A favorite Shaman by Susan Seddon-Boulet
A favorite Shaman
by Susan Seddon-Boulet
By Lishtar
The retrieval of the Divine Masculine as passionate, courageous, magical and joyful constitutes a step as important as the retrieval of the Divine Feminine for the wholeness of human psyche. Especially in the West, millennia of patriarchy has restricted the Divine Masculine to the vison of the father-and-the-son duo or the sacrificed king, thus reducing enormously the divine experience of Malehood in all levels and spheres for both men and women. Indeed, I would go further to affirm that there is a vital need today for the coming together of the vibrant, passionate, inspiring Divine Masculine and Feminine energies not as opposite forces, but as complements to create the conditions for real equality in all levels, mental, emotional, physical and spiritual for men and women alike.
Perhaps some of the most passionate, courageous, magical and joyful mirrors of masculine wholeness can be found in Ancient Mesopotamia. The brilliant civilisation that developed between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates at the dawn of history have legated to us a wealth of written sources that show us different ways of being divine, male and female, passionate, angry, even foolish sometimes, but always joyful and with incredible zest for life in all spheres. The focus of the present series of essays will be on the retrieval of some of the many faces of the Divine Masculine based on Mesopotamian archetypes or God forms, to try and show that there is much more to the True Face of the Male Divinity than first strikes the eye.
For the purposes of this work, archetypes are described as primeval images that are part of the human psyche and portray universal and spiritual truths. The analysis of the chosen archetypes for Divine Malehood will be based on Mesopotamian myths, which can also be described as the narratives by which civilisations continually struggle to make their experience intelligible to themselves by means of large, evoking images that carry philosophical meaning to the facts of life, from the mundane to the extraordinary. Basically, Mesopotamian myths approached here will show dramatic representations of human aspirations and awareness of the universe that will reveal the Divine Masculine as a multifaceted chaleidoscope representing several aspects of the experience of being male in all worlds: the All-Powerful Skyfather (who is also in love with the Great Mother Earth), the Lord of the Elements, the Divine Bridegroom, the Farmer-Warrior, the Master of Magic, the Prince of the Gods, the Blessed Child, the Lord of Nature and the Wild, the Soul Sibblings, the Priest-King who Prefers Life to make it Last for Eternity Here and now, the Lord of War and the Underworld, the Lord of Healing, to name just a few.
Equally important is to add that myths carry political and moral values of the source culture, whicn in this case is Mesopotamia, while at the same time provide the means for interpreting individual and collective experiences within a universal perspective. It is exactly within this context that Mesopotamian gods have so much to teach us today. The image of God as a powerful multifaceted force is of paramount importance for both men and women to reconnect with the source of masculine power that transcends sexual inclinations, the limiting father-and-son bond or the pervasive concept of the sacrificed hero-king. What I am truly inviting you to do as we analyse the vibrant Mesopotamian gods is to go beyond the polarity-duality parameters that have reduced the experience of the divine, both female and male in special, to embrace the complementarity of the human soul beyond sexual preferences.
In what follows, we will analyse the Divine Male, and our inspiration will be the passionate stories inscribed in clay with the cuneiform system of writing invented by the ancient Mesopotamians, many dated from pre-biblical times. The presentation of such great archetypes is intended to demonstrate the timelessness and profound wisdom for present day generations embedded in such age-old characters.
This is very much a work in progress, because in Ancient Mesopotamia there were at least 3,000 deities. Whatever we try and reconstruct here and now should be seen as a genuine but rather incomplete tribute to the Gods of our Ancestors who stil sing to our souls. Thus, please please feel free to contact me for any input on a favorite deity that you think need to be explained in more exuberant details. I have just written down a couple of heartfelt ideas which hopefully will evolve and make more sense as we go along.
"Blind Soul, arm thyself with the Torch of the Mysteries, and in the night of Earth, thou shalt find thy Divine Guide. Follow Him/Her, for S/He holds the keys to your lives, past and to come" (a favourite quotation, probably by Dorn, the Swiss 17th century alchemist).
This work is dedicated to the Divine Masculine that has ensouled my life with such grace. He first presented HimSelf to me as the Divine Magician and Soul Alchemist, Hermes/Mercury/Thoth, to become later Odin* and finally Enki of all Magic and Mysteries. When He turned up as Enki, by the way, it was a major emotion. I had thought He would be Nabu in Mesopotamia, because I see myself very much as a priestess scribe. Was delightefully and most spectacularly WRONG!
To You, Inner Beloved and Soul Counterpart, in love, light, laughter, trust and dare, as it was, is and will ever be.
* I just love the Runes, Freya and Odin. Who are Inanna and Enki in the Norse pantheon.