This week's episode, we're going to continue working with the goddess Inanna, and we're going to focus this week on her myth, her story of her descent to the underworld. There are a lot of lessons that we can learn and use today in this story. It's also the story of the heroine's journey that we talked about in episode 17. So I hope you join me in this episode as we take the descent into the underworld with Inanna.
Welcome to the Dancing with the Goddess podcast, where we talk about and connect with the goddess, the Divine Feminine. I'm Tora-Iresh’nai Moon, Goddess Mystic, author, and creative. Each month, we focus on a different Goddess from around the world, which helps us awaken to our own inner goddess. Join us for inspiration and how to attune to the Goddess’ frequency and align ourselves to it and the qualities the Goddess epitomizes. I invite you to dance with the goddess with me.
Here's today's episode. A major story about Inanna is her descent to the underworld. We find this in her hymns and the poems written by Enduanna. As we talked about in episode 18, Sumeria has some of the first Western writing that we know of. One of the first stories that was written was about Inanna. The second was about Gilgamesh.
And we have that in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Epic of Gilgamesh gives us that foundation for the hero's journey, or one of the foundations for the Hero's journey. Whereas Inanna's Descent gives us some of the foundations, and it follows the structure of, a Heroine's Journey. It makes it very important for those of you who are my listeners that are also authors and writers. This descent into the underworld that Inanna goes through is one that we can use in our lives as well, even today.
It's about 6000 years after her story was written. Her story was written in about 3500 BCE, so we're looking at between 5 and 6000 years ago that this story was immortalized and it still has relevance to us today. As we talked about in episode 18, Inanna is a goddess of paradoxes. She's the goddess of love and war. She's a goddess who is impetuous and impulsive and calculating.
She's also known to be careless about people's feelings, and at the same time, very caring, especially to those who are loyal to her. Loyalty is very important to Inanna, as we’ll see in her story, the descent. Most people start the story with her at the gates of the underworld. But her story doesn't start there. To really understand her motivations and what happens to her in this story, we need a little background.
The goddess Inanna, the goddess of love, of sexual love, heard about the exploits of Gilgamesh. And, ooh, was he hot! So she set her sights on taking Gilgamesh as a lover. She was a very beautiful goddess. She had made many gods and men her lover. It was a great honor to become one of Inanna’s lovers. She didn't think she would have any problem at all with taking Gilgamesh to her bed. But when she approached Gilgamesh, he looked down on her with disdain.
Inanna, you are beautiful, and you are quite well practiced in the art of lovemaking. But I've heard about what happens to your lovers. Ah, no, I am going to pass. No, I choose not to be your lover. And Inanna was shocked! This is the first time she'd ever been spurned. No one spurned the goddess of love, until Gilgamesh. Goddess Inanna is also the goddess of war. She can't let this slight go unanswered. But Gilgamesh is this warrior, and has won many battles.
Inanna knows she can't go head to head with him. So she figures out a way to bring him down. She goes to her brother in law, Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven. And the Bull of Heaven is so strong, he, he can defeat Gilgamesh. So she convinces him, her brother in law, to go and destroy Gilgamesh’s realm. But when Gug, Gugalanna arrives, instead of fighting with Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh’s best friend, Enkidu, fights him instead. And shock of all shocks, kills the Bull of Heaven.
All the gods are completely shocked. And now this has put a damper in Inanna’s plans to show Gilgamesh that he really should have become her lover. She's already the Queen of heaven and earth. There's only one realm which can pull Gilgamesh down. And that is the realm of the dead, the underworld. But there's only one problem with this. Her sister, Ereshkigal, is the ruler of the underworld, and her husband just died because of Inanna. But does this stop Inanna? No, it doesn't.
Because we know Inanna, while calculating, is also impulsive. And she's the queen of heaven and earth. She can do what she wants. So she decides to go down to the underworld with the excuse of consoling her sister in her mourning. Because Ereshkigal really loved her husband and is in complete mourning about his loss. And as a good sister, Inanna should go down and console her. Inanna’s forgetting one of the rules of the underworld: Whosoever travels in this world can never leave, God or mortal.
But Inanna thinks she's special and exempt from this rule. But just in case she isn't, she tells her priestess and loyal companion, which we're not sure is a lover or not, or just priestess. The records are unclear. She convinces her loyal companion, Ninshubur to wait at the gates of the underworld for her for three days. And if Inanna doesn't return at the end of those three days, that Ninshbur should approach the gods to find a way to revive and bring Inanna back.
Ninshubur agrees to this, and she goes with Inanna to the gates of the underworld. Now, Inanna, she knows this is a type of warfare. So Inanna puts on her make up and her finest raiment, the symbols of her rule and her sovereignty as for Queen of Heaven and earth. She puts on her crown and her jewels and her fine dress. Just as a warrior would put on his armor, she puts out her raiment, her regalia, and with Ninshubur at her side, she approaches the gates of the underworld.
And Nin, the Guardian of the gates, asks Inanna, why do you seek entry here? This is not your realm. Why are you coming down here? And Inanna says, This is a quote from the poem, The Descent of a Inanna. “Because of my older sister, Ereshkigal, her husband Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven has died. I have come to witness the funeral rites.” So Nin reminds her all who enter and walk the realm of the dead must stay. Are you sure you want to enter the realm of the dead? And Inanna agrees.
She says, Yes. I need to console my sister. She is grieving because of her husband's death. And Nin allows her to cross the gates. As Inanna descends, there is not just one gate of the underworld. There are seven. And at each gate, that gatekeeper stops Inanna and makes her take off a piece of her regalia. She takes off her crown, leaving aside her sovereignty. At the next gate, she takes off her jewels, her necklace, leaving behind her voice and her ability to speak truth.
And at each gate, she takes off another piece, leaving behind an aspect of herself, her authority, who she is. Until at the last gate, Inanna is nude. Completely stripped of every outward thing that shows that she is the Queen of heaven and earth, all Inanna has left is herself. But who is she now? Now that she has been completely bared who is she? What lies behind the Queen of Heaven and earth? At this point, Inanna doesn't know. She hasn't done that introspection yet.
But she still has a bit of confidence and she strides into Ereshkigal’s throne room. Sister, I have come to console you in your funeral rites and to observe them. And she's just bright and chipper. Ereshkigal turns on her sister and is like, It is because of you Inanna that my husband lies dead and here you are. Inanna is like, I didn't kill Gugalanna, Enkidu did.
But Inanna, Ereshkigal says, You are the one who convinced Gugalanna, my husband, my love, to fight Gilgamesh and to destroy his realm. But I did not kill him, Inanna says. There is no contriteness at all in her. And this infuriates Ereshkigal. It is time that you see the consequences of your actions. Now, Ereshkigal, as the ruler of the underworld, also has a court of judges that rules with her, and the annuna,
The annuna, the judges of the underworld surrounded her (Inanna) they pass judgment against her. Then Ereshkigal fastened on Inanna the eye of death. She spoke against her the word of wrath. She uttered against her the cry of guilt. She struck her. Inanna was turned into a corpse, a piece of rotting meat, and was hung on a hook on the wall. And so Inanna is a corpse hanging on the wall, no longer is she the Queen of heaven and of earth. She is nothing more than a corpse.
And in this transformation is when Inanna goes deep within herself to discover who she really is. Now, Ninshubur is a faithful servant. She waits at the gates of the underworld. She paces, and she waits. The first sunset comes. The first sunrise and the third. And still no Inanna. So true to her word, Ninshubur approaches the other gods, and none of them will help her. These are Inanna’s family. They're her aunts and her uncles, her brothers and her sisters. And they all refuse to help Inanna.
Inanna did this to herself, she needs to learn her consequences. She needs to take responsibility for her actions. She doesn't take responsibility. She went too far this time, and had the Bull of Heaven killed. We're not going to help her. Finally, Ninshubur approaches the father of the gods, Enki. Some stories say that he is Inanna's father, and others, her grandfather. But there is a paternal relationship between Enki and Inanna.
Enki takes pity on Inanna, and after three days, he thinks she might have learned her lesson this time. And so he creates two beings, two galla. And galla is translated as demons. And we need to remember demons were originally just beings of the spirit world. It did not denote evil or malevolence until later, Christianity applied that to the term demon. Enki created these two galla. But because of the rules of the underworld, even they would need to stay once they entered the underworld.
So he made them neither female nor male, which circumvented the rules. And he gave these two beings, and we don't know their names, the water of life and the food of life to give to Inanna that would revive her. Some stories say that they were in the form of flies. And so they slipped into the underworld unseen, and entered Ereshkigal’s throne room. And when they reach it, Ereshkigal is in so much pain from her loss that it's described as if she is in the pain of labor. She is hurting so badly.
And the poem describes Ereshkigal
No linen was spread over her body. Her breasts were uncovered. Her hair swirled around her head like leeks. (Probably unwashed, uncombed, and what we would call locs today.) And the two gallas sent from Enki sympathized with Ereshkigal and helped ease her pain. We know, Ereshkigal, it hurts so badly. We know you miss your husband so much. Because as a god, he didn't enter Ereshkigal’s domain. He just slipped into nothingness. They helped Ereshkigal feel better.
Finally, the grief lifted from Ereshkigal because of these two being’s compassion. These two galla, these two demons showed Ereshkigal such compassion that she told them, whatever you wish, if it's within me to grant, I will give to you. And true to the instruction that Enki gave them, they said, All we wish is the corpse that hangs upon the wall. And that corpse was Inanna. And Ereshkigal did not want to grant this.
But she had given her word, and so she kept it and allowed the two galla to give Inanna the water and food of life. And Inanna revives. And she begs Ereshkigal’s forgiveness. I’ve learned my lesson. I am so sorry. I should have come down here to truly grieve with you. And I apologize. I apologize for my part in your husband's death. All I want now is just to go home. I've learned my lesson. This is your realm. I will not intrude again without your permission or your invitation.
And Ereshkigal could see that Inanna was truly contrite. She’d learned her lesson, hanging as a corpse for three days. And so she allowed Inanna to leave her presence. However, the annuna, the judges of the underworld, were not pleased with this. No one can leave the underworld once they’ve come here. Not even the gods.
And they demanded someone to take Inanna’s place, and until Inanna found someone to take her place, they sent galla to dog her heels and make her life just miserable so Inanna would not forget her vow to find a replacement. A horde, it wasn't just one or two galla, a horde of galla followed Inanna back up through the gate, and as she passed each gate, she reclaimed her regalia. She regained her raiment. She regained who she was.
And at the last gate, she put back on her crown and reclaimed her sovereignty. But still, the galla dogged her steps, and at the gates were Ninshubur and Inanna’s sons. And when they found out that someone needed to take Inanna’s place or else these galla would continue hounding Inanna and making her life miserable. Ninshubur bowed low and was, Inanna, please let me take your place. No, no, no. You are loyal to me. You did exactly what I asked you to do. No, you can't take my place.
I love you so much, and you love me. So the galla are like. Okay, we can't take Ninshubur. What about your sons? No, no, no. You can't take them. Look at how much they love me. They are sitting here in the dirt with ashes in their hair, showing their grief for me being missing and presumed dead. No, you can't take them. Please don't take them. I love them so much. And so the galla agreed.
And this part of this story shows how much Inanna appreciated and how important it was for those around her to show their loyalty and their love to her. And so Inanna returns to her palace, to her throne. And there, at the threshold, she stops. And fury starts rising with in her, because sitting upon her sacred Huluppu-tree throne is none other than her husband, Dumuzi. He is not wearing the robes of grief and mourning. No, no, no, no. He is wearing a crown. He is ruling in her stead.
Well, somebody had to take over for you, Inanna, he tells her. I was your consort, of course, I was the one to do this. Inanna, No! You have betrayed me. You've betrayed my trust. You've betrayed my love. You have betrayed everything that I am. And Inanna turns to the gala, Dumuzi, he's the one who will take my place. And so she spoke. And so it was. And the galla chase after Dumuzi, because Dumuzi, the coward that he is ran away. He would not take Inanna's place.
He's like, No, no, no, no, no. I like my life. I'm not going to take your place in the underworld. No way. So he runs from the galla and hides, and they are searching and searching and searching. And there's only one person who knows where Dumuzi has gone. And that is his sister, Geshtianna. And Geshtianna goes to Inanna and to the galla and begs, Please, please don't send Demuzi down to the underworld. Dumuzi is the god of the shepherds, of animals.
And Geshtianna is the goddess of wine and growing things. If he's gone, there's not going to be any crops. There's not going to be any animals born. Humans won't be able to survive. Geshtianna makes a deal that she will spend six months of the year in the underworld while Dumuzi spend those six months earth, and then they'll trade places. The galla take Dumuzi to the underworld.
This story is reflected again in the story of Persephone and other stories of the dying vegetation god dying for six months and then be reborn in the spring for six months. The lessons that we can learn from Inanna’s Descent is that even a goddess is subject to the consequences of her actions. She enters the underworld fully knowing the consequences that if she enters it without the invitation of Ereshkigal, she must stay there.
But she thought she was better and tried to find a way to circumvent that rule, that it didn't apply to her. How often does that happen in our world today? People who are narcissists, who think that they can get away with anything and everything, that they are above the law. They can even start an insurrection and not have to answer for it, that they could be reelected to presidency. And in her lust for power, she doesn't consider the consequences of what that will do.
She doesn't take responsibility for her actions and her part in Gugalanna’s death. And she thinks that she can use that as an excuse to enter the underworld and take over. At its heart, Inanna’s story is about self-knowledge. Many modern psychologists, including Carl Jung, has equated this journey with going within and learning about yourself. Because at each key, Inanna had to leave something important behind.
And this is seen as a metaphor of leaving behind your conditioning, leaving behind your programing and thoughts that don't serve you. As Inanna goes down through these gates, she loses everything that defines her identity, She loses her divinity, her queenship, her sovereignty, her religious authority, her chastity, until she has nothing left. And it's coming up through those gates again that she re-finds who she is.
There's no coincidence that there are seven gates of the underworld that she must pass through, and there are seven chakras. I'm not sure if I pronounced that correctly. I apologize if I didn't. We can equate this as going through each one of the seven chakras and what they mean and those areas of transformation and growth that we can go through when we work through that chakra system or any system that is helping us learn our self-knowledge.
In this area of self-knowledge that we'll talk about more in the next podcast is Human Design. Human Design is an amazing system that I found to understand who you are. It gives you clues on your life purpose, how you process information, how you work through making decisions. It's just an amazing system. It has been through learning about my human design and really leaning into that and studying what it means for me. Because each of our designs is unique.
By working with my human design and doing a lot of other healing work and healing and transformation modalities for the last 20 years, I finally have come to peace and to embrace that I am really a very creative person. I'm also an author. I'm a goddess mystic or priestess.
Teaching about the goddess is that place of unity, that place of rebellion as well, because I believe that we need to raise women up, not push men down in order to finally be in a place of equity in our society and to purge patriarchy. For the last 20 years, at least, one of the ways that I personally defined who I was I was a goddess priestess, light bearer, voice, and scribe. I shine the light for the goddess.
I wrote and spoke about the goddess, and yet I had to go through my own descent into the underworld, which has been the last ten years of me figuring out and letting go of everything that I thought to find me. And I've turned the okay, I’ve gotta make some money somewhere, so I can do this. Oh, I could be a coach. I could teach about writing. I can teach people business, and the business of writing because as a CPA for 25 years working with small businesses, I know business.
I know self-publishing. Oh, I can do that. I can teach courses. I kept looking in every place except for the obvious of what was right for me, where I served the goddess, where I served my soul's purpose. The clue was right there. It's writing and speaking. It's writing stories. For a while I thought that wasn’t big enough. I have this left angle cross of defiance. So how is writing fantasy stories big enough to make that difference and that change? How do we learn? We learn through story.
I've told the story of Inanna’s Descent. I'm telling you a story right now. It's how we learn. Look at the changes in society based on stories, fantasy stories. Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, The Hunger Games. Those are stories that have affected the mass consciousness. So of course, my stories can make a change. My stories are about strong women.
My stories follow the heroine’s journey that are about cooperation and partnership and leading in this place of recognizing everybody's worth, of not hoarding the resources, but sharing those resources. By me sharing that in story form, yes, I can help affect change. But my love is not only of story and writing, it's also sharing information like this. It's through speaking on this podcast of sharing the wisdom I've gained in my many decades of years of living. In human design, I'm a 6/2.
I'm old enough, I am now off the roof. As that line six, I'm in that stage of my life to be that role model, that mentor and I can mentor through my speaking through the podcast. I can mentor through the books that I write. I don't have to mentor as a coach or as a course teacher. That's my journey, my descent into the underworld, and coming up again is that recognition of my skills and where I have value and how I can make a difference in the world.
And it's through working with Inanna, through working with the other goddesses, (I have like 24 goddesses on my goddess council) that I found that. I found who I am. What I'm supposed to be doing took me way too long, but I found it. That's the value and the power of the Heroine’s Journey and of the Descent of Inanna. In the hero's journey, they have this moment, The Dark Night of the Soul. Not so much in the heroine's journey, but it's that place where you feel like all is lost.
For Inanna, that was when she was hanging as a corpse, on a hook where Ereshkigal could see her in her throne room. You can't get much lower than that. In our own transformation process, in our own journey of self-discovery, of self-knowledge, we all reach that point where it’s like, fuck this, I don't want to be here. Been there, done that. But if we hang there, Inanna had to hang there three days, and she had that hope that Ninshubur would come through for her and find a way for her to revive.
She had help. She couldn't do it by herself. In the hero's journey, he does it by himself. For us as women, we don't do it by ourselves. Inanna had help. We have help. We need help. We need that community of other women. We need that community of friends to help us. In my journey, I've had friends that help me. I have a really dear friend who we meet every week, that we have been for three years on Zoom.
I have never met her face to face, but she is one of my dearest, closest friends because we talk every week via Zoom and we've shared this human design journey together. She's a human design specialist. If you want to learn about human design, I highly recommend her podcast, Human Design Hive, and I put that in the show notes and she does readings. I have help. You have help. You need some help? Go see Dana.
She can help you figure out your human design and what your soul purpose is, what your life purpose is. You don't have to do it yourself. And I think that's one of the biggest differences between the hero's journey and the heroine's journey is we don't do it by ourselves. We do it with our network, with our friends, with sharing. We solve our problems not by ourselves, but with our friends. We find our family. Inanna’s family that helped her was Ninshubur.
She needed that connection in order to find who she was. And we do too. You're not meant to do it alone, my sister. You don't have to do it alone. Her ascent and recovering who she was wasn't easy. She had galla, she had demons, dogging her every step and making her life miserable. Transformation is not easy. Healing ourselves is not easy, but it's necessary. And what comes of it on the other side is such a blessing. I am absolutely not the same person I was ten years ago. I'm happier with me.
I don't spiral down into suicidal depressions anymore because I've done this journey. I've found that support that I needed. I wouldn't be here talking to you, sharing this with you if I hadn't have made that journey, if I hadn't have taken those hard steps look at myself. When we're doing our journaling and our self reflection and we're looking at ourselves and seeing the monster inside and healing that then we can help other people. We can't help other people until we've helped ourselves.
And in helping ourselves, we can ask for help. We don't have to do it all alone. One of the last lessons of Inanna’s Descent is right at the very end, when Dumuzi is sitting on her throne. I see this as that foreshadowing of when patriarchy takes the Queen's throne, and the Queen is the Goddess, and places a male upon the throne, a male upon the rulership, and in governance. The lesson that we can have that we need right now in today's society is that last lesson of Inanna’s Ascent.
She did not let him stay there. She kicked him off and sent him down, sent him to the underworld. It is time, my sisters, for us to reclaim our feminine divine presence, to reclaim our voices, to remember our wisdom, and to awaken to our value. It is time for us to kick the patriarchy off the Queen's throne and regain it. And retake it. And we need to remember that as we do this, not to do it and remain in the patriarchy.
We need to have done our descent into the underworld to find who we are, and reascend into our full power, our full feminine, empowered place, and to be in that feminine, divine place of cooperation, partnership, balance, harmony, respect, acceptance. Accepting us as who we are and our value and accepting others for their value in seeing that value in them. That is the feminine divine way, that is the Sacred Goddess Path.
And that is, my sisters, how we kick the patriarch off the Queen's throne and regain it, is coming into a place of balance, of raising ourselves and raising our sisters. All of our sisters. They don't have to be look like us in being white. It is all of our sisters. It's one of the reasons my Goddess council includes goddesses from around the world, and I work with goddesses from around the world because it isn't just the white goddesses that are going to save us.
It isn't going to be just the white women who save us. It's all of us. It's the women of color. It's the brown and indigenous women as well as the white women. But we have to decondition and deconstruct our own inner misogyny and patriarchy for us to sit on the Queen's throne again in that place of empowerment and balance and finding that unity in that duality.
And if you're interested in the heroine's journey, both as a different way of telling stories, if you're a writer, or simply as a way of living our life and making changes in our life and that life rather than following the hero's journey in episode 17, I talk about that, about the heroine's journey, and give you like three books to look at.
And in Gail Carriger's book, The Heroine's Journey, in Chapter four, she gives an analysis of Inanna’s descent and how it connects with the heroine's journey and how we can live our life as well. So I highly recommend that if you're interested in taking this a bit deeper.
And the story really shows that what's important in the heroine's journey is family and networking, that when we become isolated, that is when we’re the most powerless and the most vulnerable, that we are most powerful in our communities and our group of friends and our found family. And family and friends are a place where we find aid. We don't have to do it by ourselves and we solve our problems through negotiation and compromise, and finding a solution that benefits all, is paramount.
And I weave Inanna’s Descent in my forthcoming book, Descent into Darkness, which is Book Two of my Sentinel Witches series. I am in the middle of my final rewrites, so it's forthcoming. I don't have a date for that yet. You can check out my website, Tora Moon dot com to find out updates on that. Sign up for the newsletter if you're interested in that story. The first story, Crossroads to Destiny, has Hecate as the goddess who helps the main character, Catlyn.
And in the second book, Descent into Darkness, not only does Catlyn have to go down into the underworld to rescue the main character, Sean, (love it that she rescues but she's going through the seven gates and it's through Inanna’s help that she's able to do it. And ultimately, Catlyn must be willing to sacrifice herself, to save her companions. The story is definitely a heroine's journey story. So if you're interested in that, check on my website for when that book comes out.
Inanna’s descent into the underworld gives us many lessons that we can use in our life today. I encourage you to look at it and what are the things that are in your life right now that you're hanging on to so tightly that is part of your self-identity, that may not be the truth of who you are, that it's something that somebody else has placed upon you.
I highly encourage you to look into human design as a system of self-discovery and self exploration, because that's what all Dancing with the Goddess is, is discovering who we are, remembering our worth and our value, that we are not only daughters of the Goddess, but we are also divine, that we are Goddess. And with that we are complete. May you dance with the Goddess Inanna to learn about your paradoxes and to rediscover who you are.
To learn and take that journey of self-discovery and embrace yourself. This journey is one of awakening, attuning to, and embracing your feminine, divine presence. That essence of who you are. Thanks for joining me. I hope this episode helped you in awakening and attuning to your feminine divine presence. Please subscribe and share with your girlfriends. If you're watching the video, please like, share, and comment. I invite you to leave a review where you listen to the show.
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