This is very clearly brought out in the beautiful Lament for Tammuz, published by Mr Langdon in Tammuz and Ishtar, and also in Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms.[7]

“In Eanna, high and low, there is weeping, Wailing for the house of the lord they raise.  The wailing is for the plants; the first lament is ‘they grow not.’  The wailing is for the barley; the ears grow not.  For the habitations and flocks it is; they produce not.  For the perishing wedded ones, for perishing children it is; the dark-headed people create not.  The wailing is for the great river; it brings the flood no more.  The wailing is for the fields of men; the gunu grows no more.  The wailing is for the fish-ponds; the dasuhur fish spawn not.  The wailing is for the cane-brake; the fallen stalks grow not.  The wailing is for the forests; the tamarisks grow not.  The wailing is for the highlands; the masgam trees grow not.  The wailing is for the garden store-house; honey and wine are
   produced not. 
The wailing is for the meadows; the bounty of the garden, the
   sihtu plants grow not. 
The wailing is for the palace; life unto distant days is not.”

Can anything be more expressive of the community of life animating the whole of Nature than this poignantly worded lament?

A point which differentiates the worship of Tammuz from the kindred, and better known, cult of Adonis, is the fact that we have no liturgical record of the celebration of the resurrection of the deity; it certainly took place, for the effects are referred to: 

   “Where grass was not, there grass is eaten,
   Where water was not, water is drunk,
   Where the cattle sheds were not, cattle sheds are built."[8]

While this distinctly implies the revival of vegetable and animal life, those features (i.e., resurrection and sacred marriage), which made the Adonis ritual one of rejoicing as much as of lamentation, are absent from liturgical remains of the Tammuz cult.[9]

A detail which has attracted the attention of scholars is the lack of any artistic representation of this ritual, a lack which is the more striking in view of the important position which these ’Wailings for Tammuz’ occupy in the extant remains of Babylonian liturgies.  On this point Mr Langdon makes an interesting suggestion:  “It is probable that the service of wailing for the dying god, the descent of the mother, and the resurrection, were attended by mysterious rituals.  The actual mysteries may have been performed in a secret chamber, and consequently the scenes were forbidden in Art.  This would account for the surprising dearth of archaeological evidence concerning a cult upon which the very life of mankind was supposed to depend."[10]