12/21 Wicked Sings

12/21 "Wicked Sings" (album: Hemlock Honey and Crows) is a song in the voice of Lilith as though she were the serpent in the Garden of Eden. 

I was raised by a fairly fundamentalist community. People who took hard lines on things. It didn't take long to learn that anyone not-a-man had fewer rights, less respect, and forever carried the weight leveled against women through time: the fall of the human race. 

The thing is, I've thought about this a long time. And the more I think about it, the more I see Eve fulfilling a purpose. She doesn't damn humankind; she completes it. The last missing piece of human development doesn't come from the Creator, it comes from the literal enactment of free will. 

Eve crystallizes what it is to be a human being, with consciousness and conscience. She *decides* for herself. She was created curious, shown a great big DON'T TOUCH THIS sign, and did the natural thing. 

I listened to men (because only men were allowed to have their voices heard from the pulpit) explain again and again how women were the temptress, the wicked, the fault. No responsibility given to the man involved for making his own choice. And all he truly chose against was loneliness. 

The song began with the prompt "something wicked this way comes" for OVFF's songwriting competition in 2017. I sat with the word "wicked" and thought about what it actually means. Because when you define everything that contradicts the will of One as wicked, I mean, anything can be. 

Listen & lyrics here

I heard Lilith's voice clearly: LISTEN, she said. She wasn't just talking to me, she was talking to Eve. This is what we're taught: 

"There's something wicked in defiance 
Something wicked in control 
There's something wicked in awareness 
That we are the queens of our souls" 

But there isn't. Not a bit. When you step forward to use your voice or your influence for something you've been told you're not supposed to have a say in, that isn't wickedness: it's a direct threat to the powers that be. That's what terrifies them, and that's why they use fear as a tool. 

Spread your wings. Be the dragon. Get shit done.

 

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