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+--- Thread: Conception (/showthread.php?tid=150153)
RE: Conception - Karlotta - 05-03-2018
RISE
RE: Conception - Karlotta - 05-03-2018
Run==========Feed
Feed============Ripen
Ripen==============Wound
Wound============Wither
Wither==========Fall
Fall=Rise Again
Run=Rise Again
Feed==========Run
Ripen============Feed
Wound==============Ripen
Wither============Wound
Fall==========Wither
Rise Again=Fall
Rise Again=Run
Run==========Feed
Feed============Ripen
Ripen==============Wound
Wound============Wither
Wither==========Fall
Fall=Rise Again
Feed============Ripen
Ripen==============Wound
Wound============Wither
Wither==========Fall
Fall=Rise Again
Run=Rise Again
Feed==========Run
Ripen============Feed
Wound==============Ripen
Wither============Wound
Fall==========Wither
Rise Again=Fall
Rise Again=Run
Run==========Feed
Feed============Ripen
Ripen==============Wound
Wound============Wither
Wither==========Fall
Fall=Rise Again
~A Chronology for Survival (Scott Kelly, 1991)
RE: Conception - Karlotta - 05-03-2018
“My name is Inanna. What is yours?”
The boy’s mother gently pushed him forward and moved his hands to keep him from hiding his face. "Tell the traveling woman your name. Go on! Don’t be shy!" He must have been about six years old, which was the youngest he was in all our meetings.
“Enki!” the boy answered and hid behind his mother’s gown again.
“Hello Enki. I’ve come to Eridu from very far away, to bring you a gift.”
The boy’s mother raised her eyebrows and smiled in anticipation. “Did you travel across the Tiamat, the great salt water?”
“I came on a boat, but down the Apsu of Euphrates from the direction of Uruk. Originally I come from far beyond it. A kingdom from where no one has ever come here before today.”
Enki peeked out from behind his hiding place, curiosity now stronger than fear.
“What is my gift?”
I sat down in the sand and gestured him to sit in my lap. “Come closer, let me show you.”
RE: Conception - Karlotta - 05-22-2018
With a few strokes of the hand I smoothed the sand and began to draw the lines and elongated wedges that make up Akkadian letters with my index finger. Enki observed closely what I did and then looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“That is my gift? You said you brought it from far away!”
His mother’s face turned skeptical. She began to suspect that I was merely teasing her son. She was almost still a child herself, which wasn’t unusual in the times predating recorded history.
“It’s like a game. You have to solve the riddle to receive the gift.”
The spark of ambition arose in Enki’s eye. “What is the riddle?”
I pointed at the first two symbols. “If this makes a sound that sounds like “eh”, and this makes a sound like “nn”, then what do they sound like together?"
He thought for a while, then said “Ehnnnn”.
"You are correct. And if this symbol sounds like “k”, what do they all sound like together?"
“Enk!”
"That’s also correct. Now here is the final riddle. What does this symbol sound like?"
“ie!” Enki proudly exclaimed as soon as he understood.
"That’s right. You solved the riddle. Now you can draw these symbols everywhere, and all people who know their sound will know your name. That is your gift."
The mother frowned. Why would I waste their time with something so stupid?
“Why do you tell me this?”
"It’s for the time when you will fall and can't get up again."
RE: Conception - Karlotta - 05-22-2018
Enki awoke and groggily lifted himself off the ground. The pain in his head from the impact was still strong, but his limbs hurt even more. He began to whimper pitifully. His torn elbows and knees were covered in dirt and blood. He looked around in the nearly complete darkness. He was all alone, and nobody knew that he had climbed into the cave in the mountain in search of the source of the water stream that ran by his family’s farm. For what must have been hours, he cried and screamed for his mother, occasionally trying to climb the steep slope, up towards the small entrance of the cave. But after several more falls, he realized he’ll never be able to climb up by himself. After his voice finally failed, he cowered down and fainted into a deep sleep.
RE: Conception - Karlotta - 05-22-2018
“But why do I need this? I can already tell people my name!”
“That’s right. But you cannot tell it when they are not near you. If you draw this onto a thing, everyone who sees it will still see your name, even when you are not there.”
Enki pondered over the usefulness of what he was being told.
“Then Sibri will stop playing with my things when I’m helping father in the field.”
“You found a very clever use for this, Enki. But you can also do more than draw your name. You can draw more words and say what you want people to do. You only need to draw it once, and then everyone who sees it will know what you want. Does your mother tell you stories?”
“Yes! My favorite is the story about the foolish Ox who believed the lies of the Snake!”
“And are all the stories true?”
Enki was surprised by the question. “My mother told them.”
RE: Conception - Karlotta - 05-22-2018
“But is it really possible for a snake to speak?”
“The one in the story can speak.”
“And can an Ox really understand what is said to him?”
“No, but the one in the story can. He is very foolish to believe in what the snake says. Mother always tells me don’t be like the Ox.”
“Yes. In the world of the story, you can do things that are not possible in the real world. The words you draw can create their own world, which is different, but it can still affect the real world because it can make people behave right.”
“Is that how it will help me when I fall?”
“You are exactly right, Enki. When you can’t go up, go further down. Crawl amidst the stones until you find water. Then follow the stream until you come to a very large stone that was made smooth by the water’s flow. You will know which stone it is because if you look very carefully you will see that it glows with a faint light. When you reached the stone, stop there and do not crawl past it. There is a long drop down which you cannot survive if you fall. When you have reached the stone, you will know all you need to know to escape the cave."
RE: Conception - Karlotta - 05-22-2018
Enki awoke abruptly. His elbows and knees still hurt, but the hunger and thirst he now felt numbed the pain. His throat was dry and coarse from the calling. He could no longer see the entrance when he looked up. Night must have fallen. No one would be out and near the entrance at night, and it wasn’t in hearing distance of his parents' hut anyway. Should he do what Inanna said in the dream? Who was she? She reminded him of a woman that he saw while accompanying his mother to the market in the big city. But he was certain that they had not spoken, and that his memory of her was not as intense as the memory of her in his dream.
Enki reached out his hand to feel along the walls of the cave. Just like Inanna said, he found a narrow opening between the stones, just large enough for him to crawl through. It felt almost like someone, or something, had dug a tunnel for him. Despite his fear of what creature may have done this, Enki crawled downwards, deeper into the cave. After a little distance, he heard the trickling noises of water, which grew louder as he moved forward. His hand touched something delicate, hard, but very light. After probing it with his hands for a while, he came to the conclusion that it must be the bone of a small animal. He kept crawling until the narrow tunnel crossed a larger one carved by the flow of water. Enki lowered his head and drank.
He strained his eyes and noticed that there indeed was a little bluish light in the watery cave, coming from surrounding rocks. He continued crawling down the shallow stream until the water flowed over a large smooth stone, behind which it dropped to unknown depths. The stone was longer than a large man, but narrow enough for a man of its size to be able to reach his arms around. Surrounding the stone, countless bones littered the floor and walls.
RE: Conception - Karlotta - 05-22-2018
Were all these dead animals trapped here like me, in the search of water? Were they the ones that dug the tunnel to the stream? Or did Inanna appear to them too, and lured them to die here? Are they like the Ox that obeyed the Snake? Am I like the Ox? He identified bones of desert foxes or dogs, birds, snakes, but there were also animals he had never seen before.
When you have reached the stone, you will know everything you need to know to escape, Inanna had said.
But how is that possible if the drop is too deep for me to jump down?
It’s a riddle. Inanna’s words now appeared as clear as in the dream, but inside his waking mind.
Like the riddle with the drawings. Why did she teach me this? There is no sand here, only stone and bones. And how can anyone see them, when they couldn’t even hear me calling?
I came on a boat, but down the Apsu of Euphrates from the direction of Uruk. This drinkable water stream flows to near my parent’s farm. If I throw bones down into the water here, the water will carry them there. And if I draw something onto the bones…
RE: Conception - Karlotta - 05-22-2018
Enki picked up one of the larger bones and etched a crude drawing of himself, the stream, and the mountain into it using a sharp stone. He then placed it into the water. It was light enough to float. In the next hours Enki decorate as many bones as he could, and when he felt the air warm up we knew that the sun had risen. He threw the bones down into the stream one by one in regular intervals. One of the villagers that his parents had alerted to help find their son saw Enki’s markings when he searched along the side of the stream. Shortly before dusk, they reached the bottom of the hidden waterfall and helped him climb out.
As I had instructed, he later secretly returned to learn to write, and as he grew older his unusual capabilities gained him the favor of King of the land. He was offered the position of scribe, as which he passed on his art, as well as his secret, to his most trusted students. Although Enki was born a peasant and therefore not worthy of mention in the King’s decrees that he etched onto stone tablets and steles, the amazing stories that he and his successors told of the great flood, the Anunnaki, and the war of the gods forged the empire of Babylon and pervaded throughout the ages. Our alliance gave him a life more comfortable than what he could have hoped for as a child, even if he never truly understood the nature of what he had begun.
On that day
When there is no Snake
When there is no Scorpion
When there is no Hyena
When there is no Lion
When there is neither Dog nor Wolf
When there is thus neither fear nor trembling
Man has no rival
At such a time
May the lands of Shubur and Hamazi, the many-tongued
And Sumer, the great mountain of the me of magnificence
And Akkad, the land possessing all that is befitting
And the Martu land, resting in security
The whole universe, the well-guarded people
May they all address Enlil together in a single language
Enki
The lord of abundance and of steadfast decisions
The wise and knowing lord of the Land
The expert of the gods
Chosen for wisdom
The lord of Eridu
Shall change the speech in their mouth
As many as he had placed there
And so the speech of mankind is truly one
When there is no Snake
When there is no Scorpion
When there is no Hyena
When there is no Lion
When there is neither Dog nor Wolf
When there is thus neither fear nor trembling
Man has no rival
At such a time
May the lands of Shubur and Hamazi, the many-tongued
And Sumer, the great mountain of the me of magnificence
And Akkad, the land possessing all that is befitting
And the Martu land, resting in security
The whole universe, the well-guarded people
May they all address Enlil together in a single language
Enki
The lord of abundance and of steadfast decisions
The wise and knowing lord of the Land
The expert of the gods
Chosen for wisdom
The lord of Eridu
Shall change the speech in their mouth
As many as he had placed there
And so the speech of mankind is truly one
~Incantation of Nudimmud, Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta (~2000 BC)