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Monday, December 4, 2017

Lecture: the Invocation and day of Tiamat



In the religion of ancient Babylon, Tiamat is a primordial goddess of the salt sea, mating with Abzû, the god of fresh water, to produce younger gods. 

She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation. She is referred to as a woman, and described as the glistening one. 

It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first in which Tiamat is a creator goddess, through a "Sacred marriage" between salt and fresh water, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations. 

In the second "Chaoskampf" Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos. Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon.

In the Enûma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation, she gives birth to the first generation of deities; her husband, Apsu, correctly assuming they are planning to kill him and usurp his throne, later makes war upon them and is killed. 

Enraged, she, too, wars upon her husband's murderers, taking on the form of a massive sea dragon, she is then slain by Enki's son, the storm-god Marduk, but not before she had brought forth the monsters of the Mesopotamian pantheon, including the first dragons, whose bodies she filled with "poison instead of blood". Marduk then forms heavens and the earth from her divided body.


Calendar of the Sun

7 Blutmonath


Tiamat's Day


Color: Sea green
Element: Water
Altar: On a sea green cloth place a large chalice of salt water, strings of pearls and beads in a spiral pattern like a whirlpool, and figures of dragons and sea serpents.
Offerings: Pour water on yourself. Allow yourself to experience conflicting and turbulent emotions that you would otherwise avoid.
Daily Meal`: Fish. Seafood. Seaweed. Soft food with sauce whirled in a whirlpool pattern.

Invocation to Tiamat


Mother of Dragons
Mother of Serpents
Sea of Aether that swirls
Deep within our minds
From the waters we came
From the waters we are born
To the waters we shall return
For our rebirths.
You whose body is the world
Who is all around us
Sacrificed in order to become
Omniscient
Mother of Dragons
Mother of Serpents
Lead us onward through the tides
Of our uncertain lives.

Chant: Aiyu Tiamat Tiamat Tiamat
Your body all around

(Each person stands forth and speaks of themselves as an emotion, saying, "I am happiness" or I am sorrow". Then one person who has been chosen to do the work of the ritual takes a sword and walks around the circle, miming slaying each person, who falls to the ground, saying, "Die, and become one with the earth.". All lay on their backs with hands joined, heads facing inward, and each visualizes themself as part of the earth, and they speak out what part of the earth they and their emotion have become - "I who was joy am now rivers!" "I who was anger am now desert." "I who was wonder am now mountain ranges!" and so on. End in a choral OM.)







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The power is in knowing that you are the center of the universe