Polytheist Ramblings: Ninhursag

Polytheist Ramblings: Ninhursag

Most of my life has been spent in Kansas. Not eastern Kansas, where you get the illusion of that magical thing people call "hills". Where the river gnaws at the border and the lawns are lush with greenery. I'm talking about sundried spittoon Kansas, metal whirligigs and fields that surge like a golden sea beneath the wild, hair-tossing wind. The wind in the city, in the mountains? A declawed little puff compared to the fluid onrushing of a wall of pure force as vast as the sky itself. The sky is searing, the windbreaks bent like regal courtiers beneath it, rare cloud shadows scudding across the landscape. It's beautiful. Most people don't really see that. Don't even get me started on the flash floods.

So yes, I was raised in the pancake state. I vaguely recall something Nightvale related.... something about not believing in mountains? Eh. Point being, the long drive to New Mexico, or Colorado, was always exciting. Cars, to me, were always a bit like teleporters. You get in, wait a bit, and then suddenly you're waking up at the destination. My dad's philosophy tapes might have been partially to blame, until I started actually listening. But one thing that always wound me up and had my face pressed to the glass was that first glimpse of a purple smudge on the horizon. I definitely believed in mountains. Just like I believed in unicorns. There's something absolutely magical about watching the earth lazily rear up to wrap itself in clouds as easily as my mother could tie her fancy, billowing scarves. There were huge scars in the land where people had dug into the rock to build roads, crumbling bits of ruddy sandstone and white gypsum like gleaming bones. It was like seeing that biblical flood frozen in time all around me, terrifying, but I was too distracted by the newness and the beauty to be scared. I'm the sort to ogle mesas, okay? Mountains are serious business worth waxing poetic over.

Now I live in the Ozarks. Not exactly by choice, mind. It's been a few years now, and I honestly preferred to have an on-again off-again, long distance, friends with benefits sort of relationship with them. Don't get me wrong, I'm still utterly gobsmacked by the beauty here. It's just.... claustrophobic? I used to complain to my parents that I couldn't breathe here. The humidity is stifling, I can't see the horizon, and there's always so much noise from chittering things in the trees. So many trees. They're like weeds. Beautiful and majestic, but Dorothy wants to leave the Emerald City when she can afford to move out.

I did, however, title this for Ninhursag. Living in the shadow of these mountains... I've learned a lot about my family. Some good, some bad. Also a lot about what it means to HAVE a family. My mother was always, to my eternal shock, the outdoorsy type. She's an absolute Hufflepuff. The most Hufflepuffy Hufflepuff to ever huff and puff. I, the squirrely Ravenclaw with a Slytherin streak, prefer my man made boltholes. We have our differences, our emotional callouses and bloody old wounds, stretch marks and stress reactions.

Ninhursag, mother of the gods, had a bit of a try-everything mad scientist husband who made mistakes just like anyone. Sometimes they fought, sometimes her husband's brother had to call her up via a helpful fox to say her husband was dying, and they would make up while she nursed her clever idiot back to health. She was one of two goddesses to join the ranks of the Seven Who Decree Fate, the second being the fiery and fickle Inanna. We know her as the Lady of the Foothills, Nin-hursaj (Lady-Mountain).

She was not born with this title. She was granted it. Not by Anu, not by Enki, but by her son Ninurta who marched against the Asag demon and his army of stone minions, magical talking mace in hand. And why? Was it because she gave him some sort of boon, was it because he was trying to curry favor?

No. She followed him into enemy territory out of motherly determination, she stood by him even in the rage of battle and was unmoved. For that, he named her Ninhursag. He gave her the mountains and everything they held, from the fruits at the peak to the ore of the roots, and all of the animals in between.

I like to think about that, sometimes. When it gets hard to remember why I try anymore. When I see a sugar-smile and remember when it covered up the thorns. When I'm too scared to call her, but also too bloody-hearted to let her sit in that house all alone. I remember that determination that could suture together all wounds, I remember that love isn't always a meadow thick with dandelion wishes. Sometimes it's battling an army made of granite and grit, seeing this spitfire lightning rod of a woman who never says die walk through the van and step to my side like she'd only lost me in the soup aisle, and letting her be my mother even when I'd rather she were anywhere else, away from her embarrassing shipwreck of a daughter.

So I light the cedar incense, take a deep breath, and pick up the phone.

I have no idea how to use this thing, but here goes. Testing, testing, one two three. Behold the genesis of a poorly thought out idea.

On the one hand, I live in my head and get up to all sorts of introspective shenanigans. On the other hand, I have niche interests and enough anxiety to paralyze an elephant. Sometimes I open my mouth and words come out. The question is, are they annoying? And/Or arrogant? And/Or nothing more than me screaming into a vacuum? Ahh, insecurity. I love not thy embrace, nor the corpse-cold brush of thy enamoured touch down my spine. A thousand kisses farewell, a thousand thorns to my hide, and still I cannot quit you.

My favorite self care tip is to pretend you’re a demon inhabiting a humans body and you gotta look after it, treat it right, cause these things are weak af man and you gotta protect your host

Reschedule using birth control pills?

I gotta look up if I can do offerings on my period for the ‘Iluma. 

I think the answer is no because you can’t be bleeding. 

But like. My cycle runs exactly on the Full Moon. I’ve never been late a day in my life, full moon on the dot. 

How can I give offerings on Mlatu (full moon) >.>

Dang mother nature

Wisdom help

I just discovered that the levpag tag is a thing, and that happy sense of "oh wow there's MORE" is singing in my chest. Just. Hello. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for being awesome, relatable, and kindred people who I can commiserate and nerd with. My altar isn't exactly picture worthy, and I don't do any translations, but I think I can find a spot here.