The Power of Women Writing
On Enheduanna
As I sat down to my writing practice today, I reached for my candle, fought with the match, attempting to light the candle without burning my finger. The smell of sulfur dioxide tickled my nose while I waited for the wick to light, only to give up, dropping the match when the flame reached my finger. I saw that the wick had become buried, so I sought out a plastic fork to pry it up before trying again.
Another strike of sulfur dioxide and a rhyming prayer that I’ve already forgotten, and the wick lit.
I watched the flame dance, hesitant to put the candle down, and felt a tug across time to another woman by a flame writing. This one sat, likely, with a clay tablet on her lap pressing angles into it with a small stylus.
What must it have been like to be her? Did she worry over how her words would be received as I do? What prompted her to take the time to meticulously imprint her thoughts onto that tablet? Did she feel her audacity?
What did she feel as she pressed these words: “The compiler of the tablet (is) Enheduanna. My lord, that which has been created (here) no one has created before.”1
I like to imagine her a confident, no-nonsense woman. A woman who did not believe she was audacious, but who was, rather, simply doing her work.
Did her father name her high priestess for his own gain or because he recognized her gift? Is it possible that this early civilization may have treated women more equally?
So many questions flooded my brain about her and, in that moment, watching the candle dance, I felt myself audaciously longing for my words to carry through history like hers. That someday in the future (or even now) another woman would light a candle, watch the flame dance, and feel the thread between us. That she would feel the pride, the permission, and the gumption to put her words out there too.
When I finished writing I fell down a rabbit hole of Enheduanna. I looked to see what she may have written with. I looked to see whether she might have had a flame beside her while she wrote. I watched a video from The Morgan Museum about an exhibit her works were in. I was struck by the effort the act of writing must have been. I searched for translations of her writing and read an excerpt of her exaltation to Innana. Even now I cannot get her out of my mind.
In a world where the stories of history tend to be about men, the fact that the first author very likely was a woman is striking. To me, as a woman, especially one who is trying to be a writer, it is everything.
Representation matters. Our stories matter.
So let’s write them.
I’m here to tell a story of belonging to self. A story of deep understanding, acceptance, and love. A story of rejection of the dominant culture that suggests we do otherwise. Share with me in the comments the story you are here to tell, I’d love to know!
Very interesting! I need to read more about her.