O Lord we thank thee, we glorify thee
O Lord we subject ourselves unto thee
Today we want to celebrate Timkat festival with our Ethiopian friends, who on this day and night mark their most important celebration of the year, the Epiphany, the Baptism of Jesus Christ in the river Jordan. The Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Christianity may be well one of the oldest Christian rites in the world.
To celebrate this day the Tabot, a reconstruction of the Ark of the Covenant, which in the Old Testament symbolised the alliance between humans and God, containing the tablets describing the Ten Commandments, which God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai to serve as the core principles of the moral behaviour for humanity is displayed before the faithful gathered in the Church and placed on the altar and this happens in the middle of the night near a stream of fresh water. At sunrise the priests proceed to bless the waters , while the faithful bathe in order to renew their baptism, among the clergy’s songs and dances followed by the faithful community.
Following the ceremonial bathing, people wear their best clothes, music becomes overwhelming and while elders sing, youths dance and leap wildly at the fast rhythms, upon dusk the priests take the Tabot and hide it away until next year’s Timkat.
By the way, legend says that The original Ark of the Covenant is under permanent guard in Northern Ethiopia, protected by priests who have sworn never to leave the sacred grounds
Rescogita is a training, coaching, consulting and capacity building firm centred on Ecopsychology, and as part of our mission we wish to honour both the diversity of humanity and promote the concept of a human culture different yet the same, in order to face and overcome the challenges our species and the whole biosphere are facing now.