More Roads Not Taken

[qos]

A few weeks ago, I wrote about being on the jury and seeing, in the two young female lawyers trying the case, one of my own might-have-beens.

Last night, I read a post by queenofhalves about her experience at an academic conference on religion, literature and sexuality. One of the presenters spoke about her conclusion that although the sacred prositute is a widely-discussed figure, and a highly positive one for many people in certain religious communities, such practices are almost certainly mythical. In support she discussed her study of the ancient words used to describe the women so labeled by Western scholars, and some of the ancient texts used to support such a belief.

I just about started screaming. For those of you relatively new to my journal, in 1998 I received high marks on my Masters thesis, in which I made the very same assertions, rejecting the conclusions of everyone else in the academic and popular study of the topic. The ancient texts, while evocative, simply do not provide any evidence of sacred sexual ritual other than the hieros gamos of ancient Sumer, which involved on the the king and (probably) the high priestess (there is nothing which says who the woman was). Everything else is speculation, projection, or being too willing to overlook bias and/or the poetic conventions of the ancient literature.

Don't get me started on Herodotus.

The woman at this conference is evidently about to publish a book on this topic.

I had been wanting to turn my thesis into such a book more than a decade ago, discussing not only the ancient texts, but looking at why the sacred prostitute has become a potent symbolic figure in some spiritual communities today. I even interviewed several self-identified sacred prositutes, a fascinating experience.

Practically knocking my head against my desk, I cried silently last night Why didn't I do it??

This morning, I remembered: because as I was finishing my Masters degree, my marriage was falling apart, and I had a daughter who was not yet three years old. I didn't pursue my Ph.D. for two three reasons. One was that no one had ever talked to me about it, never asked me what I was going to do with my MA, or offered to help me plan, and strategize. I'm not denying that it was my responsibility to start those conversations, but why didn't any of my advisors ever ask me? Isn't that part of their job?

The second reason was that I simply could not face the idea of more years of graduate school, and more debt, as a single mother with a young child.

And, to be honest, the third reason was probably that I considered myself not good enough. I didn't have the confidence in myself or my abilities to take it to the next level.

So instead I ended up separated from my husband and lacking any income except occasional temp jobs until my friend B and his wife offered me a charity job organizing and filing three years' worth of paperwork for their home-based rocket company. And then the company got seed funding for going full-time, and I suddenly found myself working as a marketing director for a direct-to-customer model rocket company, and I was having a wondeful, stimulating, growing time, and academia was a long way away.

And my book never got written.

Until I read queenofhalves's report last night, I was not aware of anyone in the scholarly community who had come to the same conclusions I had. And it's now a decade a later. QoH's comment that I was "ahead of time" is small comfort when I never did anything with it.

That's what my life has been like: I almost never have had any plans. I've been reactive, always moving with the currents, never planning and creating my own path.

Until the last year or so I had no direction. There was nothing I wanted badly enough to actually exert the energy to make it happen. Nothing so important to me that I was willing to take the risks to make it real. Nothing except pursue and marry my now-Ex-husband. Yoiks.

And the plumbers are coming today to do more work in my area of the house, fixing the water pipes in my kitchen and cutting into the ceiling over my bed to put in new pipes, which will remove the accumulated sediment in the old plumbing and restore water pressure.

And if that isn't symbolic -- restoring/releasing the waters around my bed -- I don't know what is.

Comments

[kateri-thinks.livejournal.com]

Oh, my . . . I am thinking of you today... You and the other-roads (and the ones ahead), you and the water...

Peace be with you on this holy Thursday.

[preacha.livejournal.com]

Hey, please don't be so hard on yourself. Life often brings us to situations that demand compromise. That compromise, from a close vantage point, can look like a sell-out. But in the bigger picture, sometimes we can see that it was really a brillianty timed effort in determination and persistance. Raising a child and earning a living to support you both are nothing less than unique, significant accomplishments.

I often wondered why no one in my academic circles pulled me aside or shepherded me to call out my talents and encourage me forward. I realized I needed to do that for myself (still realizing). And actually, when I think about it, others did do that for me--I just never took them very seriously.

I happen to have said thesis in hand. You are quite capable of PhD work. You are quite capble of writing and publishing a book. It is not too late too begin today.

You know, even if that scholar wrote a book titled, "Everything qos was going to say,had she written a book," it still would not be the book you would write. Do not be discouraged that someone else has written in your field. Your voice is still needed, and it will be unique.

[professor-mom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, before you mentioned it, I was going to say--"What aBOUT Herodotus?" I minored in Ancient Greek and used to read a lot of Herodotus. I'm certainly not an expert, but have read enough to know that Herodotus mentioned sacred prostitution.

As always, I see so much of myself in you. I see a lot of missed opportunities and unused potential as I look back at my life. I'd like to talk to you about this some more sometime.

[qos.livejournal.com]

First, there is no corroboration for Herodotus' account, including no other attestation to the goddess-name "Mylitta." There was prositution around many temples, but that is apparently due to the fact that it was a major gathering place, not connected to rites.

Plus, Herodotus is not an objective observer. To quote Tivka Frymer-Kensky (one of the best sources for information on the worship of ancient Near Eastern goddesses), "Herodotus' observations about Babylon nare generally not as accurate as those about Egypt, and even his observations about Egypt are not that trustworthy. Herodotus, like all Greeks, wrote about 'barbarians' with the intention of proving the superiority of Greeks, and allegations of cannibalism and sexual licentiousness abound."

Herodotus is the person, after all, who told us that barbarous Egypt reversed the proper roles of men and women, not only with men staying home and weaving while the women engaged in trade, but that men urinated sitting down, and women standing up.

[toesontheground.livejournal.com]

One of those French philosopher guys said something like "Every yes is a thousand nos" - not to reduce what you're feeling, just to say that paths untaken (and to some extent regrets about that) are an inevitable part of the human condition.

For me, apart from being a feeling that inevitably comes up every now and then, I regard it as a sign of some lack I'm currently feeling, or some doubt/uncertainty about my direction in life.

[queenofhalves]

my strategy, i think, would be to chop your thesis up into some articles and submit them, if you want to publish them. that's fastest and you might end up getting cited.