Daughters of Time - the beginning . . .

For man without woman there is no heaven in the sky or on earth. Without woman there would be no sun, no moon, no agriculture, and no fire.  Arab Proverb

Prologue

The city of Urim (Ur), Ancient Sumer. c 2000BCE.

The last days were upon them, and still the child had not come. The great city of Urim would fall, and the way of Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, would be lost. 

“All things must pass,” whispered the river. 

Nin-lil-la, High Priestess of Urim, stood naked at the river’s edge, alone but for tourmaline-feathered ducks and tawny lions. The stars faded. A crescent Moon sailed gently from the horizon like a boat of dreams. 

It was here that Nin-lil-la came to wash away her fears and savour the stillness. When the lions began their raucous welcome to the Sun, Urim would come to life, and Nin-lil-la would belong once again to the Temple. 

Graceful, unhurried, Nin-lil-la immersed herself in the sweet water. Her long, black hair moved like eels with the current. 

When the lions turned to face the East, she left the river, wiped the moisture from her skin, and wrapped a square of white linen around herself in the pleats and folds appropriate for a High Priestess. She twisted and coiled her damp hair and secured it with a length of reed. Skin tingling, she began the walk back to the Temple just as the lions began their celebration of the Sun’s release from the Underworld.  

Nin-lil-la, High Priestess of the Temple of Nanna in Urim, climbed the steps of her Palace. She paused to look back over the Buranun, glistening now in the first light of day. The great river ran like a ribbon of gold from the North to the Pars Sea that lapped at Urim’s Western Harbour. She frowned as she saw, yet again, the vision that had been haunting her: where now there was water, bringing life and riches to the city, one day there would be sand, dry and lifeless. How the great Sea could disappear was not something she could explain, but she knew beyond doubt that her vision was sent by the Great Ones and was, therefore, true. One day Urim would stand alone in the desert, all splendour faded. 

With the vision came the face of a girl with eyes like a gazelle and courage enough to walk through Time. Had she even been born yet, this girl-child who haunted Nin-lil-la’s dreams? Would she come in time?