The Storytellers Goddess Part 25

Adam didn't listen, so Lilith walked away. The third time Adam started the argument, Lilith took herself out of the garden. Through its gates she went and into the Netherworld. There she sat still and quiet in the dark.

Adam was so furious at Lilith's leave-taking that even when he married the woman Eve and had a family of children, he continued to fume against her.

"Snake lover!" he spat.

"Not a woman, but a demon!"

"Hush, Adam!" said Eve.

"Not in front of the children!"

Lilith alone in the Netherworld grew large. She was going to have a child. Waiting for the child, She gathered a gift to give to the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. To a girl and a boy sleeping deep in a field She sent the dream of farming.

Soon after that dream was dreamed by the girl and the boy, Lilith had Her child. On a black night at the edge of the sea, hanging hard to the dark with Her hands and pushing against it with Her feet, Lilith gave birth to the Moon.

Astarte (uh-STAR-tay) The Guiding Star (Middle East) Introduction To the Semites of Canaan, Mesopotamia, and Arabia, lands we now call Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and Iraq, the G.o.ddess Astarte was Queen of Heaven. Some of the earliest written material ever found details Her worship in periods that predate and coincide with biblical sagas. The judges and prophets of Old Testament stories repeatedly call for Her destruction. Their diatribes suggest that the Hebrews, often thought to be a h.o.m.ogeneous group, were actually a combination of roving tribes and settled cities, only some of whom were willing to adopt one Sky G.o.d over the Mother of All Baalim or G.o.ds.

The judge Jeremiah, for example, records the Hebrew women's rage and sorrow against the suppression of worship of their Guiding Star. They take to the streets, shouting. Famine and want have followed Her cancellation, they chant. But Jeremiah, fist raised, admonishes them that the real cause of the current agricultural disaster is the people's refusal to worship Yahweh.

The story clearly suggests that natural calamity abetted the repression of the G.o.ddess, both by physically weakening Her worshipers and by creating in them the psychology of despair that can so easily shift allegiance. The children of Israel had built shrines to the Queen of Heaven in city towers, on hills, in groves, and under every green tree.

But Yahweh-worshiping Hebrews invaded their neighbors under orders from their Lord to "utterly destroy all the places ... to break in pieces the images and cut down the groves, and fill [those] places with the bones of men" (Deuteronomy 12:2-3; 2 Kings 23:14). The Israelite queen Maacah was dethroned for worshiping the Lady in a grove (1 Kings 15:13).

Called Athtar, Attar, Attart, and Ishtar, Astarte is one of the oldest forms of the G.o.ddess in the Mideast. The same creating, preserving, destroying G.o.ddess worshiped by all Indo-European cultures, She was related to Hathor, Isis, Urania, Demeter, and Aphrodite. Mother of All Souls, Astarte ruled over the Spirits of the Dead who, with the light of Heaven for their robes, took the form of stars. a.s.sociated with the sea and the serpent, and ancient prototype of the Virgin Mary, Astarte's sacred drama in Syria and Egypt reenacted the rebirth of the solar G.o.d from this Celestial Virgin every December 25 (see story of Juno Lucina). Symbol of Her ability to regenerate Herself, the World, is Her lily, the same as the lily-lotus of Juno and Lilith (see stories). Northern Europeans called Her Ostara or Eostre, from which Her sacred "Easter lilies" are derived.

Astarte's Yoni or sacred v.u.l.v.a was also represented by the Hebrew word bar synonymous with hole, cave, or pit representing both the G.o.ddess Herself and Her priestesses, by whose s.e.xual rituals the unclean could purify themselves. Diving into the pool of water in the sanctum of Her temple symbolized the s.e.xual intercourse by which a man could realize hora sis or spiritual enlightenment (very likely a precursor to the rite of baptism). Modern scholars, schooled to the concept that s.e.xuality is at best simply a matter of physical fertility, have misnamed the hundreds of images of Astarte they have found buried by Her worshipers in the Earth. Calling them "fertility figures"

misrepresents Astarte Quadesh, That Which is Holiness. Tireless Guide of Humankind, Lady of the Lands, the G.o.ddess Astarte was none other than Sovereign of the World.

I wrote Astarte's story as an antidote to the painful series of Bible stories in which worshipers of "idols" are murdered and their cities, animals, and crops burned. I am moved by images of Astarte fashioned of clay by circles of women and quick-baked in the kitchen oven while we sing, talk, and eat together in the living room.

The Burning of the Lady's People Mama, why are the stars cold?" Sal asked his mother one afternoon as she ground meal for bread. Sal had carried a pot of water from the well at the city square, and now he sat down in the shade of the porch near his mother and baby sister who slept in a basket nearby.

"I don't think they are cold, little lamb," said his mother.

"I think they just seem cold because they're so far away. But you know what they really are?"

"What?" said Sal."

"They're all the children of the Guiding Star, our Astarte," said Sal's mother.

"The stars are Her babies?" asked Sal.

"Yes," said his mother.

"They're all the spirits of the people ever in the world before they are born and after they die."

"Is Grandma a star then?" asked Sal.

"Yes, and you were a star before you came to live with me and Daddy."

"Was Sister too?" said Sal.

"Yes," said his mother.

Sal was quiet. Then he said, "Mama."

His mother looked up. She stopped grinding meal.

"What, Sal?" she asked.

"Mama, if Daddy gets killed will he turn into a star?"

"Yes, sweetheart," said his mother, and she opened her arms. Sal went to stand inside her hug, and he felt her warmth.

"But, Sal, I think Daddy's going to come home safe for us," she whispered.

Sal lived thousands of years ago in a big city in a land called Canaan.

Sal's family and all the other families in that city worshiped the Great Mother Astarte. Astarte's big temple sat at the center of the city, and every home held a little altar for Astarte right next to the oven where they baked their bread. Each family kept beautiful things on its altar: lovely cloth and delicious fruits and a small clay figure of Astarte in the shape of a Mother with a baby inside Her. Sal's daddy said that was to remind the people that Astarte was always making new life. Sal's mother said Astarte never slept and She helped life grow and She also made dying. It was like a big circle, his mother said. Being born, growing, getting old, and dying and then back to being born again.

This was a frightening time for the people in Sal's city. Sal's daddy and a lot of other boys and men had marched out of the city in an army.

When Sal asked his father why, his daddy said it was because the invaders were coming.

"What's invaders?" asked Sal.

"They're people who want our land," said Sal's father.

"Why?" said Sal.

"I don't know," said his father.

"But Daddy's going to make sure you and Mama and Sister are safe."

"When will you come back, Daddy?" asked Sal.

"As soon as I can," said his father.

It seemed to Sal that his daddy was gone a very long time. Then one day, Sal and his friends were playing sticks at the gate to the city.

Suddenly, a boy said, "Hey! Look!" When the others looked, they could see a cloud of dust in the distance.

"It's Daddy!" said Sal.

"Maybe the army's back!"

The children didn't play anymore. They just watched the cloud of dust puff bigger and bigger. When they could see people in the distance, they began to run toward them.

The men waved when they saw the children, but there were so many of them that the children, instead of trying to find their own brothers and fathers and uncles, raced back to the gates of the city. Shouting the news, they ran through the streets.

"They're home!" yelled Sal.

"Mama, Mama, Daddy's coming!"