The Museum of the Mind: The Antiquities of Freud and Tut, by Dr. Judith B. Meyerowitz

The Museum of the Mind: The Antiquities of Freud and Tut
 
Ptah Lord of eternity and creativity who holds the symbol of the life force
May he accompany all who journey through the museum of the mind
 
Miniature mummy, eyes wide
opening to the past,
holding history in the eye
Impassive smile hides,
the mystery inside
It sits before him on his desk
His musings and associations fill the space,
while dreams surface from the couch.
Doctor and patient take a ride,
through the chambers of the mind,
charting the dark underworld through time.
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From his chair, Dr. Freud approaches the sealed chamber of the unconscious
Before his eyes the room dissolves, the figures come forward
His thoughts turn to deities and death,
of stories told through myths
His dreams merge, the old and present melded together
As if a channel for the Ancients,
He knows that the shabti were
"The Answerers" of old.
He shifts his focus to a small sphinx.
He begins to meditate on the riddle of man.
 
A Torch shines through the dark tunnel
The burial chamber reached
The dazzling discovery revealed
Human size figure entombed, wrapped in layers of cloth
Upon his shoulders a brilliant golden mask with bold striped headdress.
At its prow, like a great figurehead, the cobra stands ready to strike God-like.
And the vulture alongside, the power of Egypt united
 
The mummified boy lies secreted in a nest of masks and linen gauze
Beneath lay the finely chiseled features of a young man
It is said: at nine he entered the dynasty
At eighteen the tomb adorned
Amulets accompany him on his journey to the underworld
He rests in the presence of a shabti in his image,
Left in the dark to dream
 
Until the light of the intruders interrupt the sleep of centuries
A tear in the fabric of time
Tomb robbers disrupt the laws of his universe
Osiris is powerless
The Book of the Dead wordless against intruders
Who steal the soul living in the art of the unearthed dirt
 
Eyes wide-open as if alive
Tut travels between this life and the next
Ba, the human headed bird whose wing touches his sarcophagus,
Releases his soul into the afterlife
While Freud, the dreamer, is accompanied by
Ba on his journey to the underworld of the unconscious.

Dr. Judith B. Meyerowitz

Dr. Judith B. Meyerowitz is a psychologist and museum docent. Her particular interest is in non-western art as an expression of spirituality. Her specialty is in the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, including Native American.