That cry of the Benu Bird, by bringing light and life to the cosmos, “determined what is and is not to be.” (Watterson, Gods of Ancient Egypt p27).
According to the Greeks’ Herodotus and Plutarch, the Phoenix was a mythical Ethiopian bird possessing extraordinary longevity. The 8th century BC Greek poet Hesiod thought the Phoenix lived nine times the life-span of the long-living raven. Other estimates went up to a lifespan of 97,200 years. The original Egyptian bird model for the Phoenix was probably the horned, winged sun disc or a heron (a wading bird with a long neck, long bill, and long legs)–both said to have been the first creature to alight on the hill that came into being out of the primordial ooze. About the size of an eagle (and resembling an eagle), this bird’s head is finely crested with beautiful plumage. Its neck is covered with gold colored feathers; its tail is white; and its body is clad in the color purple (or crimson)-the colors of the rising sun. Legend says that only one Phoenix can live at a time.
In Ancient Egypt, where the people devoted their entire lives in preparing for the continuance of living in the Afterlife, the Phoenix was a symbol of hope-hope from its regenerative pattern of dying, being purified, and rising anew. Its regeneration and association with life was because the Sun flew on its wings through heavens while constantly being immolated (killed as a sacrifice) and reborn from the fires of sunset and sunrise. As a result, the Phoenix made a daily cycle with the sun and was therefore associated with the annual flooding of the Nile. The very basic African concept of regeneration spread widely once it was borrowed from Africa. By having a vital relationship with alchemy during the Middle Ages, the Phoenix bird became the symbol for chemistry and pharmaceutical practices. By symbolizing resurrection and immortality, in today’s usage “phoenix” refers to a person, project, building, institution, or race of people who rise from the ashes of its own destruction-and then are vigorous enough to start anew as fresh, youthful, and strong. Otherwise, anything of excellence or beauty might be called a “phoenix.” Rising phoenix-like into remarkable success with so little and so fast was what African American ex-slaves did in overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Yet, mental freedom for today’s struggling Blacks requires a Phoenix death of whatever causes delusions, mind enslavements, and apathy.
website: www.jablifeskills.com
Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.