James:  Lilith is blue in this painting, because Becca wanted her the color of moonlight.  Her traditional red hair now wears a crown with the yoni symbol atop it.  Lilith was considered a “night demon” and traditionally depicted as a hag with wings, so I put wings on her, and lo and behold!  Now she’s an angel!  After having been cast out of the Church and our culture for hundreds of years, it gave me great satisfaction to bring her back in to “holy ground” with all its trappings:  stained glass, the cherub – now with apple! – and church architecture.  Of course, the serpent is allowed back in, too.  Her flower, the lily – here an Easter lily (since this is a kind of resurrection/Easter story) – the moon, and yoni and lingam triangles also appear in the stained glass.   Seeing Lilith finally as a true angel, a true goddess, gave me such pleasure.  I was so incensed over the denial of her in the Scriptures and what has befallen Woman because of it.  But now, Lilith is empowered to be “Fully Woman”;  I noticed much later that Venus’/Eve’s hand rests on Lilith’s solar plexus, the manipura chakra – the center of power and will.  Adam, or Mars, representing Man, finally can embrace both aspects of Woman. 

Becca:  By the time our emotions and psyches had been run through the mill of the Lilith series, I found myself staring at the crowning painting, Sanctuary, and wondering how I could do it all justice.  The answer was for me to write the poem in a very personal voice – in a simple prose style, addressed to Lilith herself.  So the poem revealed itself as my monologue to someone I had come to know deeply.  I recognize her as a role model for a fully-realized woman (“Fully Woman”), though for centuries such an image was regarded as an unrealizable dream or a she-monster to be destroyed (hence my reference to the Greek mythological monster, the “chimera”).  Lilith had to use cunning and stealth, as the Celtic moon-goddess Nimue might have, to deliver this “Fully Woman” image into our present age.  No longer can she be condemned as a demon who would slip in at night (riding “moonbeams” and “men’s erotic fantasies”) to tempt men to debauch themselves.  I declare my commitment to restoring her good name (“I will not sleep another night until . . .”).  Having been on the outside of our culture, she is now invited to come in out of the cold to “the warm light” of the unified woman who can demonstrate her aspects of lover, mother, and free-thinker.  I invite her to dwell with our society under a new ethos of harmony, truth, and love.

§§ For more details on how the new Lilith myth came into being, please refer to "Lilith of the Night" and "Why the War" in The Birthing  of Venus and Her Lover.
§§ See also   EVE, LILITH
§§ The Lilith Series, in order:

          (1)  Goddess

          (2)  Daughters of Lilith

          (3)  Under the Apple Tree

          (4)  The Redemption of Adam

          (5)  Sanctuary

_____________________________

       In the beginning, the Elohim God(s) create a human in their own image.  Out of clay from the four corners of the Earth, God fashions this creature, and breathing into its nostrils, he gives it the breath of Life.  It is an androgynous being, whom he calls “Adam”, which means “made out of clay”.  Adam beholds its wondrous garden home and names the animals.  The human notices that all the animals have mates and even tries to couple with them.  God fixes this by sawing the androgyne in half:   one of the sun and one of the moon, Man and Woman, Adam and Adamah.  Thus Adam has his mate, Lilith or Adamah. 

         God tells the First Couple, “Be fruitful and multiply.  Fill the Earth and conquer it.  Have dominion over every living thing that moves upon the Earth.”

       Although they are soul mates, Adam considers his rational,msolar thinking superior to Lilith’s lunar, instinctual feelings.  He figures he has the right to conquer her – isn’t that what God meant?  One day, as they prepare to make love, Adam commands her,  “Lilith, lie beneath me, as is proper.”

       “Are you kidding?”  Lilith replies.  “Why should I?”

       “God made me first, so obviously I have the superior position.”

       “Dream on, husband!  God made both of us at the same time, out of the same dirt!  Have you forgotten?  We are equals!”

       Adam thunders, “Woman!  I command you – ”

       Lilith has had enough.  Hissing like a snake, she turns on him, shouts out “YHWH!”, the magic name of the Goddess, takes wing, and flies off toward the Red Sea.  No man is going to treat her like dirt . . .  well, at least not without admitting he is dirt, too.

       Lilith dwells in the wilderness.  Once she gets over her anger with that arrogant Adam, she finds she quite enjoys her solitude.  Even the desolate desert teems with life, and she learns the wild ways of the animals.  Bathing in moonlight, she delights in her body:  her long orange hair, full red lips, clear dark eyes.  She rubs her round breasts with sweet oil and adorns her ears and neck with jewels.  Perched on her hairy legs and clawed feet, she becomes the Bird Woman, like the owl that is her favorite companion.

       Adams cries to God about Lilith’s leaving him, so God complies by sending three angels to bring her back.  She is quite happy where she is – thank you very much – and repels the angels.  They threaten her with God’s wrath and punishment.  “To hell with you and the winds you rode in on!”  she spits at them.

       Then a snake spirit, the Blind Dragon, arranges a marriage between the fallen angel Samael (the Devil) and Lilith.  They both ride the mysterious power of the serpent, and Lilith gives birth to hundreds of demons, hairy children, and evil-doers.

((( )))

       Lilith began as a Sumero-Babylonian mother goddess, and is first named in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (2150-2000 BCE):  Ki-sikil-li-la-ke, which means “maiden, beloved, companion of Li-la” (Lila was another name for Gilgamesh).  Perhaps she was originally the destroyer aspect of the Triple Goddess.  Called the “hand of Inanna”, Lilith and her priestesses would have been associated with voluptuous sexuality, since they were the ones who brought men into the temple for the sacred lovemaking rites, the hieros gamos.  She entered Hebrew mythology in the sixth century BCE, during the Babylonian exile.  Their Judaic traditions threatened during their captivity, the people of Israel would have wanted to guard against the temptations of the foreign dominator’s religion.  Hence Lilith was demonized, becoming the emblem of dangerous sexuality.

       In subsequent history,  Lilith’s daughters, the lilim, would allegedly terrorize men with sexual temptations, inducing men to masturbate, and then taking their spilled semen to impregnate themselves.  These succubae or “harlots of hell” claimed souls for the Devil.  Lilith – at least in the minds of Yahweh-fearing people – changed from a mothering protectress of children to a devourer of them.  When she swooped into the nursery in the night, she supposedly caused crib death, epilepsy, or sickness.  Her symbol was the screech owl.  Middle Eastern Jews and later medieval Christians depended on their rabbis and priests to supply amulets, spells, and prayers to ward off the fearsome Lilith and her demonic family.

       The monstrous Feminine appeared in Greek mythology as Medusa, Gorgo, and the Sirens, and in Germanic mythology as the Lorelei. Greek folk tales terrorized people with the stringes, who allegedly abducted children.  These became the striges to the Romans and the strege, or witches, to the Italians.

      European fairy tales reinforced Lilith’s archetypal presence through stories of blood-sucking vampires and the understanding that feminine demons could use their seductive powers to destroy men.  In the early 20^th century, the founders of psychology, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, identified the “feminine” part of the psyche that had been split off or repressed, and hence feared.  Further psychoanalysis has described the archetypal Dark Feminine upon which masculine terrors have been projected:  the vagina dentata, the femme fatale, and the Terrible, All-Devouring Mother.

       In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Lilith was taken up by the Women’s Liberation Movement as a symbol for women claiming power that had been given over to the Patriarchy.  Lilith Magazine is a feminist Jewish magazine (first published in 1976) that has championed independent thinking and creative expression for the empowerment of women.

§§ See also: ADAM, EVE.

§§ Appears in: Goddess

                     Under the Apple Tree

                     The Redemption of Adam

_______________________________

EVE

          The broad green leaves of the trees glow in the late afternoon sun, bees buzz from flower to flower, and songbirds chirp sweetly.  The garden sparkles with freshness, as if it had been created but days ago – which was, according to this story, the case.  A young woman – long haired, round hipped, and full breasted – stands naked looking with curiosity at a tree in the center of the garden.  The tree is laden with fragrant, ripe fruit.

          “Sssss!”  Eve hears a rustling in the leaves.

          “Sssss!  Sis-ssster!   Eve!”  Someone is calling her name!  Then she spies a serpent coiled around the tree.  She does not know it, but the serpent is Lilith.

          “Who are you?”  Eve asks the snake.

          “Don’t you recognizzze me, Eve?  Here – ”  the serpent bites a fruit off the tree to give to her.  “Take a bite of this and remember.  Remember who you are.”

          “Oh no!”  Eve replies.  “God told Adam and me not to eat from this tree because it bears Forbidden Fruit.  It will kill us.”

          “Lies!”  spits the snake.  “This is the Tree of Life,  it is the Tree of Knowledge.  And knowledge is a ssssplendid thing.”                   

          Eve takes the Forbidden Fruit and tastes it.  It is crisp and hard like an apple – and sweet and juicy with countless seeds like a fig – and red and moist and soft . . .  “Ummmm,”  Eve moans, juice dripping down her chin, neck, and breasts, dribbling onto her belly.

          “Eve!”  Adam’s yell breaks her reverie.  “You are eating the Forbidden Fruit!  You will die!”  

          “No, Adam!”  Eve exclaims.  “Look – I’m fine!  And this fruit is delicious!  Here, try it.”

          Looking at Eve – her bright eyes shining, her motherly smile, her curvaceous body – Adam suddenly feels weak in the knees.  He takes the fruit and tastes it.  Savoring it, he looks at his companion’s wet lips and is seized with the desire to kiss her.

          Lilith rests on a branch above them, smiling, for surely now they will remember who they are, and that they themselves have the power to create life.  But then, a thunderous voice booms through the garden, calling to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?”

          Lilith rolls her eyes and thinks,  That must be Yahweh.  What a dumb question for someone who is supposed to be all-knowing!  She slithers up into the tree.

          Adam grabs fig leaves in a vain attempt to cover himself and Eve just as God walks up.  “So!  What have we here?  Where did you get the idea you are naked?”

          “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”  Adam answers.

          “Yes, and it is evil.  Do you see that, too?  You have disobeyed us and eaten from the Tree of Knowledge!  You are trying to be immortal like us!”  God roars.  Lilith looks around.  Who does he mean by ‘us’?

          “It wasn’t my fault!”  Adam cries.  “This wo-man you gave me made me eat the fruit!”

          Eve, afraid, stammers, “The serpent told me it was ok!  And it’s true – we ate it and we didn’t die!”

          Then Yahweh God spies the snake.  “You!” he screams.  “I curse you!  A thousand times I curse you!  From now on, you slither on the ground and eat dust!  And you are no longer to be associated with Woman!”

          Daggers of anger issue from Lilith’s eyes.  Making a snake slither on the ground was no trick at all, considering snakes have no legs, but trying to separate Woman from her totem animal, from the symbol of her power and energy – this Yahweh character was, once again, going too far.

          God now turns to the shaking couple.  “And you – Woman!  This was your first and last chance, and you blew it for all eternity!  Now childbirth is really going to hurt because I am punishing you!  And you are no longer free – you are Adam’s property, and he shall rule over you!

          “Adam, I created you from the Earth and to the Earth you shall return.  You are going to toil like a slave all your life and then you will die!  When you die, know that I am punishing you!”

          “Whoa!”  Adam mumbles under his breath.  “All this because of one bite of fruit!”

          “No!”  Yahweh bellows.  “I am punishing you because you listened to Woman.  Let this be a lesson to you and to all your descendants:  Death, pain, and hardship for you and the whole human race are all because of HER!”  God points his crooked finger at Eve.  “All because of Woman!”

          After clothing the couple, God Yahweh banishes them from the garden, to live out their miserable lives east of Eden.  He posts the cherubim angels, armed with flaming swords, to guard the Tree of Life.  As they leave the garden, Adam says to his wife, “Your name is Eve.  That means ‘Mother of All Living’.”

          “Mother of All Living!  Mother of All Living!”  whispers Lilith.  “Eve, remember who you are!”

          But Eve is already out of earshot. 

((( )))

          Although the above Hebrew myth has been taken as historical fact by many Jewish, Christian, and Moslem believers, it is based on older Middle Eastern myths.  “The Mother of All Living” was the Prime Creatress to Babylonians (Divine Lady of Eden, Goddess of the Tree of Life), Indians (Kali), Assyrians (Nin-Eveh, Holy Lady Eve), Hittites (Hawwah, “Life”), and Persians (Hvov, “Earth”).   For the Greeks, Hebe (Virgin Mother Earth) was probably another version of Eve.

          In the earlier myths, Eve  (Latin for the Hebrew HWH, which means “Life” as well as “Woman”) created Man by mixing blood and clay.  Adam then became her consort.  The Earth Goddess that joins with her Son/Husband/King, to insure Earthly fertility, is an age-old archetypal theme.  Variations of the story say that Eve mated with the Serpent Power, after which she gave birth to humankind.  As Earth Goddess, she created life and received it in death, only to transform it.  The life-death-rebirth cycle was a basic tenet of goddess cultures, and would have been their understanding of “From Earth you are born and to Earth you shall return!”

        The Fall of Humankind due to Eve’s disobedience, which the above myth recounts, has been the theological basis for thousands of years of misogyny.  Woman’s dangerous inferiority is an element common to Jewish, Christian, and Moslem thought.  It reached its height in the Christian world during the Middle Ages, when men of the Church declared women to be without souls, considered their sexual allure to be temptations of the Devil, and promoted an aggressive campaign to exterminate “the daughters of Eve”. 

§§  See also:   LILITH.   

§§  For the story of Eve’s creation, see ADAM.

Appears in: Goddess

                 Sanctuary

___________________________________________

ADAM

          In the beginning, the Elohim God(s) create the heavens and earth, light and dark, dry land and seas, trees and plants, the sun, moon, and stars, fish and birds, and all kinds of animals.  Then they say to themselves, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”  [Here the Elohist version of Creation, Genesis 1:1-2:4, says the Elohim create male and female.  The present story will follow instead the Yahwist version of Creation, Genesis 2:5-25.]    Taking the soil of the Earth, God works the mud into a figure much like himself.  Then he breathes into its nostrils the breath of life.  And Adam becomes a living being.

          God plants a garden, a paradise full of wondrous fruit-bearing trees, towards the east in Eden, and places Adam there, saying to him, “You are to work in this garden.  Till and plant it.  Harvest it.  You can eat all you want, except, of course, for the Forbidden Fruit.”

          Adam goes to work, but soon discovers he needs help with the farming.  So God brings him the animals.  Upon naming them, he discovers which ones can serve as beasts of burden.  Still, Adam is not happy.  Something is missing.  God realizes that Adam is lonely. 

        I know what he needs, thinks God, he needs a helpmate. Making Adam fall into a deep sleep, God performs an operation.  “Let’s see, should I make the helper out of the heart?  No, he needs his heart.  Out of lungs or brain?  No, he’d die without those.  Aha!  I’ll use a rib.   He has more than enough ribs - he won’t even miss one.”  With the rib, he fashions a woman. 

          When Adam wakes up, God presents him with Eve.  “Here you go,” he tells him.  “She was made from you, and is here to serve you.”

          Overjoyed, Adam declares, “At last!  Flesh of my flesh!  Bone of my bones!  I will call her Woman!”  Adam loves to name things.

          Tragically, Adam and Eve do not live happily ever after.  They disobey God’s rule about the Forbidden Fruit, are forever banished from Paradise, and have children (two of which are so dysfunctional that one kills the other).  Even so, they have enough children to establish humanity.  Adam, cursed to a lifetime of toil, finally dies at the age of 930.

((( )))

          The Bible stories of Creation have their antecedents in Sumero-Babylonian myth.  The earlier story bears telling:

          The gods of Anu, especially Enlil, God of Farming, have grown tired of the physical labor required for their existence.  Finally Enki, God of Wisdom, comes up with a solution.  “Let us make the Adamu  to carry the toil of the gods!”

          Enki, with the help of Ninti, the “Lady of Life”, go to work in the Land of the Abzu.  In their sacred place, the House Where the Wind of Life is Breathed In, they mix clay and other Earthly elements with blood and other divine elements.  Praying over this mixture, they intone,  “Let us bind upon the Adamu the image of the gods!”  This, in their magical way, they accomplish.

          Ninti places the mixture into her womb, and in the tenth month, brings forth an Adamu.  “Look what my hands have made!”  she exclaims with delight.  This is the first man made on Earth.

          All the gods agree that Man is a marvelous creation.  They call Ninti the affectionate name, Mammi.  Ninti then gathers many birth goddesses together in the House Where the Wind of Life is Breathed In.  By making mixtures of clay and blood, and implanting them in the wombs of the birth goddesses, Ninti creates more Adamu.  Male and female she makes them.

          Later, when many of the Adamu are working in the east, in Edin, tilling the land, the Anu gods decide that Man should be more independent.  They cause a deep sleep to fall upon the Adamu, remove one of his ribs, and from this bone, fashion the Adamah, a female for the man.  Together, Adamu and Adamah acquire knowledge, thus allowing them to procreate.  No longer will Ninti have to create them.  Man and Woman have to power within themselves to go forth and multiply.  This they do, which is why we are here today.

((( )))

          Zecharia Sitchin, in his books The 12th Planet  and Genesis Revisited, presents a compelling interpretation of the Sumerian myth.  From 6000-year-old cylinder seals and tablets not only could he discern their mythology but also their mathematics and astronomy (for example, their accurate depiction of the solar system).  Sitchin theorizes that the Anu gods – the Anunnaki or Elohim – were space travelers who arrived on Earth eons ago.  In response to the demands of their mining and agricultural operations, they created  “primitive workers”,  Adamu, which they employed in the Abzu (southeastern Africa) and Edin (Mesopotamia).  Enki, the chief scientist of the Anunnaki, and Ninti, their chief medical officer, mixed the egg (clay) of an apewoman with the sperm and blood (blood) of an Anunnaki.  This genetic manipulation produced humans.  Since these hybrid creatures had trouble reproducing, further DNA, extracted from bone marrow (rib) was required until the human being was perfected.  According to Sitchin, this reading of the ancient myth reconciles Creationism, evolution, the mystery of the “missing link”,  and the conflicting accounts of Creation found in Hebrew texts.

          Biblical literalists have used the Genesis passages to prove their claims about the “fallen” condition of humanity.  Since Eve tempted Adam into the predicament of eternal damnation, we are, due to our human nature, easily corruptible, selfish, sinful, and always tending toward evil.  This weighty assumption about human nature paved the way for Jesus Christ to be revered as a “second-chance Adam”.  It is the Fall of Adam (through Eve) that has steered Jews, Christians, and Muslims toward a negative self-image and pessimistic worldview.

§§  The Fall of Adam is described in  EVE.    

§§  See also:  LILITH

          Appears in: The Redemption of Adam