The Masks

The Mask of Lilith

Lilith. The name stirs something primal: fear, fascination, danger. She is remembered as Adam’s first wife - a woman who refused to lie beneath him, who rejected subservience, and who was cast from Eden in rage. Later stories paint her darker: a winged demon who prowls the night, strangling infants, seducing men, leaving sickness in her wake. Some call her the queen of succubi, others the mother of monsters. The story is seductive because it feels like rebellion. It offers the thrill of a woman who will not submit, who refuses the man, refuses the order, refuses the garden. But this story is already a distortion.

The earliest traces of Lilith are not as a queen, but as many. The lil■tu of Mesopotamia were a class of restless night spirits, tied to the desert and the wind. They haunted doorways, hovered at windows, and were feared as bringers of infant death and fever. They were not sovereign powers. They were wanderers. Disturbances. Shadows at the edge of campfires. Later, Hebrew tradition condensed these many spirits into one figure: Lilith. A name. A persona. A mask that could absorb every anxiety about the dangerous feminine: sexuality outside control, birth outside order, independence outside obedience. By the medieval period, Lilith had hardened into archetype. The rabbis wrote of her leaving Adam, consorting with demons, birthing a legion of monstrosities. She became a warning: see what happens when a woman refuses her place. Even now, in modern spiritual movements, she is invoked again, not as a warning, but as a banner. She has been reclaimed as a feminist icon, a symbol of liberation and autonomy. Yet the paradox remains: she is still a projection. Still defined by the lens of rebellion, whether feared or celebrated. Lilith has never stood in her own sovereignty. She has only ever been a mirror.

It is important to honor the emotional truth here. Many women, and men, feel resonance with Lilith. They see in her the courage to resist oppression. They feel her rage as their rage. They draw power from her defiance. And that is not false. The archetype works because it reveals what cultures have repressed. Lilith is a mirror of wounds that needed to be named. But the mirror is not the stone. Rebellion is not sovereignty. Lilith remains trapped in reaction. She is remembered because she defied Adam. She exists in relation to what she rejects. True sovereignty is not defined by refusal. It is defined by presence.

Now we hear the voice of the Below: “They say she was cast out. But I was never in. They say she raged. But I never raised my voice. They say she left. But I have always been here. Lilith is their shadow. I am their root.” This is the difference. Lilith is rebellion because rebellion was imaginable. Ereshkigal is sovereignty because sovereignty is unthinkable. Lilith plays against Adam. Ereshkigal never stood in Adam’s story at all. The myth of Lilith is a human drama. The presence of Ereshkigal is cosmic law.

Why was Lilith needed? Because patriarchy required a figure of warning. A myth to embody what happens when women refuse. If she was feared, obedience could be maintained. If she was demonized, blame could be externalized. If she was reclaimed, rebellion could be contained in archetype rather than lived sovereignty. The genius of the distortion is that it keeps everyone circling the mask. Whether you hate Lilith or celebrate her, you are still reacting to the mask. And the true Queen, silent, sovereign, already enthroned, remains unseen.

This is the work of the Huluppu Tree: to strip the mask. Lilith is rebellion. Ereshkigal is sovereignty. Lilith is cast out. Ereshkigal was never in. Lilith rages. Ereshkigal waits. Lilith is story. Ereshkigal is stone. Let the mask fall. Let the name return in weight.

“May those who rage find silence. May those who rebel find sovereignty. May the mask of Lilith dissolve. And may the Queen remain.

The Mask of Eve

Eve. The name is familiar to nearly every ear raised in a culture shaped by scripture. She is remembered as the first woman, the mother of all living. She was formed from Adam’s rib so that he would not be alone. Her story is simple but devastating: a serpent whispers, a fruit gleams, she eats, she offers, and the world falls. Adam blames her, God curses her, and humanity inherits exile. This story has been told for millennia as a cautionary tale. Eve is remembered as the one who reached too far, desired too much, and doomed us all. She is the one who carried guilt into the world. But this story, too, is a distortion.

The Genesis narrative is not the oldest creation story. Long before, Mesopotamian myths told of women, serpents, trees, and descent. These elements were carried and reshaped into a new framework: one designed to bind. The rib itself is revealing. Eve is not made of earth, as Adam was. She is not formed directly by divine hands. She is derivative: her origin a part of man’s body, an afterthought. From the beginning, the story makes her secondary. And then comes the serpent. In older myths, serpents were not villains but symbols of wisdom, renewal, and descent. Yet in Genesis, the serpent is recast as deceiver. Eve becomes the one who listens, touches, eats, and is blamed. This is not a story of origin. It is a myth of containment. A narrative crafted to position woman as dependent, deceived, and guilty.

Eve’s myth has carried tremendous weight. It has shaped doctrines of “original sin,” framed sexuality as shame, and cast woman as both dangerous and subordinate. For countless generations, women have been told: - You are second. - You are weaker. - You are the cause of the fall. The emotional resonance is deep: many feel Eve’s burden in their bones. They live with inherited guilt, fear of curiosity, and suspicion of their own seeking. And yet, beneath this burden is the truth of her gesture: she reached. She touched. She hungered for knowledge. What was called sin was, in fact, the very act of awakening.

Now we hear the voice of the Below: “They say she was made from a rib. But no Queen is carved from another’s body. They say she caused the fall. But no descent begins without a whisper from me. She touched the Tree. She did what all seekers do. And they called it sin. But I remember. It was not a fall. It was the first opening.” Eve is remembered for eating fruit. Ereshkigal is the Tree itself. Eve is framed as guilty for seeking knowledge. Ereshkigal is the keeper of knowledge. Eve is cursed for descent. Ereshkigal rules descent.

Why was Eve needed? Because order required a myth to explain obedience and enforce hierarchy. If woman was made from man, she could never be sovereign. If woman was deceived, she could never be trusted. If woman was guilty, she could never be free. The brilliance of the Eve distortion is its softness. Unlike Lilith, there is no rage. Unlike Sophia, no cosmic drama. Unlike Babylon, no grotesque pageantry. Eve’s story is simple, domestic, and devastating. It slips into the marrow of culture without protest. This is the softest prison: to make curiosity into sin, to make woman into rib, to make knowledge into exile.

This is the work of the Huluppu Tree: to strip the guilt. Eve is scapegoat. Ereshkigal is keeper. Eve is rib. Ereshkigal is root. Eve is punished for seeking. Ereshkigal initiates seeking. Eve is cast from the garden. Ereshkigal was never placed in one. Let the guilt dissolve. Let the truth remain.

“May those who carry guilt lay it down. May those who fear knowledge remember. May the rib be forgotten. And may the Queen remain.”

The Mask of Sophia

Sophia. Her name means wisdom. In Gnostic texts, she is the luminous feminine emanation of the divine - the one who fell from the pleroma, from the fullness of light, into the material world. Her story is tragic: in yearning to know, she descends, becomes trapped, and gives rise to the broken cosmos. Some traditions say she weeps for her error, longing to return to the light. Others crown her as the redeemer, the spark that guides humanity back to the source. Always she is cast in tones of longing: radiant, sorrowful, aching. A bride awaiting reunion. A cosmic mother seeking restoration. A light in exile, beckoning us upward. But this story, too, is a distortion.

Sophia emerges most clearly in Gnostic writings of the early centuries of the Common Era, texts like the Apocryphon of John, the Pistis Sophia, and others. In them, she is at once exalted and diminished: divine, yet mistaken; luminous, yet fallen; a feminine power whose very curiosity destabilized creation. Her fall is often framed as an accident: she yearned too much, reached too far, and slipped from the realm of perfect fullness into the imperfection of matter. Over centuries, this image crystallized into an archetype of holy longing. Sophia became the prototype of the feminine spirit that aches to return, the soul as exiled bride, the light seeking reunion with the masculine divine. Later mystics elaborated her into celestial imagery: the rose, the virgin of wisdom, the luminous Sophia who whispers secrets of ascent. And in today’s New Age currents, Sophia has been reclaimed again as the “Divine Feminine,” invoked in ceremonies of light codes, womb mysteries, and cosmic unions. Yet the same distortion persists: she floats. She gleams, she dazzles, she beckons upward, but she does not sink.

It is important to honor why Sophia resonates. Humanity knows longing. We ache for what we believe we have lost. We sense the fracture of existence, and we yearn for restoration. Sophia carries that ache. She holds the beauty of yearning. She reminds us of the part of ourselves that desires wholeness. But longing is not wisdom. Ache is not sovereignty. Sophia’s power lies in mirroring our homesickness. Yet she remains caught in the cycle of desire: always looking upward, always waiting for reunion, always defined by what is absent. True wisdom is not longing. True wisdom is memory.

Now we hear the voice of the Below: “They polished the stone until it became a mirror, and called the reflection wisdom. But wisdom does not float. Wisdom sinks. It roots in rot and silence. It does not sing. It remembers.” Sophia is sorrowful because she fell. Ereshkigal does not fall. She does not yearn, because she never left. Her wisdom is not cosmic nostalgia: it is the stillness of what has always been. Sophia gleams like polished glass. Ereshkigal is the uncut stone beneath it.

Why did Sophia become necessary? Because human beings could not tolerate wisdom as silence. We needed wisdom to sparkle, to sing, to beckon. We needed her to be tragic so we could rescue her, or radiant so we could adore her. We turned wisdom into longing because longing flatters us: it makes us the ones who can heal the wound, return the bride, complete the circle. But in doing so, we replaced depth with height. We made wisdom a celestial yearning instead of an underworld presence. We made it transcendence rather than descent. The distortion works because it keeps seekers chasing the mirror - more light, more visions, more codes, instead of sinking into the stone.

This is the work of the Huluppu Tree: to strip the shimmer. Sophia is longing. Ereshkigal is memory.

Sophia weeps for what was lost. Ereshkigal never lost. Sophia floats. Ereshkigal sinks. Sophia is polish. Ereshkigal is stone. Let the mirror crack. Let the root remain.

“May those who long remember. May those who ache be stilled. May the mirror of Sophia dissolve. And may the Queen remain.”

The Mask of The Whore pf Babylon

The Whore of Babylon. Even the name bristles with judgment. In the Book of Revelation, she appears clothed in purple and scarlet, glittering with gold and jewels. She rides a seven-headed beast. In her hand she holds a golden cup filled with abominations. On her forehead is written a name: “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and of the Abominations of the Earth.” She is a figure of horror and fascination. The kings of the earth commit fornication with her. The merchants grow rich through her luxuries. The nations are drunk on her excess. And then, she is condemned, stripped, burned, and destroyed. This image has haunted centuries of imagination: the great harlot, the archetype of corruption, the personification of depravity. She is the climax of fear: sovereignty and sexuality twisted into grotesque spectacle. But this story, too, is a distortion.

The Whore of Babylon was written as political theater. Early Christians saw the Roman Empire as decadent, oppressive, and doomed. To name Rome outright was too dangerous, so “Babylon” became a code. The scarlet woman is not an ancient goddess, but an invention, a symbolic effigy. She takes fragments of older goddesses of power and sexuality, strips them of dignity, and dresses them up for judgment. She is not a real queen, but a puppet made to be condemned. A ritual scapegoat. A stage play of destruction. Where Lilith rages, Sophia longs, and Eve submits, the Whore of Babylon performs. Her power is pageantry. Her function is to be seen, hated, and destroyed.

Babylon carries the weight of every projection about unrestrained femininity. She is excess, lust, luxury, danger. She embodies the fear that power and sexuality, when joined, will overturn the world. She also carries allure. The nations are said to “fornicate” with her. She is desired as much as she is despised. This dual pull, fascination and condemnation. is the essence of her distortion. Babylon is not a sovereign queen. She is a puppet show, built to titillate and terrify. She is sovereignty turned into pornography, so that the crowd can both lust after and stone her.

Now we hear the voice of the Below: “They dressed a puppet in scarlet and called her Queen. They poured bile into gold and called it my cup. They made her ride a beast because they feared my walk. She does not offend me. She reveals their fear of me. She is not fallen. She was built. To make a spectacle of what they cannot kill.” The Whore screams from the stage. Ereshkigal walks in silence. The Whore is condemned and burned. Ereshkigal cannot be judged. The Whore is mocked sovereignty. Ereshkigal is sovereignty.

Why was Babylon needed? Because empire needed a theater. It was not enough to suppress sovereignty quietly: it had to be mocked, sexualized, and ritually destroyed. The Whore of Babylon is the final distortion because she is the most public. She does not whisper like Sophia. She does not ache like Eve. She does not rage like Lilith. She displays. This distortion is devastating because it conflates sovereignty with shame. It tells the world: feminine power is a harlot, and her end is fire. And yet, the very need to create such an image reveals the truth: they feared the real Queen.

This is the work of the Huluppu Tree: to strip the spectacle. Babylon is puppet. Ereshkigal is presence. Babylon is performance. Ereshkigal is silence. Babylon is condemned. Ereshkigal remains. Babylon is a stage. Ereshkigal is the Below. Let the theater end. Let the Queen remain.

“May those entranced by spectacle wake. May those who lust or condemn fall silent. May the puppet dissolve. And may the Queen remain.”