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Polytheist Ramblings: Nisaba

I was going to title this “Finding Sanctuary”, but I think this fits with my little series better.

I talk a lot about other gods, because their influences are many-layered. It’s easy to talk about a goddess of the mountains when you live there, or a god of the furious sun when you’re melting. But how to talk about a goddess you’re sworn to? There’s something about the relationship that just won’t out with words, which is ironic considering.

My Lady Nisaba colored like the stars, whose body is the flecked barley, She who holds the Book of Names and who had a hand in the creation of her scribes, the goddess I revere and adore, is... as I said, words fail. Except for the part where she literally IS the written word. And then I’m laughing at my laptop screen again.

But my mind was wandering the other day, and I started mentally constructing a hypothetical temple. Something small and unobtrusive, but interesting. Maybe someplace busy, like New York, with the old back-alley surprise shops and classy old courtyards surrounded by sprouting skyscrapers. I’m rather attached to America, but I could see something similar in London. Either way, some sort of divot in the walls of glass and steel, a high-walled courtyard with a heavy door. But the door is left open, and the walls are soft with vines. It’s guarded by twin stone lions. The same ones you sometimes see in the yards of people trying too hard to look regal, maybe. But it’s an old practice. Probably inspired by the New York Library. Possibly a reflection of the statues that guarded kings and old polytheist temples. Either way, there would be lions, and maybe a carving of the Anzu Bird over the lintel.

In this hypothetical little sacellum, no if ands or buts about it, there would be a public bookcase or two. I’ve seen them around town, and they’re absolutely brilliant. The paving stones would be covered in all sorts of book quotes in as many languages as I could convince a mason to try, including Braille. At the back there would have to be a statue, and some of my thinking is probably inspired by when I wandered Granada and would stumble on an aljibe with a mosaic of the Virgin over it. In my head this looks a little bit close to the Madonna, and I’m not sure what I think of that. But there’d be a little plaque on the wall explaining who she is, and a basket or two for whatever a person might want to offer. I like the idea of a prayer box, I’ve seen those before, where you write on a slip of paper and it stays in the box as a secret. Or the papers are burned. Either way, both fit with the goddess of the written word and the old ways of burning offerings to lift your prayers skyward.

I have a lot of ideas, and no real means or resources to focus on them, but ideas are nice. I was thinking about this temple idea, and I wondered to myself what her sacred animal would be. There’s no record of one. Lions and bulls and dragons are all staple parts of the old hymns, but... I wanted to see if anything had developed over the years. In America we’ve developed this idea of giving teachers an apple, which is why I offer them to her. We associate twin lions with libraries because of the New York Library. Maybe there was more, hiding away with the book curses and scriptoriums.

I typed “Ten Most Iconic Libraries” into Google.

A good percentage of them are related to monasteries, which makes sense. Some of them had royal sponsorship at one point or another. There’s nods to their local history, the obvious relish of architects given room to play, some modernized and some stately old monuments. But there was one little detail that kept popping up in the descriptions: quite a few of the oldest libraries had a... symbiotic relationship of sorts with resident bats.

Bats and small birds like to hole up in unusual places, true. Check out your local mall food court and keep an eye out in the airport as you drag your suitcase down the moving sidewalk to see for yourself what I mean. But apparently your friendly neighborhood pest control has a taste for bookworms.

(For the record, the term ‘bookworm’ refers to any insect with a taste for literature. This extends to moths who eat cloth bindings and beetles who tunnel through the paper like wood, as well as the beetles after your leather tomes.)

In ancient Sumer, bats and birds were associated with Nanshe, especially pelicans. More specifically, owls were associated with lilitu-demons and possibly Ereshkigal. But then, their libraries more closely resembled the cooling rack at your local college pottery class. Not something many bookworms wanted to nibble.

Cultures change and religions evolve. I think I’ve found my answers, at least to this question. Especially considering how sometimes the endless shelves remind me of a quiet crypt (Seriously, my first time in a proper old crypt that was my first comparison). Maybe I’m obsessive and seeing connections, maybe bats are my favorite animal and I’m biased. But it’s interesting, to see the evolution of the gods. It’s interesting, to run the thought experiments, to ask the “what if”s, to make yourself at home on the outskirts and then see places where society has already met you in the middle, unnoticed.

For that matter, colophons are pretty cool too.

Nisaba za3-mi2-zu dug3-ga-am3

Do you think that if dr.pepper and doc Martens were real people they would be friends, enemies, lovers.

Personally I think that they would make a cute enemies to lovers trope

Do you think that if dr.pepper and doc Martens were real people they would be friends, enemies, lovers.