A little poetic prose I’ve been inspired to write as I reconnect with my creative source. Below, find a quick reference guide to the Ancient Near East symbols that are utilized in this poetic prose. I hope you like my modern rendition of the Myth from Genesis 3 combined with the love from the Song of Songs.
TO THE ONE MY HEART IS CALLING
This is a story of the journey of Asherah, of her long voyage home to find Her one and only, Her El who had long ago been severed from Her embrace in a place called Eden in a time of the darkest light. The darkest light has tried to keep Asherah from the yearning of her heart for the darkest light did not understand the Love of the Divine was for all to bask in. From Their Love the Divine created the Children of Love, of Light. Their Children have been sadly misguided since this time, since the time of Asherah’s parting from her El by the darkest light. Yet Her passion, Her yearning to reclaim Her lover has never been abandoned, even in the darkest light, even over the millennia Her love continues to burn bright. Try as the darkest light might to snuff out Loves true might and end the story of the Love Divine, embers of the Purest Light have appeared to the world, even until the present night.
She is calling us now, oh Women of Asherah, calling all the Women of the World. She is calling us back to Her side. Back to Her Tree that is said to be of the Knowledge of Good and Evil she has summoned us. The Serpent, She is stirring ~ uncoiling, undoing the deceit of the Garden. The Serpent She is adjoining us back to the source of our vitality, the Mother Womb of Eden. And why, oh Women of Asherah is she calling us now? For the yearning of Her heart is to be united to the Pillar of Her Masculine Part, the Cedar of Lebanon, Her Tree of Life. “His mouth is sweetness itself, he is all together lovely. This is Her Lover, this is Her Friend.” She will go quietly no more into the darkest light for She has come to us to help Her set back what is right.
This is a story of the journey of Asherah, of her long voyage home to find Her one and only, Her El who had long ago been severed from Her embrace in a place called Eden in a time of the darkest light.
* * * * * * * * *
I have been on a journey, a journey to the very center of the Earth, to our Divine Mother’s Womb. A journey of deep sorrow, deep understanding and deep reconciliation between myself and myself, myself and Asherah, myself and El. A journey back to the beginning of who I always was. For from the beginning I have always been a Daughter of God, a Child of Light.
Yet for a time, my dearest one, my light was hidden by fear, by oppression, by night. I had lessons to learn, stories to live and wisdom to discern. Is my fear all but gone? I wish I could moan in delight this is so…but like you, my dear one my heart is calling, my fear doth reside.
But then I feel you, your eyes upon me. I meet your searching gaze from beyond the one that stands between. I am scared of the openness, the calling that I see in your eyes; yet I am more scared my beloved to a live a life of lies. I die at the thought of living in fear, of worry instead of embracing all that this life has bought. Drinking in and relishing each moment as if it were our last. Alas, my stag, when you come looking for me I will put my fear aside so that I may fully worship you with what is mine to give, that our love may be a worship of the Divine that we live.
I am open, I am ready to be fully known.
I am open, I am ready to receive you my love.
O Women of Asherah, I promise this to no other but to the one my heart is calling.
You penetrate my soul with your very eyes ~ searching me, questioning me, asking me if you may please make my love urgently yours. They beg me to not keep you in longing for one more night; probing me to see if you have found a place to rest your tired limbs. The longer you search me the more I feel the warmth of your sun warming the deep dark night that leads to my heart, leading you to where you desire to go. Your searching eyes melt away the last of my barriers until I have nothing left to hold back, nothing left but to earnestly whisper, to triumphantly shout yes, Yes, YES…
I am open, I am ready to receive you my love.
I am open, I am ready for you to take me to God.
O Women of Asherah, I promise this to no other but my lover.
My heart grows faint with longing for you to come to me – for us to be who we are, not who the world desires us to be. For the Love we will share is to heal our scars; for the love we have shared always breaks down the barriers of these iron-clad bars.
I am weak with yearning for your constant consciousness. I am growing faint with my longing for your penetrating presence. O, so you know the depths of my love that I have carried for lifetimes; so you know that I will risk all that I have to show you my love; so that you know that I will risk all that I am to call you out of hiding and into the Light – I give you this:
I feel your love you desire to share and I count it as sacred. As sacred as the burning bush that burns yet not consumed; as sacred as the pillar of fire that guides your way by night; as sacred as the cup of wine that touches your softly smoldering lips.
I am open, I am ready to be fully known.
I am open, I am ready to receive you my love.
O Women of Asherah, I promise this to no other but to the one my heart is calling.
Oh the jealousy of my heart when I think of the sacred cup that kisses my lovers lips, your lips that drip with the balm that soothes my soul. Your love is so sacred it is like the refiners fire that purifies my soul when it is joined together in mine. Together our love joined is simply Divine. Our love joined together reveals the Mystery of God…our chance to reunite Asherah and Her El.
Our love joined together is the sacred joining of all that is, all that was and all that will be for lifetimes to come. Our love when joined together is the point we are both made sacred, made holy, pure and right. What else could this be but Love’s Pure Light?
I am open, I am ready to receive you my love.
I am open, I am ready for you to take me to God.
O Women of Asherah, I promise this to no other but my lover.
I hold you, the one my heart is calling, in the palm of my hands ~ knowing not who you are yet knowing who you are, the one that my heart is calling. I know you are there, my lover, yet I do not see clearly. So I hold the promise of this love between us until the day I do see clearly. I will practice my opening embrace so that it will be ready for you, my lover, my grace. I will love with abandon in the here and now knowing that it is preparing me for your deep bow. I know that your love will be worth the wait, even though even now I yearn to be your mate.
In the mean time, your promise of love I know is for me not alone, but to share in this brave New World. I am to live it, express it, share it with all the Children of Light. For to set the captives free from the shores of Babylon, together or not, is the calling of our lives.
So until the time when my love will join with yours to knock the socks off the darkest light, I will live on the promise of your love that awaits. This promise will sustain me, nourish me, give me strength. Until you are ready to come into me, my stag, I will allow your promise to fill my deepest longing for your presence.
I am open, I am ready to love you with urgency and not with haste.
I am open, I am ready to receive you my love.
O Women of Asherah, I promise this to no other but to the one my heart is calling.
Together we are the perfect image of the Divine. Yet the darkest light has set a plight to keep us apart and to destroy us, the Children of Light. We have been separated for far to long my love, separated by deception told to you about the beauty and essence of my Tree. I too have bought into these lies until this present day…yet no longer! I am here to take my stand. I am here to claim my birthright once again. I am as routed as the Tree. I AM your Tree of Knowledge sent to call you back to our Garden…for you to claim your spot next to me, my Tree of Life. Oh my stag, I plead you to listen to my story for it is only when we are together that we move mountains that take us to God.
I promise to worship you, my pillar, my Cedar of Lebanon, my masculine divine. I promise to worship you as you claim rights to our Garden that is begging to be watered by the River of Life. The Garden is abundantly full of the choicest fruits waiting for your hand to chose as it wishes. I promise my fruit is not to deceive you nor bring you into sin, but to unleash the creative healing power of rebirth, of hope, of life that wells up inside my Tree. My plump fruit is for your taking to remind you of the goodness of these bodies the Divine has shared. To enjoy them, to allow them to transport us to the very throne room of our God. Oh I pray, my beloved, that you will hear my call and know that your body is a delight for us to partake in, here…now in this present day. No more separation, no more division will there be in our Garden…simply two embodied souls breathing, moving, tasting, eating, delighting as one.
I yearn for you ~ the one my heart is calling ~ in all your masculine essence, standing your stead as the Cedar Tree of Lebanon. I am yearning for you my pillar of strength to take your place so I may fully envelope you with the massive waves of my love that have been shoring up in my soul. May I be a soft homecoming eagerly awaiting your arrival, singing sweetly to beckon you towards my love, washing over you in cleansing waves of pure delight.
I am open, I am ready to receive you my love.
I am open, I am ready for you to take me to God.
O Women of Asherah, I promise this to no other but my lover.
Alas, until the day my heart’s Delight is found and we are united again, I will practice my love. I will shower my Children in love so they can grow deep into their routes. I will spend my love on Awakening the Women of Asherah, so they in turn may find the ones their hearts are calling, so they may assist me in uniting Asherah & Her El. And to whomever will listen I will sing soft words of a long ago lullaby that guides us back to the Way of Love’s Pure Light.
But do not despair for my love will never end nor run dry for you, the one my heart is calling. For I know the source of its Spring now…I have tapped the Well of Living Water, I know the Way to Never Thirst Again…and let me tell you it is glorious to behold. My cup, as it always has, is overflowing with the Love that is ours for the taking. This Love is the Lost Fountain of Youth, the Eternal Source, the Everlasting, my Alpha & Omega.
So what are you waiting for,
my beloved,
the one my heart is calling?
Do you not see me on the shores of Babylon,
weeping and awaiting your return to claim me as your own?
Do you not see me waving you homewards,
calling you in, my wearied sailor, from your long journey at sea?
Do you not hear me uttering your name, calling you to come to me and find rest for your wearied soul?
Do you not hear me calling your name, yearning for your presence in my abode,
nourishing you and bringing you the healing you so desire?
Do you not know me by now, my lover, my stag ~
after all the ways you have entered my den ~
do you not realize you are home?
Do you not yet recognize my voice that is calling to you,
waiting for you, yearning for you so we can take each other to God?
I am open, I am ready to receive you my love.
I am open, I am ready for you to take me to God.
O Women of Asherah, I promise this to no other but my lover.
* * * * * * * * *
This is a story of the journey of Asherah, of her long voyage home to find Her one and only, Her El who had long ago been severed from Her embrace in a place called Eden in a time of the darkest light.
* * * * * * * * *
QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE
I define these terms on how I am using them based on my own readings of history and understanding of my own study of the Bible. In my history reading, Asherah & El were the full representation of the Divine in many cultures…these names are from the Cannanites. Asherah appears throughout the Old Testament.
Asherah – Often viewed as The Tree of Knowledge; Her “Tree of Knowledge” bore fruit not only to feed the body, but also to nourish the spirit.
“The original bread of life. Hebrew and Canaanite women molded loaves of this figure which were blessed and ritually eaten, the precursor of the communion wafer. Her idols were carved from living trees beside roadside altars (as seen in many chapters in the Old Testament). Hebrew priestly iconoclasts finally uprootted Asherah, supplanting matrifocal culture with patriarchy. Asherah’s sexual rites insured the matrilineal descent patterns, with partnership rather than dominator values, would continue.” Taken from www.goddessgift.net, but confirmed in many other sources as well, including the Bible.
El – I’m using it here as the Tree of Life from the Garden of Eden, considering El & Asherah were mates (references many, for one click here and here); “El” evolved into the Jewish god – Yahweh… with his many different names El Shadi, Elohim, El___; , Some resources I have read mention that in the Bible Asherah seems to be at battle with El, a tragic cosmic twist for the couple but seeing that El evolved into a god who wished to assume both the male AND female roles and to be worshiped by himself, this seems fitting that the two were now at odds.
Cedars of Lebanon – This one’s meaning was hidden to me for a long time, until I sat in a sweat lodge on the Winter Solstice and learned that in the Native American tradition, cedar’s property when burned is that of “life”. The man co-leading the sweat lodge with his wife actually said the words “the Tree of Life”…and defined its meaning as one that helps sustain life, the energy of life in times of stress on the body. A search on the internet doesn’t come up with much, but I did find this which I think adds some understanding and value. Just because the internet doesn’t support this claim that Cedar is the Tree of Life – yet – doesn’t mean that the meaning isn’t built into our collective subconscious. Just goes to show that some traditions might still be only passed on orally…these trees were also extraordinarily tall and sturdy.
Serpent – also known in more modern times from the Yoga practice as Kundalini -I’ll let you look that one up ; In ancient times across many cultures snakes represented vitality and creativity; it was specifically associated in many cultures with that of the woman and her womb, the source of all this within humans. Many ancient priestesses are seen handling the snake. This source of creativity was seen as a source of life, birth and rebirth, of healing…and was intimately connected to a woman’s desirability expressed through her sexuality.
Coiled Snake – labyrinth/sacred spiral; often seen in the ancient goddess in her womb area and represented death and rebirth/renewal that comes from this area. The uncoiling snake represented the sacred spiral in the ever-changing cycle…again this is represented in the yogi practice of Kundalini…
While there are still other possible meanings for each of these symbols, reading the Fall of Creation in Genesis 3 with these meanings in mind gives a whole new view on the fall.
Darkest Light – open to your own interpretation
the Divine – as was the custom in many cultures in antiquity, I am using this word to represent the fullness of both opposing sides of any given idea: the feminine/masculine, the profane/sacred, light/dark, good/evil. See this post for more. This is also the essence in which I am using the term “God”.
Women of Asherah – my own creation in echoes of “daughters of Jerusalem” which in my opinion is a patriarchal call to all of us, men and women alike, to be good “daughters/sons of patriarchy” as Sue Monk Kidd would refer to them.
Other symbols/references: There are some Mumford & Son lyrics in here since I was listening to them while composing this art – and since I just cannot get enough of their amazing writing. Some references to David Deida’s teachings, which are really just Spiritual Truths that another man from long ago taught us. Lots of references to things that long ago man Jesus said or is called. A few more Old Testament references mingled in there, of course with lots of inspiration from the Song of Songs. The rest is up to your own imagination and interpretation.
