two hundred and eleventh night

i'm going to take a break from blogging for a bit.

this is not an ending. there are still nights to come. but i have to take a break. there are still things i need to work through.

and i need to help anya. i need to help pull her away from the edge of the abyss. it's not that she's been alone for too long; it's that she's been afraid for too long. afraid of so many things, like i was. like i am.

in any case, this blog will still be here when i choose to write again.

one more story:

inanna was a fertility goddess. one season, she decided to attend a funeral in the underworld ruled by her sister ereshkigal. ereshkigal was jealous of inanna, as ereshkigal could not leave the underworld and no one visited her there. so at each of the seven gates of the underworld, she had the guards demand a piece of jewelry and clothing from inanna until she arrived at ereshkigal's throne naked and alone.

and ereshkigal had her judges condemn inanna and inanna died and her body was hung from a hook.

inanna was well-liked by the other gods, but no god could go to the underworld to retrieve her body for fear that they themselves could not leave. so enki, god of mischief, created two entities from the dirt under the gods' fingernails - gala-tura and kur-jara - and together they retrieved inanna's body and revived her.

but ereshkigal did not want to let her go. she demanded someone else stay in inanna's place. inanna eventually had to allow her husband dumuzi to take her place and he was dragged into the underworld.

inanna mourned for him and caused winter to descend and ereshkigal saw her tears and allowed it to be that dumuzi would only spend half the year in the underworld and the other half with inanna. creating summer and winter.

inanna forgave her sister and ereshkigal let go of her jealousies.

i am scheherazade.

and here's my one piece of advice:

don't let go

and never stop telling stories.

sixteenth night

it's a cold night outside. why don't we tell a story to warm us up.

well known is the tale of orpheus and eurydice, how she was taken from him by a snake bite and how he traveled to the underworld to find her and bring her back. but there are other tales that are trips to the underworld -- in greek, this is called "katabasis" or "descent." a hero travels to the underworld (or some other dystopic place) and returns. 

there are many examples of trips to the underworld, of heroes rescuing lost lovers, allegories of winter and summer, the sun and the moon, love and hate, life and death. 

but, while the hero sometimes does not achieve their goal - orpheus fails to rescue eurydice, after all - they do all return from the underworld. they return changed. they have had a manifestation, an epiphany. the realization of a great truth. 

there have been epiphanies in the real world, too. great ones. it was an apple that fell on newton's head that led him to discover gravity. it was a bath and spilled water that led archimedes to yell "eureka." and einstein -- well, allegedly, einstein realized that there was some unseen force in space when he was given something during his childhood. 

he was given a compass.

descent. on the twelfth night, before the feast of epiphany, i will descend. all because of a compass.

five.