Altar Crafting!

Altar crafting!

I'm going to be posting a video within the next couple of weeks about altar doodads, from incense to closeted altars and so on. If there's anything in particular people want addressed, I'm all ears!

The Epic of Gilgamesh: D&D style

Inanna rolling a Nat 20 to summon the Bull of Heaven. Gilgamesh failing a Perception check when he goes to take a bath and having a snake steal the herb of immortality. Please, tabletop nerds and mythology bookworms, make this a thing?

the fight is harder each year.

Altar for when your style is cramped, featuring: One Kleenex A cigarette lighter A cup of cheap but delicious sangria Two icons made from salt dough for Nuska (left) and Nisaba (right), respectively A candle with a stick of incense in it 
In the background is also a naked Dr. Pepper bottle full of ritually purified water. Which basically amounts to me praying to Enki for him to purify it. 
I’m not going to make a habit of altar posts, but considering my upcoming video and the number of people nervous about not having elaborate altars, I figured it was appropriate. This was set up on a bedside table, the only place I could. You can easily substitute water for sangria, because what is more sacred than water? I usually pair it with water crackers and an apple, but. Style is very cramped right now.

(cue quiet sobbing in the corner) This is absolutely lovely and epic awesome. As for the season stuff, I tend to lean towards "Everything is dying, so Dumuzid is too" as well.

Trick or Treat! And if my calendar is right, happy Duku too.

Treat 🧡

had to go look up Duku because I’m a lazy Sumerian who doesn’t know the calendar

I found it on Temple of Sumer’s calendar, which is based on the Nippur calendar [UR III] calendar http://www.angelfire.com/oz/lessthanlucid/calendar0.html (I wanted to link you another calendar article that compares 3 of them but tumblr won’t let me)

OoOoo that actually sounds cool maybe I’ll look into it more. Though I’ll say “it was probably only practices by a select few. Sumerians of today should always consider themselves part of that select few where they can. It is important for each of us to understand the workings of the inner temples.” …. my first thought was… okay but why? Understanding yes, practice cuz select few ehhhhhh. I ain’t no priestess, whooph would that be a task.

Anyways,

The growing season in Mesopotamia was winter, which means the idea of the fertile season for us is flipped on its head. I wanted to write a post on it— since I legitimately cannot decide if at Enten (Fall Equinox / Sumerian winter) should I follow Sumerian tradition and invite back Dumuzi while everything around me is dying. Or match it up with my own climate and invite Dumuzi back at Emesh (Spring Equinox / Sumerian Summer) when my area is full of new life. Ah the modern polytheist struggles.

I don’t follow the Temple of Sumer’s calendar (Well I don’t follow any of their stuff, preference) So this little line, from the holiday before Duzu, made my eye twitch: “At the Vernal equinox you read from the exploits of Dumuzi and saw that Inanna’s actions led him to his unfortunate fate”

HEAVY SIGHING, there is only one version where it is Inana’s fault ONE. Hnng. The Desent Story now manages to get under my skin cuz apparently people forget all the other literature. is apparently an extremely old grump pretending to be young who doesn’t want kids on my yard.

Since its “close” to Enten (September 22, 2018) and everything around me is dying, I’ll follow my climate and say goodbye to Dumuzi (instead of Sumerian tradition) and share some of the cult versions of his death rather than the stuff that happens in the Decent Story. Following taken from Treasures of Darkness by Thorkild Jaconsen, bit hard to format so bare with me.

The large reasons behind the god’s death are mostly left vague […] only in one treatment […] is a specfic reason offered. Here the God is delivered up by his young wife, by Inanna, as substitute for herself. [… it] seems best to put this highly complex work to the side and to begin with a more traditional literary account, closer to that of the cult texts.

Turning [away] from the literary treatment in “Dumuzi’s Dream,” to the handling in the cult texts, one notes a similarity of underlying theme and myth in the text we shall call “The Most Bitter Cry.” The latter differs […] in its more forceful style and greater emotional participation. The text begins with compassion for the bereft young widow:

The most bitter cry of commiseration— because of her husband,

the cry of Inanna because of her husband,

to the queen of Eanna, because of her husband,

to the queen of Uruk, because of her husband,

to the queen of Zabalam, because of her husband,

Woe for her husband! Woe for her young man!

Woe for her house! Woe for her city!

For her captive husband, her captive young man,

for her dead husband, her dead young man,

for her husband lost Uruk and Kullab in captivity,

lost for Uruk and Kullab in death…

After further lines of condolence the lament is taken up by Inanna herself:

Inanna weeps bitter tears for her young husband:

“The day the sweet husband, my sweet husband, went away,

the day the sweet young man, my sweet young man, went away,

you went away— O my husband— into the early pastures,

you went— O my husband— into the late pastures.

My husband seeking pasture, was killed in the pastures.

My young man seeking water, was delivered up at the waters.

My young husband nowise departed town like the shrouded corpses,

O you flies of the early pastures!

He nowise departed town

like the shrouded!

To represent the laments that express the sorrow of Dumuzi’s young widow: Inanna, we choose one which may be called, “The Wild Bull Who Has Laid Down.” “Wild bull” […] a term for shepherd and serves as an epithet for Dumuzi. Inanna, going to visit Dumuzi in his fold in the desert has found him dead, his fold raided, the young men, woman, and flocks of his household killed. She asks the mountain for news of him only to be told that “the bison” has led him (that is, his shade) into the mountains which is to say into the realm of the dead […] Kur […] Wild animals now roam where Dumuzi’s camp was. Our rendering omits a long litnay of titles and epithets of Dumuz between the first and second stanzas:

The wild bull who has lain down, lives no more,

the wild bull who had lain down,

lives no more,

Dumuzi, the wild bull; who has lain down,

lives no more,

. . . the chief shepherd lives no more,

the wild bull who has lain down lives no more.

O you wild bull, how fast you sleep!

How fast you sleep ewe and lamb!

O you wild bull, how fast you sleep!

How fast you sleep goat and kid!

I will ask the hills and the valleys

I will ask the hills of the Bison:

“Where is the young man my husband?”

I will say;

“he whom I no longer serve food?”

I will say;

“he whom I no longer give drink?”

I will say;

“and my lovely maids?”

I will say;

“and my lovely young men?”

I will say;

“The Bison has taken thy husband away up into the mountains!

The Bison has taken my young man away up into the mountains!”

“Bison of the mountains with the mottled eyes!

Bison of the mountains with the crushing teeth!

Bison! Having taken him up away from me, having taken him up away from me,

having taken him I no longer serve food up away from me,

having taken him who I no longer give drink up away from me,

having taken away my lovely maids up away from me,

having taken my lovely young men up away from me,

the young man who perished from me at the hands of your men,

young Ababa who perished from me at the hands of your men:

May you not make an end to his lovely look!

May you not have him open with quaver of fear his lovely mouth!

On his couch you have made the jackals lie down,

in my husbands fold you have made the raven dwell,

his reed pipe— the wind will have to play it,

my husband’s songs— the north wind will have to sing them.

So there you have some of Inana’s laments shut up I didn’t get emotional or anything writing Inana’s sorrow. The last two lines are brutal.

Teaser for my upcoming video. Incense making is hard when you don't have a functioning nose, but this is why other people are useful. Fun fact: you don't need an expensively carved mortar and pestle, this one was around five bucks. And the Sumerian gods are big on innovation and evolution, so a spice grinder isn't really out of place.