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how’s that house that raised you?

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The Pretender’s First Attempt

He came from the sea,

or so he claimed.

But no real tide answered him.

No foam crowned his name.

No thunder rolled when he walked.

Just a hush,

as if the world was waiting

for a lie to finish forming.

He called himself by a false name;

the Sea.

The Deep.

The Ancient Terror.

Rewritten as a brother, rewritten as beloved, even worshipped.

But the salt on his breath,

belonged to others.

The power in his eyes,

was borrowed flame.

Behind him shifted beings, the old ones:

not a divine benevolent legion,

but scraps of something darker,

ancient evils of the wilderness,

folded into monstrous forms;

by a master who could only imitate,

true divinity.

He demanded the skies bend,

the storms kneel,

the temples empty for him.

And for a moment,

a brief, cracking moment,

the earth hesitated.

Even the rain paused.

But Ba-’al did not.

The Storm rose,

not in fury,

but in refusal.

He knew the sea,

had loved it once.

This was not it.

This was not him.

This was not Yam.

What followed,

was not war;

but unraveling.

The fake sea god fell;

not in battle,

but in shame,

when the thunder refused to echo his name.

Many of his borrowed legion scattered;

He blamed their weakness.

Called them faithless.

And sent them away.

Some traveling far, settling elsewhere.

But even in defeat,

he smiled;

the way only liars do;

already plotting the next face

he might wear.

[alina-vera-sherwood]

Water Lilies painted by Claude Monet (1840 - 1926)

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When We Were New

We came soft into the world;

all skin and hunger and ash.

Fire was still a wonder,

and the stars hadn't yet earned names.

They followed us out of the wilderness.

The old ones. The bright ones.

The wrathful ones with molten eyes.

The laughing ones who taught us how to,

shape berries into juice and wine.

The gentle ones who knew how to nurture the trees and help them spread across lands.

They whispered into roots,

showed us how to turn grain into power,

blood into promise,

death into story and legend,

prayer into blessing.

Some walked gently,

lifting water from stone and songs from soil.

Others arrived draped in flame,

cloaked in glory,

demanding fear and flattery.

But they all walked with us.

We were their mirror,

and they were never just one thing.

Not gods of peace.

Not gods of ruin.

Just beings with odd abilities,

which granted humanity liberation.

They disagreed.

They warred.

They loved.

Like us.

Humanity has always been varied,

those who desired power and fear and praise,

those who desired peace and bounty for all,

those who don't know what they desired.

No one person is just one thing,

we never have been.

We were flawed and learning,

like we always are,

but so are they.

[alina-vera-sherwood]

Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah!... No, actually, it's Yahweh,

A somewhat notable Deity considered by the ancient Israelite people their National God and first attested from the early 9th century BCE.¹

This c. 1518 painting by Raphael is based on a mystical vision of 𒀭Yahweh attributed to the prophet Ezekiel who belonged to a priestly lineage said to be descended from the legendary Joshua. Ezekiel was active during the time the Kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in the early 6th century BCE. (Public domain)

𒀭Yahweh was also apparently worshipped among the Edomites, the Israelites' southern neighbors, based on a reference to “Yahweh of Teman” in an inscription on an early 8th century BCE jar discovered at the site of Kuntillet Ajrud in the Sinai with Teman being a major Edomite clan.¹ It's believed the Ajrud outpost was established by the northern Kingdom of Israel as the region fell into their domain after a botched invasion by the southern Kingdom of Judah. The two kingdoms were also under the influence of the Neo-Assyrian Empire at this time with contemporaneous Assyrian records noting both Judahite and northern Israelite representatives at the capital city of Kalhu (known as Nimrud in modern times).²

Illustrations of the two vessels from Kuntillet Ajrud with translations. It's debated if the 𒀭Bes-type figures on Pithos A are meant to depict 𒀭Yahweh and His Consort 𒀭Asheratah, but it should be noted the righthand figure does not actually have visible genitals as the outdated illustration here shows.³ (Source)

Although 𒀭Yahweh is primarily associated with monotheistic religion nowadays for obvious reasons, historical evidence indicates He was first worshipped in a polytheistic context as the Israelite culture distinguished itself from the Canaanite milieu it emerged from. This can even be seen within the Hebrew Bible; A wonderful example is found in the Book of Habakkuk in the form of an archaic Hebrew poem describing 𒀭Yahweh and His Company including the Plague-God 𒀭Resheph (His Name is usually mistranslated as “plague” in English Bibles) battling sea monsters. Another one of the most noted can be seen in the Book of Deuteronomy and indicates 𒀭Yahweh was probably worshipped as One of the Seventy (symbolically “many”) Sons of 𒀭El:

⁸ When Elyon apportioned the nations, when He divided humankind, He fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the Gods; ⁹ Yahweh's own portion was His people, Jacob His allotted share.

Deuteronomy 32:8–9 (adapted from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition, 2021)

𒀭Yahweh very much fits the form of other Storm-Gods worshipped in cultures of the Syro-Palestinian region during the Iron Age. The other most famous example of such a Deity is the Levantine manifestation of 𒀭Ba'al Who is cast as 𒀭Yahweh's greatest Rival in the collection of texts within the Hebrew Bible known as the Deuteronomistic history, although the presence of 𒀭Ba'al's name at Ajrud would suggest this conflict is a later idea. It's even been suggested 𒀭Yahweh was originally associated specifically with destructive elements of weather such as flash floods.⁴ Although there are some respectable academic claims of pre-Israelite attestations of 𒀭Yahweh from the Late Bronze Age, none of these are secure and all of them are very much contested.⁵ The scholar Christian Frevel also fascinatingly proposed in 2021 that 𒀭Yahweh was the tutelary Deity of the Omride clan which came to rule the northern Kingdom of Israel for over a century and established its capital of Samaria.¹

A modern artistic impression of a ritual performed by ancient Israelites at the Temple of 𒀭Yahweh in Jerusalem during the Iron Age. The dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem built by King Solomon (c. 1910) by William Hole. (Public domain)

The emergence of monotheism from traditional Israelite belief is an incredibly convoluted topic that I don't intend to get into the weeds of here. One of the most recognizable milestones therein, though, was the religious reforms of King Josiah of Judah shortly before our dear Ezekiel's time. This saw the absolute consolidation of religious authority in the Temple of 𒀭Yahweh at Jerusalem and even the forced closure of all other cultic sites in Judah. However, there's also direct evidence that 𒀭Yahweh continued to be worshipped among other Gods and Goddesses well after the monotheistic, Jerusalem-centric religion which came to be known as Judaism had entered its Second Temple Period.

Most notably a community of Israelites living on the island of Elephantine at ancient Egypt's southern frontier had a Pantheon in which 𒀭Yahweh was associated with the Goddess 𒀭Anat and another God named 𒀭Bethel.⁶ They even had Priestesses of Yahweh and were apparently on good terms with Jerusalem as indicated by the Aramaic-language texts written in Egyptian Demotic script discovered at Elephantine. An analysis of the narrative of Aaron's Rod in the Book of Numbers has also led to the alluring proposition that worship of the famous 𒀭Asherah as 𒀭Yahweh's Consort may have continued even within the Jerusalemite cult itself during this period.⁷

An altar of incense discovered at the site of ancient Ta'anakh. Although it's dated to the tenth century BCE, predating any secure attestations of 𒀭Yahweh, some researchers believe the top and second-to-bottom registers are intended to symbolize Him with His 𒀭Asherah likewise on the alternating registers. (Source)

There's so many fascinating developments being made in archaeology and the study of history unraveling more about the ancient Israelites and the worship of 𒀭Yahweh before our very eyes. I honestly feel incredibly privileged to be alive just in time to witness such a thing. Although I haven't “worked with” 𒀭Yahweh myself within my primarily Canaanite Pagan practice, I'd be very interested to hear and discuss different perspectives on this fascinating ancient Deity and it'd make me very happy to see what some of you think. Shulmu 𒁲𒈬 and thank you so much for reading!

Another thing

Given what part of the world this all concerns, I feel I would be morally remiss to say nothing of the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people in their homeland and particularly in Gaza. I find this important because earlier today the so-called President of the United States Donald Trump expressed the US's intent to “take over” and ethnically cleanse Gaza at a public event alongside Benjamin Netanyahu, the so-called Prime Minister of Israel. In the face of such great evil, I feel obligated by simple virtue of being a human to state I wholeheartedly support the full liberation of Palestine and an end to the unjust and unlawful occupation with all it has wrought. Arab.org is a website which allows you to support Palestinians via a simple click of a button with no donation necessary along with providing further resources. Free Palestine 🇵🇸

References

Frevel, Christian. “When and from Where Did YHWH Emerge? Some Reflections on Early Yahwism in Israel and Judah.” Entangled Religions 12:2 (March 30, 2021). https://doi.org/10.46586/er.12.2021.8776.

Na’aman, Nadav. “Samaria and Judah in an Early 8th-Century Assyrian Wine List.” Tel Aviv 46:1 (January 2, 2019): pp. 12–20. https://www.academia.edu/43169801.

This was clarified by archaeologist Ze'ev Meshel in communication with Nir Hasson reporting for Haaretz, https://www.facebook.com/share/1JASsUsdcN.

Fleming, Daniel E. “Yahweh among the Baals: Israel and the Storm Gods.” Essay. In Mighty Baal: Essays in Honor of Mark S. Smith, edited by Stephen C. Russel and Esther J. Hamori, pp. 160–74. Harvard Semitic Studies 66. Leiden, Netherlands; Boston, Massachusetts, United States: Brill, 2020.

Pfeiffer, Henrik. “The Origin of YHWH and its Attestation.” Essay. In The Origins of Yahwism, edited by Markus Witte and Jürgen van Oorschot, pp. 115–44. Beihefte Zur Zeitschrift Für Die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 484. Berlin, Germany; Boston, Massachusetts, United States: De Gruyter, 2017.

Cornell, Colin. “Judeans and Goddesses at Elephantine.” Ancient Near East Today 7:11 (November 2019). American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR). https://www.asor.org/anetoday/2019/11/Judeans-and-Goddesses-at-Elephantine.

Eichler, Raanan. “Aaron’s Flowering Staff: A Priestly Asherah?” TheTorah.com, 2019. https://www.thetorah.com/article/aarons-flowering-staff-a-priestly-asherah.

[alina-vera-sherwood]

Anat the Canaanite goddess of sexual love, war, and hunting. Progenitress of heroes, lady of Palestine.

Info on each sketch below:

Top right: Anat is shown here in a man's war kilt and her hair pulled up, a nod to the Anat statue head found in Gaza. This is after Baal Hadad's 'death', with her cheeks gouged by grief and face painted to resemble a man's beard. This beard imitation combined with her topless clothing and the horned headdress she wears is to evoke a sense of Baal having risen from the dead to claim revenge.

Bottom Right: An exploration of her musculature, with a focus on the markings on her hips and stomach. Drawn from female Canaanite fertility idols that show similar markings with a lot of emphasis on the navel/bellybutton.

Bottom Left: Anat at the feast of Baal's new palace. She wears expensive, imported Egyptian linens. Her hair is braided, eyelids darkened with kohl, and hands darkened with henna.

Center: Anat's fullbody with lots of influence from historical Palestinian dress. She is shown with a vulture because Aqhat, killed at her order, was eaten by vultures and because Anat is often shown with wing imagery.

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Humanity's Blossom

The other gods, those who did not stay behind. They walked with us. When we stepped beyond the wilderness, they stepped too.

Some led. Some followed. Some waited at the edges of rivers and deserts and mountains, knowing we would arrive. And we did.

Every tribe that sang to the moon.

Every village that marked the solstice.

Every civilization that carved names into stones, they were not abandoned.

They were accompanied.

We didn't fall from grace. We climbed out of fear being pulled up by many powerful and generous hands.

The wilderness is still there, of course. And so is he. But so are the ones who helped us walk away. And they still will, if we let them.

What they call paradise, it was a primal hellscape, it was terror, it was the wilderness.

We were not cast out, we were freed, we were liberated from the grasp of primal animalistic life.

We did not take something that didn't belong to us, we were given gifts that changed our lives from mere survival to a life of wonders and beauty.

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The Gathering.

Our departure into new lands angered gods who thrived from the ways of the wilderness. Some so old that they miss the time before humans emerged, the wilderness was just a second best.

They hummed the tune of a song, not the song of our world but by the song of the wilderness, pounding of hearts and cries of mercy. Their anger did not stop us.

Humanity scattered throughout the North and South, East and West.

After our departure he would gather the angry ones, the ones who thrived in the wilderness. He whispered to the cruel and the cunning. He found those willing to kneel.

Some with warped inhuman figures, others much looking closer to us, all would come to be known to humanity forever.

He always stood with mask, they did not know his true face, no one did, no one would. The mask he presented looked much like us, but larger, more powerful.

He promised them he would lead them in their efforts to continue to consume from humanity but he would need their help.

While he disliked other gods, he knew he needed them for now. See gods were limited, no one god held dominion over all. This was true balance. No god could influence all, no god could know all. In fact multiple gods held similar powers, balancing the tables even further.

He knew dissent, he could spin webs of lies into the human brain. He could cause fear and paranoia. He could cause arrogance and envy. But he needed more.

All the creatures of our world have had skill for survival. Humans had developed a skill and interest for progression beyond survival.

They would combine their powers to cast misery on the humans and force them to retreat. They wanted to make us back into creatures of the wilderness. Return our old fears. Revive our animalistic ways.

They would plot to make us fear again, make us cry once again for their mercy.

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The Gifts

Like with every being, just as complex. No one being held dominion over one thing. Most beings found that they had power for a handful of things, the lighter ones and the darker.

The ones who had watched us, those who did not need our fear to grow, began to reach out. They began to give to us. They would bring a wide array of gifts to assist our survival.

The first key gift was memory beyond survival, not just remembering what you need to merely survive. It was to remember beyond instincts, and of that we began to really learn.

We remembered the shape of the stars. We remembered which stones cut better than others. We remembered where the roots grew deep. We remembered each other's lives. We remembered our strengths in time of fear.

The wilderness was still brutal. Memory wasn't enough to escape the great cycle of eat or be eaten, memory could not alone beat survival of the fittest.

Some gave fire, not to burn, but to warn, to gather and speak, to share knowledge and survival skills.

Others taught us how to grieve the people who you loved when they're gone, how to give them a final celebration and bury them adorned with symbols of their life to honor them.

Some would influence the trees and other plants to thrive and blossom and grow.

Some would fiercely protect those who worshipped them, others would fiercely protect any who they deemed in need of the protection.

Some saw others of their kind who stoked chaos and defeated them to protect the people they had come to love. And then they decided to gift us something beyond, something akin to the first key gift but more.

The ones who knew the gift of creation, they gave the same gifts to us, not the ability to manipulate the elements or make things happen with just a thought. They could not grant us their own power.

They finally gave us the ability to create on our own, once again beyond mere survival. They opened the creativity we had developed already, to let us imagine, imagine ourselves beyond the wilderness, imagine ourselves warm and safe.

Humans have always remembered and created. The gifts of the gods, expanded upon what had been.

Then humans had the first thought of:

"what if this doesn’t have to be the only way, what if we didn't have to stay here?"

Finally imagining that something else could exist beyond the wilderness we stay in. The primal fear didn’t have to rule us anymore. We can find new land. We could create images to pass things on for much longer than our voices could ever last.

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The Storm and the Blade

Somewhere we remember,

when the storm was not fear,

but promise.

When Baal rose,

with arms of rain

and crowned the hills with thunder,

his voice a drumbeat,

summoning life from clay.

Canaan bloomed beneath him.

Wheat bowed in worship.

The orchards bore fruit

without famine or fire,

and the rivers knew his name.

Beside him stood Anat,

the radiant warrior,

goddess of justice and blossom.

Her blade carved peace,

from the jaws of chaos,

and her laughter,

was the lullaby of balance.

Devoted to the storm,

shield of the sacred,

she did not rule from above,

but among us.

Together, they held the land,

like lovers cradling a child.

Not as tyrants,

but as guardians,

bringers of breath,

and firelight in dark places.

But time turned treacherous.

Their names were whispered

only in ruin.

Their faces scraped from stone.

And where they once walked,

a strange god marched,

bearing mercy, from his terror.

Still,

beneath the dust,

the thunder stirs.

And Anat sharpens her blade

on the bones of forgotten altars.

They wait; not in wrath,

but in sorrow,

for the cry of a people

who still remember the rain.

They would return

not with conquest,

but with shelter.

Not with plagues,

but with bread.

If we called,

they would come

to lift the sky and to heal the land.

To remind us who we were,

before we forgot;

gods must earn their worship.

[alina-vera-sherwood]

Masks.

The newer gods made masks, many different ones, but the majority were not so unfamiliar but much more horrifying than even what had ever lived in the wilderness.

These masks were made to terrify. They did not obey human logic. They could blend in and out of our sight, presenting a frightening, familiar, quickly approaching threat one moment and vanishing into thin air the next.

No two people would see the same thing twice. But it was always similar. Something nearly human. A primal fear we did not remember nor understand. We saw something nearly human coming for us. Coming from outside of the wilderness.

The things the gods mirrored our traits crookedly. They always looked wrong. Sometimes inhuman eyes.

Sometimes pale like the dead. Sometimes baring smiles with crocodile teeth. Some with arms and legs as long as trees. Some stared at us with eyes that were not human. Always holding weapons we did not know.

This reminded us of the forgotten fears and shame from our ancestors. Before we were a unique species. Fear of return and revenge.

We had long forgotten those who walked beside us, ones who looked like us with small natural differences.

They were not us but they were not inhuman, just a different kind. We had forgotten what we did to them long ago. How we managed to become a lonely species. Not just a few of them, but entire species. Our survival did not commonly come from peace, that was a terrible gift from the old gods who drank from the chaos of the wilderness.

The old gods commanded terrible sacrifices for shelter from their own power. Unwilling blood.

It was much deeper than fears of the wilderness, it was fear of vengeance and not just that fear of vengeance. The voice would whisper to the that they humans deserve to feel this way, shadows they made humans feel fearful.

Fear was one goal, but dissent was another. If no one saw what you saw, how many would believe you?

This made the witnesses of sinister false visions distrust their peers. They whispered influences of arrogance. The witness was told they had been chosen to see the real horror is actually beyond the wilderness and they were chosen to warn others to never travel outward.

They were messengers, they saw prophecies, they knew the truth, or at least that's what was told to them in the whispers of wind and the echo of a pattern older than time.

The others? They'd reject, they'd dismiss, but not with kindness and understanding, why? They were being fed fears of one they know being a danger to them. For he's seeing things that do not exist, this is not normal. They need to fear this one. They are not safe.

Now the witness felt abandoned and persecuted. The others were scared.

This led to horrible things from both sides, as everyone was fed fears and lies. Humans have always reacted with harsh instinct when they become fearful.

When fear was introduced to us in the wilderness we had only one reaction. Doing whatever meant survival, whatever we thought meant survival, sometimes what they told us meant survival.

They saw the fear they created, and what they had willed us to do, and realized it brought them strength, and they wanted to create more. The more we had to fear, the more they could create, the more they could weaken us.

They didn't bless the trees, they made poisonous fruits flourish, and made the growth of others dependent on sacrifice and worship. The only thing offered was protection from their wraith and it was limited, they only gave mercy of real protection to those who would sacrifice to them and bow to them.

They found how to create human fear, and the secret power within that creation. Not only could they make humans doubt one another out of fear, but they could make them hate one another. Even kill.

They offered no comfort. Only control. Only the ways of the wilderness.

[alina-vera-sherwood]

The Wilderness

They told us it was paradise. But I remember it as wilderness.

Untamed, blood-soaked, and always watching. A place where every sound was a threat, every shadow a hunt, and every breath a gamble. There were no fences but humanity stayed. Some trees had no fruit, just claw marks on bark and bone piles under roots. Others bore fruit that looked appealing but would kill with one bite. Even just trying to survive could be fatal.

The ones who danced among our world's first light, the bright hot magma atop dark hard stone, approached first.

Amused by the terror our world's wilderness cast on who they thought of as the weak beings, those would be our first spiritual attacks.

This was the world before memory, before belief. And as the world turned and grew, many watched, old and new.

There were beings that moved through the wilderness like smoke, older than life on our world and just as varied but. Drawn to drinking the fears of the wilderness.

Fear of what may be stalking us just as we stalk the fauna. Plucking our lives as we pluck blueberries from the bush. For all born in our world must consume to survive. The early ones were movement in the corners of our eyes, a distant noise of something moving behind us, they were humanity's first hauntings. Our fear fed them, our belief, our terror, it gave them more power.

They did succeed with other things too, storms, floods, shaking the earth, causing famine, causing drought. Demanding worship for belief. That brought much power but when other gods unknowingly intervened in their plans by offering humans protection and knowledge, they began to lose grip. Humans no longer prayed for their mercy, we prayed for protection from their terror.

Other gods intervened, turning floods into waters of life for nearby wilting fruit. They brought gentle rain to areas in drought. They whispered to us to connect to one another more closely.

Humans started to string webs of community rather than fear driven isolation. Those gods drawn to old fears could threaten them, they could terrorize, sometimes they did kill but with unity we could learn how to survive as a species once again.

The newcomers dismissed the idea of these methods, the humans had learned to cope and they supported each other. If they want to create true terror they must rip open wounds long healed and create new wounds and never let them heal.

They must terrorize humanity beyond reality.