The Sun, The Kpa, Scarabaeus Sacer
Who hasn't marveled at the pristine and magnificent expression of the sunrise? Drinking in with total refreshment each satisfying second of return. Cracking of the dawn. Many artists have included this natural, daily theater in poetic verse, lullaby and love song. While every rooster will agree that their job is done when The Sun peeks over yonder horizons.
The ancients viewed this event as comforting in it's timeless repetition. This renewal kept them rational and sane with it's promise of warmth and light and the activiation of crops and gardening. Whole agricultural societies gave up on the older Moon worship. Unfolding consciousness revealed a new diety in town. The Sun.
Early on, the tribes of world cultures considered The Sun as female. The physical expression of the Mother Goddess nurturing the earth with her caring rays. With the advent of patriarchal thought, the brilliance and the strength of The Sun became known as male. Although, in some folk myths, such as those of northern Europe and the Orient, The Sun still retains it's feminine status, even today.
Khepera is the ancient concept and divinity expressed by the rising Sun. The word khepera is the corrupted Greek translation for the great Nubian God, Kpa. Creator and father of all dieties, self-produced in the primeval waters of Nu in it's inception.
Early worship of Khepera was found in northeast Nubia (which is now known as Sudan and Chad) and the north African countries Ethopia, Somalia, Kenya, Egypt and in the Middle East.
Archaic drawings show a Sun barge being piloted by a beetle-headed god, across the sky, drawn by teams of night creatures. Some show Khepera rolling The Sun or The Moon to it's new daily position.
The name Khepera is from the root word kheprer, which means to become. The Nubians valued the symbolic drama of the sunrise and Kpa's journey to depict the attributes of self-generation, renewal and purification. The daily reminder of these powers in their culture, celebrated a strengthened moral aptitude and spiritual prowess. The magic of Khepera may be used for transformation in modern application.
The Scarabaeus Sacer or the afamed sacred scarab beetle, known by the Nubians, is one of the most historic augerisms from the ancient world. All of Nubian culture saw it's spawning habits as the depiction of the renewal of the essential Sun each dawn.
The hieroglyphic image of the beetle translated as to become, to transform or come into being. Primitive scientific thought viewed the scarab as only male. The beetle rolled a ball of dung, symbolic of rolling The Sun across the sky, and reproduced by depositing semen into the ball. It's larvae worms followed. The self-creation resembled Khepera regenerating a new Sun every morn.
The image Scarabus is an adapted character and version of the mythology of Khepera. Here Scarabus hails the rising Sun, arriving on it's sailing vessel, pulled by two night steeds, ushering in the new dawn.