Ancient StonesTess Dawson
I met Tess Dawson online a year or so ago. She was the first Canaanite Pagan I had ever met; I actually had no idea there were any Canaanite Pagans running around before I met her. Tess knew a lot about her chosen path, and, in the pages of Whisper of Stone (O Books), she shares some of what she has learned. Tess sat down with ST to discuss her new book, and the bad rap the poor Canaanites and their Gods get in the Bible and in the halls of academia.
Tess Dawson: I think one of the biggest misunderstandings, both inside and outside the Pagan movement, is that we share one homogeneous religion with the same beliefs, same holidays, and same ethics. I think some Pagan religions share less in common than two Christian religions such as Catholicism and Jehovah's Witnesses. Along the same lines, I've seen the terms Wicca and Paganism used interchangeably. Wicca is a form of Paganism, but Paganism refers not just to Wicca. ST: Your book is entitled Whisper of Stone: Natib Qadish: Modern Canaanite Religion. Why "whisper of stone"? And how did the term "Natib Qadish" come about? TD: When I began upon my path ten years ago, I started learning by reading the old Canaanite mythology. Even though this mythology colors passages of the Bible, the mythology itself is little known. One passage in particular inspired me: "For I have a tale that I would tell you ... A tale of trees and a whisper of stones ... The sighing of the heavens to the earth, Of the oceans to the stars." — The Ba'al Epic, as translated by JCL Gibson. I had a difficult time coming up with a title until I remembered what drew me to the mythology in the first place: that particular verse. I thought about the deity statues made of stone, and it led me to wonder what they would say if they could speak. I like the title because it takes the ideas of Canaanite literature, deities awakening, and an ancient religion coming to life again, and weaves them together. The term "Natib Qadish" came out of necessity. From what I understand, the ancient Canaanites did not have a separate word for "religion." Religion and spirituality intermeshed with daily life to the extent that they had no verbal distinction between regular life, religious activities, and spirituality. Today, we cannot think exactly like the ancients did, and thus "religion" is a separate word that we use to describe a set of beliefs and spiritual activities, and each religion has a separate name to further distinguish it from other religions. Natib Qadish, in the Ugaritic language, means "sacred path." I began using a form of this term in the Canaanite Paganism online discussion group around summer of 2003. ST: Why a book about the modern Canaanite path? TD: When I first started out as a Canaanite, I had little more than several dry books by scholars studying the Canaanites with the goal of learning more about Biblical narrative, and one wonderful website put together by Lilinah Biti-Anat, a Canaanite-Phoenician Pagan. I would go to the bookstores and see shelf upon shelf of information for Wiccans, Asatruar, Kemetics, and so on, but I never found one for my path. I struggled through the scholarly books with their different opinions and biases, and how to put what I learned into practice. I would have given dearly for a simple resource on modern Canaanite Paganism. After a time, I got to thinking about others who were in the same predicament, and I kept thinking "somebody ought to write a book," but since nobody was doing it, I figured if I wanted one I had better write it lest the task be left undone. ST: What primary source material did you draw on for Whisper of Stone? TD: I focus mainly on the corpus of text discovered at Ugarit (modern-day Ras Shamra). These cuneiform tablets come from about 3,500 years ago and include mythological tales, observances, deity lists, divination, and more. It makes sense to me to draw from the Canaanites' own words about their religion. I've also used some information available from the Canaanites' archaeological record: the items they left behind in their sacred sites. If I must fill in missing pieces, I borrow from the Phoenicians, the Israelites, and other Near Eastern cultures, but I try to note where I get that information. ST: Related to the previous question, how does the Hebrew Testament figure as a resource for Canaanite Pagans? Is it reliable? Or just a starting point? TD: I do not trust it at all in regards to reliable information on Canaanite religion. Biblical writers had a particular goal in mind when they penned and compiled these texts, and that goal did not involve the accurate portrayal of the Canaanites. About the only reliable information from the Bible about the Canaanites is that the Canaanites existed. By the time scribes compiled biblical narratives, they had forgotten much about any Canaanite ancestors, and what they wrote about the Canaanites is a product of a forgotten past, religious zealousness, polemic, and an exile into Babylon. Many of the pagan practices described in the Bible are more likely early Israelite polytheistic customs, literary device, or both. As a side note: the Canaanites were also the ancestors of the polytheistic Phoenicians. ST: What most surprised you in your research? What odd little tidbits stood out? TD: There are a couple of interesting bits that stick in my head. The first one involves Jesus and donkeys. In ancient Canaanite texts, there are a couple of episodes where a deity or a king rides a donkey. I think that scholars have reached a consensus that in Canaanite culture riding a donkey represented a form of royal and exalted transportation. So my mind wonders, as she is wont to do, and I think about tales of Mother Mary riding a donkey to Bethlehem, and later her son Jesus riding a donkey during Palm Sunday. I remember that folks sometimes use these episodes as a representation of humility — but this may not be the case. If Jesus rode a donkey through the streets of Roman-occupied Jerusalem to signify his kingship, then it's no wonder that this treasonous rebel bent the Romans' noses out of shape. On another note, sacred sexuality is a frequently mentioned topic. Sometimes when I express that I am interested in Canaanite religion, I get a wink-wink, nudge-nudge response from others who assume that sacred sex was integral to Canaanite religion — but it is not. Tales of sacred prostitution in Canaanite religion are highly exaggerated and it is possible that sacred prostitution was never a part of Canaanite religion. Many scholarly texts that assert that the Canaanites engaged in this practice rely on biblical polemic and Victorian scholars' fantastical accounts: I can find no first-hand accounts, or information that I would qualify as based on fact. Along with these ideas, scholars are reexamining Canaanite goddesses that were classically known as goddesses of sex, especially the warlike 'Anat, and 'Athtart who is possibly an early form of the goddess called Astarte in Greek. It's amazing to me that the actual Canaanite goddesses of sex, fertility, and conception — the seven Kathirat — have largely been forgotten over time. ST: You devote a lot of discussion in Whisper of Stone to the old myths. Why do you consider them important? What meaning can they hold for someone in the 21st century? TD: I think the reasons for the myths' importance are as many and as varied as the individual people who read them. Everyone experiences something different, and sometimes that experience changes over time. For folks uninterested in Canaanite religion but who are interested in religions inspired by the Bible, they can read these Canaanite myths and come to a greater understanding of biblical narrative. For me, I find the myths a joy to read. The myths embody Canaanite culture, what the ancients thought about their deities, and clues for how the ancients interacted with each other and what they may have valued. From Canaanite mythology, I learn about how the Canaanites understood, either physically or metaphorically, the universe and their place in it. I see the ancient tales as another avenue of understanding and perceiving the divine.
TD: I was reading the Ba'al Epic — specifically the episode where Ba'al builds his home. I thought it might be interesting if Ba'al's home were built of seven items: seven is considered an important magical number. So I paused for a moment to count the building materials listed and I saw that there were seven. I had been considering what values the Canaanites had, both from reading what the scholars have to say on the issue, and extrapolating from the Canaanite texts themselves, and I thought that it would be lovely to connect these seven building materials with Canaanite virtues. In addition to values, I wondered what to do about creating sacred space — the Canaanites generally didn't have to create sacred space once they had built a temple and kept it maintained — so I toyed with the idea of sacred space that a practitioner could create and take down when necessary. The idea of combining creation of sacred space with the Components seemed natural, and I chose to take into consideration the geographic location of the area before assigning each Component a cardinal direction. Granted, this whole process took a while to develop, but it all started with that one moment while I read the Canaanite myths. I designed the Seven Components primarily as tools to further spiritual practice. They are a shorthand way of keeping Canaanite values in mind, they can assist in creating sacred space, they remind us of Canaan's location, and they can serve to focus meditation. I've even made prayer beads depicting the Seven Components. ST: What role does magic play in Natib Qadish? Is there any ethical system governing it? TD: In ancient thought, magic acts as a supplement to prayer, or as a different method of appealing for divine assistance: amulets record concerns such as health, protection, and human fertility. These concerns still affect us today, and thus I believe that modern spirituality might benefit from adding magic as a practice. However, there are two kinds of magic: beneficial and baneful. In the ancient Near East, magic-workers who employed their arts for unworthy ends could find themselves at the mercy of the law; however, the ancients did not issue a blanket ban on aggressive magic. Goals considered unethical and unacceptable included taking a neighbor's property, bringing about death out of simple dislike or jealousy, or causing loss to another specifically to profit from it. Aggressive magic for protection of self, family, property, and community were entirely legal, ethical, and even expected. The Canaanites may have had three basic categories of sin: adopting bad foreign customs, breaking widely accepted social mores and laws, and committing inappropriate ritual acts. Performing baneful magic would fit into the last category. It is thought that when a person performs a magical act she or he may channel divine energy. In keeping a good relationship with the deities and the community, a magic-worker improves her or his magic. The magic-worker should also ensure that a magical act is ethical before performing it because baneful magic insults the ancients and the deities, disrupts community, and potentially causes imbalance in the world or beyond. Performing baneful magic perverts what magic is supposed to be: a sacred act intended to support greater well-being. As an adherent of Natib Qadish, I rely on many of these ideas to guide me in magic. ST: What resources (books, journals, websites, et cetera) would you recommend for those interested in Natib Qadish? TD: Here's a list of just a few. Resources for studying the Canaanites: Curtis, Adrian. Ugarit: Ras Shamra. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1985. del Olmo Lete, Gregorio. Canaanite Religion According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, IN, 2004. Pardee, Dennis. Ritual and Cult at Ugarit. Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta, Georgia. 2002. Parker, Simon B., ed. Translated by Mark Smith, et al. Ugaritic Narrative Poetry. Society of Biblical Literature, U.S.A., 1997. Tubb, Jonathan N. Canaanites. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 1998. Walls, Neal H. The Goddess Anat in Ugaritic Myth. The Society of Biblical Literature, Scholars Press, Atlanta, GA, 1992. Music: Ensemble De Organographia. Music of the Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, and Greeks. Pandourion Records, 17850 S. Edgewood St., Oregon City, OR 97045, USA. 1999-2006. This recording includes reconstructions of Hurrian music as noted in ancient Canaanite tablets. Excellent recording. Canaanite and Ancient Near East Web Resources: ASOR (American Schools of Oriental Research), Boston University. Links for Archaeology and Ancient Civilizations. Bohak, Gideon. Traditions of Magic in Antiquity. University of Michigan. Carnegie Museum of Natural History. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Canaan and Ancient Israel. University of Pennsylvania, 1999. Natib Qadish/Canaanite Pagan Resources: Biti Anat, Lilinah. Qadash Kinahnu. This wonderful site has been around for years, but with Geocities closing, this site will be offline for a while. I have chatted with Lilinah Biti-Anat and she is looking to reestablish the site at a different web address at some point in the future. Canaanites, a group on Facebook. Date Palm Forum: Discussion Group for Near East, Middle East, and Mediterranean Paths Natib Qadish: Canaanite Pagan Discussion Group I also suggest my own work for folks who are interested, including Whisper of Stone, available here and here. And Natib Qadish: Modern Canaanite Polytheism, available here. ST: You published Whisper of Stone through O Books. Why that publisher, and would you recommend them to other authors? TD: I went with O Books because although small, they are a quickly-growing quality publisher. They run an ethical business and concern themselves with environmental issues: they conduct most correspondence online and they support environmental concerns, such as the Woodland Trust in the UK to offset the carbon footprint of each book. O Books has an online database so that authors can see and exchange information with the publisher every step of the way. I would recommend O Books to other authors because this publisher is willing to take chances on new authors and new subjects that other publishers might pass by, and O Books allows the author a greater amount of creative control. ST: What other projects are you working on? TD: I have at least three other projects going right now: a Canaanite-Wiccan crossover, an ancient Near East grimoire, and a fiction piece. I am working on the Canaanite-Wiccan book because it's my understanding that some folks prefer to honor the deities in a format that is more comfortable and familiar to them, and I wanted to assist in that process. I also see this work as helpful for Jewish Pagans, Christian Pagans, mystical Jews and Christians, and interfaith families. This workbook will lend readers the opportunity to explore their spirituality in response to the ideas presented. The grimoire is less developed than the Canaanite-Wiccan crossover at the moment. Eventually, it will be a collection of ancient Near Eastern herbal lore, magic, information, and recipes for incense, anointing oils, bath salts and more. The idea behind this work is to give Pagans a grimoire with a Near Eastern flair since many books available focus instead on Western European plants, lore, and magic. The fiction is still in very early stages; it's a children's urban fantasy with elements of conspiracy and spy-fi. ST: Which conventions, book fairs, et cetera will you be attending in the foreseeable future? TD: I have been working out appearances in the Twin Cities and Chicago, but as of this moment I haven't solidified the schedule. I keep my blog current and will post my schedule as soon as possible. I am available for events, so please feel free to contact me through email, my website, or on Facebook. Shalam, peace and well-being! |
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