Damgalnuna, Damkina, Davcina, Ninhursaga: Mistress of the Earth

Davcina is the Empress of the Earth and she governs astronomical magick. She can teach the art of divination—especially via stones or crystals. She is apt for the tasks of ego-dissolution and individuation. She is both a warrioress and a protectress, and she presides over child-bearing, death, and reincarnation. She can guide the witch to hidden groves on the astral plane wherein nature spirits reside. Davcina’s primary elemental association is earth, obviously, but her secondary affiliation is unto the element of water. In my first vision of her, she held a pyramid of smoky quartz, and wore a hooded green robe. Her short brown hair was still drying from being dampened, and her eyes were black.

Davcina was worshipped in Mesopotamia under the name Damgalnuna and she was integrated into Akkkadian/Babylonian Paganism under the name of Damkina. In these civilizations, she was regarded as a goddess of the earth and destiny, and the Mesopotamians associated her with cows. Mesopotamian litanies to her called her the “great wild cow” and referred to her as both “exceptional in appearance” and “pre-eminent forever.” She was called Ninchursanga by the Sumerians, who regarded her as a mother goddess who presided over child-birth. She was the queen of the mountains and again the consort of Ea.

Damkina was one of Sumer’s seven primary deities, and she was often described as “valiant.” She was considered the tutelary matron of Sumerian leaders who purportedly nourished the kings in her healing milk. Damkina was worshipped in some of the same temples as her son, Marduk, who was the civilization’s main deity—comparable to Zeus. The class of Mesopotamian priests which was responsible for exorcisms would call out to Damkina alongside other divinities for the purpose of casting out spirit.

Damgalnunna, called the birth-giver of the great gods, was the Mother of Marduk/Merodach, the god of Babylon who killed Tiamat. Damgalnunna was first considered the bride of Enlil, and later that of Enki/Ea. Later on, Enlil was condemned to the underworld, and Damkina was condemned to fall alongside him, attaining a chthonic connotation thereupon. Prior to the tradition of the fall, Damkina and her spouse were celestial deities. Damkina was not ill-spoken of, mistrusted, or rejected as a result of this fall.

Damkina’s hair was sometimes portrayed in the shape of an omega, while other portrayals depicted an omega surmounted atop the weapon she carried—sometimes a mace, sometimes a baton. She appears in a tiered skirt with a horned headdress with bow cases often adorning her shoulders.

Besides being the name of a chthonian river and the deity who rules it, Apsu is also the name of a causal river which flowed through the Mesopotamian city variously referred to as Eridu, Eridug, and Eri-dugga, names which translate to mean “good city.” Prior to being reduced to what we call the mounds of Abu-Sharain, Eridu was one of Mesopotamia’s most sacred cities. It was purported to be the residence to Enki/Ea who was often referred to as Nudimmud.

Damkina is associated with lions, cows, calves, and the doe. Ninhursag, the aspect of her venerated in Akkad, was called “the Mistress of Serpents.” According to my Guiding Spirit, Davcina is also related to jaguars).

Davcina appears in Hebdomadry [the Sevenfold Way] as the Dark Goddess of Wisdom and Mistress of the Earth whose influence is auspicious in works of enchantment. She is a goddess of success, opulence, abundance, and harmony, and she is considered the guardian of nature’s generative forces. Anton Long related her as well as Baphomet to the sphere of Jupiter, which is intriguing as some considered Ninhursag to have been the consort of a Mesopotamian personification of Jupiter named Sulpae.

Hagur related her to the archetype of “the Wisdom/Sophia,” which is oddly insightful, as Sophia is the mother of Yahweh and Damgalnunna is the mother of Marduk, and is regarded as the mother of “the gods” in general. Elaborating on this, Hagur attributes her to the dark light of “creativity”, the dark action of “involvement,” and the motivation of “intrapsychic union,” which Hagur defines as “the experience of wholeness.”

Referred to as the Wyrd Goddess, Davcina is attributed to the nineteenth pathway which moves from Jupiter to Mars. Concerning this planetary affiliation, Hagur wrote as follows in Nythra Khthunae Atazoth:

“Davcina, the Mistress of Earth has the characteristic, and is an important link between the planet Mars and Jupiter. The Planet Mars, named after the Roman God of War, was referred to by the Ancients as the "Lesser Malefic " (lesser magic). It governs desires, sexual energies, focussed energies, dynamic action, animal nature, force, power, strife, strain, adversity, work, achievement, competition, and death. Mars also rules weapons, war, accidents, violence, surgery, tools, iron, and steel. The action of this Planet is sudden, forceful, and disruptive. The energy of Mars can be used violently and destructively, but with valour and fortitude. The energy of Jupiter is backing as it were the energies of Mars as a more protective urge towards success, that every action may develop in a more orderly way for the benefit of the fighter towards his victim. Jupiter is the planet of expansion, aspiration, higher education, Satanic philosophical reasoning (Satanic because it is the only philosophy that is absolutely humanistic and esoteric at the same time), justice (tooth for tooth, and eye for eye), and sovereignty.”

Carrying on, Hagur wrote thus of Davkina’s relation unto her disciple:

“As a mother she shapes her children, but also sets them free in the fulfillment of their own experiences. In fact, the difficulty of her task increases the longer she remains tied to them and carries the burden of their destinies with her.”

Davkina is related to a tarot card called the Mistress of Earth which signifies “Empathic manipulation (such as ‘enchantment’) to create Change via causal structure – amoral acts that may conventionally be seen as ‘evil.’ Actions provoked by unfettered passions and a reveling in the physical pleasures and challenges of life. ‘Ruthless ambition.’ Creativity and Change via destruction – ie. War, culling.”

In Nythra Khtunae Atazoth, Hagur wrote the following:

“Davcina is an important detail, say part, of the Cosmic Tree of Wyrd, in the sphere Jupiter; and, works very accurately between the microcosm (man) and the macrocosm, the Cosmic Tree of Wyrd, our universal sinister scheme. This is a fact to be grasped, and to work out. As dark knowledge increases and individual progress is made through pathworkings or other techniques of dark meditation, and as the faculty of transmitting from the sinister spheres to the individual mind has began from the acausal to the causal, manifestation will and is taking place.

“…A man or a woman who resembles Davcina, the Wyrd Goddess, can be totally absorbed by her characteristics, as archetypes are pre-existent, or latent,  internally determined patterns of being and behaving, of perceiving and responding.”

In Sumerian theology, there were multiple different deities of the earth, and they were all considered to have been related to, descended from, or part of the earth itself, which was a goddess, named Ki. The Sumerian Ki would thus be equivalent to the Mistress of Blood.

 

Sources other than ONA literature:

Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology

Babylonian Magic and Sorcery by Leonard King

Temple of the Ancients (Guide to Ancient Paganism Part 1)

English-Sumerian Dictionary by Adapa

The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia by Reginald Campbell Thompson

Temple of the Ancients (Guide to Ancient Paganism Part 1)

http://www.atkinslightquest.com/Documents/Religion/Legends-Folklore/Sumerian-and-Akkadian-Deities.htm

http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section4/tr4031.htm

The Dictionary of Mythology by J.A. Coleman

Animal Magick by D.J. Conway

Myth and Ritual in the Near East by E.O. James

http://www.musesrealm.net/deities/damkina.html

http://www.mesopotamiangods.com/a-sir-sag-%E1%B8%ABula-to-damgalnuna-damgalnuna-a/

http://www.digplanet.com

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/d/damkina.html