Book Blurb – Anointed

Anointed: A Devotional Anthology for the Deities of the Near and Middle East
by Tess Dawson and the Editorial Board of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina

You immerse your fingers in the warm sacred oil and sweep the golden liquid across your brow. Pungent myrrh incense billows and the air quivers with the words of an ancient prayer. Oil lamps flood the sanctuary with light and magic of the Near and Middle East.

Anointed is a collection of articles and art, poems and prayers, recipes and rituals inspired by Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Arabia, and the Levant. The Deities honored within include Athirat, Asherah, Baʻal Hadad, Tiamat, Astarte, Yahweh, Ereshkigal, Atargatis, ‘Anat, Inanna, Marduk, Allah, Tanit, Nikkal, Cybele, Attis, Ishtar, El, and more.

Cook a Sumerian dinner. Make a balm for dreams or a set of prayer beads. Celebrate the moon Mesopotamian-style or sing a hymn to a Hurrian Goddess. Learn about the indigenous polytheisms of the Near and Middle East and about their modern revivals. Let the joy of the Deities fill your life.

Anointed is the latest devotional anthology in Neos Alexandria’s Bibliotheca Alexandrina series, a collection of books dedicated to the Gods of Greece, Egypt, Rome, and the surrounding regions.

Book Excerpt – Annointed

Excerpt from “A Ritual State of Mind” by Michele Briere

Getting a ritual together has been a headache. Literally. We need to remember that the old rites were for the temples only, not the general public. The rituals were also a specialized act, each priest had a specific part to which they spent their lives in training and practice. Many of the priest’s functions were passed down in their family, sons taking over for fathers. What few rituals we do have are written as though the reader understood what was happening. Some ritual prayers were written for us, some were not.

The main ritual that has been left to us is the Akitu, the Babylonian New Year Ceremony.¹ I have taken this rite and broken it down to a monthly New Moon rite. From the main New Year Rite to the repair of the temple roof to the re-covering of the temple drum,² which was a major ritual that took the entire temple to complete, each rite contained a great deal of food offerings and thanks to the gods.

The ancient Middle East really didn’t have a calendar as we know it; each city-state had their own rituals which were not necessarily on the same days as other city-states listed them.³ They counted years in the reign of whatever king was currently sitting on the throne. Months were sometimes messy due to the lunar cycle, and the king had the right to order another month put in place if his advisors informed him that more time was needed before the New Year. This straightened out the sometimes uneven years. New Year was twice a year according to our calendar, at the equinoxes. Sumer had two seasons, winter and summer. At the fall equinox, Dumuzi was reborn, released from his time in the underworld. During this time, the fields were sown, the growing plants representing Dumuzi’s return and his fertility in the sheepfold and the fields. At the spring equinox, Dumuzi “died”, returned to the underworld, and his sister, Geshtinanna, was reborn. Her name means Lady of the Vine. Summer was the time of vines.

This period was altered every other year. During the public part of the Akitu, which was a long and loud parade and celebration, the images of the gods were brought into the city, after having been floated down the river on a barge. The main images were of the gods Nabu and Bel, or Marduk. This was Babylonian, so Enki can be substituted for Marduk in the Sumerian rite, although I really don’t see them as being that close in character. I honestly don’t know how the “–ologists” came up with Marduk as a fertility image.

This parade of the gods represented fertility returning to the city. While one city was replanting their fields, the other city was letting their fields rest.

The Akitu spoke very strongly to me, but it took about fifteen days to complete, and needed a full temple of priests. I have altered this ritual for modern use. I first broke down the Akitu into steps, and then I took out the steps that were no longer applicable to modern, Western times, such as removing the role of the king. It can now be used for solitary use or as a group effort. These steps are in the order of the original Akitu festival, only simplified, with repetitive actions removed.

Writing a ritual can be tricky. Rituals can be as simple as being still for a moment and acknowledging the gods in a thank you, or getting out the arts and crafts box and giving a room or yard an overhaul.

Having taken the Akitu apart and separating the outdated material from what can still be used, and keeping the remaining steps in order, I spent an hour outside in our backyard walking through the format of the rite. After scratching my head in frustration, I realized why it wasn’t quite jiving—I was using my housemate’s circle. The temple rites were done in a temple. Duh! So I drew a rectangle in the dirt at the other end of the yard, drew the main altar in the northwest corner and the offering altar in the southeast corner, as stated noted in archaeological excavations. I stepped in from the east, and everything suddenly clicked together.

The main temples stood about seven stories high: mountains in that time period.⁴ At the top of the temple was a smaller penthouse, the gipar, which was the private sanctuary of the temple god, a place where only the high priest or high priestess, called the En, could enter. Steps ran the height of the temple on the east side.  The east was a place of beginning because it was where the sun arose each morning and the moon arose each evening. The west was the entrance to the underworld, the direction where the sun and moon set and presumed to be resting in the underworld. The sun was there daily, but since the moon is sometimes seen in the daylight, the moon only journeyed there once a month, during invisible moon when it was completely dark. New moon began about seven days later when the first crescent appeared.

The gods could be found in both heaven and the underworld. North represents heaven and west represents the underworld so I believe that the main altar should be in the northwest corner. East symbolizes fire, and south corresponds to earth; both fire and earth are transformative properties, so I believe the offering table was in the southeast corner. These are my own reasons, so there is no reference for this other than studying the myths for the cosmology.

The path of the sun was important, so entering the temple from the east seems logical to me. I follow the path of the sun from east to west and continuing around back to the east and I walk to the north, west, south, and back to east. I’m not going to get silly about this and insist that people turn only one way while in ritual, but for the purpose of entering, exiting, cleansing, and smudging, let’s follow the solar course.

Book Excerpt – In Plain Sight

Ninah narrowed her eyes as she looked down the street. Her store was on her right, and the sheriff’s office another couple blocks beyond. The street itself moved to the northeast for about a quarter mile and then made a sharp turn northwest, continuing until it hit the 5 to Shoreline and eventually into Everett. The old road to the old house behind Ninah’s store cut off the main street just before the NE-NW bend in the road, turning east, going through several poorer neighborhoods, coming down a little southeast, and then into the woods until it ended up a mile behind the store.

“Irra, please get Thayer, grab a credit card from the drawer, go to the feed store, and get three large bags of rock salt. Meet me back at my store. People, we are going monster-bashing.” She whipped around and marched back to her store.

While a few people in the group caught onto the whole telepathy thing, the other half found it helpful to know the technique. They, too, were feeling better after Evan’s impromptu lesson, and their own talents were clarified for the short time spent with him. The lesson would be taken back to their clans and taught to others.

When people filled cars, jeeps and trucks, and set out with bags of salt, shovels, picks and jars of water, and with maps in hand to find their way around the woods to circle their quarry, folks tended to take notice. The weird pagans were up to something.

Ninah knew Severance wasn’t going to like it, and would probably tell her off when he got home, but she was getting that house be-damned to any slimy alien that decided to take a squat. She might have to actually tell him he wasn’t her boss.

Irra took the lead vehicle, instead of his bike, while Ninah held the rear. Just as she was pulling out, a car stopped in front of the store. She would have ignored it except for the universe shifting when the man stepped onto the pavement. He shimmered. He was one of them.

“Pardon me,” he said, stepping out of the way of her car. “I was looking for Ninah Adams.”

“Are you Aaron?” Ninah asked, recognizing his voice from the phone. He had a slight accent that she was still trying to place. He was tall, his light brown hair trimmed into a modern, professional style, and his business-casual attire looked expensive.

“Yes,” he said, surprised. “Mz. Adams?”

“Ninah,” she said. Ninah now knew why Karrin had the man in charge of the Seattle office.  “Hop in.” Startled, Aaron squeezed into the front next to Grandmother who patted his knee.

“We’re going to stomp on aliens,” she told him with a pleased smile. “You can help. Just call me Grandmother. In the back is Waterfall and Morag.”

From the scattered cycles of his energy, they knew Aaron wasn’t trained; he probably wasn’t even aware of his own Talent.

“Uh… aliens?” he questioned. “Illegal immigrants?”

“From way up,” Grandmother said, nodding her head with a twinkle in her eyes.

“Just stay with me, Aaron,” Ninah told him. “Ladies, Aaron worked for Karrin; he headed the Seattle office, and I believe he’s now in charge. Did you want anything in particular?” The others in the back reached to touch his shoulder. He didn’t realize it, but they also helped to calm his energies.

“Uh….oh, yes, just an informal meeting to talk about house plans,” he said. He winced at a fast turn and squealing tires, and grabbed the door handle in order to keep from falling into the old lady’s lap. “I called your store and the young man who answered told me to come up.”

Ninah would have to discuss the concept of ‘appointments’ with Thayer.

“Not a problem,” she said. “We’ll be going by the house, so you’ll be able to see it.”

Book Blurb – In Plain Sight

In Plain Sight
by Michele Briere

The little gray aliens have been taking people from Earth for thousands of years. When a pilot kidnapped from Earth crash lands one of their ships in the Thayan Empire, an empire populated by millions of humans with Earth ancestry living side by side with the tall, furry, felinoid Thayans, the Thayan government decides it’s time to find Earth and do something about the reaping. The Thayans didn’t count on help from magic-wielding Earthers.

Written by a Pagan for the Pagan audience, and anyone else who likes to have fun with their science fiction, this story is filled with humor, love, laughter, adventure, drama, space ships and magic.

Featured Author Interview – Michele Briere

AM – This week we are proud to welcome Michele Briere as our Featured Author.  Michele is the self-published author of In Plain Sight and also has an essay in the Anointed anthology from Bibliotheca Alexandrina.  Thank you for taking the time to join us today!

MB – Thanks for having me!

AM – Please tell us a little more about yourself.

MB –  I am 45, an annoying Aquarian, and I have a cat named Tiger Lily who taught herself to play fetch. I’ve been a practicing Pagan since 1985, and was called by the Sumerian pantheon around 1991.

AM – How did you get started as a writer?

MB – I’ve always had characters and story lines in my head, but I didn’t know how to write them out. Then, during the 5^th or so season of X-Files, I discovered fan fiction. After spending a summer reading all the fan fiction I could, I decided that I could write better stories than a lot of what I was reading. My first story was 3 pages long, and when I was done I felt as though I had given birth to a full grown cow! By a year later, I was doing 20 page stories, and I had won an online fanfic award for an X-Files series I had written called ‘White Picket Fences’.

AM – Tell us more about In Plain Sight.

MB –  I had about 3 story lines going through my head for many years. A few of the characters I had developed since about 6^th grade. I couldn’t figure out which story I wanted to write, and when I did try to write one of them, I somehow managed to write myself into a corner. It finally occurred to me to make all three stories into one story. Some books stay with one main character, other books jump aound to different characters until the story line brings them all together. When I tried it that way, the story began to work. This story turned into ‘In Plain Sight’.

I’ve never been a fan of vampires, or of stories that contain more gratuitous sex than an actual story. Unfortunately, these are the types of stories that have been the main book sellers for the past few years. So I decided to make my story light-hearted, sci-fi/fantasy. I wanted my Pagan characters to be as real as possible, including rituals and magic. While I did take some liberties with the reality of magic, I kept it as real as I could.

The story itself is about a clan of Pagans living just north of Seattle, in a fictional town called New Babylon. When an alien ship crashed in a field in New Babylon, we discover that it was shot down by a newly arrived fleet from another sector of the galaxy. Our clan becomes involved with the new fleet while developing a higher level of magic, and telepathic abilities taught by one of their new friends from the main ship that is standing guard over the Earth while the other ships deal with the evil Udug aliens. The Udug are the familiar gray aliens with the large black eyes.

Chapters go back and forth between our Pagan clan and things happening on our guardian ship, the Sentinel, which is commanded by Rick Myles, a human that had been originally taken from earth many years earlier by the Udug but ended up in the Thayan Empire (the newly arrived aliens) by an accident. Rick takes very little seriously unless the situation calls for it.

As our clan develops new abilities, a few people in the Thayan fleet are also developing abilities. The main question is why and how is this happening to them, and why is it only happening to a select few.

Most of the characters are combinations of people I have met; no character is completely one person I know, so no one can point and say, ‘that’s me.’ There is also a little bit of me in all the characters.

AM – What inspired you to write this book?

MB –  One of my fan fics is a Stargate story called ‘Anunnaki,’ with it’s follow-up, ‘Unification.’ I love Stargate but was becoming irritated with all the use of Pagan gods as snake-infested bad guys, while none of the Judeo-Christian themes were used until that ridiculous ‘Ori’ crap and it’s Armageddon theme. So I made my fanfic with the Sumerian gods written in as good guys. I did get an online fan award for this series.

I loved the original characters I had developed for this series of stories, so most of my main characters for ‘In Plain Sight’ are based on the characters from ‘Anunnaki/Unification.’ I tossed in a couple from my X-Files series, ‘White Picket Fences’, too. Since I was unable to publish the two sets of series as my own work, due to the copyright issues, I rearranged things a little, created a story that was completely my own, and published it as an e-book.

AM – Why did you choose to self publish?  What kind of response have you received?

MB – I chose to self-publish because I knew my story wasn’t good enough for a traditional publishing company, and yet I had fun writing it, I knew a lot of people had fun reading my fan fics, and this was the only way I could forgo the publishers who use medieval contracts and keep 70% of the earnings. I also have issues with destroying trees for all this.

I’ve had a few sales of the e-book, but not much. I think the main problem is that I don’t have money to advertise properly. The story is fun, lots of humor, a little drama, some action and adventure, and magic, but if people don’t know it’s there, they can’t buy it.

AM – Tell us a little more about the Anointed anthology.

MB – The book is made up of stories, hymns, praises, rituals and drawings dedicated to the Near Middle Eastern gods and goddesses. Egyptian was left out, mainly because there are so many books already on the market for that pantheon. At least, I think that’s what Tess said. Something to that affect.

My offering is called “A Ritual State of Mind.’ Since most of the books on the market are Wiccan/Celtic-oriented, and my Sumerian pantheon is not, I had to reinvent the wheel. I had to figure out a suitable ritual for Sumerians on my own. Unfortunately, the Sumerians and Babylonians didn’t leave us much written for rituals; writings assumed the reader would know what ‘priest so-and-so will now recite the yadda-yadda prayer’ meant. The Sumerians had even less than the Babylonians with written rituals. I had to figure out the cosmology/cosmogony of the pantheon, because the temple is ‘heaven on earth’, which means the home of the gods on earth. The temple can’t conduct ritual properly if cosmology isn’t understood. Ritual is done a certain way for a reason, not for cute dramas.

So I took the most complete ritual, which is the Babylonian Akitu Festival, the New Years festival, and I broke it down into steps. The Babylonians focused mostly on gods and king, so their rites tended to be political. The Sumerians are more elemental, being about 2000 years older than Babylon, so I removed all the political aspects of the ritual, and continued to break it down until I had what I felt was close to Sumer’s elemental-based rites.

My offering in this anthology is the steps I took to create a basic new moon ritual for modern Sumerian Pagans.

AM – What can we expect to see from you next?

MB – At the moment, I am working on the second book in the ‘Kala’ama’ series, “In Plain Sight’ is the first book, and I’m working on a Sumerian Magic book.

AM – As an author, what do you think is the most important piece of advice that you would give an unpublished writer?

MB – Write. It doesn’t matter what you write, just write. Practice with fan fiction, if that would be of interest; the ‘universe’ of the series is already laid out. Established characters already have a personality and history, and canon for that series is set. Think of fan fiction as training wheels on a bike. Find other writers whose stories you like, and start to develop a relationship with them. Ask them for help and advise. Once you get the hand of writing, start using your own characters. If fiction isn’t your thing, keep a daily or weekly journal. Just find something to write about and do it.

AM – Where can we go to learn more about you and purchase your books?

MB – I’m on Facebook. Come and find me. My homepage contains things that I find of interest; lots of Sumerian myths, articles, and my stories. The links to my e-book and the new anthology book can all be found on my FB info page and on my homepage at www.thelapisgates.com. The first chapter of ‘In Plain Sight’ is free on my homepage.

AM – We appreciate you spending some time with us today Michele!  We wish you continued luck with In Plain Sight and with your other future writing endeavors.

MB – Thank you for this time to talk!