From
Heru Ra Ur
The Son of Ra
in
The Book of Becoming Awake Again

“Mother,” he said and she listened as any human Mother would once
her son had become a man, “You can only be who you are.”
“But I am love, sex, joy, happiness, depression and so many more
darker things—lasciviousness, lust incarnate, lust unquenchable.”
“We have our burdens---I am what I am-- choice, divine choice, but I
am also anger, hot headedness, bull headedness…”
“I aid Set…”
“All the Gods do. In our own ways,” a son said to his Mother. “We
can not help but do so. This is the essence of balance in the universe. Either
the humans seek us or they default to him. If they don’t evoke me against
their primal natures, then Set awaits.” He took her hand for the first time in
his life and implored her not to blame herself with every ounce of his being.
“But he does not use your energy to seduce them to his war against
AmenRa. He sends women who once knew my greatest ways, my Priestesses
out into the sea of humanity to defile everything and every way.”
“That is more about humanity and less about you Mother.”
“I am not so sure, my son.” She said and looked up in to his eyes. He
paused feeling great pride having been recognized as her progeny for the very
first time. But that moment was far too short. “I would be with him in less
time than it took to think it, were it possible.”
“I know.” Heru Ra Ur replied. “Knew it from the moment you never
said you loved him.”
“If he would only denounce the dark,” she said and looked away
longingly, as if she were simply looking to find Set’s face upon the non
existent horizon. “He must do at least that.”
“AmenRa knows, you know. He is omnipotent.”
“I would never betray him.”

“I know,”
“I simply wish things had been different.” She said ignoring him and
looking back at him at once. “I would have been his mate for all time. You
know we were the most famous lovers upon earth, in the beginning.”
“I know.” He said. “But are you sure?”
“Love can be so insecure….” HetHeru, Goddess of Love and
Happiness said again to her son. “So unsure.”
“I know.” Her son replied.
“I must go there.” He answered.
“You are already here,” she replied and he turned around toward
where her eyes gazed.
He saw it but could not believe it. HetHeru and Set stood before
him, both the same height as he; neither could see him. They were speaking
but he was still between moments and could not hear them. Slowly every
thing around them came into focus. He saw the objects of war all around
them in this room, clearly celestial as there was no floor, only clouds.
Set was full of pride and even phasing through time and space The
Ur could feel it. Determination etched his face.
“If he can not defeat him, then he is not omnipotent and should not
rule Every Galaxy.” Set said and his words hung in the moment.
“How can you speak this way?” HetHeru asked, puzzled. “He gave
us life.” Pain stretched across her face as determination did his. She grabbed
his hand as he tried to put a weapon in a bag.
“Did he?” Set asked harshly. “Or did he simply tell us this to keep us
loyal?”
“What?!” She screamed as Set ripped his hand free and put his
weapon in the bag. “How can you say that?”
“My love, I don’t know.” He said quickly. “What I do know is that
every time I go out to fight the Apep Serpent, I am alone. Every last time.
And why would The Creator want this foul thing to exist.”
“Who are you?” HetHeru turned and asked him suddenly as if she
had just become aware of him. She had started to ask before she turned so
that Set thought she spoke with him.
The Ur did not need to look around to know there was only the
HetHeru of the past here.
“I am Set,” The Defiler started, “I am to be yours…”
“No, him.” She responded with out turning back toward Set.
Suddenly Set tossed Apep Killer at him, from behind HetHeru and
he caught it, without a word. The Ur tossed it back to him, spear tip up.
“I am Heru Ra Ur, Son of ….”
Pert Em Heru Ra Ur
The Book of Becoming Awake Again 172
“Ra.” HetHeru said finishing his sentence. He hadn’t even thought
about how to play this moment before he left their future. He only knew
now that he could not hide his identity from Gods. “This, I see from the
Solar Crown.”
The Ur allowed himself to become aware of the crown, the life giving
Sun that pulsed above his head and willed it away so that it disappeared.
There would be no distractions, even one about his growth as a God.
“Set, you can not do as you will.” The Ur said simply.
“I don’t care now, were you The Back Breaker himself. If he can not
defeat Apep, then he should not rule.”
“Do this now and you become what you hope to defeat. A life you
never thought possible awaits…”
“Not for me!” Set Ur screamed. “For my woman!!! If, and I do say if,
this monstrosity Apep is successful than the universe goes and with it, her!”
The Ur shook his head slowly, so that Set Ur could know he was
understood, even in his anger. He reached out and asked for Apep Killer
without asking for it.
“Do not do this for me. I will not have that upon my heart for all
time.” HetHeru said finally breaking the pause, the silence created by The
Ur’s request. Everyone knew Set Ur would not offer up his weapon. To do
such would be to offer up the will itself. “I trust Mighty Ra.”
“You do so only because you have not seen how he leaves me upon
the battle field and rushes away with the human souls….” Set screamed as he
banged his chest. Anger and spittle flying from his mouth, he would be heard
now before all and everyone for all time.
“This is the first time you have tried this?” HetHeru asked as she
turned to The Ur.
“Yes,” The Ur replied simply as he looked down for the briefest of
moments.
“Did I try to stop you?”
“No.”
“What are you talking about?” Set asked as he looked at his woman
who ignored him.
“I said nothing?” HetHeru asked. Her sadness and all of her
understanding was upon her face. She knew he had come from her future. It
indeed was the only way, the only way that this God before her could know
of a future she herself had dreamed of, just the night before.
“You were not confident that I would be successful.” The Ur replied
slowly, hesitatingly.
“What the cursed be Apep are you two speaking of?!” Set screamed.
He could not think from beneath his anger and pain, too far gone down a
long hallway toward an end he was becoming more comfortable with every
and any moment.
Slowly HetHeru turned toward The Great Set Ur, most powerful in
the known universe before evil, second only to Mighty Ra himself before the
Stars themselves.
“Your Mother was…” The Goddess of Love asked simply, her eyes
begging Set to hear the answer. But Set Ur only looked quickly at The Ur to
hear every syllable of the answer so clearly, so soul crushingly clearly.
“HetHeru, Goddess of Love.” The Ur answered as his eye flamed
beneath a reappearing Solar Crown.
“Are you not defender of justice? Are you not like me? Are you not
me? Destroyer of evil?” Set Ur asked inexplicably, as if he had not heard his
answer. Set had indeed heard the answer but denial was easier than facing so
much truth. “At war with it at all costs?”
“In my time, what seems like ages from now,” The Ur began lightly.
“Such is at war with you.”
With that Set staggered back. HetHeru reached out to him, but he
would not take her hand. The end was clear and he knew he had to do it
alone.
“Then the way is clear, if he would take my Goddess and destroy all
that I hold dear….” Set moaned as he fell to his knees before himself, not his
God.
“No, no, no…” The Ur began moving slightly toward him until she
stopped him with an out stretched hand. “You have a choice-- none of this
need be.”
“How can you say that?!” Set whispered his scream even as he looked
down, never looking up. “I have seen the way he looks at her.”
“He will not hear you.” HetHeru said simply as she looked over at
him finally. “He is lost in it, now; too far gone along the hallway where he
believes that he must go to ever turn back. His emotions…”
“Yes, his emotions,” Heru Ra Ur said and quickly ran past her hand.
Set was quicker. The Ur had never seen Set move in such a way in all his days
upon earth. Set’s fist struck his chest and he flew out of the dwelling and into
the Sun itself.
“Ra!” Set screamed. But that scream was not an invite for the life
giving abilities of The One. All who heard it knew it to be the challenge that
it was. “You know what I want! I know what you want! Why do we wait?!”
High above, The Ur came out of the Sun. The Hawk Headed Father
Ra, dark skinned, dressed in yellow armor, sat before him upon his throne in
the stars, looking down upon Set.
“Do you still believe that he would change, having now denied you
before your Mother and me?” The Mighty One asked without looking at him.
“I had to try.” Ra Ur replied softly.
Slowly Ra became human headed....

One
I am innocent, but I am Black, and in America that means that I
will be found guilty. This is my story dedicated to you my son, and to my
codefendant, Joe D., whose madness began my own true healing process.
Today, in this court room, where paintings of old balding White
men hang on either side of the U.S. Flag and the flag of the state of New
York, I pause to tell you who I am before I am found guilty at the close of
this trial and they tell you that I was only another guilty nigger.
Racism tells me this will be the outcome, our people's history tells
me that is the only end that is assured when a Black man stands accused in
the country where he has been beaten, whipped, hung, castrated, and
enslaved. This may sound of too much despair for one heart that is now
healing over the pain created by racism, my son, but peer with me into my
too short life, all of its thirty short years, and you will know the clouds that
block my happiness. You will see why I know that even though I am
healing my pain from racism, the world is not and so injustice rules as the
high suffers with the low and the innocent man who is your father will go
to jail.

Now I will tell you of them who are they that hold so much horror
for us and hope that you will never know what I have.
Let us begin before my accusal, with the story before the story, so
that you will know the reason for my story. And know that with the telling
of this story it is my hope that truly they will one day love you and give of
their own hearts to you as they do for their children and you will do the
same.
There has been enough ideas and money thrown at the race
problem in America to feed all the starving in the world and to count the
sand on every beach, yet sadly, still, we and they remain sick. As I begin
know there can no longer be a “they” or a “we,” only an us; one humanity,
therein lies our only salvation.
Now when I try to focus on my childhood memories I can see very
little. I don't remember "whole" memories. I don't remember the taste of
things, the feel of them. I only remember flashes, visions, bits and pieces of
moments.
So beginning with those moments, the story before my story, I was
born a dark skin brother named Raymond Johnson and lived out my early
childhood in a ghetto apartment on 135th street in Harlem.
The apartment was like any other with walls the texture of peeling
paint. My first memory in this only house I knew before I got my own was
of a living room that was a small, tight basketball court framed by an ugly
gray couch peeling upholstery, an old greasy spot stained recliner my father
loved, a black framed window, and an old black and white television that
only got one channel. This television sprouted a clothes hanger at the top
for an antenna.
At either end of the room hung wire "baskets" made from other
open hangers which were suspended from anything upon which your uncle
Jake and I could hang them. All day we would race up and down our court,
shooting our days away until our father, your grand daddy Michael, came
home and told us to sit down, be quiet, eat, and go to bed.
My father was a large massive smiling man. Six foot nine inches of
pure obsidian muscle. His hands, huge and heavy, were rough hewn sand
paper that seemed to scrape me every time he picked me up. His smile was
wide and bright, always, but only because he brightened my heart. I knew
or always thought it was me that had made him smile. What he liked to
wear, I don't remember very well because I hardly ever saw him outside his
work clothes. And he always seemed to be working for someone.

In my earliest memories of him, he wears a dark uniform, with
tassels on the shoulders. It wasn't until I was six or seven that I understood
my daddy was a door man for an apartment building in rich downtown
Manhattan. And just as I realized this he switched jobs and started wearing
a big old pair of dark blue overalls.
Now, your grandmother Helen was different. She was a tall regal
woman who worked cleaning White folk’s homes. And I knew she was
regal long before I had ever heard the word regal or understood its
meaning. She was six feet tall, and I don't believe she ever walked with her
head bowed in her life. She smiled less than your grandfather. Stretching my
mind now, I only know of two occasions when she did smile other than in
church; when she saw daddy walk in at night and when she woke us in the
morning. Every morning she smiled as she told us, “Rise and shine, time to
hit it!" Other than those times she was mostly an austere woman who
smiled little with even less to say except; "Jesus is the light and the way."
But her lack of smiles did not touch her beauty or her belief that
things would get better someday, Jesus would always make it better.
After she got off work on a real warm pretty day Mommy took Jake
and I over to play in Mount Morris Park at 123rd Street and Lenox. The
park was clean, nothing that you will know in your lifetime in your ghetto
home my son. There was grass without bottles, broken glass, discarded
needles or condoms. It was a park like White folks know today.
We had to be about eight and ten years old. Jake cut short our
smiles and laughter when he was bruised as he fell down, ripping his skin
from flesh, the bad guy running from "my" police. I felt it, the way you feel
it when you're still young and can still feel another's pain, like when your
brother got a beating.
"Jake, Come here," Mommy said, her eyes concerned as she looked
at Jake. She took off the white scarf about her head which matched her
white cleaning woman's smock and white shoes and wrapped it around the
bruise.
"There, you'll be alright," she said as she picked him up and put him
down next to her at her side. She rubbed it repeatedly. "Let's think about
Jesus, Jesus will make it better."
And that was her stock answer to every problem. Jesus would make
it better. I used to think that she should have passed me the gun then, but I
realize now in pondering this that she had in fact passed me the gun. Beset
by any commotion, she immediately gave it to her lord and walked away
from how it made her feel, Jesus was a wall against everything and I never
saw this wall crumble in front of us except for one sad night.
That night daddy had come home with his meat hook hung on his
side upset, complaining about White folks and his "kinda" job. While daddy
slept, Mommy told Jake and me that Daddy was working down at the
docks unloading meat.
Jake and I were in our old bunk beds about to go to sleep. Laying
there on the top bunk of the old dark wooden bunk bed, I was wrapped in
my favorite blue knit blanket. I remember the sheets were crisp white
because Mommy never let us sleep on anything that was any other color.
She would always say that any thing other than white made something look
dirty, especially sheets.
Closing my eyes I can see that night perfectly. I see the only picture
that was allowed on any of the walls in our house on 135th street and
Seventh Avenue. To my right, directly in the middle of the room, on the
drab gray wall; cracked here and there from years of neglect, hung a picture
of a White Jesus. "My dear lord," Mommy called him. To my left, sat our
old wooden desk where my brother Jake and I sat doing homework night
after night. I look down and I see Mommy's old blue slippers and her dark
blue cotton robe, but I can't see her hands, they're probably touching Jake's
neck. Even now I smile as I hear your uncle speak in a voice that I have not
heard in years.
"Mommy," Jake said loudly as I heard the covers rustle. "What
kinda job does Daddy have?"
"Jake," my mother answered, her voice lilting in the night air, a song
with meaning that I always heard when she said either of our names. "Your
father works at the docks unloading meat, but he doesn't like it."
Quickly, with all the purity and unabashed shamelessness that only
a child could know, my brother asked why didn't Jesus give him a new job
that he liked.
The slap was so hard that I thought I could hear her hand knife
through the air.
"Go to sleep Jake," my Mommy said, the lilt gone from her voice,
"And don't you ever say that again, to any one."
My mother got up quickly and left the room.
Jake didn't cry out. I didn't move. Shocked for the first time in my
life I simply looked at the picture of the white Christ hanging on the cross
in tattered robes, people in less tattered robes looking upon him. And I just
stared until I fell asleep. I didn't say a word to Jake and he didn't say one to
me. It was as if it had never happened.
It was some years later that daddy Michael gave me my first lesson
about the world and Jesus, after the lesson all Black folks get about how fire
burns and falling hurts. Only I forgot about it until now, which is the truest
reason I sit here speaking to you.
It was a week before Christmas. I don't know how young I was. I
just remember having to reach up and twist the doorknob to the door to
my parent's room where I saw my mother sitting on their bed next to my
father with her arm around him. His head down, still dressed in his overalls
he wore down at the docks, my father looked different, somehow, although
I couldn't see his face. His shoulders trembled.
Without thinking my mouth opened. "Daddy," I said.
"Boy don't you ever trust no White man," he said evenly, just above
a whisper, as he looked up. And I was shocked. His eyes glazed, water
touched his cheek. I glanced at his overalls and they were wet in the middle.
My father had been crying!
I stepped out and slammed the door as soon as I realized that the
man who could protect me from every thing had been wounded deeply.
There was so much in my world that could make me cry, so much that my
father had ignored. It had been he who had rubbed the pain away from
every scrape. At six foot nine, he had towered over my three year old self to
lift me to drop my first basketball in the hoop. He had wiped my tears and
even laughed at me for crying over the boogie man. What terror could have
done this to him? I could not even dare to explore. I wanted only to hide
from it, hoping that the door would keep it from ever touching me.
"You heard what I said boy?" he said when he came out of his
room finally. He walked past me as I sat in the living room. Too afraid, I
did not answer. Then I heard him open the special kitchen cabinet door. He
came back with a bottle of Jack Daniels in one of his huge obsidian hands
and a glass in another.
"Did you hear what I said?" he asked again. His voice raised and
clearly agitated.
"Yes," I said, my little lips trembled as I spoke.