From Normandi Ellis's incredible translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead

Out of nothing I return to the white sea foam. I have made an end of things. This is my last concern. I've held the striped pebble of love in my hand. I've smelled truth in the rain. Beyond lies light no darkness knows. I walk to it, through years of pain, lifetimes of suffering, despair that knew no comfort.

I've known that tempting feast of death when, while darkness filled the mind, the heart cried out. I know when the eye of truth is plucked from the head, only the blood of rage remains. I've known weakness and madness of the heart, the loneliness of travellers at night who came only near the fire to sleep. There are men grown weary and old among us, lost in their going; their heavy feet tramp the floor, passing in and out among the houses, going nowhere. I know the terrible truth of darkness, and I say, bless the darkness, for in darkness I stumbled and fell on the crystal road. After years of doubt, the dark mind turns again to light. In the black mountain of the heart, I found my way home again. I am that light in the darkness. I am a diamond, a bright secret veiled in black cloth. The light beyond heaven is the light within.

From the first cry to the last I chant the spell of living. In my belly I join the breath of life with the flame of becoming. I rise from the center of myself, fire on the wick, burning, tossing back shadows. Night drifts away like smoke. Yellow sunfish slice through the water flowing through the caverns of mountains toward the valley where fire begins. I worship at the altar of being. I offer up life in return for life, pleasure for pleasure, light for light. It is good to rest in the fire.

I remember the perfume of days, a flower unfurling slowly after a night of anguish. I remember the grapes I shared by the road with a stranger, and after the harvest, twenty black ibis pecking. I've found strength in the handle of a hoe, in the warmth of a woman's brown thigh. These simple graces are the light from which darkness flows away. I walk under a fragmented sky thinking how like a white god is the moon that sometimes walks with us, how the ashes of ancients rise again as children, how unseen music follows everywhere.

Each morning is like the first when bright gods rose and walked—a light passing between houses—into the flowering orchards. I am a feather through which light passes. Like the body of sky, I am filled with light. Like a spade that breaks the ground and prepares it, I enter the work of light. Like an old man on the last day or a child on the first, I wake from dark dreams. The mist of time disperses.

I hold in my hands the vulture and snake, the dying and the self-created. I take hold of the god within and learn the power of destiny. Beautiful are my hands and feet. Truth is in the belly. Before me lie the emerald days strung upon a gold string. Turquoise and crystal are the months. The heart and mind make peace in the body. I walk beneath a sky of lapis lazuli. How far I've traveled bruising my heels on stones, picking flowers, dreaming, telling stories. I spend my life amid the turnings of fate. At the end of day, I am a child with my basket full of fish, tired and happy on the streets, going home. I am light heading for light.

Even in the dark, a fire bums in the distance. Long years the hearth-keeper keeps his silence, lightening the dark, leading children home. There is food for the hungry, rest for the weary. Warm and light is the fire. Along the road, life's children sing. Voices join in the darkness. This is a beginning.

I have known terrors in the night, eaters of flesh, the teeth of evil. I have known anger and hatred, more terrible even by day because they were unexpected. And I learned to relax in the jaws of death, to relax my grasp on ruby life and let the world go on. I find joy in the advent of stars, in the song rising out of darkness. My heart fills with the spirit of wind, a great sail that carried the body home. I have heard the screams of my brothers lost in the darkness; they weep and cover their faces.

Lift your heads, throw down your hands and weep no more. The eye of creation looks upon you. Look back. You are crystal reflecting fire. In your own becoming there is light—enough to lead you home.