Humility and Lori Vallow Daybell

What the Sumerians Have to Teach Us

From a Sumerian Poem

Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld

… There is the house whose people sit in darkness; dust is their food, and clay their meat. They are clothed like birds with wings for covering. They see no light, they sit in darkness.

I entered the house of dust, and I saw the kings of the earth, their crowns put away forever; rulers and princes, all who once wore kingly crowns and ruled the world in the days of old. They who had stood in the place of the gods stood now like servants.

In the house of dust were high priests and acolytes, priests of the incantation and of ecstasy, and there was Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld, she who keeps the books of the dead. She raised her head; she saw me and spoke, ‘Who has brought this one here?’ Then I awoke like a man drained of blood, who wanders alone in a waste.

Kind of puts a new spin on the idea of success, right? When the houses of Lancaster and York were killing each other in the War of the Roses, neither side saw themselves eating dust and clay for eternity in the underworld. Instead, they saw gold and power. And so many people died for it.

Not an accusation, just a stunning coincidence that people having Ms. Vallow Daybell as beneficiary at their death tended to die suddenly and surprisingly, to include her two youngest children whose Social Security benefits she collected until their bodies were found by police - nine months after their disappearances.

If you can’t see beyond this life, no need to think too much about houses of dust. You can try to collect the jewels glittering on top of the ocean waves without once realizing they are a temporary illusion and actually mean nothing at all. Everyone around you is doing it, so you should too. There is no looking within, only without, for reference.

Silliness and Horror

The short-sightedness of our time here is used to induce purchases of things we don’t want, fights for prizes we dread, and false contests of accumulation and status. How much horror is justified just to “win.” That wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

It’s because we lose sight of an existance beyond the horizon of our current lives that we can be swayed into silliness and horror. What if the price of winning is an eternity eating clay? (I have sad news. People would do it anyway. At least in this town.)

Sometimes the idea of a future life is only used to prop people up in this one. Then the “good” can actually become awful.

Lori Vallow Daybell

Lori Vallow Daybell thought she was a god. Like Ereshkigal stepping into our world, she kept the books of the dead, or soon-to-be dead, or should-be-dead-if-she-had-anything-to-say-about-it.

The accused. Her trial reporting doesn’t even use her name anymore. It’s the “Zombie Trial”