September ‘24 1-to-1 Wiseletter (Enuma Elish)

In September's 1-to-1 Wiseletter, I'll be breaking down a verse from the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation epic, in the book The Old Testament in the light of the ancient East, by Alfred Jeremias.

Marduk battles Tiamat (Image source: Torah.com)

Quote

"He who fixes the course of the stars of heaven, like sheep shall pasture the gods all together."
-The Old Testament in the light of the ancient East

The Enuma Elish is a product of the dark period of violence and war that followed the collapse of Bronze Age civilization.
In it, the creator-ruler of the universe, Marduk, battles and ultimately destroys Tiamat, mother goddess of chaos. He dismembers her body and lays out its pieces to make the world. He sets them down as the rivers, the mountains, the forests, the sky and so on.

This image is a precursor to the Old Testament (Yahweh slays Leviathan who lives in the sea) and the basis of a Western metaphysic: order taming chaos. It's the most violent rendition of that fundamental dialectic, probably because of the historical period in which it was conceived.

Marduk creating the world out of Tiamat's body is the equivalent of the act of masculine spirit condensing energy into feminine matter or, put in more modern Quantum Mechanical terms, an observer (Consciousness) turning waves of light into particles by act of observation. This creates the world.

The cosmic situation before observation is a sea of potential awaiting some force to snap it into shape. This act "breaks" or "dismembers" the dark unity (Mother Earth) into a visible, ordered multiplicity (rivers, the mountains, the forests, the sky etc.). In psychological terms, the story of Marduk and Tiamat is the story of Consciousness emerging out of its eternal sleep inside of the Unconscious.

Marduk is the Pole who fixes the course of the stars of heaven, the axis around which the universe revolves, the epicenter of order.

The energy inhabiting our bodies that moves our monkey flesh--what we might call spirit or consciousness (or even "myself")--is this Pole. Isn't it true that when you look around you see the world happening around you? You appear to be at the center of it. Your physical and mental orientation operates from the center of everything.

Marduk is the Shepherd who pastures the gods all together.

Freud and Jung discovered that the ancient gods were living forces of the psyche, archetypal patterns of behavior (Zeus=King/Tyrant, Hephaestus=Creative/Magician, Aphrodite=Love/Lust, Ares=Anger/War and so on). The gods' collective cooperation equated to a stable (but not stagnant) cosmos. In the same way, the collective cooperation of the parts of our psyche equates to a stable (but not boring) life.

The fathers of modern psychology noticed with alarm that the gods, ignored or forgotten by modern man, fell underground, degenerated, and arose as disorders of the mind: phobias, anxiety, and neuroses. Without a unifying force to thread them together (Marduk, Zeus), they threaten to destabilize the psyche.

In our own lives, we are called to be the Pole--a magnetic force that attracts the chaotic elements of life into cooperative orbit around us--and the Shepherd, a guide that corals our disparate and sometimes competing desires and needs (gods) into a unity so that we can move toward our goals.

Fixing the course of the stars of heaven and shepherding the gods together requires no conscious effort on your part. You're already doing it by your nature of existing. Knowing this power to be inherent, you can now take on life's greatest and most difficult responsibilities and watch as it gives way to you, rewarding you for the courage to take the leap, but never ceasing to test you along the way to make sure you're worthy.

QUESTION

What additional responsibility should you take on in your life?

Cheers,

John

October ‘24 1-to-1 Wiseletter (Plotinus)

August ‘24 1-to-1 Wiseletter (Norman Austin)