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smokingbootThe last two weeks have been loaded and heavy. For someone so looking forward to Samhain I have been caught up in its more traditional meanings: Two darling little cats, one taken back by the Hunter...and that whole midnight fear thing, of the op and perhaps more treatment afterwards. A part of me wishes I had gone to the Lions event where so many chums are now. But another part of me knows that I am maudlin and bad company tonight - I am well enough as long as I don't have to make conversation!
Tomorrow, wonderful chum comes and we will talk rubbish for the rest of the weekend. Tonight, solitude and kittens are all I can bear. Ralik and Surya, otherwise known as fathead and pinhead, are ruining my attempts to be contemplative. Maybe later I will write a story, but I don't think so. Instead, I am going to launch into one of my pointless and inconclusive ramblings. On my lj, I refuse to feel the pressure to make sense or be entertaining to any other than myself, but just to spare you, I will use the cut:
My thoughts turn towards Lilith at this time, also known as Lilitu, Ardat-lili, Ardatu, Ki-sikil-la-ke, Ki-sikil-ud-da-kar-ra,Screech Owl, Night Monster, Mother of Demons etc.
Hers is a strange story. She has a recognisable style, Queen of Demons, First Succubus without deference to the legions of Hell, Vamp Ultima, the One Who Comes In To Find You - old legends make her the strangler of children due to being cursed or her jealousy for marital bliss. For lovers of darkness, she is the inferno, the raw passion that will take you down at midnight when no-one is near.
Folklore says that she is beautiful from the waist up, but from the waist down, she is hairy or scaly, sometimes with a penis: You won't know until it is too late. Should you allow her beauty to lure you from your path of sunbright control, too late will you discover the great talons, the sharp ravenous desire of the vagina dentata, the brutish member that may penetrate you most ignominiously and reduce you to the level of desired passivity with a howl and a shudder of delight. The trouble with all-consuming passion is that it consumes you. It is easier to read about than live through.
She first turns up in the epic of Gilgamesh circa 2400BC, translated as Lilitu 'The Dark Maiden,' where she takes up abode in a willow tree, along with a strange dark bird and a snake. Both the snake and the owl(or kite) become associated with her later. But one thing I have recently learned is that the translation of her name within the tale is suspect, so I will not dwell upon it here.
I shall instead focus on the rich harvest of Lilith legends in Hebrew folklore, the Talmud and early medieval sources. It goes like this:
God made Man, and some say Woman came next, but others claim Man was made perfectly hermaphrodite first - some even say he had two faces, one female one male - but that's all by the by. To the story:
God makes Adam and Lilith out of dust, and Adam wants Lilith to lie beneath him in what we would recognise as the missionary position. She refuses because she is his equal. When he tries to make her do his bidding, she utters the magical name of god (some sources say by having a word with Yahweh himself, whose soft spot for the ladies is a seldom mentioned characteristic) and flies off to the Red Sea. There, she fornicates with demons.
Adam protests to God who sends three angels after her. She tells these three that she has been given dominion by God over babies, to kill them if she likes, boys for the first eight days I think and girls for, oh, I can't recall, a longer time; but if amulets are worn with the names of the three angels, she'll stay away. This seems to work for the angels, who leave her alone. She gives birth to a hundred a day, and God kills a hundred of her children a day, or something like that - she also steals semen from men to create more demonic offspring. I cannot remember the numbers or details. all I recall from reading this stuff is the sinking feeling one always gets in the presence of entirely hopeless relationships.
So, Lilith is the first insubordinate and the first put-it-out-there-the-way-she-wants-it slut. Considering his omnipotence, God either makes some ghastly mistakes or he's well subtle. Adam helper number 2 doesn't even get a name. Adam watches while God assembles her, adding hair and everything - at which point Adam can't handle watching the details and decides he is repulsed by her. For all we know she's still out there somewhere. Attempt number 3 is done while Adam is asleep - Eve is created, festooned by God with 24 bits of bridal jewellery. Adam is captivated, and all is as it should be barring Eve's one flash of intellect so ruinous to paradise. Lilith is the first rebel, Eve is the first scientist ('But what will happen if I...?) Adam is the Authority's representative, the controller, the status quo. He doesn't do much except complain. No wonder Lilith preferred a demonic gangbang on the shores of a desert sea. A few stars, a few flames, an idiot ex wailing to his Dad to sort me out, and I'd be at the same party.
The hirsute nature of Lilith is a curious point. According to middle-eastern chums, a naturally hairy woman is a blessing indeed, for she is intelligent and extremely passionate - the base drive towards desire is one at which every groom should twirl his moustache. It's when he twirls her moustache that the problem starts.
There is a story of Solomon's trick on the Queen of Sheba. He made an ankle bath so deep she had to lift her skirts to cross it. In that moment, cunning Solomon spied that a)her legs were very shapely and b)they were somewhat hairy. Solomon, being the kind of guy who spent a lot of his time thinking about this sort of thing, created a recipe for removing hair from legs and presented it to her as a gift. She tried it out, and they were both delighted with the result. Compare this to the Hebrew legend where Solomon realises that the Queen is in fact the demoness Lilith. This story seems to blend into other tales where Lilith disguises herself as a harlot/witch (name:Obyzouth?) and just sits down and tells Solomon how to stop her from hurting kiddies. In both tales, without compunction, the lady instructs the king how to control her. Her hair is wild, her eyes are described as 'Bright and cheerful.' He then braids her hair and hauls her up for all to see.
Hair is a recurring theme. Adam cannot bear seeing the clumps of hair on Wife Number 2's body, Eve is presented to Adam with her hair done up like a bride, Lilith's hair is braided up when Solomon makes an example of her. Long hair in a woman is considered a crowning glory, a physically hairy woman is considered to be displaying an outward undesirable manifestation of an inwardly very desirable trait; passion.
Lilith is the embodiment of unacceptable passion. Hebraic legend always connects her with Assyria, with Babylon (understandable enough as her roots may have been in that direction) with Lust: And there does seem to be a horror of lust, of uncontrolled sex in ancient Judaic mythology. Harlots are despised, masturbation a sin, sodomy an abomination necessitating holy genocide. Lilith and her sort provide convenient excuses for every wet dream, every guilty fantasy, the perfect scapegoat for those who cannot face their own sexuality or that of others. How fortunate for all that repressed desire that she is there to take the blame and the seed. But where did this fear of desire begin? Where did the terror of the outsider's sexuality arise? *
We cannot dismiss it as a human distaste for the not-one-of-us. If Genesis 6 is anything to go by, when the Nephilim (often translated as 'Giants' or 'Fallen' or 'The Sons of God,') saw that the daughters of men were beautiful they mated with them. These matings supposedly gave rise to heroes, men of renown ('the Name.') Inexplicably they struck Yahweh as wicked (the King James version says he 'repented' - another mistake?) and created the deluge to destroy them and their half-breed minglings. Noah and his family were all Yahweh permitted to survive, their human pedigree intact. And yet, it seems, not all the fallen angels were wiped out - I must check my sources on this, but it seems that they were closely connected to the Canaanite people, and that makes sense too - the foreigner we want to hate is the child of the impure, the fallen but powerful. And Lilith is the ultimate traitor too; the fallen,the foreigners, including the mighty and terrible Samael, were happy in her arms. But what is this archetype about? Running away from husband, rules, God, submissive perfection, protection, approval and the garden for what? Loneliness in the desert? Hatred down the centuries of demonisation? Fucking on her own terms?
She doesn't die, having left the Garden long before death entered the world. Out of all this history comes the Night Predator, the one who wants you. And that is frighteningly attractive, to be wanted so much. Everybody wants to be the Beloved, but no-one wants to be the Appetiser, the screw that will do until the Big Deal arrives, and how can you tell? As the Dark Lover approaches, do we not all desire to be Mina Harker rather than Lucy Westenra?**
As is said in the Talmud of Babylon: "One may not sleep in a house alone, and whoever sleeps in a house alone is seized by Lilith."
I sleep alone tonight. Hmmm. Here's to interesting dreams.
*I must add that I do not see this as unique to Judaic history: it merely arises in my consideration of Lilith as an archetype. My other scrawlings on outsiders and our fear of merging with them focus more on Celtic legend and North European sources.
** Apart from poor Mina having one night's ecstasy and then having to forget it for the next forty years of nightly non-events in Jonathan's arms!
Tomorrow, wonderful chum comes and we will talk rubbish for the rest of the weekend. Tonight, solitude and kittens are all I can bear. Ralik and Surya, otherwise known as fathead and pinhead, are ruining my attempts to be contemplative. Maybe later I will write a story, but I don't think so. Instead, I am going to launch into one of my pointless and inconclusive ramblings. On my lj, I refuse to feel the pressure to make sense or be entertaining to any other than myself, but just to spare you, I will use the cut:
My thoughts turn towards Lilith at this time, also known as Lilitu, Ardat-lili, Ardatu, Ki-sikil-la-ke, Ki-sikil-ud-da-kar-ra,Screech Owl, Night Monster, Mother of Demons etc.
Hers is a strange story. She has a recognisable style, Queen of Demons, First Succubus without deference to the legions of Hell, Vamp Ultima, the One Who Comes In To Find You - old legends make her the strangler of children due to being cursed or her jealousy for marital bliss. For lovers of darkness, she is the inferno, the raw passion that will take you down at midnight when no-one is near.
Folklore says that she is beautiful from the waist up, but from the waist down, she is hairy or scaly, sometimes with a penis: You won't know until it is too late. Should you allow her beauty to lure you from your path of sunbright control, too late will you discover the great talons, the sharp ravenous desire of the vagina dentata, the brutish member that may penetrate you most ignominiously and reduce you to the level of desired passivity with a howl and a shudder of delight. The trouble with all-consuming passion is that it consumes you. It is easier to read about than live through.
She first turns up in the epic of Gilgamesh circa 2400BC, translated as Lilitu 'The Dark Maiden,' where she takes up abode in a willow tree, along with a strange dark bird and a snake. Both the snake and the owl(or kite) become associated with her later. But one thing I have recently learned is that the translation of her name within the tale is suspect, so I will not dwell upon it here.
I shall instead focus on the rich harvest of Lilith legends in Hebrew folklore, the Talmud and early medieval sources. It goes like this:
God made Man, and some say Woman came next, but others claim Man was made perfectly hermaphrodite first - some even say he had two faces, one female one male - but that's all by the by. To the story:
God makes Adam and Lilith out of dust, and Adam wants Lilith to lie beneath him in what we would recognise as the missionary position. She refuses because she is his equal. When he tries to make her do his bidding, she utters the magical name of god (some sources say by having a word with Yahweh himself, whose soft spot for the ladies is a seldom mentioned characteristic) and flies off to the Red Sea. There, she fornicates with demons.
Adam protests to God who sends three angels after her. She tells these three that she has been given dominion by God over babies, to kill them if she likes, boys for the first eight days I think and girls for, oh, I can't recall, a longer time; but if amulets are worn with the names of the three angels, she'll stay away. This seems to work for the angels, who leave her alone. She gives birth to a hundred a day, and God kills a hundred of her children a day, or something like that - she also steals semen from men to create more demonic offspring. I cannot remember the numbers or details. all I recall from reading this stuff is the sinking feeling one always gets in the presence of entirely hopeless relationships.
So, Lilith is the first insubordinate and the first put-it-out-there-the-way-she-wants-it slut. Considering his omnipotence, God either makes some ghastly mistakes or he's well subtle. Adam helper number 2 doesn't even get a name. Adam watches while God assembles her, adding hair and everything - at which point Adam can't handle watching the details and decides he is repulsed by her. For all we know she's still out there somewhere. Attempt number 3 is done while Adam is asleep - Eve is created, festooned by God with 24 bits of bridal jewellery. Adam is captivated, and all is as it should be barring Eve's one flash of intellect so ruinous to paradise. Lilith is the first rebel, Eve is the first scientist ('But what will happen if I...?) Adam is the Authority's representative, the controller, the status quo. He doesn't do much except complain. No wonder Lilith preferred a demonic gangbang on the shores of a desert sea. A few stars, a few flames, an idiot ex wailing to his Dad to sort me out, and I'd be at the same party.
The hirsute nature of Lilith is a curious point. According to middle-eastern chums, a naturally hairy woman is a blessing indeed, for she is intelligent and extremely passionate - the base drive towards desire is one at which every groom should twirl his moustache. It's when he twirls her moustache that the problem starts.
There is a story of Solomon's trick on the Queen of Sheba. He made an ankle bath so deep she had to lift her skirts to cross it. In that moment, cunning Solomon spied that a)her legs were very shapely and b)they were somewhat hairy. Solomon, being the kind of guy who spent a lot of his time thinking about this sort of thing, created a recipe for removing hair from legs and presented it to her as a gift. She tried it out, and they were both delighted with the result. Compare this to the Hebrew legend where Solomon realises that the Queen is in fact the demoness Lilith. This story seems to blend into other tales where Lilith disguises herself as a harlot/witch (name:Obyzouth?) and just sits down and tells Solomon how to stop her from hurting kiddies. In both tales, without compunction, the lady instructs the king how to control her. Her hair is wild, her eyes are described as 'Bright and cheerful.' He then braids her hair and hauls her up for all to see.
Hair is a recurring theme. Adam cannot bear seeing the clumps of hair on Wife Number 2's body, Eve is presented to Adam with her hair done up like a bride, Lilith's hair is braided up when Solomon makes an example of her. Long hair in a woman is considered a crowning glory, a physically hairy woman is considered to be displaying an outward undesirable manifestation of an inwardly very desirable trait; passion.
Lilith is the embodiment of unacceptable passion. Hebraic legend always connects her with Assyria, with Babylon (understandable enough as her roots may have been in that direction) with Lust: And there does seem to be a horror of lust, of uncontrolled sex in ancient Judaic mythology. Harlots are despised, masturbation a sin, sodomy an abomination necessitating holy genocide. Lilith and her sort provide convenient excuses for every wet dream, every guilty fantasy, the perfect scapegoat for those who cannot face their own sexuality or that of others. How fortunate for all that repressed desire that she is there to take the blame and the seed. But where did this fear of desire begin? Where did the terror of the outsider's sexuality arise? *
We cannot dismiss it as a human distaste for the not-one-of-us. If Genesis 6 is anything to go by, when the Nephilim (often translated as 'Giants' or 'Fallen' or 'The Sons of God,') saw that the daughters of men were beautiful they mated with them. These matings supposedly gave rise to heroes, men of renown ('the Name.') Inexplicably they struck Yahweh as wicked (the King James version says he 'repented' - another mistake?) and created the deluge to destroy them and their half-breed minglings. Noah and his family were all Yahweh permitted to survive, their human pedigree intact. And yet, it seems, not all the fallen angels were wiped out - I must check my sources on this, but it seems that they were closely connected to the Canaanite people, and that makes sense too - the foreigner we want to hate is the child of the impure, the fallen but powerful. And Lilith is the ultimate traitor too; the fallen,the foreigners, including the mighty and terrible Samael, were happy in her arms. But what is this archetype about? Running away from husband, rules, God, submissive perfection, protection, approval and the garden for what? Loneliness in the desert? Hatred down the centuries of demonisation? Fucking on her own terms?
She doesn't die, having left the Garden long before death entered the world. Out of all this history comes the Night Predator, the one who wants you. And that is frighteningly attractive, to be wanted so much. Everybody wants to be the Beloved, but no-one wants to be the Appetiser, the screw that will do until the Big Deal arrives, and how can you tell? As the Dark Lover approaches, do we not all desire to be Mina Harker rather than Lucy Westenra?**
As is said in the Talmud of Babylon: "One may not sleep in a house alone, and whoever sleeps in a house alone is seized by Lilith."
I sleep alone tonight. Hmmm. Here's to interesting dreams.
*I must add that I do not see this as unique to Judaic history: it merely arises in my consideration of Lilith as an archetype. My other scrawlings on outsiders and our fear of merging with them focus more on Celtic legend and North European sources.
** Apart from poor Mina having one night's ecstasy and then having to forget it for the next forty years of nightly non-events in Jonathan's arms!
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 11:05 pm (UTC)Have you read Barbara Creed's work on "The Monstrous Feminine"?
Cruelly?
Date: 2004-11-12 11:33 pm (UTC)The trouble with passion beyond death is that it does what it says on the tin!Pragmatists would say Mina's choice was the only one, if survival is the win condition.
I haven't heard of Barbara Creed at all, I'm afraid. I am hopelessly out of touch.
Re: Cruelly?
Date: 2004-11-12 11:40 pm (UTC)Creed has tended more to analyse films a lot, but she has a hell of a habit of bringing in the vagina dentata.
Question of the day, why does analyse have the word anal in it - is analysis a pile of shit? :)
no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 04:09 pm (UTC)I always said long hair was the way forward - now I have proof!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 10:36 pm (UTC)Interestingly, high levels of testosterone in women are associated with both higher libido and hairier legs and body. Lots of pubic hair used to be considered sexy here too (cf songs such as The Mayor of Bayswater/ he had a pretty daughter/ and the hair on her diddle dando/ came down to her knee!)
Was there a point I wanted to make? if so, I've forgotten it.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-14 03:20 pm (UTC)