141: Enlivening the Kundalini with an Aquarian Affirmation: “I AM HAPPY!”

“I am happy!” identifies us (consciously or not) with Hapi, the Egyptian god-name of Aquarius, the water-bearer.

The etymologist Eric Partridge derives “Happy” from Old Norse Hap, meaning (good) luck or chance (still evident

also in perhaps, mayhap, mishap, and happen). But Hapi (or Hap) is more fundamentally the Lord of the Nile,

that celestial river which mythologically springs from two whirlpools in the southern Island of Abu or Elephantine,

the Isle of the Elephant, to flow northward through the whole of Egypt, periodically flooding and fertilizing the entire

land with life, good fortune and prosperity before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. The Lord of both the Southern

and the Northern Nile, Hapi pours out the streams of life-water from two upended jars, as Aquarius still does today.

Because the King and the Land are one, Egypt is the external reflection of the body of the pharaoh or our divine self,

and the Nile symbolizes our own divine river, or sacred energy-flow of life-force — the electromagnetic kundalini

which moves along our central subtle-channel or sushumna (located between the two currents or “whirlpools”

of ida and pingala) to nourish and inspire us: indeed, to bring about our periodic rebirth. Elephantine, the Isle of the

Elephant, is the outer symbol of the chakra or energy-vortex at the base of the spine, ruled by the elephant, the

archetypal animal of Aquarius. The Mediterranean represents the oceanic consciousness available through the crown chakra,

the thousand-petalled lotus, just above our physical body. In India, the Lord Shiva also represents the celestial river

running in microcosm through our body; as Ganga-dhara he bears our cosmic or inner Ganges, the sacred waters of

our transcendence and enlightenment.

Like Nun, the Egyptian god of the primordial waters, Hapi appears as a full-breasted, full-bellied, bearded man: an

androgyne, one who has successfully joined the inner male and inner female — the Divine Marriage or Hieros Gamos,

accomplished when the kundalini or serpent-energy of the inner goddess Shakti ascends from the base of the

spine up the sushumna to attain her transcendent Lord, the inner Shiva at the thousand-petalled lotus above the head

(or somewhat more profoundly, when Purusha or Spirit fully merges with Prakriti or Matter). Indeed, Shiva too sometimes

appears as Shiva Ardhanarishvara — the divine Hermaphrodite. Also like Nun, Hapi is depicted as being green or blue,

the color of the Nile, and Shiva is blue-throated — Nila-kantha.

Hapi is actually crowned (in the South) with the lotus blossom of enlightenment (or in the North with papyrus-plants,

symbolizing the pillar of life), and (in the North) his wife is Buto the cobra-goddess, Shakti or kundalini-serpent

herself. (In the South, his wife is Nekhebet, the vulture-goddess.) Both the cobra and the lotus consistently

symbolize light or enlightenment. In Egypt the Uraeus-cobra wraps herself over the Sun-disk and sits atop the

head of Re, the Sun-god. Rearing up with her hood expanded she also accompanies both Shiva and the Buddha,

often with seven heads flaring out above the Buddha, possibly symbolizing the kundalini-mastery of all seven

chakras or seven planes or “colors” of existence. The Nile itself twists and turns to culminate in a many-branched

delta resembling a snake with outflared heads or crowned with a lotus. And perhaps it is not coincidence that Heliopolis,

center of Egyptian sun-worship, lies in this crown-chakra delta. In Egypt the sacred blue lotus opens every morning to

show its bright golden center, symbolically giving birth to the Sun-god every morning. Ancient Egyptian art often depicts

the Sun-god seated in and emerging from the celestial blue lotus.

As Ralph Ellis notes (Tempest and Exodus, c. 2001, Adventures Unlimited, pp. 21, 183), the “original name of the Nile

god was Hap, Hapi, or even Hep. But … the Egyptian name for the solstice … was also Hep.” Thus we again see the

equivalence our inner Nile with the solstice — the spine of our Cosmic Body or Purusha, as noted in many of our other

papers on Rorian Astrology.

Hapi also presides over the lungs of the mummified body; while commonly considered a different god than the Hapi

of the Nile, we see these two as identical: The kundalini of the inner Nile is extremely responsive to pranayama

or breath-exercises.

Hapi also rules the fall of the sacred dew. For more on dew and the Rorian Tradition, please see

What is the Rorian Tradition, Anyway: New-Age? Hinduism? Theosophy? Druidry? Wicca? Neo-Paganism? Gnostic Christianity?

Although we have stressed the traditional identification of Hapi with Aquarius, those familiar with the Rorian Tradition

may also note His/Her abundance of Scorpio (Bird-Woman or Fowler) attributes: viz. Hapi’s blue-green color, watery

nature, lotus flower, vulture and serpent familiars, and pregnant demeanor and association with fertility and life-force.