The House You Must Go Into

Fifteen years ago, when I started to write The Red Coat, I had a dream, which I wrote down in my journal:

"It is some kind of complex of buildings.  It is dark.  The streets are empty.  Something is going on at one end of it.  I set out toward it.  I find somebody.  I ask them about the complex.  I know I have to go straight for that building (the answer lies there) but why? Why? What is there?  Then I see Celeste, the serene woman at the pool who reminds me of the Mona Lisa, but instead of her usual self she is RAGING.  I hold her at a distance from me and we start to rotate in the air.  She is ranting and raging (about something).  She is mad.  She is yelling AT ME and I am so utterly terrified, so frightened, I throw her over the counter and she is knocked out by something she hits over there."

In the journal, I describe how I wake from the dream shaking with fear, unable to get enough air to breathe, shielding my head with my pillow.  Why am I so afraid? I wonder. Why Celeste? and why now raging?  I try to analyze the dream.  I remember someone saying that characters in a dream are different sides of your own personality and I realize that Celeste is the good girl, me, who is raging because of what I’ve done to her, repressed her, her true nature. 

What is her true nature? and what is the house I know I must go into?

I flip a few pages forward and find another entry, written around that same time, a period of unemployment: 

"I called my sister to gather some concrete reasons why, why, why plagued by the wish, constantly, the unhappy need to express myself for my whole adult life... and still, despite all my efforts, all my trying, am no further along than when I started, worse in fact: no work, no income, no food...while others more ? succeed…"

I had been laid off after I came back from my maternity leave and had lost my footing in the world, not to mention my income.  I finally had some time to write, but I was blocked, and terrified about money.  It was during that time, right after the birth of my son, that I began to withdraw from projects and people and associations I was taken up with and started on what would prove to be a long descent into and through the deep layers of my psyche to find, I now see in retrospect, answers to those questions.

The response my sister had to my call would provide a roadmap, whether or not at that time I could consciously and conscientiously adopt it:

"Marianne encouraged me to accept myself and all the shameful emotions that I possess and to write about these true things.  She encouraged me to accept myself, all of me, even the bad stuff and to be who I am...not looking for, not requiring other people's approval." 

Accept myself, all of me, and write about these true things.

That is why Inanna and her story resonate with me.  After reading my last post, Jack commented that those virtues of hers aren't all nice.  I agreed but said that the ability to take action in the world means that one must have the power to be both bad and good, to be repugnant as well as pleasing, to be cold as well as caring, to make war as well as peace.  Too often we women deny essential parts of ourselves -- we make nice, we hide, we avoid, we push our power down below and out of sight, we silence ourselves -- to be accepted and loved by others. 

But at what price? 

For my picture I chose a collage I made several years ago that I call Underwater 2.  It is the uncertain, sometimes abysmal place of the unconscious world, of fear and depth and murk, but also the place where lies the buried treasure.  For me it is that complex of buildings I had to go into in my dream.  It is the house of my writing.

What is the house in your dream?

Queen of Heaven and Earth

On my quest for an image of a woman that would serve as both mascot and role model on my journey to wholeness and self-loving, I considered the goddesses of ancient Greece.

There was one goddess who ruled over wisdom (Athena), another love (Aphrodite), another chastity (Artemis), and another the hearth and marriage (Hera) -- yet the choices felt unsatisfying to me.  Why were the goddesses (and gods) of ancient Greece so fragmented, so compartmentalized?  You know, one was good to have at your side in an argument, another when you went on a date (or were looking for one!), another when you took up housekeeping and another when you needed to retrieve your childlike divinity -- but not one of them was the picture of a complete woman!

Here I was in the golden age of our Western Civilization, and not one fully-formed deity!  (What was the significance of that, I wondered.)

And so I traveled father and farther back in time looking for "her" until I came to the cradle of civilization, the land of the ancient Sumerians.  Here, in the Fertile Crescent, I found an image carved in stone, of a woman holding a sheaf of grain in her hand and a quiver of arrows at her back who had long curling hair tumbling down her shoulders, a crown of horns upon her head, bright eyes -- and a smile on her face.

She made me laugh!  Who was this woman who had such a sweet smile but was ready to fight?

The image, from 2400 BC, was much older than the other stone carvings from the Bronze Age that caught my attention.  Nevertheless, I was immediately struck by it's freshness and accessibility, attributable no doubt to her amiable countenance.  She seemed like someone I could get to know and like.  I had to find out who she was!

I learned that she was Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth.  Unlike the goddesses in the Golden Age of Greece,  Inanna possessed all the virtues.  She was a whole person.  The ancient Sumerian tablets were translated and retold by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer in their book Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth.  In it, they tell how Inanna got all the virtues.  The story goes like this:

Inanna went to visit her father, Enki, who was a great god and knew all things, and after paying her respects he invited her to drink with him at the Table of Heaven.  Inanna accepted and she sat down and they began to drink beer together.  They drank more and more beer until, swaying with drink, Enki toasted Inanna:

In the name of my power! In the name of my holy shrine!
To my daughter Inanna I shall give the high priesthood!
Godship! The noble, enduring crown! The throne of kingship!
Inanna replied: I take them!

Through the driving mists of his drunken stupor, Enki gave Inanna all of his me (virtues) and each one she took: the virtue of war, of incantation, of truth, of dagger and sword, of the black garment, of the colorful garment, of fear, of lovemaking, of forthright speech, of slanderous speech, of song, of power, of lamentation, of the perceptive ear, of the power of attention, of treachery, of straightforwardness, of kindness, of deceit, and so on, until Enki had no virtue left and he fell fast asleep.  Inanna fell sleep too and when she woke she loaded up her boat with all of the virtues that now belonged to her and she sailed home.  When Enki woke, still reeling of drink, he asked: "Where are all my virtues?" and his assistant explained to him what had happened.  Enki sent wave upon wave of sea monsters after her but Inanna held her father to his word and with the help of her secretary she drove back the monsters and delivered the virtues to her people.

What virtues are yours?  Take them!