“ A tablet from Ur, about 2,000 BCE, mentions the name Lillake”

“ The three faces of the Goddess – Maiden, Mother, Crone”  (1994) Conway, D.J.First Edition, Llewellyn Publications, Woodbury, Minnesota ISBN 13: 978-0-87542-171-1

The Queen of the Night relief was discovered by archaeologists – it was previously known as The Burney Relief before it was renamed, The Queen of the Night ~ in what appeared to be a personal shrine to The Goddess, in the Fertile crescent of the Middle East in what used to be ancient Mesopotamia, also known later on as Sumer; around the ancient city of Ur. 

There has been much that has been written about this sacred representation of a winged, crowned Goddess, standing on the backs of lions, or lionesses and flanked by very large owls. Herewith my analysis of the relief, or plaque; and rationale for viewing the plaque as a representation of the Great Goddess of Death and Love.

And before we begin, it must be said that to some, this is Inanna; to others, Hecate; to others still, this Goddess is Ki-si-kil-lillake, Ishtar or Lilith. The Goddess movement is not about differentiation, we are simply lovers of the same Goddess of many Names. I write from the perspective of a Child of Lilith  and as such, to me this is the Goddess Lilith. Please do not feel any way about this, as the Great Goddess has many names and forms and no-one is wrong about the Goddess except those people who hate Her. Welcome )O(

Allow me to begin with the Animal figures within the relief. The Owls which flank Lilith are incredibly symbolic creatures – the mythological attributes of the owl, throughout many cultures around the world, are legendary and well-known throughout every culture worldwide.
Owls represent in essence, the divine messengers of the Goddess and are able to cross back and forth between realms.
Owls have always been particularly sacred to, and closely associated with, the Great Mother. The Goddess Athena, for example, was accompanied by Owls, representing wisdom and occult (hidden) knowledge to the ancients.

Others associate Owls with death and the call of the Owl is believed to herald the coming of death. Many different cultures see owls with a great degree of superstition, including some African peoples. The Swahili believe that the presence of an owl, which they call, Liliwa, nearby signifies that there are either witches in the near vicinity, or that the call of the owl is a clear indicator that someone is going to die soon. In a remarkable synchronicity between this African mythology and others in Europe and elsewhere; the owl is believed to “overlook” someone. This became a sinister thing later on in medieval times, where the power of the owl’s eye was associated with the Evil Eye – leading, supposedly, to all manner of misfortune.

Actually, the Eye is one of the first Goddess symbols, and it’s symbolic meaning has been changed from that meaning Truth, the eye of Wadjet and Maat and Horus; to that of the 'evil eye'

 Actually, everyone can use the 'evil' eye'. As soon as we learn how to speak, and are taught to hate and differentiate. Some call the essence of the evil eye, 'malicious envy'. Jealousy and envy are, oddly enough, two of the main reasons for accusations of Witchcraft among ignorant people!

The eye is as Magick is, completely neutral. We can use it any way we want, and that is why we all have to learn through our own experiences. Karma! What goes around, comes around.

The Hebrew Name  LYLYT refers, among other meanings, such as those reflected in in numerology; where as opposed to the establishment view that 480 equals the number of demonic legions whom Lilith is supposed to unleash on the world at some time or another; actually, 480 = 4 + 8 = 12 = 3; the Number of the Divine Feminine and the Perfect Number)  ~ to the soft, downy feathers of the owl, which, by the way, enable the owl to swoop down softly through the night sky. Owls are primarily Nocturnal creatures by habit, and are seen by ornithologists as the animal kingdom’s nocturnal equivalent to the Eagle, which in its turn represents spiritual enlightenment. Hence the age-old traditional and worldwide association of the Owl with the Goddess of the star-spangled Night.

The Owl’s eyes are probably its most noticeable attribute. Numerous “eye goddess” figurines, or idols, have been discovered in what used to be ancient Mesopotamia, one of the centers of civilization. These talismans were obviously used by devotees in the Matriarchal society that  always peacefully held sway in the days before the process of patriarchal invasion and conquest.

The Eye of Wadjit, the Eye of Horus and the Eye featured at the apex of Pyramidions is symbolized by these owls and is the all-seeing eye of The Great Goddess.

 Owls can see in almost complete darkness. Nothing escapes the all-seeing Eye of Goddess of Justice, and the blazing sword of Truth that She wields.
The Owl’s name in Latin, is Strix - a word synonymous with Witch – signifying Women’s Mysteries, and Divine Wisdom.

In the original color scheme, the Owls display the same colors that the Goddess is depicted in, symbolizing a unity of purpose and commonality on certain levels. 
 Red, White and Black are the colours of the Great Goddess and have been used as such from the beginnings of human civilization – and thus is it is logical that the same were used in this primary depiction of The Goddess of Witchcraft, of Love and Death.

The word Witch derives purely from the root European words for Wise, meaning Wise One, or one who has committed to higher learning in the aim of attaining Wisdom and thus Union with the Divine. A Witch is a reincarnated Priestess or Priest of the Old Religion, and a metaphysician ~ and certainly not a slave to any hypothetical Devil. Popular misconceptions are created and reinforced by those who have been fooled by a great deception, which is not of Goddess in the making..

The relief is currently housed in the British Museum and a version thereof was photoshopped by museum experts to bring back, and show off, the original colors that the relief was painted in.

The scale of the Goddess and the two Owls flanking Her, as compared to the lions, seems odd, and only begins to make any sense at all when one realizes that the Owls are symbolic of devotees; and that the lions are drawn to scale with the Goddess.

If one examines the pictorial evidence from ancient Sumer, this depiction, to scale, is quite accurate. The First Gods were much larger physically than human beings, and this is evident in not only the evidence from Sumer, but also in ancient Egyptian art.

Why else, the construction of doorways that are so disproportionately large for an average human being, in many ancient ruins such as “The gateway of the Sun”, or in the stone temples of Malta, or the unbelievably massive pillars - some 1300 tons of granite - that were hewn out of single pieces of stone in Baalbeck, Lebanon ; for example?

Ancient Egyptian art was always drawn exactly to scale- one might say that they were obsessed by correct proportions, and relative scale; and this shows in the perfect geometrical structures the ancients constructed. Now why, one may ask, would scribes and artists from all over the world, have depicted The First Goddesses and Gods as being so much larger than humans, if this were indeed not the case?

The Lion depicted in the relief is the “Routi” or Rereti ~ the double Lion, symbolizing royalty and Divine protection in ancient religious culture. Lions are also notably associated with not only Lilith, but many other Goddesses such as Sekhmet, Cybele, Tanith, and Durga .

The Lion is a symbol of royal and Divine authority to the Ancients.

As Lions are surely one of, if not the, most regal of Animals, is it not befitting The Queen of the Night to be supported by this particular Lion?
A close parallel can be drawn between the most well-known depiction of Goddess Kali, where the Goddess is shown standing on the prostrate body of Her consort, Lord Shiva.
Shiva was the only one of all the gods that could prevent Kali from continuing Her rampage of death, absorbing demons  and then continuing with humans for their continued disrespect and arrogance towards the Deities, by leaping forward and lying flat on the ground in front of Kali, the Destroyer and at last, halting the swathe of devastation that is sometimes of the Terrible Mother when balance must be restored to the universe. In the picture below, Lord Siva is portrayed as a white Tiger ~ 

Lilith is depicted with the Horned crown that is specific to the First Divinities. At the apex of the Crown lies the Disc of the Gods, the Life - Force; for as we know, Life, and Love ~ always emerges from Death and returns again to Darkness in a never-ending cycle of existence.The Serpent is depicted as encircling the glowing disc of pure cosmic energy protected by the Horns of the Divinities of Sumer and Egypt.

Lilith’s crown is almost identical to those worn by other similarly-dressed deity figures shown on various reliefs and other ornamental artifacts from Sumer. Only the most prominent of  Deities were shown wearing these horned crowns, tending the Tree of Life .

It is still unclear as to exactly how far back in time the ancient culture of Sumer extends, although the Sumerian King list I am led to believe, goes back an estimated 400,000 years. And it must be born in mind that the ancient Sumerians, Mayans and Egyptians clearly inherited their advanced knowledge from the First Goddesses and Gods.

Surviving depictions of the Goddesses and Gods of old, called by some the Annunaki, are similar in many respects and all one has to do is to compare the wings, horned crowns, and other intriguing similarities between our Pagan Divinities to realize that the First Goddesses and Gods are the founders of human civilization , and we had a common form of spirituality that was universal in extent, spanning all ancient cultures. This point is generally ignored or glossed over by the so-called experts, however , the more one examines these pictures and recognizes the common factors within the different myths; the more obvious the similarities are between the stories and ultimately the various manifestations of the Divine  within all of these cultures over the passage of time.

One now begins to realize that Lilith is a very, very ancient, primeval Goddess, The Goddess of Death and Love. The ancient Goddess of the Moon, Belit-ili who has been rejected, omitted and lied about through the diabolizing of the sacred traditions and customs of Matriarchy and Goddess of our Ancestors.

Why is it so hard to accept that the origins of the human species is not myth or a fantasy tale, but the actual truth? The word mythology actually means, tales of historical fact sworn to be the truth by Kings and Sages and passed down through the generations, at first in oral form and later on in text. 
It was only under the influence of patriarchy, funnily enough, that Mythology changed from being literal history to being “fairy-tales”; and as we progress into the New Age of Enlightenment, the Age of the Daughter, we realize that many of the myths are actually hard, cold fact ~ and that mostly, these tales have been twisted by the male-dominated religious hierarchy and given new conflicting meanings . The Ancients clearly believed in real, living Deities of flesh and blood  as manifestations of the Divine so why should we not ?

Are we not also reflections of Divinity, and divine in ourselves?

" Not all testimony of the past is accorded the same stature as the records of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On the contrary, like the Canonical Bible, the body of knowledge that we call "History" is an edited cultural artifact from which much has been left out. In particular, references to human experiences prior to the "invention" of writing around 5000 years ago have been omitted in their entirety and myth has become a synonym for delusion"

An excerpt from Graham Hancock's book, Fingerprints of the Gods - A quest for the beginning and the end" (1996) Mandarin Publishers, London. ISBN 0-7493-1454-0 Ch.52,p515 "Like a Thief in the Night"

 The human species has been around for let’s say, 250 000 years at one educated guesstimate, backed up by the discovery of the first anatomically correct human being from circa, 180 000 B.C.E. This means that practically 95% of our actual records as a human race have been wiped out from the records.If we extend that time frame somewhat and include the possibility of the dating of fossil human footprints in Utah, Washington and in Kenya as accurate then the limit for human civilization extends back 1,2 million years.

The fact is that the worship of the Great Mother was the very first form of Spirituality around, as the symbols of Goddess and Serpent are universal throughout all ages and in every country. The worship of the Great Mother is a spontaneous thing.

 Isis, Queen of Heaven and the Underworld

The wings of Leila point downwards, meaning that, in this depiction, Lilith is the Goddess of the Underworld. Wings are of course prominent features of Deities like Isis, Hecate, Daemons (Genii or Angels), and the Gods and Goddesses of the Ancient Near East and Africa.

Wings symbolise flight and spiritual ascension. When the wings of the Phoenix and the Serpent are combined, a Dragon of spiritual power arises. Lilith is often depicted in the shape or form of the Tau Cross ~ which naturally enough, carries similar meanings as the Ankh, Caduceus and Tanit glyph.

The Ancient Egyptian name for the Great Goddess, Tao and Great Spirit, is Neter. This is where the word Nature comes from. The First Goddesses and Gods are known as Neteru, the Watchers.

The Watchers over and conservators of Nature and the environment; our Ancestors.

To honor the Goddess and our Ancestors we must work together to prevent the destruction of the living environment we call home.

The feet of Goddess Lilith are famous and truly legendary – and in this particular aspect, the Goddess has prominent and impressive Birds Feet, with talons like a raptor. If one examines these closely, they are the same as the Owl’s taloned claws.

There are several ancient Bird Goddesses with Lilith as their distant ancestress such as the Goddess of Love and Death, Aphrodite, and Medusa ~

The Dark Mother appears traditionally as the Death Goddess, a Spirit of the Winds and a nocturnal Queen of the Night - and so the Queen of the Night depiction is quite symbolic of these characteristics.
The bird’s foot has always been known as a Witch symbol, and is seen in modern times as the “Peace sign” used in the sixties as it should be today even more so, as a sign of protest against Nuclear weapons and the desire of the beings on this planet to be free of the imminent threat of nuclear destruction and weapons of mass destruction. The Witches’ foot is an example of how the influence and power of Diana, Queen of all Witcheries, liberator and defender of the oppressed and poor, has been preserved through the ages.

Another analogy which I feel is apt to mention , is the survival of the Bird Goddess mythos via the medium of fairy tales. Now when you tell your kids all about Mother Goose stories, bear in mind that the Old Religion survives in such tales. The Goose is the Great Cackler, the Egyptian bird of creation, and Mother Goose flies around the skies on her broomstick, or World Tree with the sacred bird of splayed feet.

Lilith is noted by Doreen Valiente as the Goddess of the Craft,  and it was the author/transcriber of "The Vangelo, or Gospel of the Witches", Charles Godfrey Leland, who mentioned within the text his personal belief that Lilith is both Diana and Aradia, the Witch Messiah.

Lilith is, in my tradition, the Triple Goddess ~ Maiden, Mother and Crone. The Great Goddess of many Names who was here before the Beginning, from whom all things originate and flourish and unto whom all things shall return, in their Time.

The fact that the Goddess is holding the Rods and Rings of Power indicates the Powers of the Divine inherent in this depiction..

The combined symbol of Divine Power, the rods and rings, symbolize the complementary duality of the Universe and all that is within it, all life beginning and ending in a never-ending cycle of Death and Life and facilitated by the constant and harmonious interaction between the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine Principles of the Universe. The ring is Yin, or feminine, and symbolizes infinite potential; whereas the rod is phallic and represents the Yang, or active male energies of Nature. It is known as the Chet sign in Ancient Egyptian mythology, and prominent Gods and Goddesses were depicted as holding it for those reasons. (Aside from the Ba Bird)

The Ba bird, or soul of a newly departed person, is commonly depicted as a human-headed Owl or Falcon, holding the symbol, representing again the eternal life and ascent to the Afterlife which the ancient Egyptians so firmly accepted as reality.

The fact that Lilith is holding two of the Chet symbols signifies the power of The Mother Goddess over the currents of life and death.

Other associations of the Chet or Shem symbol is that they signify ascension and spiritual immortality. It is also a symbol of the ability of the Deity to fly through air and the heavens, according to the tablets of Ancient Sumer.
The symbol has significance relating to Androgyny, as the joining of the Circle and Rod signifies the union of feminine and masculine complementary polar opposites.

Lilith and Ishtar- Inanna are complementary aspects, or forms, of the Great Mother as ancient Near Eastern steles and tablets clearly show a winged and horned Goddess, bird-footed, a Goddess by the Name of Inanna - Ishtar, whose depictions are visually literally identical with the relief we are discussing ; which is enscribed with the Name of Lillake? There seems to be a distinct similarity between Goddesses, however they are mentioned as separate Divinities in the texts, this is clear. 

Inanna with Her sacred Beast, the Lion

(a subordinate Goddess??)

 The reason for the omission on the part of the ancient scuptors and artists of the very prominent Vagina Dentata or Mons Veneris which is so characteristic of Inanna imagery is two-fold.

Firstly, Inanna is the Archetypal Goddess of Fertility and Love; Venus, and Astarte; Isis and Tanith – Eve and Sophia; and on the other hand( excuse the pun), in terms of Yin and Yang, Lilith is the Dark Sister of Death and Endings; the Dark Goddess of waning Moon. Of  barrenness, and of the infinite depths of the Abyss, and The Dark side of the Divine Feminine; Ereshkigal, Kali-Maa and Hekate, the Morrigan.

The Great Goddess of Many Names...and Forms

Lilith is Androgynous, of both sexes. And it is not unusual at all for a Goddess to be depicted with Androgynous features, despite the fact that most of such Hermaphrodite imagery and statuary was  systematically defaced and destroyed over the centuries by the patriarchy.

The ancients depicted Divinity and the Deities as Androgynous, as Androgyny reflects directly from the Creatrix of All, the Androgynous Creator of the Universe.

 That is the reason why Venus is both the Woman of Love and depicted in other aspects as a bearded man – Diana Erubus - for example – or Mami Wata manifests as a man on occasion ~ or Hapi has swollen breasts as well as a phallus ~ as the ancients knew that the Macrocosm reflects as the Microcosm, that the Divine and humans and all of creation are essentially bi-sexual within, having both female and male essence.

As with other classical Goddess figures throughout herstory, such as Isis and Her dark sister of Death, Nephthys; Goddess Lilith represented The Dark half of The Great Goddess, and Inanna, the Light “other half”. As Queen of Heaven, Queen of Hell – in a Sumerian context; originally depicted as possessing different but complementary aspects; until at some stage, under new and revised influences, the Mother Goddess figure was split distinctly down the middle in the minds of people, separated into two entities and then pitted one against the other. Good against evil, no in-between and no balance. The natural dualism of Nature, the Tao, replaced by Dualism of a very different, unnatural type.

One Goddess, made “acceptable” in terms of a nearly all-male pantheon now taking on the cause of the male gods, to the detriment of the Dark Goddess, and also to Inanna, who was now to be portrayed as a powerful, yet subordinate Goddess, taking instructions from dominant male gods.
Mythology from all over the world seems to have followed the same pattern. This also co-incidentally happened to Athena, who allegedly turned against her kin and arranging the slaying of the Gorgons  on behalf of the male gods, in later Greek versions of mythology. 

A Goddess giving the Power of the Serpent as symbolised by the visage of Medusa, the very symbol of the sacred Kundalini ~ organising with a demi-god the slaying of Herself, Her Dark sister, or other half – how transparently yet cleverly contrived, yet it has fooled even a lot of Pagans into believing that Medusa and Lilith are “evil”. Actually, before all the myths were altered to exclude or diabolize the Dark Mother , Neith, Athene and Medusa were officially venerated as the Triple Goddess in North Africa .

Inanna - Ishtar, Queen of Heaven was the Goddess of sacred prostitution. In Matriarchal times ( so-called “pre-history”), there was no shame or vice associated with sexuality as it is today. Sex was not a degrading or dirty act to be ashamed of somehow. It has only become to be viewed in that light in relatively modern times. 
In those times, sex was still a sacred act of love, a ritual act of pleasure for many, to honor the Goddess/God and enact a virtual Hieros Gamos or Divine Union. And Sacred Prostitutes, the temple priestesses, would share Love with initiates and devotees for spiritual reasons in sacred communion with the innermost beauty of the Divine.

This love included far more than the act of mere physical sex; indeed, the Priestesses and Priests of Old who served the Temples of Love, were akin to the Geisha of ancient pre-dynastic Japan in the sense that they were skilled in communication techniques and  the performing and cultural Arts, such as calligraphy, painting and were highly-respected and never equated with what we identify as modern prostitution or solicited as such. The actual act of physical sex was rarely indulged in by priestesses.

The Pagan living with Mother Nature knows of the Art of True Love, the Love of the Gods; which opens the doorway to real spiritual fulfillment and advancing through ones own abilities in tune with the currents of Nature and the harmony of the Universe. Ask any Tantric!

Sex is a gift from the Divine, however it has been misinterpreted and abused as a commodity rather than, in the way of the Ancestors, being experienced as a way to a higher Love. As the Goddess Ma'at would say; "I am open to love in many forms". This includes sex, a natural expression of Love ~ one of infinite other ways to live in love ~ and is never limited to it.

 Lilith is clearly mentioned as “The Hand of Inanna”, so making the Goddesses One and the same. 

Goddess Lilith is beauty personified. Hers is truly otherwordly, and as depicted in the relief, is also unashamedly sexual, within and without. Truly the Goddess of Death and Love. Every process has a stimulus, a beginning followed by a flourishing, a maturing and a climax followed by an end, or death.. And out of this death, always arises a new creation yet again ~ in all things.

Lilith became “The Hand of Inanna” in later, patriarchal religious belief, and was associated/ linked to Ardat- illi ( another form or aspect of Lilith), the Goddess who represented the young, unmarried Canaanite women, who adhered to the worship of Anath and Ba’al, and whom, according to their custom, were allowed and encouraged to have pre-nuptial relationships. Lilith indicates the Androgynous aspect of Inanna in this context. Traditionally, when a man wished to devote himself to Goddess, he became as a woman himself ; embracing Androgyny and honoring the Divine Feminine within. 

This does not imply that every male must become a eunuch. The Goddess path is all about rediscovering inner divinity, and this implies a healthy balance between both male and female principles; both Yin and Yang. The Goddess was never without the God from after the first beginnings! All of the pre-patriarchal Gods are male aspects of the Divine Feminine; and nothing is above any other thing in Nature.

The analogy of the Right Hand still combines the Goddesses, in a sense, by identifying them as literally part of One Another ; but the later Sumerian re-interpretation tends to have the effect of splitting the Goddess into two distinctly different, and opposing, Deities – with diminished power and standing in the new, revised, male-dominated pantheon and therefore also in the eyes of the general populace.
Yet again, the classic example of “divide and conquer” ; 'good versus evil'

 Lilith is a Name of The Goddess, and all Goddesses are, although separate, distinct and unique aspects of  the Divine Feminine, as One.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the original Dark Mother of Nature, Lilith, becomes the rebellious, wild and untamed “spirit of the wilderness”, this time not as The Great Mother of Nature, but in a lesser, “evil” role; while Inanna takes up the role of the Divine Mother who facilitates the process of civilization. Dark maid Lilith is exiled into the wilderness, together with the Dragon living at the roots of the Tree and the Anzu bird ( Eagle/Owl or the Phoenix) and it’s young – and Lilith’s three-fold Tree of Wisdom, the World Tree or Yssldragyll, is chopped down by Gilgamesh, to “please” the “new” Inanna, as the needs of the male conqueror take complete and utter precedence over the needs and rights of everything else on the planet. Including in this case, the symbolic and literal use of the trees’ wood ( read here, on a literal and allegorical level, the planet Earth’s “ expendable” resources and Life forms) to consume, like locusts, in the process of building -up of the new, greedy and ultimately self-destructive and unbalanced form of civilization that is now only around 5000 years old.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest myths that were altered by patriarchy, in order to destroy the ages-old tradition of Nature Goddess worship. Anything to do with the Dark Mother was subsequently demonized and whereas the Crone Mother was always venerated by ancient peoples, it became the norm to view the Dark Goddess as evil and purely destructive.

Is Equality SO bad?

Lilith, the Goddess of Trees and Nature, was even changed by the male-dominated religions to being an invasive destructive spirit that was actually causing the sacred tree to wither and die in one of the versions of this re-written story. 
. What a role reversal..

The Goddess of Many Names is in common to many cultures and creation myths, quite aside from being included in an amended fashion within the Judeo-Christian traditions. Quite simply, if the Goddess doesn’t exist, then why is the Divine Feminine denied yet included as an integral part of the core of these belief systems?

The Triple Goddess of Arabia; The Maiden, Goddess Al-Uzza; the Mother Goddess, Allat; and the Crone Goddess Ma'nat. Lilith is traditionally seen as Allat, as these Goddesses appear by the same Name, Aililat, though as we have seen, the three aspects of the Goddess blend together effortlessly at will.

A clear as crystal indicator of a myth that has been tampered with by male-dominated religions, is when a myth includes rape , or when Goddess is pitted against Sister Goddess whilst being manipulated and controlled by male gods.

It is possible to divorce and ban someone, however if that someone is also your Mother, it is surely impossible to forget them altogether.

Lilith is still there – in the Zohar, the Kabbalah, in many other early patriarchal writings, and ever retains an archetypal, liminal but potent presence in the Bible itself. The Queen of Sheba and The Black Madonna are testament to this. Everything the Crone or Dark Goddesses represent, though is  twisted to become “evil”; shunned, feared and hated ~ and yet, mystery of mystery ~ who other than Lilith; is reflected in the Virgin Mary?.

For fear of digressing, let us examine the Name that is on the relief.

The root word “Lil”, meaning “spirit/ air/wind” has been around for probably as long as religious belief has been documented in written form.
The plaque was engraved with the Name “Lillake” which is one of the well-known and recognized Names of Lilitu. There are plenty of other etymological leads to follow that point in the same direction, containing the word, or part of, the words “Lil” or” Lilli”.
I will just mention a couple more examples :

Enlil was amongst the First Gods, the son of An, the Lord of Light, and Antu, Goddess of the Earth. Enlil was the God of Heaven, wed to the Birth Goddess Ninlil. Hence within later Jewish tales it is said that Lilith was originally wed to Jahweh, the Jewish rabbinical version of Enlil. Enki is the God of Wisdom, the Winged Serpent and the brother or equal and opposite half of Enlil, and was later to become known as Lucifer and Samael.

Later on still, Lilith and Enki, having become at this stage known as known as Lilith, Queen of Demons as an androgynous evil aspect of God in these terms together with this evil Lilith’s partner; Samael, King of Demons, are separated from Jahweh and Shekhinah in a distinct split between concepts of absolute Good and Evil.

 Lilith and Samael, or Lucifer, the God of Light, evidently become, according to these medieval interpretations, the evil mirror image of the all-good Jahweh-Shekhinah duo. These four aspects are further described as joined together but distinctly separate, as the dual halves of an evil yet simultaneously good Godhead figure.

Now in all of Nature, we see that there is duality. Yet this duality is not of  hypothetical concepts of absolute good and evil, not of antagonistic forces continually opposed in an eternal fight for supremacy.

This duality is of Nature, and  of the equal and complementary, yet opposite energies of male and female which permeate the fabric of the Universe.

It is of both Yin and Yang, Light and Darkness, waxing and waning, ebb and flow, of potential and action, of masculine strength combined with feminine intuition. Meaningful and substantial creation arises only from the harmonic resonance of both energies working together, the natural resulting friction, which is not antagonistic at all, forming the basis of all and any forms of meaningful or substantial creation.

Let’s recall that Enki is the Serpent God of Wisdom, Enlil’s brother and equal and complementary other half ; just as Set is of Horus in the original unadulterated Egyptian legends.

The Winged Serpent is the primary symbol of the First Gods, and is the Dragon of the original Pagan spirituality of this planet.

Enki, the Winged Serpent God, also known as Set, Thoth and Typhon, is the masculine Yin aspect of the Serpent of Wisdom, later on becoming synonymous with the male Samael, Satan and Devil of these theologies. Should the truth be known, Enki gave to humanity our direct Ancestors, in His various forms and manifestations, the knowledge and wisdom to survive and prosper, not only as slave-like drones but as enlightened beings; as befits the Children of the Gods, who were made in the image of the Elohim, as male and female we were created.

As androgynes, having both male and female energies within. This is a physical fact, as within every particle there is positive and negative and as such every human being has both male and female in the physical body; however this Androgyny is indeed a spiritual reality, of Yin and Yang, male and female, Light and Dark, of Inanna and Ereshkigal; of Isis and Nephthys; of Diana and Lucifer; of Damballah-Wedo and Aida-Wedo; of King Solomon and The Queen of Sheba, of Vishnu and Siva.

 And what was supposed to be, in this context, the harmonious union of Lilith-Samael and Yahweh-Shekhinah; and the original veneration of the Elohim instead of that of Jehovah alone.. Then certain of the texts were changed in their meanings and good vs. evil became the daily illusionary reality for those who were fooled by this great deception.

This Great Deception is the patriarchal superimposing of mythical concepts of good and evil, over the Yang and Yin of Natural Spirituality and the glorious Pagan heritage of the people of Thoth, Set the Serpent God of Wisdom and Nephthys, Lilith, the Divine Feminine Principle of the Universe.

Of all possible candidate animals for the post of the Devil that could possibly have been chosen to represent “evil” ~ oh, I suppose it could have perhaps been Bear, Wolves, Tigers, Bees, Heron, Egyptian Geese, Ostrich, Owl, Lion, Spider, Hippo, Oryx, Tortoise or Gavial, Porcupine or Cat, even ~ of all the animals, the Serpent was specifically chosen by the patriarchy to represent the face of evil, and is supposedly the symbol of the downfall of man via a weak and gullible, naïve and subordinate Eve…

Goddess Lilith of the Tree in the Garden of Eden, in the form of The Serpent, was evidently responsible in later, doctored mythology for deliberately going against the wishes of the all-male, New God, Jahweh, who was modelled on the parody of  Enlil, no longer the God of the Sun but having “become” a war -like, jealous and vindictive, superior and exclusive Male God ~ and thus being allegedly responsible for the "fall" of humankind from the grace of this particular God.

This classic tale is simply a metaphor for the rebellion of Jahweh against his Mother;

 and the symbolic replacement of the Old Religion with the New ones. 

Inanna is Queen of Heaven, and Lilith is Inanna’s Dark Sister, Serpent Spirit and Holy Guardian Spirit. Inanna is the Tree, as Eve is the Mother of all humans; whilst Lilith is the Serpent of Wisdom  within the Tree, who shares ancestral Women's Magick.

 When this age-old link between women and the Goddess was broken by the patriarchy, women began to lose touch with Mother Nature; becoming slaves as they lost their former deep and profound power and respect to  this all-new male domination on all levels.

The secrets of Women’s Magick were thus removed from the new, compliant  “ideal” women – Adam’s preferred subservient wife, Eve, and all of Her Daughters . Over generations of patriarchal rule, this essential Women’s Magick and Women’s Mysteries were wiped clean from the immediate memories of the people who were prevented from going in the ways of their Ancestors.

The Magick was hidden, concealed and forbidden for a long time, the times of the terrible sword of the Inquisition, the terrible sword with which the prophets of Jahweh foretold would slay the Tortuous and Slant Serpent of Lilith ~ Lucifer / Samael; has come and gone as a murderous thief in the night.

Only the remnants of the dreaded Inquisition and Witch Burnings remain in the form of Christo-Fascism and reactionary and conservative elements of the Patriarchy. The Sword has swung, caused much harm, and is spent. The Time has now Come for Peace and Love, for working with Nature rather than going against the current of the Great Mother.

As we enter this New Age of Aquarius; the Age of the Daughter; we will once more gradually transmute the harmful and antagonistic into the harmonic and Peaceful; bringing back to a suffering humankind the Love of the Gods, which is the true inner Love that people have been searching for over the last couple of thousand years.

The Goddess Arts which were  concealed from the people over time; such as for example, the ways to avoid any pain or discomfort during childbirth and the smooth transition during menopause ; were repressed through the introduction of the warped idea that somehow, woman as the goddess on the Earth is less than a man.

“And  a woman’s desire shall be for her man; and men shall rule over women”

~ Jahweh, in the Garden of Eden.

“ The Burney plaque, from a late period of Sumerian art (2300BCE), presents the seductive figure of another great winged Goddess, Lilith, a bird woman. Flanked by sacred owls, She stands naked except for a tiara of horns, which were worn by all the great deities. She also holds the rod and ring of Power.Thus She joins the first rank of gods…Lilith is a deity far older than Inanna. Owl-like, She builds her home in a tree. Lilith’;s lack of clothing creates an identification with the Naked Goddess, suggesting a state of Nature. However powerful She may have been in early Sumerian times, she is greatly diminished in the Old Testament, where she appears as a temptress and she-demon rather than the Great Goddess of Death”

–p. 83, Johnson, Buffie (1994) “Lady of the Beasts – The goddess and her sacred animals”San Fransisco; Harper&Row Publishers ISBN 0-89281-523-X

It is clear to everyone by now that there are distinctly different Liliths, then. We have, on the one hand, the original Great Goddess of Death and Love; Lilith, Inanna, Venus, Asherah, Medusa and Aphrodite;

And then there is the man-made “Lilith” – the evil temptress, seducer of “innocent” men, baby murderer, spreader of disease and famine, evil tormentress,“minor demon” of Mesopotamian infamy; the demon queen wife of the “devil” and evil angel... These later patriarchal views were only introduced later on in mythology and are designed to denigrate the Divine Feminine - to justify the flawed theory of Dualism and patriarchal religious views in the minds of the people. Thus they separate people from themselves and Nature, to rule through fear and fear-based ideologies.

Lilu refers to Lily ( - lili) – that beautiful Lotus , or Water Lily, which in its turn symbolizes the Yoni, the Divine Feminine; and again is a common symbol of various Creatrix Mother Goddess figures, for example, Goddess Kali, The Great Mother of India, venerated by literally millions as the Dark Mother of all creation (and not only in India) has the Lotus as Her sacred symbol too - and what a synchronicity, as one of the other Names of Lilith (according to the learned Jewish teachers of old) is indeed Kali.

Still venerated by millions ( and not only in India) Kali-Ma, Mamaki , Mami – the same Name as the Great Creatress Goddess of Mesopotamia , Mama ; the first child of Tiamat, Mummu; the African Divine Mother, Mami, which Name is the first of Au-Set.

Lilith is an individual Goddess in Her own right, however the Name Lilith is also a collective Name for the Divine Feminine Principle of the Universe and all of the Goddesses as One, just as Inanna and Isis and Ereshkigala..

Lili means Spirit, breath, air, life - Lilitu are spirits, or wind ( “flying”) Daemons, according to the Assyrian/ Babylonian interpretations of the word.

However, this word is quite ambiguous in the sense that Wind, or Air, also means Lifebreath, or Aether; in  Ophite Pagan Tradition, also called the Dragon’s Breath..

Lilah, or Layla, means Night – so Lilith is best known, loved by a few and very misunderstood by many; the ultimate Night Spirit. The Queen of the Night!

As Lilith, as She has said Herself is of many forms , Names and incarnations, The Goddess cannot and should not, in my view, be restricted to one particular image or likeness.

"I am not in what is seen, but in the unseen"

Lilith is indeed the Goddess of Death - the endless cycle of birth and re-birth – She from Whom all things proceed and unto Whom all things shall return. The Goddess who creates Life and Death in abundance, and who is the beginning and end of all cycles of existence. The gentle Death Priestess who meets us at the ending of our life and guides us into the Spirit world, and never to be feared. The Dark Mother is the Consumer of All things – the infinite vortex to which everything is inexorably and inevitably drawn, to be recycled and given new life after being purified in the Cauldron of re-birth.

Lilith blends the three Goddess archetypes in One; Maiden, Mother and Crone, and is the greatest of Teachers and Initiators. The Feminine Principle of the Universe of the Ancient Near East, written out of the Bible, but whose traditions live on forever. 

For millennia, The Crone aspect of The Great Mother was seen as both facilitating the crossing over of souls , as the gentle, guiding Dark Goddess that She is, and, in another aspect, as the Goddess who especially presides over childbirth, pregnancy, fertility and sexuality. Not, as the medieval religions would have us believe, an evil, cruel and vengeful spirit who steals babies from their mothers.

There is still some confusion between Pagan scholars as to the essential difference between Goddesses and Gods – and The Androgynous Creatrix of the Universe, known as Great Spirit, or GODDESS, or GOD, or TAO. Allow me to further address this for additional clarity.

The First Goddesses and Gods, also known as the Neteru are easily identified throughout all civilization and cultures by the common mythology, appearance and personal characteristics of the Deities as they set about creating modern human beings and then establishing their culture and spirituality on Earth amongst all ancient peoples.

All spiritual traditions that venerate and honour The Goddess and Her Dragon, are in effect, honoring the Creators of the human race and the Great Goddess from whence all things come..

The First Goddesses and Gods are our Ancestors, and established the human race on this planet for a reason. The Gods introduced the spirituality of Nature Mother Goddess to their reflections ~ us; and by doing so they were fulfilling a far greater Cosmic plan ~ a plan surely designed by The Great Goddess ~ Tao ~ Great Spirit of the Universe in the first place..

“In the clay, God and Man shall be bound’
To a unity brought together;
So that to the end of days
The Flesh and the Soul
Which in a god have ripened – 
That Soul in a blood-kinship be bound;
As it’s Sign life shall proclaim.
So that this not be forgotten,
Let the Soul in a blood-kinship be bound”

Hail Lilith, Great Goddess of Many Names!