Succubus, Temptress of Mystic Remembrance

Lilith by John Collier

"In folklore...a succubus (plural succubi) is a female demon or supernatural being appearing in dreams, who takes the form of a human woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual intercourse. The male counterpart is the incubus. Religious traditions hold that repeated intercourse with a succubus may result in the deterioration of health or even death." Wikipedia

In Hebrew and Arabic mysticism, the figure exhibited above, of Lilith, is the central character for mythic remembrance of the succubus folklore, where she is a source of domestic superstition and the root of cosmic evil. Read more from the Jewish Women's Archive.

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Low-lying jungles emerge only steps from the sea wall. As I enter through the darkening canopy my footprints sink deeper into the unsure ground of dying vegetation. I see a man and woman walk assuredly in Muslim dress. 

Muslim shawl-makers, Kashmir 1867 by William Simpson

This is Mother India, though I feel I am trespassing, at the dangerous edge, where two worlds have collapsed side by side. At seeing their weary countenances, their grimacing jaunts, I recoil nearer to the seaside, where the forest is less thick and try a new entry point. Again, wandering through the sweep of jungle, my mind presses onward with increasingly bleary sight as the landscape closes in and my sight nears my eyes, confronting the formidability of a climaxed rainforest. 

Lovers shoot at a tiger in the jungle.
 Illustration to the mystical Sufi text Madhumalati by Meister des Madhu-Malati-Manuskripts

As I enter through a clearing, I see a young woman, a Punjabi Sikh. She welcomes kindly, and warns me of the dangers ahead, though she reminds me that as long as I travel through the lands of her people, the Sikhs, I will be safe. 

Portrait of Rani Jind Kaur aka Jindan by George Richmond

I wander on, enlightened by the meeting with such a kind and endearing sprite. Increasingly entangled in the impenetrable bush, I come to a massive tree. Immediately, I begin climbing to gain a vantage point. The limbs are smooth and strong, a true jungle arbor. As I feel for a lookout, the branches stretch me inwards, and I rest on a limb as thick as my body, crawling toward a knot of branches creating a homely stand, a shaded hollow within the body of the tree. As I press on amid the enwrapping arms of the humungous tree, a woody formation beckons with the same quality as my bedroom. 

Abu'l Hasan and Mansur Squirrels in a Plane Tree by Abu'l Hasan and Mansur

Again, I wake, remembering the seaside cliffs beyond the jungle’s edge, the grandiose rocks, welcoming my step, as I notice two women of different religious custom playing, bounding from rock to rock with amiable laughter and sisterly freedom, I begin sketching in primary colors and rough lines, with an innocent beauty, and gravity enough to keep my word.   

_________

Where does the apple fall?
From a rootless tree?
A groundless source?

- excerpt from "My Name"

Dreams of Palestine: A Transitioning People, An Ephemeral Mind

I usually begin with a cultural dream context and then select a creative dream description, however when I read Rashid Khalidi's book, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood I was struck by a fact regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, namely that the Gaza strip is only slightly twice as large as the area of Washington D.C. (Source)

It is one thing when a dream can be applied to a cultural context, though it is wholly another when the cultural context can be applied to the dream. 

On that note, I have always been highly intrigued by the similar plight faced by both Palestinians and First Nations/Native Americans. Which is why the article, "What is Settler Colonialism?" by Maya Mikdashi has resonated in my memory so deeply.

For a great resource on Palestinian films and writings visit Dreams of a Nation

Also, see my earlier post, "Making a Home with an Identity of Conflict" on Rashid Khalidi

_______

A map of New England, pieced together with intersecting lines and pure conceptual space, is represented in a form unknown to me, a son of the land. An unmistakably present empty space lies in the middle of the map. The white of the uncharted territory stands out like a mirage over the sandscape, deluding the eye into such incredulity enough to trick any human sensibility.

Later that night, at my grandparents, I am transfixed by the emptiness. The open white space turns my attention inward, as I meditate on the image, as in an unconscious stupor, half involuntarily though secretively through my utmost will, unchallenged, I ruminate on the mystifying aura of a palpable nothingness so close to home.

The next morning, a family friend tells me all about the emptiness on the map. He is Arab, ancestral to the Levant, while a proud American. He tells me exactly how to get there. I am awestruck, undone as with a viral need, doubly expressed as an escape from the normalcy of the known and also to confront the other.

I arrive to a gate of barbed wire fencing, an entire society of Arabs, transplanted as it were on the uncharted map. A rudiment of the colonial present, a territory, though flown upwards with a gargantuan mall, the area is blistering with the heat of overpopulation. As I enter the grounds, I am constantly watched. Every passerby regards me with a hard edge, though delicate and unassumingly friendly. 

It is Palestine in America! Though they say they are Lebanese. I am taken by their quaint humility and sensitivity to intercultural warmth. I am welcome, though an alarming fear abounds uncannily as thick as the smog-worn air. As I feel for the exit in the train terminal-style, busy street-esque bustle, I stray towards a news kiosk to ask the man behind the counter a question.

Inquisitive as ever, I observe ruffian street children buying single smokes, and so I follow suit with deliberation, quite taken by the overt signage in Arabic absolutely everywhere. I try a few phrases I remembered from Egypt. The man is quiet. A deep pain seems to inflict his chest, almost speechless in the act of a simple exchange. The transaction, while gentle, struck a chord of such powerful resonance that I was never able to return to that emptiness, for the nothingness was filled only with my own ignorance.

_______

Interpretation: The Achuar and the Meaning of an Indigenous Map

_______

a reach
to touch Love's palpable drift
in the body of one Northeastern life
slipping softly from consciousness
into the unending scream of ignorance
as waves of ghosts piercing the cracked, loose air,
and our lonely exit comes to fruition

...

dreaming soundlessly into the never-ending swarm of heart

...

sensitivity under the 95 year old skin of true feeling
resonating in the earthy hair of guitar & piano strings, cut
burning in the night's long internal ache,
that fires the ebullient seed in grass-thundered vocalizations
giving melodies to ancestral brother and sisterhoods
calling throughout
the music of surprising beauty

- excerpts from "Fortune's Glutton"