Asherah/Lilith

They worshipped me

They reviled me

They built pillars

In my honor

In the hills and the mountains

So tall, they scratched the sky

So tall, I could reach my hand down

From the heavens and touch them

Bless them

They told stories

Of my wickedness

Scratched the names of angels

Into amulets

Just to keep me away

To protect their own from me

In the temple the women worshipped me

Wove me a home and honored me

And in return

I blessed them with bounties

As great as the sea

Over which I am Lady and Mistress

In their stories I am wicked

I have Congress with demons

And I kill infants

Because I can

And their God

Kills my own children

Or maybe

He kills mine because I kill theirs

Or maybe

I kill theirs because he kills mine

In their homes the women worshipped me

Baked bread in my honor

Too feed me as I fed their souls

They created statues of me

And kept altars

And I protected them

As the Mother and Creatrix

In their stories I am repudiated

Because I would not lie below

Because I thought

In my newly created bliss

That there would be equality

Between equals

What a silly young creature

I was

In their anger the prophets tore me down

They chopped down my pillars

And burned them to ash

Asherah in ashes, scattered to the winds

They told the women to forget me

To leave me behind and turn their eyes

To the Lord

In their fear they curse me

They warn the men

Not to sleep alone

That I might come for them

In the night

That I might tempt them

And with their temptation

That I might beget more demons

Always more

But who is the Lord without his Lady?

Who is El without Asherah?

Who is this upstart that claims

To alone be worthy of their worship

Their praise

Their devotion

Who punishes them with exile

For the frailties and failures

Of their faith

For who is a mother

Without her children?

If mine must die

As someone

The angels or God or maybe

Adam

Declared they must

Why should I not

Take every opportunity

To bring to life

More?

But I will wait

Creation takes time and patience

It’s not just about announcing

What you want and then

Magically it happens overnight

It takes blood, sweat, and tears

You have to put your whole soul into it

So I will wait

And I will weave my soul

Into a home for the women

To return to

They will come to me

When they are ready

They do not understand

A mother’s love

These men with their stories

And the God who creates

With just a word

With no pain, no effort

Just words and stories and

The smug righteousness

Of their forefather

When they are ready

They will once again worship me

In the temple and their homes

In the hills and the mountains

With pillars and bread and

Their voices will cry out for want of me

And I will answer

I will not exile them

As they have exiled me

I would have lain below

You know

If he had agreed to lay below

In equal measure

I loved him, after all

As I was meant to

With the intensity

Of every particle of the dust

That made up my heart

And his

The thing about creation

Is that it is not blood for blood

What I suffer to create

I do not expect to suffer for me in turn

That is not love

That is something else

Control, maybe

Or fear

Creation is love for love

And I love them so

But he did not understand my love

Or my desire for equality

He saw love as conquest

Territory to be won

And if I would not submit

Then I was not won

And if I could not be won

Then I must be ground back into the dust

So I will wait

Patiently

In the hills and the mountains

Banished for a time

But never fully forgotten

For the truth will rise up

From the very layers of the earth

And it will remind them

So I left

And Adam told stories

The angels told stories

The men told stories

But the women

They listened between the lines

They listened with

The dust in their hearts

And they saw, perhaps, the truth

They worship me, once

They will again

They reviled me, yes

But not anymore

I am returning

Goddess/Mother

Powerful

Full of Love

Which gives me power

And which I, in turn

Give to them

The women who see me

The women who

Worship/Understand

They support me and I support them

Creator/Creation

It is love that drives us

That connects us

A string stretching out

From the dawn of creation

To the heat death of the universe

Never to be cut

Never to be severed

And all creation sang

Amen