[Editor’s Note: This excerpt series is from Asherah: Roots of the Mother Tree ed by Claire Dorey, Janet Rudolph, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren (Girl God Books, 2025).]
Asherah: High Queen of Queens
Katie Ness
High-Queen of the dark-light,
with all this lethal might,
resolute in your fanged bright night,
a frightful swift Empress of swords and dust.
Forceful are your fruitful twin rivers;
fruitful are your unfaltering Zagros mountains.
Fathomless are your Kidron valley groves.
Unfaltering is my devotion to you.
Star-knowledge from the beginning of time,
the red egg of the Kur serpentine universe.
Wind haunted junipers and the rain-veiled dark roses,
cry out from their bloody buds;
a choir keening to your golden rage,
death-vesseled lady of the hunt and the resurrection.
Swaying in the sands sauntering to hidden places of the Shanidar cave.
You sing the alchemy of the dead,
You sing the shadowed origins of the blackest oceans,
You strike the ground and out sprang a lion,
a war-like gift, a lion on fire, a heart stirring lioness.
A breath ushering doves.
You sing out the ash of new gods and choke their ruinous Adamic scriptures,
You shriek with desirous dragon-delight with your vagina dentata,
feasting with the beasts of Ki.
Walking the earth of the Shekhina.
Enrobed in violet flamed sovereignty,
from the birth of the garden to your comet garlands,
a governess of the grain and the harvest.
Your eyes are a wilderness of snares and serpent sight,
Your diamond feet crushing the red clot of poppies,
freckled across the valley in a cosmic sanguinary gush.
Birthing and culling, thriving and waning.
The Balsamic moon awaits the new dawn of your garnet smile.
Mistress of the muses, of desert sands and secrets.
Dancing with Kuliana along the Tigris and Euphrates waters.
Spread your vibrant dove wings across the holy lands to the temples of Beersheba, Arad, Bethel and Motza.
Gorgeous lady! You are the beginning,
You were there long before the god-head emerged from your
gorgeous severe cunt!
Mountain born! You rose from the primordial sea.
Rising up with the morning star before Christ ever did!
At the dawn I seek thee, in the glory of the kipur,
I pray to you from the Opal-mooned ziggurat.
And give offerings to you at the Huluppu tree by the marsh reeds.
At the vast Etz Chaim, for these trees are my holy places.
Serpent Queen– mistress eagle, great Nin-dingir!
Breathe into me your truth and beauty.
I am your priestess of the Gipar,
High Priestess of the grain and the grave,
of song-weavers and scroll keepers of your apocrypha.
I offer you Arazoles and dreamy Hul-Gil from Alashiya’s bilbil juglets,
sweet Kyphi and Nymphaea Caerulea from the kingdom of Kemet,
Lapis, Damask Roses and kangina of grapes from the river valley of Ariana,
Pomegranates and lemons from Sikelia’s Mount Eryx,
Wildflower honey and coral from Sardṓ,
gold, Nerium Oleander and apricots from the Lydian coast,
and Jasper, Jet, blackberries and strawberries from the isle of Albion.
I call on your many names:
Inanna!
Asherah!
Ishtar!
Astarte!
Isis!
Aphrodite!
Great lady of the stars, sea and soil!!
From the Kopet Mountains to the Caspian Sea,
From my heart to the vault of the skies,
I am devoted to you in all languages and in all hearts,
And in all your names.
in all the rain soaked earth and in all the stars.
Asherah I cherish you;
my unbridled Queen of queens.
I bow to you,
I am bound to you,
oh Sacred heart,
Great Goddess of love and hate,
of life and death, of passion and peace,
of all the holy contradictions,
maiden of the ascension and descension,
of the looping serpent’s Ouroboros.
Guide me through my darkness,
so I may see the light.
So that I may rise from the fall,
with the wings of the dawn,
of your everlasting Arammu
of your all-embracing Ahavah!
Translations to some words:
Ahavah — Ancient Canaanite word for love
Alashiya —Ancient name for Cyprus
Albion — Ancient British Isles
Arammu– Ancient Sumerian word for Love
Ariana — Ancient Afghanistan
Bilbil Juglets — Ancient Cypriot jugs that look like inverted poppy seed heads that transported opium and poppy perfume oils across the ancient near east.
Etz chaim — Ancient Hebrew tree of life
Gipar–Multifaceted building/sanctuary or temple for priestesses. Included a store-house for harvested grains, kitchen and hearth, ritual bath house, birthing hut/hospital for women, temple complex, sleeping quarters and dark room with ritual couch for dream interpretation and mantic incubation to elicit divine response.
Hul-Gil – Opium Poppy
Huluppu tree–Sumerian world tree/tree of life
Ki– Sumerian earth goddess
Kipur–Atonement
Kuliana–Sumerian mermaid
Kur–First dragon/serpent from Sumer
Kyphi– Ancient Near East incense used for ceremony and ritual. Ingredients composed of honey, wine, raisins, myrrh, juniper berries, papyrus, pine, calamus, rush, aspalathus, mastic, bitumen, sorrel, cardamom, cassia, cinnamon, saffron, spikenard, bdellium, mint, henna, or mimosa.
Lydia – Ancient Turkey
Nin-dingir– Lady God
Sardṓ – Ancient Sardinia
Sikelia — Ancient Sicily
A note to the reader: I’ve studied a variety of ancient poems to the goddess, my favourite being those written by Enheduanna to Inanna. This poem is inspired by such poetic-hymns to invoke a primordial goddess.