The Storytellers Goddess Part 5

"Ninshubar! Where is My husband?" said Inanna.

"I will go to him in the fields with his sheep. How I long to be in his arms!"

"Inanna," said Ninshubar.

"Dumuzi is not in his field."

"Where is he then?" asked Inanna.

"He is in Your throne room," answered Ninshubar.

Inanna picked up Her skirts and ran to the center of Her palace. There on Her throne She saw Her husband. But Dumuzi was not crying. Nor was his face smeared with ashes. Instead Dumuzi was laughing and ordering the musicians to play another round of music.

"Eat, drink, and be merry!" he shouted to the party of people.

"I am king!"

Dumuzi stopped short when he saw his Queen. Inanna's face had frozen hard. She stood very still.

"Inanna!" said Dumuzi.

"You have returned! Inanna, I..."

Inanna pointed Her finger at Dumuzi.

"You," She said.

"You. It is you who shall take My place with Ereshkigal."

The blood ran out of Dumuzi's face.

"My Queen," he said.

"Queen Inanna!" A woman ran out of the crowd and knelt at Inanna's feet.

"You know me. I am Geshtinanna, Dumuzi's sister. We were wrong not to grieve You, O Queen. But Inanna, we are human, and life seemed so short. We have danced and made merry today because we could die tomorrow. We were afraid, Inanna. O Queen Inanna, show mercy to me and my brother. Let us share the time in the Underworld."

Inanna looked at Geshtinanna and then at Dumuzi.

"So be it," said the Queen of Heaven, and She turned away.

So it is that half the year Dumuzi the shepherd spends tending his sheep while his sister lives in the Underworld. The other half of the year Dumuzi lives in the realm of Ereshkigal while his sister, Geshtinanna, lives in the Upper World. Each year the brother and sister pa.s.s on the staircase of the seven gates and hold each other tightly before they separate again.

Hecate (HEK-uh-tay) Queen of the Crossroads (Turkey) Introduction

Wors.h.i.+ped in both Greece and Anatolia, or ancient Turkey, the Dark G.o.ddess Hecate was related to the G.o.ddess Hekat of the ancient Nubian people, the black-skinned rulers and people of Egypt. Hekat, Oldest of the Old, swam in water and walked on dry land. She was the magical essence of Au Set, the Mighty Mother of Transformation, called Isis by the Greeks (see story).

Hecate was G.o.ddess of the Amazons, the Greek name for the Mother-wors.h.i.+ping nomadic tribes of women in North Africa, Anatolia, and the area near the Black Sea. Led by Hecate, Commander of the Mother's Words of Power, this fabled group of people once ruled over large parts of Asia. They may have been the first people to tame horses, and they were known for their physical and magical capacities to wage war. The name Amazon probably meant "Moon Woman," and some colonies of Amazons were said to live on women-only islands (such as Taurus, Lemnos, and Lesbos), consorting with males only when they wanted to conceive children.

Hecate's images and Her magic cauldron were placed at threefold road crossings. For centuries Her peoples invoked Her protection when they traveled and left gifts at Her road shrines on nights of the Full Moon.

Her sacred hounds were said to bay hymns to Her when She appeared.

Greeks a.s.sociated their Hecate with both Persephone of the Underworld (see story) and the dark side of the G.o.ddess Artemis: when the waxing Huntress Moon disappeared, the Crone energy of Hecate was said to take Her place.

The European Middle Ages diaboli zed Hecate as Queen of Ghosts and Witches. Catholic authorities said midwives, who were Her wise women, were most dangerous to the Christian faith.

I wrote Hecate's story in order to present the erased and abused aspect of G.o.ddess as Crone in a way that might begin to heal Her image for myself and others. We know of no Crone more ancient than Earth Herself, and some of my ability to be in relations.h.i.+p with the Great Wrinkled One depends on my relations.h.i.+p with human aging.

Offerings of bread or cake can be made to the Queen of the Crossroads for Her protection for travel. Figuratively, Hecate is also Queen of Crossroads in mature living, in which choices are rarely either-or, black or white, but of varied and subtle grays. Hecate has helped me find kindliness in my own agony of decision making and to let go of that which I must in order to move on. She can be invoked during the waning or dark of the Moon with a bit of fur combed from a black dog.

The Woman Behind the Door of the Moon On a dark Halloween night a long time ago the sea was deep and black under the cape of the sky. The waves swelled s.h.i.+mmery green and crashed on the sh.o.r.e. Then something else began to swell beneath the waters. Thirteen silver fish boiled up to the surface of the sea and flipped onto the land. The fish panted on the sand, and the moon slipped into the sky from behind a cloud.

That was when the thirteen silver fish changed to thirteen huge black dogs. The dogs leapt at the moon and then began to run. They hurtled across the beach and onto the road where they ran and ran until they came to the place where the road crossed with two others.

And there at the road crossing, the dogs began to chase each other clockwise under the light of the moon. Out of the blur of fur and black came something else.

Not fish, not dogs. This time girls. Women. Mothers. Cousins.

Daughters. Nieces. Aunts. Grandmothers and granddaughters. Friends.

All of them dancing and stepping high under the moon.

"Hecate!" the people shouted.

"Hecate!" they whispered.

"Lady! Come to us!" They tipped their heads back and called to the moon. Called to the round white circle in the black velvet sky.

"Mother! Hecate! Come to us!"

A door opened. Up in the moon, a door opened. The people on the ground below breathed. A ladder came out of the door. Rung after rung, it slipped through the sky. Finally it reached the ground at the center of the circle. While the people in the circle looked up, a figure emerged from the door in the moon and began to climb down the ladder.

The figure came closer and closer. And the people in the circle below began to see it was a Woman. Hooded and hunched. With a huge bag slung over Her robes. Down, down She traveled, until finally She stood in the center of the people.

With both gnarled hands She heaved the bag off Her shoulder. Then She removed the hood from Her head. A little girl said, "You're here!"

The Old Woman's face smiled. The moon lit the creases of Her skin and the white mane of Her hair. She opened the bag.

Inside were gla.s.ses of milk foaming just at the brims and chocolate chip cookies with raisins and almonds. For eating and eating and eating. The girls ate. The mothers ate. The friends and the cousins and the grandmothers ate. The aunts and the nieces ate; the granddaughters ate. They ate until they were full.

Then the Old Woman closed Her bag. And She climbed back into the sky.

She pulled up Her ladder. And She closed the door. The moon glowed.

The women below began to dance. Faster and faster they moved. A circle of light. Whirling round and round. And then black. Furry and black. Thirteen dogs, howling at the moon. Then running. Bounding and leaping together. Away from the crossroads. Away down the road.

Back across the beach. Then panting at the edge of the sea. Panting and panting. Panting silver fish. Thirteen silver fish on the sand.

Then a flinging of those fish bodies into the sea. The sea deep and dark under the cape of the sky. That's how it was on a Halloween night a long, long time ago.

II.

Constant Change: The Everlasting Cycle Thin greens glove the buds on the narcissus plant. Now the gloves turn brown and shrivel. They are dying in order to free the blossoms.