Passover memory in Egypt 2005

In February of 2005, I embarked on a spiritual pilgrimage to Egypt, intending to connect with humanity's ancient ancestry. What happened there, on the Nile, once again reminded me of my deep, soul-level connection with my people, the Hebrews. It is, truly, a modern Passover story:
As my seven special soul sisters and I approached the temple of the crocodile king, Sobek, I become overwhelmed with feelings of alienation, shame and anger. We had spent the morning at the Temple of Isis, where I followed one of my sisters around, a few feet behind her, feeling like her hand-maiden. I did not know where these feelings were coming from. At the entrance to the temple of Isis, I had found myself drawn to and buying a somber, rather ugly black galabaya (a garment worn by Egyptian men and women). Even as I purchased it, I knew I did not want it. As the whole cocktail of negative emotions surfaced that stemmed from my childhood displacement by the Holocaust, I envisioned tossing that ugly black thing in the Nile. When I processed these feelings, I realized that the black galabaya was a metaphor for the suffering and alienation of the ancient Hebrews in Egypt, and that I was somehow picking up the energy of the events in Egypt that are at the core of Passover celebration.
By the time we docked at the site of the crocodile king, Sobek, where initiates in the past were tested by having to swim through a canal of water filled with crocodiles, I realized I really DID need to toss that garment, that shroud representing unwelcome events and the feelings associated with them, into the Nile. To give back to Sobek, who is said to devour negativity, that personal and collective shroud of shame, blame and anger.
The ritual turned out to be far more than a release of my personal and cultural heritage of shame, blame, guilt and anger. Each of my sisters added her feelings from her own history to the mix, each of us holding and owning our piece of the black garment and what it represented. Together with our Egyptian guide, who grew up learning to hate the Jews, we folded it, anchored it with heavy stones, and tossed it into the Nile.
The headline in the paper the next day recounted the decision of the Egyptian government to send an ambassador to Israel for the first time in four years …