Ritual and a Sumerian Sister Story with Deborah Lipp

Untitled project from SquadCast

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[00:00:00] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Hello everybody and welcome to Dine with the Divine. My name is Ashley and I'm going to be your host into the wonderful world of the magical, the mystical, and everything in between. So today we're going to talk a little bit about the elements of ritual and the goddess in Anna. So today, as usual, we have an absolutely fantastic guest.

[00:00:25] We have Deborah Lip. Deborah Lip has been teaching Wicca, magic, and the occult for over 35 years. I'll guard. I never say this I'm going to try. a guard, a gardener, a gardenerian, witch.

[00:00:38] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: Go durian!

[00:00:39] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Okay, thank you. And high priestess. Debra has been featured in many pagan publications, and has appeared in various media, including Coast to Coast, AM radio, the A& E documentary, Ancient Mysteries, Witchcraft in America, and the New York Times.

[00:00:54] She's an international speaker and author of more than 10 books, including [00:01:00] Magical Power for Beginners and Bending the Binary. How are you doing today?

[00:01:05] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: I'm great. Thank you for having

[00:01:07] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: problem. I'm happy you're here so I would love if you are willing for you to share with us how your journey with wicca began

[00:01:18] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: Oh my goodness. So I was initiated into the Gardnerian tradition in

[00:01:24] 1982.

[00:01:25] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Yeah,

[00:01:26] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: before you were born.

[00:01:28] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: awesome, that's what

[00:01:31] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: um, you know, it was hard, it was hard to find when there wasn't an internet. And I really felt very isolated. I also first started seeking I didn't know there was a thing called Wicca, but witchcraft and magic and all of that. I started seeking that when I was a teenager. So naturally people were a little weird about they didn't want a teenager. Um, so it took me a while. It took me actually several years of seeking. And then I found a group in [00:02:00] 1981. And. I was very lucky. I was very lucky. That was a wonderful group with led by a wonderful high priestess who has since passed on. I stayed with that group until I started my own group. And I know a lot of people get bounced around and have like tragic stories of the crazy lunatics that they meet and they can't. And then, and groups can be very dysfunctional. Um, but that was not my journey. My journey was, I I started to understand that I wanted to worship the old gods.

[00:02:33] And I started to understand that there was something inside me that was magic. And I wanted. Training. I didn't want to make it up on my own. I was making it up on my own, and I didn't want that. I wanted to get involved with experienced people and get training and, you know, become something with it. And I found a group and that was it. It was home. It was home Right away.[00:03:00]

[00:03:03] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: A lot of people listening to this I don't know how many of you listening to this do not remember the days before the internet. Yes, finding these types of things was not easy. Even when I was younger, finding stuff about Magical stuff, especially if you go to the library, like there was limited books.

[00:03:21] Even on the web, like there was limited information. You had a couple random people who had websites about it. It was like really rough out here. Like

[00:03:32] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: It was very hard to connect to people and bookstores freaked me

[00:03:35] out. Every book on magic had like the black cover with the dripping red letters and I. I was so freaked out by it and not even because I thought it was creepy, but because I was sure it was fake

[00:03:50] that looked like so much bullshit to me.

[00:03:53] And I just was looking for something real. And what actually happened is because [00:04:00] I'm from the New York area. I used to listen to Margo Adler on the radio. She was a local radio personality and my mother used to listen to her all the time. So when drawing down the moon. I saw that in the bookstore and I was like I know her. I bought it and that was my first book. And earlier editions of the book had like addresses for contacts in the

[00:04:23] back. And that was how I got started.

[00:04:27] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: wow Yes. Oh my gosh. Remember when the back of books? Yeah, they used to have

[00:04:33] Yes, they used to have addresses and like you could even write the author if you wanted to and maybe you still can but now people would just email them but like You yeah, they used to have the address and you could send the letter to the publisher or it would have the address of like other Publisher Local groups or local associations and you could oh, those were the days and you would wait for the letter back Oh, it was very [00:05:00] exciting.

[00:05:00] Yeah

[00:05:03] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: Yep. That was how it was. Send a self addressed stamped envelope with anything you wrote. Yeah. And of course, books out for a year and half the addresses in the back of the book are defunct, but it's the best you could do in those days.

[00:05:15] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: It's true, oh, I'm so glad you were able and another thing you said which I think is wonderful Is I'm glad that you were able to find a group That was that you felt so comfortable in and you had a really Knowledgeable person leading the group. That's awesome because you're right.

[00:05:32] There's a lot and I think i'm not i'm I won't say if it's better or worse at this point I'm not gonna say that but it's with the intranet and with everybody kind of being like a Google Scholar. It's, it's like, it's a real hit or miss out here now. It's really, I think, great that you found somebody who you were able to trust and a group you're able to work with and feel safe.

[00:05:57] That's great.[00:06:00]

[00:06:02] Okay, so we're gonna go to our dish of the week because we have a lot to chat about. Our dish of the week this week is

[00:06:14] anyway, so let me at least tell you guys what book this is. This is A Kitchen Witch's Cookbook. Which is super fun. It's Patricia Telasco. And we've talked about, we've used her book before. And there's a lot of really good Recipes in here. So we're gonna do

[00:06:34] Okay, let's do this one guys we're gonna do lemon chicken so As she says in the book in hindu lands mangoes are often used in love potions And we do talk about love later in the episode. So this goes. Thank you lemon adds clarity to romance ginger adds a little liveliness and lime adds a little zest So on this lemon chicken from polynesia You We've got [00:07:00] it's two chicken breast cubed a tablespoon of grated ginger root, half a tablespoon of grated lime peel, half a tablespoon of grated orange peel, one tablespoon lime juice, one tablespoon lemon juice, two green onions, mince, one clove of garlic mince, two tablespoons olive oil, one cup chicken broth, one cup, one tablespoon soy sauce, one lemon thinly sliced, two tablespoons of cornstarch, one cup of cubed mango, Half a teaspoon of sugar and a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon a lot of ingredients But it sounds like it's going to work well together What you'll do here is you're going to saute the chicken ginger root lemon peel orange peel lemon juice lemon lime juice lemon juice onions and garlic In the olive oil until the chicken is white and then you're going to add Chicken broth soy sauce and lemon and you're gonna simmer that stir it [00:08:00] up and simmer for 15 minutes Mix in the cornstarch with 3 tablespoons Oh, sorry, y'all did three tablespoons water until smooth and then you're going to add chicken a little bit at a time and stir constantly Then you're going to mix in mango cinnamon and sugar simmer in the mango Until the mango is warm and the thick the sauce is thick and this tastes really good with rice You could reduce the mango to one to half a cup and add a half a cup of cute papaya for passion if you like this is really good for magical the magical reasons for this are good Romantic love dreams and happily ever after scenarios And if you're celebrating engagements vow news vow renewals Hansel Monday, hand fastings, valentines, and sweetest days and anniversaries.

[00:08:49] This is all so good. Okay, and like I said, it's from A Kitchen Witch's Cookbook, which I really love this book. Okay, so that's our dish of the week. So [00:09:00] now we're going to go to our tea time. So today we're going to be talking about one of the many books that Debra has published, and this book is called The Elements of Ritual.

[00:09:10] So I'm going through this book, and I'm like, what are we going to talk about today? Everybody knows what the elements are. This is not something that I think we need to review in depth. So I was like, what part of the book do I think we should talk about? And I picked a part of the book where we talk about the center, which I feel like is always People always forget about not even forget but like you talk about you know Especially like I do a lot of tarot.

[00:09:34] So people always say, what's associated with the tarot suits We don't really talk about the center too much And like how we feel about it and like what we're going to talk about but in the center In Debra's book, she writes the center, here are some of the steps for the center of a ritual.

[00:09:50] You're going to invoke the gods, giving offerings to the gods, cakes and wine, which is receiving the blessings of the gods and using the blessings. [00:10:00] So why I like to talk about why I picked this is you go, what I really like about your book is you go over each other element and you talk about what, like to make sure you're picking deities.

[00:10:12] That you want to invoke from those different elements, too. Like, one that has to do with fire, one that has to do with air, one that has to do with earth. I really like that. And the other thing I really like that you talk about in here, and I feel like people don't do it so much, is when you are trying to bring a deity into your ritual, your practice, I think it's really important, I totally agree with you, you have to know a lot about the deity, not a ton, you don't have to be a scholar.

[00:10:40] But I see a lot of people being like, I'm going to invoke so and and then they just it falls flat. And then people will be like, I don't understand why it fell flat. I think sometimes if you don't really know the culture of that deity, if you're offering that deity, like whatever you got on hand and not something specifically that they may [00:11:00] like, I'm not saying you have to go and like, buy something expensive, but you need to if you can't just give like somebody apples.

[00:11:07] You can't just be like, oh this deity wants apples when they've never said they liked apples, or you've never read anything, or even in the part of the world they're from, apples don't grow. They might not understand why you're giving them apples and be like, eh. I think it's really important that we learn a lot about the deities that we're talking to and I really like how you have a section you talk about like pagan, paganism and like one God versus, How do you say it in the book?

[00:11:39] Do is Do theism versus poly theism, but it's like, it's all one and the same. But I never even thought of it as like two different ways of thinking. I didn't even realize that.

[00:11:51] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: Yeah, those are very different concepts. And so what I structure the book around is I use the elements to just structure around different topics.

[00:11:59] Air is [00:12:00] all the thinking stuff. It's the theology. It's the ideas. It's why do you do what you do?

[00:12:04] And one of the reasons that I wrote the book was because like, I got really frustrated that nobody seemed to know why they were doing what they were doing. They were just doing things. You know what I mean? And there wasn't really anything out there that would say there were so many books in the eighties and in the nineties, there were like hundreds of books that were here.

[00:12:24] Here's paganism 101. Here's gods and here's how to do a little ritual in his, but that like, why am I doing this? And if I don't know why I'm doing it, like I have no mastery

[00:12:33] over it. Like, I can't change it so I started, so the air is the theology and the water is the mythology and the earth is all the really practical stuff, how you do what you do and how, like, not to accidentally step in a hole when you're. Doing a ritual, which, happens.

[00:12:51] Break your ankle during ritual and fire is the mysticism. So every single thing that you do in ritual, I've broken down into those [00:13:00] four

[00:13:00] So when we talk about invoking the gods in, when I talk about air, I'm like, what does it mean to believe in? polytheism is there's so many nuances,

[00:13:12] right? Polytheism means many gods, but are you a hard polytheist? Means every God is an individual God the same way. Every person is an individual person, or are you a soft polytheist? Which means that the gods are. Named beings, but ultimately they're all

[00:13:30] one or do a theism is that everything comes down to this dual universe where everything is either the goddess and the

[00:13:39] There's two and so all of these are different beliefs and there's a, dozens and dozens of sort of shades of gray in between those big broad categories, but I just want to give people tools where they can make their own decision.

[00:13:53] I am not interested in telling anybody what to

[00:13:56] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Yeah,

[00:13:57] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: I am interested in telling people [00:14:00] what's available to them and what, what they might believe and what that implies. And what I don't want is for you to decide that you are a soft polytheist and all gods are. are one, but your ritual is structured in a way that is more consistent with like a hard polytheist, each of these is a specific and separate individual, or vice

[00:14:26] versa, Have what you do in your pagan practice be consistent with what you say you believe. Isn't that a good idea?

[00:14:40] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Did you? Already know how you wanted to frame it or when you, as you went on, did you figure out like exactly why you were doing what you were doing?

[00:14:52] Or were you at first a lot of people just doing it? Cause it's like, this is what they say I should do. And I'm not exactly sure why,

[00:14:58] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: always asked a lot of questions. [00:15:00] So I absolutely, I was, first of all, I was 21 when I. When I first became a witch. I was

[00:15:06] young Very eager to be told what to

[00:15:08] do. Really, I wasn't satisfied with doing it on my own. I wanted a teacher. So tell me what to do. I'm going to

[00:15:14] do it. But. At the same time, I wanted to be told what to do because I wanted it to

[00:15:22] work. So tell me why this works and doing it some other way doesn't work. And sometimes like my teacher would say do it this way, because this way works in this other way, doesn't. And I would be like, and I would try it the other

[00:15:34] Oh, you were right. That sucked. And. Because we've all been, I think if you've been involved in the pagan community for a minute, we've all been to bad rituals.

[00:15:44] We've all been to boring rituals. We've all been to rituals where no energy was anywhere to be

[00:15:50] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: yeah, So let's not do that, the idea was always like, let's do the thing that works and the number one, like rule [00:16:00] of ritual is this works creates a consistent metaphysical paradigm. That gets you from beginning to end with, amazing energy and feeling good. I've been doing this now for 42 years.

[00:16:15] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: Like, what you need in your paganism is to be good enough at it that it sustains you. Like, it needs to keep you going. You know what I'm saying? Like, there are a million things out there in the world that you can do for five years.

[00:16:34] And then you're going to get bored and walk

[00:16:35] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: yeah,

[00:16:37] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: but in order to do it for 42 years, it has to really be rich and complex and consistent and smart. It has to be all of those things.

[00:16:46] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: That's that's a very good point. Also getting, I would think I would think, you've been doing this, like you said, for 42 years, like quite a while. But because of like Everybody's spiritual connection is different And if you [00:17:00] don't feel it, like if you're feeling like it's lacking obviously then that You won't want to keep doing like you're saying after five years.

[00:17:08] She'll be like, ah, this is not good This is not working. This is sucks. Like and it all the relationships that a lot of us have with deities or Spirit and whatever you want to call it. It's something that needs to be nurtured and worked on right? You Like,

[00:17:25] Yeah.

[00:17:26] so having, so realizing that and having a guide like yours here to at least get you to the point where you're like, okay, I can structure a ritual that I can use to continue to foster this relationship.

[00:17:40] I think is super, super helpful to a lot of people.

[00:17:45] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: The intention was to be

[00:17:46] helpful,

[00:17:47] What you said about not knowing. anything about the deity you worship. I think if we're pagans and we worship gods, whatever we conceive those gods to be, we should be respectful [00:18:00] of them. You know what I mean? If I have a person come to my house for dinner, Before I go out and buy, ingredients for my dinner, I'm going to ask them, do you have allergies?

[00:18:13] Do you have favorite foods? Um, are you a vegan or something? Or are you kosher? Like, what restrictions do I need to adhere to? And what Can I do that will make you feel comfortable and welcome. And if I'm going to treat a person that way, I'm definitely going to treat a God that

[00:18:32] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I see. And I just see a lot of the,

[00:18:42] and like I've talked about this before and I don't wanna, I'm not trying to be rude to anybody, but I see a lot of the wi with the witchy aesthetic has come a lot of people just saying that they want to do stuff and not doing any research into it. There's a lot of that and that's why I brought that up before [00:19:00] because I was like.

[00:19:01] It's we have so much information now, you can go, you can literally go on just Wikipedia. If you decide that you're like, you know what, I really want to maybe work with this deity. You can literally just go on Wikipedia and read about them. And it will give you the history. It'll tell you what region of the world they're from.

[00:19:17] It'll tell you about some of their followers. It might tell you about some of the rules, maybe that their followers tend to follow. You can do the smallest amount of research on any deity. Of course there's amazing pagan authors and and historians and archaeologists, but you can, and you can buy their books too, and I think you should, but if you just want to be super, super basic, you can just go on Wikipedia.

[00:19:41] But I just see that a lot of people still don't do that. And I'm like, how do you expect any of this to work? Like if you don't know anything about These theories or even like historical context is super important. I know we've talked about that in the past too, even with like ancestors we've talked about.

[00:19:56] Historical context is super important. We had Ben Stimson [00:20:00] on and he talked about ancestors. He was talking about knowing he had a friend who had indigenous ancestors and Irish ancestors and the indigenous ancestors were really not okay with alcohol, but the Irish ancestors were. So like knowing that was super important to.

[00:20:16] That friend's magical workings. You can't just, throw things at the wall and look at and hope that it works, especially when you're working with these. Ancestors, and especially when you're working with deities. And also, like you said, you're having someone over for dinner. You want to make them feel, first of all, you're going to make them feel good.

[00:20:32] You're going to ask them their dietary restrictions, what they like, that kind of thing. Same thing for deities and deities are big spirits. They're big. If you believe, they're bigger than us. So to just like, to just go into stuff very flippantly doesn't really. Make a lot of sense and you probably shouldn't and what you're gonna do is just Maybe you pot at best just not get a response and at worst piss somebody [00:21:00] off You know Then she's gonna go wrong and you're gonna be confused Then you got to call somebody who knows how to do this better than you to fix it So everyone be careful out there.

[00:21:11] Just be very careful. Okay. The other thing I liked in this section of your book was that you talk about like how to invoke the God. And I love how you just talk about like one of the, being very, okay, let me start at the beginning. You talk about being very specific, like to what you are talking about, especially because a lot of.

[00:21:38] Deities have dual roles, right? Like they might be a deity that is the God or goddess of fertility wars like Freya is like fertility cats Like pick one, like, you know what I mean? She's got a lot going on and they're very different subjects. You don't want to just invoke [00:22:00] her for, whatever.

[00:22:01] And you really want her for something else. Maybe you'll find a stray cat and you'll fall in love with it, but you really want it to get pregnant, like you've gotta pick.

[00:22:10] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: Oh, you want to hear a funny

[00:22:11] story? My, my friend had a a custom design

[00:22:15] business, Right? So she was sewing for a

[00:22:16] And so she invoked. Arachne, except she didn't invoke Arachne very carefully

[00:22:24] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: I don't know.

[00:22:25] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: and it's exactly what you said, it's cats. It's pregnancy. What is it? So her basement was full of spiders, like thousands and thousands of spiders.

[00:22:35] It was so horrible. And she's like, I did this. This is my own fault.

[00:22:44] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: That's when you have to go back and be like, hey Rani, thanks for the gift. By the way,

[00:22:52] Was hoping you could do me a little favor and get rid of the spiders and just like help my business Oh, [00:23:00] that is really funny. So yeah, that's super important like you talk about here like calling thor the thunderer or Hathor the cow goddess lady of milk and hathor is also a mom So like it just depends what you're doing be very just be very specific Then you talk about descriptiveness You And I love that too.

[00:23:19] Most of the deities that you think of, they have things that you can think of and you write in here, like Bridget has very flaming red hair. Odin's got one eye. Aphrodite is like super, super beautiful or what they wear, like oh, Shun wears brass bracelets, or Ogun uses chains, like you something that they wear, or Kali in here you write about who has a necklace of skulls.

[00:23:41] You want to bring that up so they know exactly who you are referencing? Mhm.

[00:23:46] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: And, and not just them. So

[00:23:48] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Mhm.

[00:23:49] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: ritual has to, when you're invoking a deity, right? You're invoking them and they're external, but they're also internal. And you're reaching inside of yourself. You're [00:24:00] creating You're awakening the part of you that is making that connection and how do you awaken and it's like your inner child, right? How do you awaken the inner child you awaken it with? Imagery and with language that is simple and concrete Your inner self your most powerful inner being is childlike and doesn't want big language. Colors, senses, like nouns and adjectives, man. Like keep it simple and keep it specific and evocative. Like as if you were telling a story to a group of kindergartners. That's the kind of language you want to use in your invocations. You want to say red, gold, loud, quiet tall, like you want. You want, like, imagery and you want to be evocative. You want, if you're not working alone, if you're working with other people, you want [00:25:00] every single person in the room who is part of this ritual to be on board with that imagery, so that you're all creating it together.

[00:25:08] And so that group thought form is Opening all of you up to the presence of that deity and that while that deity is hearing that and it's mutual, it's an exchange of energy.

[00:25:23] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Yes. Yes. And that goes to your next point here in the book where you talk about praise and again, doing it just the way that you're talking about. You can be very simple. But you just want to use, I like how you said, you want the gods to come, so be nice to them. Absolutely. So like, but again, it can be simple.

[00:25:45] It can, it's as simple as just finding nice words. Like you said, you write a bunch of them in here. Great, glorious, lovely, mighty, wise, blessed honored. These are easy things to think of and they come through usually, and a lot of the times I've [00:26:00] found when I'm doing. Ritual or when we're like calling in certain energy or whatever or invoking god it starts to come real naturally Because you, especially when it's like a deity that you know, you're like, I know this one, I work with them, I know a lot about them.

[00:26:19] You know exactly what you're gonna say about them because you've read their biography. It's like going to a rock show, right? Like you, this is your favorite singer, you know everything about their life story, you know like their family history, when they became a singer, their greatest inspirations.

[00:26:36] It's not going to be hard for you to tell your friends about this person and how you feel about them and what you love about them. And that's the same thing as for your deity. So when you're talking to you, just imagine you're just up on a stage and you're telling everybody how great they are. And you're just talking to them.

[00:26:53] They're like, Oh yeah, we're, we praise the, insert deity because of your this, that, and a third, [00:27:00] all the stories. You know everything. All the good stuff they've done, how strong they are, how smart they are, how clever they are, whichever thing it would, it's whichever thing they do.

[00:27:09] And then you write one of the other, the couple of phrases you write, like you can say, Whom we adore honor us with your presence That's something I love to always say honor us with your presence because thank you for coming First of all, you don't have to be here. You could have been anywhere else tonight, but you're here Without whom xyz bad thing would happen or without whom good things wouldn't happen And then you talk about A need so you should tell the gods why it is that you need them to come what you want from them And reasons you're inviting them and some of the reasons you write here to include you write That you may worship them to witness a right to enjoy the right to guide the children to protect their children to hear Us praise them to receive offerings to bless us.

[00:27:53] Whatever it is that you Like so then you write some really good examples in here. And they're really like, when you read [00:28:00] them, everybody, this book is really, I think this book is super good for advanced practitioners. And I know you come from a Wiccan tradition but anybody who does rituals, this book, it goes along with it.

[00:28:13] It's, you don't have to, at least, I don't know, you tell me how you feel about it, Debra, but I feel like you, I'm not a Wiccan, but I still got a lot out

[00:28:21] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: That was the point. So I write it from a Wiccan perspective and because I feel like write what you know, write what you're good at. If you try to be like too much of a generalist, then you're just mushy and you don't say anything. You could do this, you could do that, you could do this and they end up saying nothing at the

[00:28:39] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Yeah.

[00:28:40] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: But if, so I'm very specific and I've, I've, I'm speaking from the point of view of the stuff I know

[00:28:46] Which is Wicca. But if you can't pick that up and translate it, into whatever you're doing, you're not paying attention. And honestly, even if you're Wiccan, your [00:29:00] version of Wiccan might be very different from

[00:29:02] And you might be reading it and going I'm not going to do that. I disagree with that. Again, I'm I'm giving zillions of examples, but I'm also trying to teach some core principles of how to put this thing together. In a way that makes sense to you, oh, it's amazing to me how many people don't make, which will make sense to themselves.

[00:29:27] Like, I know I'm pagan and I know I want to worship the gods and I don't know how, so I'm just gonna throw some spaghetti at the wall and see what

[00:29:34] They don't try to query themselves as to how is this gonna work.

[00:29:40] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Yeah.

[00:29:41] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: The Elements of Ritual does is, it, it gives you, like, a toolkit. To do that for yourself and now my toolkit is Wiccan and maybe yours isn't, but it's still a toolkit

[00:29:55] and I also did I should say I [00:30:00] wrote this book. This was my first

[00:30:01] And I wrote it over 20 years ago and I. Then, so I was looking, this is silly and it sounds like such a humblebrag, but I was like, I wanted to, I was writing a book, was finishing a book and I wanted to write a dedication.

[00:30:18] I was like, Oh, I don't remember who I've written all my other dedications to because I've written a lot of books. So I wrote a list of all my books and the year they were published and who was dedicated to. And I was like, Oh my God, I wrote this in 2003. I'm not the best at math, but I, it was 2023 and I could add

[00:30:40] 20. And I was like, look at this. Look, it's been 20 years. Maybe we could do like an anniversary edition,

[00:30:46] brand new. So I went through and I updated it. So all of the research is new and updated

[00:30:53] The that had just been sitting there for 20 years. Were corrected and it was also much more [00:31:00] modern.

[00:31:00] Um, both in terms of, there's an internet. The original edition referenced VHSI so just technologically modern and it makes sense today,

[00:31:11] But also like in 2003, it was a very gender normative book. It was a very heteronormative book, even though, um. Even though I'm queer,

[00:31:23] that was the Wicca that I was taught,

[00:31:26] How to not write that way. So all of that has been updated as well. So this is a brand new edition of this book, and it is just fully, cover to cover. Every word has been re visited and brought up to date.

[00:31:43] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Yes. Yes, I love that. And you can tell like when you're reading it, you can just tell like, it's very, you include a lot of stuff in this book. It's pretty, it's very dense. There's a lot of information, but it's not hard to read. It's not hard to [00:32:00] understand. Everything is here. And whether, like I said, if you're a beginner, then It's a good book to have on your shelf that you can go back like many times and check it out.

[00:32:09] Or if there's something you're wondering about, something you're thinking about, it's one of those really good reference books and I fricking love a reference book.

[00:32:16] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah it's big. It's you could kill a home invader with it. It's very heavy.

[00:32:22] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: It's a good size book. It's not crazy though. Again, like I said, and you don't have to read it all in one sitting. You can take a couple of pages, take what you want from it. And then when you were doing something, you'll be like, you know what? Let me see what Debra has to say about this.

[00:32:35] And you can just, the book can see what you have to say.

[00:32:38] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: A lot of people have people do like, book discussion groups with it. And what a lot of people do is they'll just go through and just do one element.

[00:32:45] So let's just read the air sections in every chapter and discuss the ideas, or let's just we're doing a ritual. So let's just read the earth sections and get practical tips, stuff like that.

[00:32:59] So people [00:33:00] have a lot of fun with skipping around in it that way. And I didn't know people were going to do that before I wrote the book, but I love that people like make it their own that

[00:33:08] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Yes, I love it. So this is, like I said, this is Debra's book. Please check it out. It's a good idea. And we're going to talk now about a goddess. And we, you mentioned her actually in this section. That's why I was like, we never talked about her. Let's talk about her. We're going to talk about Inanna.

[00:33:32] And I always say Inanna, and I hope that's right. So she is a Sumerian goddess. And She's mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which a lot of people, if you don't know what I'm talking about, you do know what I'm talking about. You probably had to read it when you were in high school if you grew up in the Western Hemisphere.

[00:33:50] I don't know about other places. But if you grew up in America, you probably had to read this book. It's a good book. It's interesting. So we're going to talk a little bit about the goddess Inanna. We're going to tell a [00:34:00] little bit about her story. So goddess Inanna also called the Queen of Heaven from ancient Sumer.

[00:34:07] Sumer is that area, Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent, another thing, remember, that you learned about in history in school. Some think that she is the Progenator of the goddesses, Venus and Aphrodite, who are the same goddess. So she tricked the God of wisdom, Enki her dad into giving her special tools, including the valuable tablets of Destiny, which gave her powers.

[00:34:33] So what happened was she managed to get her dad drunk, and by the time he got sober, she had left. She already took his shit. Enki tried to get his tools back, but he couldn't, so he just accepted defeat and let Inanna have it. And Inanna was super, super powerful, but she was also super lonely and felt really isolated.

[00:34:54] She was super sad because she was like, ugh, I just want a partner. So soon she had two [00:35:00] people who were coming after her that wanted to date her. One was a farmer named Enki, also. But not her dad. It was a different person. Enki, short for Enkidu. And the other was Dumuzi, who was a shepherd.

[00:35:12] So we had a farmer and a shepherd. I don't know who's better in a farmer and a shepherd. I don't know their personalities. I'm like, ooh, farmers have more land probably. Maybe different animals. A shepherd only has one type of animal. We'll see what she picks either way. Both of them gave her gifts, but Dumuzi had all these super soft wools because he was a shepherd and it gave him an edge in the game.

[00:35:35] Cause she was like, Ooh, I love all these wools. I can sleep on them. I can cover myself when it's cold. Like this is cute. While she's like dating these two people and she's like trying to figure out what she likes She's also super worried about her sister who's a mess and we'll talk about her a different time.

[00:35:50] So her sister is Iris key risk you go and a risky go

[00:35:55] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: Veryistical, I think.

[00:35:58] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: probably. Iris Kegel, you said, [00:36:00] right?

[00:36:01] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: Yeah, nobody knows, like, nobody speaks Sumerian anymore.

[00:36:05] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Unfortunately, this is from a very long time ago, but we're all doing our best. Iris Kegel is what we're going to go with. So she was super worried about her sister, Iris Kegel, and she decided to visit the underworld because that's where Iris Kegel lives. And we, again, we'll talk about her later because it's a whole thing.

[00:36:22] Iris Kegel's husband, who's the god of death, had recently left her, which is messed up. And Inanna was super concerned about her sister, because she like, I think she loved her sister, but she also did not want to see her because she, they also didn't really like each other, but Inanna was like, Inanna's kind of nicer than Eriskigal, at least from everything I've read.

[00:36:44] She's way nicer. Risk Eagle's not that nice, but it's fine. But she went anyway. And also because they, the two of them weren't super close, like they didn't really get along. But she was like I got to check on my sister. Her husband left her. This is rough. So she went down there. So when she got [00:37:00] there, there's seven gates of the underworld, and the gatekeeper demanded that she left one of her garments.

[00:37:06] So he required her to leave her jewels and even her crown at the door. So then finally when she saw her sister, She stood before her sister and she had left all her stuff there. So she was naked. That's crazy. You didn't let her take her clothes? That's wild. That was rude. Anyway but Ariska girl was really mad at her and felt like Inanna hadn't been supportive enough as a sister.

[00:37:32] And she was like, how come it took you this long to come visit me when you know, my husband left me and I've been super sad. And Inanna was like I'm really upset. And Risk Eagle was like, I don't care how sorry you are, I'm gonna murder you. And she murdered her sister. On sight. This is what I'm talking about.

[00:37:48] Risk Eagle needs anger management. Like, we all go through trauma, and I get it. But like, killing your sister on sight is a bit much. [00:38:00] Come on. Seriously. But, Inanna knew that her sister was wild. She said, before she left, she knew her sister was out of pocket. So she told Risk Eagle. One of her servants, if she didn't come back, that they should try to come rescue her.

[00:38:16] So when the servant was waiting and when she didn't come back, the servant was like, oh shit. So he went to Enki, now Enki the dad, not the other Enki. He went to Enki and was like, Enki please, I know you're pissed at Inanna because she stole all your shit. But also I think being your other daughter murder her so we actually we need a little help so so enki's i guess i should help my one daughter even though the other one murdered her let's help so what he did and this is gross but he sculpted two tiny creatures from the clay beneath his fingernail I'm sure there's tons of clay.

[00:38:53] They didn't need to use that one, but that's all right. I'm not going to judge. Then into the underworld, [00:39:00] the two little clay figures with the servant and carried this magical substance, which was called the food and water of life. When the servant got down there, the two little clay statues went over to Eriskigal, like they were just like super nice people, and Eriskigal is crying because, Eriskigal obviously has an anger problem.

[00:39:20] So once she realized she murdered her sister, she did feel bad. She's like, damn, I was, really? doing a lot. And I was upset and I didn't mean to kill my sister. So these two, like, these two little figures came over and they're like, Hey girl, you okay? And she's like, Oh my God, I'm so upset. I just killed my sister.

[00:39:40] And now my husband left me and I killed my sister. What a week. So they were like, they were being like really nicer. And They were like, Oh, they were bringing our tissues. They were like, probably made her some tea and they were just like touching her back gently and like, girl, it's going to be okay. So then [00:40:00] Eriskigal during this whole time was like, Oh my God, you guys are so nice.

[00:40:03] Thank you so much for like comforting me. Meanwhile, she didn't wonder where they came from. I don't know. It's mythology. We don't ask too many questions. So Eriskigal was like, Thank you so much for like taking such a good care of me. Is there anything I can do for the two of you? And they were like actually, you know how there's like a corpse on your wall?

[00:40:24] She's like, Yeah, that's my sister. The one I've been crying about. And they're like, Oh, that's crazy. Because we were just wondering if we could like see it. Like if you could bring it down. And she's like, Okay, like, so she brought it down and they took the water and the food of life and they started feeding it to Inanna's corpse.

[00:40:46] And all of a sudden Inanna woke up and she's like, Oh! What happened? She realized, oh my sister killed me. And Inanna requested that she would be allowed to return to the world. So I guess Inanna, again, she realizes that her sister is [00:41:00] like not well. So she probably didn't want to get into a fight about the fact that she killed her at that moment.

[00:41:04] She's like, this woman is nuts. I don't want to bring it up. I'm just going to forgive her in the moment. We'll deal with it later. But the biggest thing was Inanna was like, can I go back to the world? And Erisk Eagle was like, okay. But. Rules are rules, girl. So the thing is, I know I killed you and I should do you a solid, but we still have to follow some rules.

[00:41:26] I will let you go back up, but you have to bring somebody to be in your place. And she's like, Oh shit. Okay, fine. So Inanna was like, fine, me a minute. I'm going to go up there and I'll bring somebody back. And then she's like, fine. So Inanna, she ascended through the seven gates. She went and got all her clothes and her crown and everything.

[00:41:46] And she went back up. She left out of the underworld and back into the regular world. Now, when she got home, back to her like regular palace, she realized that her, the one she liked, [00:42:00] Dumuzi, the shepherd with the soft wool, can you believe he usurped her throne? He did a coup d'etat in her absence.

[00:42:07] That's wild. So he literally took her palace and So Inanna got up there, and let's say, let's just say that this anger thing definitely runs in the family. Cause Inanna lost her shit, and then she killed Muzi, and she sent him back to the underworld. She's like, oh, I need someone to take my place anyway, threw him down there, and was like, problem solved, we're good.

[00:42:33] after she chilled out after a couple minutes in on I was like, damn, that was rough. I probably should have been so quick to throw my lover into the underworld with my other sister who also has an anger problem. She went down there to go talk to a risky girl again, and she was like a risky little girl number one, I forgive you number two I see where you're coming from now because I just did the same shit that you [00:43:00] did I made a rash decision And I was wondering You know how you killed me and everything?

[00:43:06] You know how I forgave you? And I was like, yeah, I'll bring somebody down here. I think I may have sent the wrong person. I sent my soon to be husband. So actually, I'm like, could I have him back? Like, that'd be great. And Eriskigal was like, I told you about the rules. And Inanna's like, I know.

[00:43:25] But please. Please, like, let's see what we can do. So Risky goes like, okay, this is what I can do. I'm gonna let Dumuzi come home, but only half of the year. He can't come home all the time, just half of the year. Inanna was like, okay, damn, that's crazy. Okay fine. Half is better than none. So now, each year, Inanna must descend again into the Underworlds to resurrect Her hubby lover person and renew her vitality.

[00:43:56] And then Dumuzi now [00:44:00] is given life every time Inanna brings him up and now he became the god of vegetation. This, you guys are hearing the whole similar story to the Greek Hades, Persephone thing. And fortunately, he was allowed, he's allowed to return to Earth each spring to fertilize the land and hang out with Inanna for a while.

[00:44:19] That's the story of two sisters. who both need therapy deeply.

[00:44:29] But they're like, we love them. At least we love Inanna because she means well. She just didn't like, if I came home and my yeah, if you came home and your partner had stolen all your stuff, you're gonna be mad, and I don't blame her for like, but you might not want to murder them.

[00:44:46] You might just want to sue them or something. Next time, don't like, murder them. That's wild. So yeah, that's the story of Inanna. But also, quick thing, since we were talking about invoking gods, we talked about [00:45:00] people People love to talk about Iana or evoke Iana a lot, and she has a couple things that you might wanna know.

[00:45:06] She really loves Rosettes. She loves scepters. She loves wool. She likes apples mirrors. There's a knot of Iana and she likes crowns. She's usually associated with fertility, politics, war. A lot of goddesses with the fertility in the war. I don't know. I feel like I need to research that. But it goes together a lot, I've noticed, in a lot of cultures.

[00:45:29] She's also seen as being very very feminine, but not but, very feminine, very courageous, wise, and, but also can be associated with death and destruction, like we just heard in this story. She's associated with lions because lions are very courageous and she, it was courageous of her for her to go down and face her sister who just murdered her, but then let her come back up.

[00:45:54] Like that took a lot of courage. Good job, girl. And she also is associated with lilies, [00:46:00] Greece, innocence, rebirth. Obviously the scent of a lily plant and lilies of the valley are really can attract her lotus plants, myrrh, lilac, limes. She loves gold. She loves rubies, emeralds, if you have that. Oh, nice.

[00:46:17] Rubies, emeralds, obsidian, and andalusite. Andalusite? And her colors are green, black, red, silver, and white. There's a lot of different things you can do with Inanna. She's super awesome. Now you know if you want to talk to her, now you at least know her story. And you at least know maybe if you are trying to get some courage, you might want to call her.

[00:46:41] If you're trying to fix your anger, maybe don't call her. Like she's not really the one for that. But yeah, maybe if you're in trouble with your sister, maybe you want to call her and talk to her about it. Maybe she can help you figure it out. Inanna is really cool. And I really liked her.

[00:46:57] Reading about her because she's very neat and I look the mesopotamian [00:47:00] goddesses And gods they have really cool stories everybody if you want to read some stories read theirs because like enki He has a whole situation going on iriskel. Oh girl. She has a whole love triangle people are And other than Inanna, she's murdering mad people and people are trying to murder her.

[00:47:17] It's like really interesting. Anyway, so that's the story of Inanna, everybody. Thank you all for listening to me rant about one of my new faves. So this now brings us to the end of the show. Debra, thank you so much for being here and chit chatting with us. This has been super fun and informative and I learned a lot.

[00:47:37] You want to let us know where we can find you? On the internet or anywhere else that people might, yeah,

[00:47:45] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: Absolutely. You're a wonderful storyteller. And that is one of, that is the oldest story written down. That is the oldest story in human history, so that's a fun

[00:47:53] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: yes. Yay.

[00:47:59] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: the [00:48:00] long way. D E B O R A H. My last name Lip, L I P, DeborahLip.

[00:48:05] com, it's at DebLipAuthor on the various things where you have at, you know, and I'm on Facebook because I'm old. That's where we are. And so you can find me on, um, Facebook, Insta, my website, I try to keep my website updated with. Where I'm going to be physically, like if I do a book signing or whatever, sometimes I forget, but I try you can also, I have many books, I have this book, The Elements of Ritual. is with Llewellyn. I have a bunch of books with Llewellyn. I also have two books with CrossCrow Press. I also have one self published book. You can find all kinds of stuff and that's me.

[00:48:55] ashley--she-her-_1_04-18-2024_181729: Thank you so much. And obviously all the links to all of Deborah's works [00:49:00] will be In the show notes, so if you want to check any of those out and you want to check out her social Everything will be in the show notes. No problem Okay, so thank you everybody for bringing for hanging out with us for another week this is diamond divine.

[00:49:14] We're on tiktok. Oh, we're on wherever you can find podcasts. We're on tiktok We're on youtube. We're on Threads and Instagram. Obviously sometimes I can't keep up with all that because I'm tired, but I do my best. And if you want to message me on any of those, feel free. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, please feel free to email me at dinewiththedivinepod at gmail.

[00:49:35] com. Don't forget to check out our diners club membership If you want to get some freebies or join a discord chat, you can do that Also, if you want to follow me ashley i'm at san kofa healing sanctuary or at san kofa hs That's s a n k o f a h s on threads insta tik tok. I try to sometimes make tik tok videos where i'm really bad at that, but it's no problem.

[00:49:58] Yeah, you can check me out too [00:50:00] and you can hang out with me or talk to me whatever you'd like Anyway, once again, thank you everybody for hanging out with us and i'll see you again next week. Bye. Bye

[00:50:11] squadcaster-5a3b_1_04-18-2024_181729: Bye bye.

[00:50:11] ​