Dead Meat

The shark opened her mouth and pulled her head back ready to attack. I tried to swim away, but all I could do was look at all those sharp teeth. The heavy water held my body like a straightjacket. She was hungry and I was supper. I was dead meat and I knew it.

I woke up before the shark ate me. When I wrote down the dream I had a few nights ago, the image of dead meat lingered. It reminded me of a dream I had years ago. I can’t remember all the details, just that I was with a group of seminary students. We were waiting to see if we would be ordained to the priesthood. One candidate held a metal mixing bow out to me, inside of it was raw hamburger meat. In the next scene I am with a woman who was recently ordained to the deaconate. She presents to me the chalice. We all sit down at a table together to feast.

The meat also reminds me of Inanna’s descent into the underworld. Inanna must pass through seven gates to get there. At each gate she loses articles of clothing until she is stripped bare and completely vulnerable. When she finally reaches the heart of the underworld, she finds a grieving Queen, Ereshkigal who's pain is so severe it has become murderously wild. Inanna must face the eye of death. Ereshkigal strikes her dead and hangs Inanna's body--now a piece of rotting meat--on a hook, on a pole.

What pain needs to be seen? What death must I face?

The food and water of life is sprinkled on Inanna's corpse like seasonings. Inanna returns to life and escapes the underworld. She doesn't escape the pain--she is transformed after beholding it. I’m drawn to the image of her body becoming meat—meat that is seasoned with the food and water of life. I think of the bread of life, this is my body given for you—feed my sheep, the living water—if you drink of it you will never die.

I think of countless stories of women, how we have been treated like pieces of meat, seasoned to be objects, how we are told to forget about it, to leave our pain unseen like Ereshkigal's. I think of those forbidden places we are warned not to visit--for we might not return from the underworld--those dark places of pain, of madness.

What does it mean to be dead meat?

To be caught, to have no escape, to be forced to face the horror, to submit to something more powerful than ourselves. If I am caught, than it is God who is catching me. And that can be terrifying.