July – 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Ninsianna
Ninsianna ran her fingers through the bucket of kishk, her nose crinkled at the slightly sour scent as Mama added rennet from the stomach of a slaughtered sheep. Together they stirred in the salt and worked it through the kernals of unground grain until the mixture was finally absorbed. Whenever summer rolled around, the goat produced far more milk than they could use. Kishk … curdled, dried milk, was a way to preserve the highly perishable dairy product for times of year when the goat didn't produce enough. Although lately there had been a lot less excess!
Ninsianna laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"Oh, nothing," Ninsianna said. She laughed again. "I was just thinking how determined Mikhail looked this morning when he coaxed ‘Little Nemesis’ into the milking shed."
Mama stirred the half-full bucket.
"If he gets any more 'determined,' I fear we shall have no milk at all."
"Never have I seen a man so vexed by a goat!" Ninsianna laughed. "He had hoof prints … on his cheek … when when he came out with the milk! I swear, if he'd had his sword with him, we'd be eating Little Nemesis for dinner!"
"Now hold the cloth, child," Mama said as she hoisted up the bucket to strain the mixture through a length of linen. "Pull it tight so the frame doesn't collapse into the dirt."
Together they spread the saturated grains out onto the length of linen mounted onto a frame to dry the kishk in the sun. Once it was dry they would store it in a pottery urn and, whenever they wanted a porridge, they could simply add water and have their milk and grain in a single dish.
“Ninsianna!” Papa's voice trailed out of the open doorway to their house. “Come here, child!”
“Yes, Papa!" Ninsianna rinsed the curds off of her hands and went into the house, pausing when she saw Papa was set up to perform a shamanic ceremony. “Oh … should I leave?”
“No, Ninsianna,” Papa said. “It's time to teach you the right way to go into the dreamtime so you'll never get stuck there again.”
“Oh …” she said, her expression puzzled. “Isn’t that forbidden?”
“Times change," Papa said. "Which means we must change along with them or risk being left behind.”
A thrill of excitement tingled up her spine. This was what she'd always wanted, to be treated the equal of any shaman. But Papa didn't know she'd been stealing dregs from his journeys for many years and developed abilities she suspected even he didn't have. She voiced the appropriate trepidation. “Am I capable of doing this?”
“You drank the sacred beverage which led you to Mikhail,” Papa said. “Those are upper level shamanic abilities. And now She-who-is speaks through you. All I can do is fill in any gaps in your knowledge so that you don't get stranded again due to some lack of basic knowledge. Come. Sit.”
Ninsianna sat and recited the names of each item he used. She knew all but one. “What is this one, Papa?”
“This,” he said, “is kratom. It's similar to blue water lily in that it aids the transition into the dream world. But it's more powerful. You must never blend it with any other herb or it could kill you. Nor should you use it if you suspect you may be with child.”
Ninsianna fondled the tiny, yellow flowers and dried, green leaves. Unlike a normal flower, it was spikey and grew in a little ball, while the leaves were thick like the leaves of a tree.
“Where does it grow?”
“We trade for it with the caravans from the lands east of Shush,” he said. “Kratom helps your mind leave your body to search for information.”
“What kind of information, Papa?”
“Nothing too frightening your first time out. We shall spy on your friends and then you can tell them about it later. But the ability to let your mind see where your body can't travel is good for spying on your enemies.”
“How does it work?"
“There are three levels of this ability,” Papa said. “The first ability is called empathetic feeling. Every living creature has an aura, an eggshell of energy which spreads out around them. When you pass close to someone, your eggshells touch and exchange information.”
“Would those be the colors that I see?” Ninsianna asked.
“Most people can't see the colors,” Papa said, “But most people have this ability to some degree. It's the sensation of knowing someone is sick because when you talk with them, you can feel their sickness inside your own body. The feeling is vague, but you can hone the ability so that you know the difference between your own feelings and those which belong to somebody else.”
“Like Mama?”
“Yes. Like Mama. Mama rarely sees the things that we see, but she can sense the echo of what somebody else is feeling. When she was your age, I taught her how to focus her mind to see. The gift doesn't come naturally to her, but she can do it.”
“But seeing is so easy!” Ninsianna exclaimed. “I have always been able to see. Even when I was a little girl! What I have a hard time understanding is the echo of aches and pains that Mama describes.”
“You inherited the ability to see from me,” Papa said. “As I inherited the ability from my father, Lugalbanda. But I have a hard time feeling what others feel as Mama does.”
“How come Uncle Merariy didn't inherit the ability to see?”
“She-who-is doesn't always convey the gift equally,” Papa said. “Even amongst family members. Some get more. Some get less. Your ability is greater than mine, while my brother got no ability whatsoever.”
There was a bitterness to Papa's voice as he spoke those words.
“Is that why you don't like him?”
Papa sighed.
“Don't let the mistakes of my past color your relations with our family,” Papa said. “Merariy and I said terrible things to one another that we were never able to take back. He was the eldest son. He felt he should have been trained to be shaman by our father, even though he lacked natural ability. I broadcast that fact to the entire village because I didn't want my father to choose him over me." Papa's eyes were filled with remorse. "I tried to mend bridges with him later, but he has become bitter.”
“He is the village drunk,” Ninsianna said with disgust. “And his daughter hangs around with that trollop, Shahla. I'm embarrassed people even know she is my cousin.”
Papa gave her a scrutinizing look. “Green is not your color, child.”
“She'd better keep her hands off of my … ahm … I don't care if she is my cousin!" Ninsianna's eyes flashed with jealousy. “She follows Mikhail around as though she were a lovesick puppy!”
“Mikhail wouldn't notice if they covered themselves in honey and threw themselves naked at his feet," Papa laughed. “He only has eyes for you!”
Ninsianna was quiet. It was not his eyes she wanted on her. It had been almost a week since the solstice festival and he hadn't laid a hand on her since! She swore that if he didn't take the initiative soon, she would corner and tie him in the milking shed instead of the goat so that she could have her way with him!
“Tell me more about how you see into the dreamtime, Papa?”
“The second way to see is to follow the threads.”
“Those are the connections that bind all living creatures together through the dreamtime, right, Papa?”
“Yes. It only works if you've formed a connection to the other person. But sometimes you can follow a thread from a person you know well to a person they are connected to who you don't know very well.”
“Like … a friend of a friend?”
“Exactly,” Papa said. “Depending upon the kind of relationship you have, the threads can be connected to different parts of your body.”
“Where do I find these threads?”
“Most connections are through your gut … right … here." He pointed to a spot two inches above her belly button. “Now … close your eyes and picture somebody you have a strong connection with until you get a sense of where they are connected to you."
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Ninsianna reached down to her tummy and found the connection. “Got it.”
“Follow that thread until you bump into the person you're thinking of,” Papa said. “You should get a vague sense of what they are doing.”
“I can see … Mikhail,” Ninsianna reached out as though following an invisible cord. “He is … busy. Working. In the field, I think. In Yalda and Zhila’s field. Papa! I can see the field!”
“Following threads is the simplest way to remote view,” Papa said. “You can project images into their mind or receive them. Although, if the person is untrained, they'll have a hard time differentiating their own thoughts from somebody else’s.”
“What if you need to see someplace and you're not connected to anyone there?” Ninsianna asked. “For example, what if I wanted to see the village where the Kemet traders come from?”
“That, child,” Papa gave her a wolfish grin, “is what the kratom is for. The third kind of seeing is called remote viewing. It's dangerous because your consciousness leaves your body and travels separate from it, as though you can fly connected only by a thread. Sometimes you fly over the earth to see. Other times you travel through the dreamtime. That was the type of seeing you were doing when you drank the sacred beverage to gain your vision of Mikhail.”
“I don't think it would be practical except in a dire situation,” Ninsianna said. "After I journeyed, I slept like the dead."
“If you do it enough times, you can train your mind to travel outside of your body without the aid of hallucinogens. But it's dangerous. While your mind surfs the dreamtime, your body is vulnerable.”
“Is that what happened when She-who-is gifted me with the second vision?” Ninsianna asked.
“I think so,” Papa said. “That's the other danger. The dreamtime is large and interesting. Sometimes people get lost. Or become so interested in what is on the other side that they just let go of the thread that connects their mind to their body and cross over to the other side.”
“Like grandpapa Lugalbanda did when grandmamma died?” Ninsianna's voice lilted with pride.
Papa didn't meet her gaze.
“Yes,” Papa said. “A shaman can will himself to pass when his time here is finished. It's why we are entrusted to perform the death rituals. We can guide the dead person's spirit part way because we travel it so often ourselves, but we can't bring them all of the way or we'll die, too.”
Ninsianna shuddered. “I hate the death rituals!”
“If you wish to be entrusted with the life-giving abilities of a shaman,” Papa's expression grew serious, “then you must embrace the death-aspects, as well. You can't have one without the other. You can't have life without death. Nor can you have death without rebirth. You must always strive to possess balance within yourself, or you'll create imbalance in the world around you.”
Ninsianna reached for the kratom. “Papa, show me how.”
“Remote viewing. First, you take…..” Immanu guided his daughter through the mother-of-all acid trips.
Chapter 66