Kanji the horse

I found myself seated in a chair at a coffee table, the arrangement so large you must yell to have yourself heard to other people sitting right there. And everything is repeated. Scholarly things all around, these are serious-minded people, they want us to know. All the books are display books arranged to make a statement as much as to be enjoyed everything around is arch and aching set just so, un-lived with no love apparent, no real interest other than collecting. Exactly as described in Gatsby, you would say if you gave it thought. That's the deal going on there. The stiffness uptight and because of no real interest everything just a bit cheesy.There is a large coffee table book displayed outward about Egypt. I don't have this book and I hadn't seen it before. I mentioned I drew the hieroglyphs for years without knowing what they mean, as a child I just liked drawing the shapes. I even carved them in plaster using a dental tool, sold the pictures, without knowing what they mean, but they were always interesting and always held intrigue. 

Somebody said, "Because they were pretty." 

Everybody laughed at that as if it were an amusing insight. But that was exactly right, I chose them because I think they are pretty. All that art during that phase of production without knowing what I was doing and now I can read them fairly well with no interest in painting or carving. With such a book as that one as they have, my eyes go directly to the hieroglyphs to see if I can see what they say. 

They also have displayed prominently a papyrus they're quite happy with but due to their lack of real interest they don't know it's the most significant most highly reproduced  vignette from the Duat, from the Book of Going Forth By Day, the so-called Egyptian Book of the Dead, is not actually a book, rather, a list of scrolls with spells. They're magical spells. You'll see the vignette described as chapter 126 of the book of the dead, it is no such thing, it is a well-known spell, designated by us as # 125-6. There are other spells having to do with this one that make the claimant eligible for this important spell. It is at core of a lot of their royal formula, understanding this opens up a lot of other standard formula that you see in hieroglyphics all over. This is where the spirit is vindicated, its voice deemed true, so then, "This is _____ king, and other royal titles, the vindicated, true of voice.

The collectors wouldn't have any interest in that. They just want the look of something deep and serious minded. They don't know or care the hieroglyphic text accompanying vignette is for another spell. They do that in presentations and for printing. Un-jumbling them, matching them up, is a big part of reading them in book form when originally they were just loose papyrus sheets rolled up, as a portfolio, favorite spells and that's all, in no wise a book with chapters as we know them. 

That same careless manner of picking it up happened with kanji too not just hieroglyphs as a boy just goofing around wasting time drawing pictures.  I drew them without knowing what they mean because I think they're cool. I did a few pages, saw the same things repeatedly, taught myself how to build them by logical strokes, noticing some of them become parts of larger ones. Then my dad was posted there and we ended up going with these signs all over the place. Japan is loaded with signage. Signs on top of signs layered high as poles go. Began matching them up, familiar shapes, with the things they are attached. This horse is a favorite that I think makes sense instantly.