She goes down
As we go down
We follow her underground
Hail to Inanna
Who died
To become born.
— Chant from the writer Starhawk and the Reclaiming Collective
This is episode #3 in a four-part series on the Sumerian myth of the goddess Inanna and the part of the story that contains her descent to the underworld.
It’s a fascinating story and a very old one, which tells us something important about this journey and the surrounding mysteries, and how they live in our imagination and psyche.
Inanna’s story is a story of transformation, transformation as an inevitable part of life. She can help us navigate the chaos and find the gifts.
Transcript of Inanna’s descent to the Underworld
Hello and welcome to Myth Matters an exploration at the intersection of mythology, creativity and consciousness. I’m your host Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide beautiful crazy world of ours, I’m glad that you decided to join me here today.
This is episode #3 in a four-part series on the Sumerian myth of the goddess Inanna, Queen of heaven and earth. We’ve looked at the myths of Inanna’s first days and the acquisition of her powers, and courtship between Inanna and her lover-then- husband, the shepherd Dumuzi. Today, I’ll tell you the story of Inanna’s descent to the underworld. Once again, my primary source is Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer.
I have some thoughts about the value of this myth for us in this time. But for now, I invite you to relax and listen the story. Let the words take you where you need to go and note the details that call to you or the questions that arise. They are clues to your concerns and the place this story occupies in your life right now.
The Descent of Inanna
From the Great Above, Inanna opened her ear to the Great Below. She turned her ear to the ground. Inanna considered her great cities and temples. She decided to abandon them all to descend to the Underworld. Inanna abandoned heaven and earth to descend to the underworld.
Inanna gathered the seven mé, her powers. She placed her crown on her head and arranged her hair. She placed her string of small lapis beads around her neck, followed by her double strand of beads. She put on her breastplate, slipped her gold ring over her wrist, and dressed in her white robe. She took the lapis rod and measuring line in her hand. She was Inanna. She was ready.
Inanna set out for the underworld. Ninshubur, her faithful advisor and friend, goddess of the East, walked with her. As they walked, Inanna told Ninshubur of her plans. “Ninshubur, my constant support who gives me wise advice, I am descending to the underworld,” she said. “If I do not return in three days, go to the gods for help. Set up a great lamentation. Beat the drums, tear at your hair, and dress like a beggar.” “Go first to Father Enlil, God of the Air,” Inanna instructed, “and cry out that he must not let his daughter be put to death in the underworld. If Enlil will not help you, go to my father Nanna, God of the Moon. Weep before father Nanna. If he will not help you, go to Enki, God of Wisdom. Enki knows the water and food of life. Surely, he won’t let me die.”
Ninshubur agreed to do all of this. They parted ways. Inanna continued on her way to the underworld.
When Inanna arrived at the outer gates of the underworld she called out and knocked loudly to rouse Neti, the gatekeeper. “Open the door Neti” she cried, “I alone would enter!” But Neti shrugged and asked, “Who are you?” “I am Inanna, Queen of Heaven, on my way to the east” she answered.
“If you are truly Inanna, “said Neti, “then what are you doing down here? Why has your heart led you down the road from which no traveler returns?” “Because of my older sister, Ereshkigal” Inanna replied, “I know that her husband, Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven, has died. I’ve come to witness the funeral rites.”
“Stay here Inanna,” Neti said, “I will speak to my queen and give her your message.” Neti kept Inanna waiting outside the gate while he went to his queen Ereshkigal to see what she wanted to do. “Your sister is here at the gate” he reported, “she has gathered the seven mé and prepared herself with them.”
Ereshkigal bit her lip and thought about this. “Bolt each of my seven gates” she finally said, “but let her in. One by one, open each gate only a crack and strip her of her finery, piece by piece, at each of my gates. Let the holy priestess of heaven enter bowed low.”
Neti obeyed the words of his queen. He bolted each of the seven gates. Then he opened the outer gate and said to Inanna, “Enter.” When she stepped through the first gate, the crown of the steppe was removed from her head. “What is this?” asked Inanna. “Be quiet Inanna,” she was told, “the ways of the underworld are perfect and may not be questioned.”
When Inanna entered the second gate, her string of small lapis beads was removed. Again, she objected, questioned. Again, she was told, “Be quiet Inanna, the ways of the underworld are perfect and may not be questioned.”
This action was repeated at each gate. Inanna’s double strand of beads was taken from her. Her breastplate, her gold ring, the lapis rod and line used to weigh and measure, all were removed one by one. At the seventh gate, Inanna’s holy robe was taken. She entered Ereshkigal’s throne room naked and bowed low.
Ereshkigal rose from her throne. Inanna started toward the throne. The judges of the underworld murmured and passed judgment upon 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. Ereshkigal struck her.
Inanna was turned into a corpse. A piece of rotting meat. She was hung from a hook on the wall.
Three days and three nights passed and Inanna did not return. Ninshubur set up a great lamentation. She beat the drums and tore at her hair. Dressed like a beggar, she went to the house of Enlil, the God of the Air and father to all, as Inanna had instructed.
When she entered she cried out. “O Father Enlil, your daughter Inanna is trapped in the Underworld. Surely you will not let your bright silver be covered with dust. Surely you will not let your lapis be broken into small pieces for the stonecutter. Surely you will not let your fragrant boxwood be cut up for use by the woodworker. Do not let Inanna, the goddess of Heaven and Earth, be put to death in the underworld.”
Enlil replied angrily. “My daughter Inanna craved the power of heaven and earth, and she got it. Now Inanna has decided to go to the underworld. Well, she who receives the mé of the underworld does not return. She who goes to the Dark City stays there.” Father Enlil would not help.
Next, Ninshubur went to the house of Nanna, the Moon god. He was Inanna’s father. Ninshubur entreated Nanna. She said, “O father Nanna, your daughter Inanna is trapped in the Underworld. Surely you will not let your bright silver be covered with dust. Surely you will not let your lapis be broken into small pieces for the stonecutter. Surely you will not let your fragrant boxwood be cut up for use by the woodworker. Do not let Inanna, the goddess of Heaven and Earth, be put to death in the underworld.”
Nanna answered angrily. “My daughter Inanna craved the power of heaven and earth, and she got it. Now Inanna has decided to go to the underworld. Well, she who receives the mé of the underworld does not return. She who goes to the Dark City stays there.” Father Nanna would not help.
Now, Ninshubur went to the house of Enki, God of Wisdom, Inanna’s grandfather. When Ninshubur saw Enki she cried out, “O father Enki, your daughter Inanna is trapped in the Underworld. Surely you will not let your bright silver be covered with dust. Surely you will not let your lapis be broken into small pieces for the stonecutter. Surely you will not let your fragrant boxwood be cut up for use by the woodworker. Do not let Inanna, the goddess of Heaven and Earth, be put to death in the underworld.”
Father Enki said, “What has happened? What has my daughter done? Inanna is trapped in the Underworld? I am grieved. Inanna, the Goddess of Heaven and Earth cannot be left to die in the Underworld.”
Enki could make many creatures. He knew something about the Underworld. He had attempted to go there himself a long, long time ago. Enki scraped some dirt out from under his fingernails. From this dirt he molded two very small creatures, a kurgarra and a galatur. They were neither male nor female. Enki gave them the water of life and the food of life, and these instructions:
“Go to the Underworld, enter like flies through the cracks in the gates. Look for Ereshkigal in her throne room. She will be moaning like a woman giving birth. Her clothes will be in disarray, her hair will be matted. When she cries out, ‘Oh my insides, my insides!’ you will also say ‘Oh your insides, your insides!’ When she cries out ‘Oh my outsides, my outsides!’ you will also cry ‘Oh your outsides, your outsides!’ Ereshkigal will be pleased. She will offer you a gift, but don’t take anything she offers. Just ask for the corpse on the wall. One of you will sprinkle the food of life on it. One of you will sprinkle the water of life. Inanna will rise.”
The kurgurra and the galatur set out for the underworld. Like flies, they slipped through the cracks in the gates and made their way to Ereshkigal in her throne room. She was moaning like a woman giving birth. Her clothes were in disarray and her was hair matted.
Ereshkigal cried out “Oh my insides, my insides!”
The kurgurra and the galatur cried out “Oh your insides, your insides!”
Ereshkigal cried out “Oh my outsides, my outsides!”
They also cried out “Oh your outsides, your outsides!”
Ereshkigal moaned “Oh, my back, my back!”
“Oh, your back, your back!” they moaned.
“Oh, my liver, my liver!” Ereshkigal groaned.
“Oh,your liver, your liver!” they groaned.
The queen of the Great Below stopped. Ereshkigal looked at them “Who are you?” she asked, “moaning, groaning, sighing with me? If you are gods, I will bless you. If you are mortals, I will give you a gift. I will give you the water of life.”
The kurgurra and the galatur answered, “We do not wish it.” “No?” said Ereshkigal. “Then, I will give you the grain gift, the staff of life.” “No,” they said, “we do not wish it.”
“What do you wish,” Ereshkigal said. “We wish only the corpse that hangs from the hook on the wall,” they said. Ereshkigal said, “The corpse belongs to Inanna.” They said, “Whether it belongs to our queen or belongs to our king, that is what we wish.”
The corpse was given to them. The kurgurra and the galatur sprinkled the corpse with the water and food of life. Inanna arose…
But as Inanna was about to ascend from the underworld, the judges and demons of the underworld seized her. They gathered around their queen. “No one leaves the underworld unmarked!” they said. “If Inanna wishes to return, she must provide someone to take her place.”
The galla, that is the demons of the underworld, swarmed around Inanna. The galla have no feeling and no family. They care for nothing that matters to the living. Big and small, the galla walked with Inanna. They ascended with her from the underworld.
The first person they met was Ninshubur. Ninshubur waited outside the palace gates, dressed in dirty sackcloth. When she saw Inanna, she ran to greet her and threw herself in the dust at Inanna’s feet. The demons swirled around them. “Walk on Inanna. We’ll take Ninshubur,” they said.
“No,” said Inanna, “Ninshubur is my loyal friend and trusted adviser. She did not forget my words. Because of her my life was saved. You cannot take Ninshubur.” “Very well,” the galla said, “we’ll walk on further with you.”
Inanna walked past one of her holy shrines. Her son Shara was there praying for her safe return. Shara, dressed in dirty sackcloth, ran to greet Inanna. He saw the galla and threw himself in the dust at Inanna’s feet. The demons swirled around them. “Walk on Inanna” they said, “We’ll take Shara.”
“No,” said Inanna, “Shara is my son who sings to me and combs my hair. You cannot take Shara.” “Very well,” the galla said, “we’ll walk on further with you.”
Now Inanna walked past another of her holy shrines. Her son Lulal was there praying for her safe return. Lulal, dressed in dirty sackcloth, ran to greet Inanna. He saw the gallaand threw himself in the dust at Inanna’s feet. The demons swirled around them. “Walk on Inanna” they said, “We’ll take Lulal.”
“No,” said Inanna, “Lulal is my son and my leader among men. You cannot take Lulal.” “Very well,” the gallasaid, “we’ll walk on further with you. We will go with you to the big apple tree in Uruk.”
In Uruk, by the big apple tree, Dumuzi sat on his magnificent throne, wearing his crown. When he saw Inanna, he didn’t move.
The galla grabbed Dumuzi by the arms and by the thighs. They broke his reed pipe. Inanna fastened on Dumuzi the eye of death. She spoke against him the word of wrath. She uttered against him the cry of guilt. She said, “Take him. Take Dumuzi away!”
The galla started to beat Dumuzi and gash him with axes. He wailed and raised his hands to Utu, the Sun god. “Utu,” he said, “I am your brother-in-law, the husband that you choose for Inanna. I brought milk and cream to your mother’s house. I carried food to the holy shrine. You are a merciful god. Please let me escape. Turn my hands and feet into the hands and feet of a snake and help me slip away.”
Utu heard Dumuzi’s prayer. He c hanged his hands to snake hands and his feet to snake feet and the gallacould not hold him. Dumuzi escaped from his demons.
This is the end of this portion of the myth but there is more. What happens to Dumuzi is the subject of the next part of the myth, called the Dream of Dumuzi, and I’ll share it with you next time.
Now, the descent of Inanna is the best-known part of this myth. It’s a fascinating story and a good pattern, a great set of images to navigate a personal experience of descent, to understand the transformative potential of these dark nights and the deaths that take place in our lives. I’ve always been fascinated by the beginning of the story, when Inanna opens her ear to the ground. The Sumerian words for “ear” and “mind” are the same. They both mean receptor of wisdom. What did Inanna hear, I wonder? What did she sense? Or want? What was the plan?
Her turning suggests that an underworld journey is part of a psychic process, a turning point in many lives. A necessity, even. I think this truth in the myth is bigger than the suggestion that some of us may one day find ourselves before those seven gates.
Inanna descends to the underworld, dies, and rises transformed. She has the experience and we have the story and so, the pattern. AND, she is the goddess of heaven and earth, of life, abundance, the eros of the cosmos, and she has risen, that is, she has integrated death, taken in death as transformation, as regeneration. Ereshkigal is her sister, they are linked by a commonality that can’t be undone. Transformation, endings that are also beginnings, the cycle, is the way it is, the foundation, the eternal truth, the imperative.
The other gods say that it can’t be done and yet Inanna returns to the upper world with the underworld mé. What is the underworld mé? I don’t know if this is the complete answer to that question but it seems to contain the eye of death. In her book Eruptions of Inanna: Justice, Gender, and Erotic Power, Judy Grahn suggests that the Eye of Death is the courage of truth-telling. Hmm. When Inanna find Dumuzi on his throne under the big apple tree, she tells him that it is his time to experience the inevitable.
As I’ve said in early episodes in this series, my past reflections on Inanna’s myth have come from a perspective of individual, personal experience. What does this myth reveal about the subjective experience of the underworld and transformation. How can this story help us get through those times?
This time I’m thinking about this goddess and the processes that she embodies, processes in material and psychic life, transformation, as a collective experience. I see this as a time of collective initiation and transformation, and Inanna is a lens through which we can view what is underway in a society, in a country. For me, the United States.
One avenue or question that presents itself revolves around the sacrifices made at each of the seven underworld gates. Inanna is stripped of upper world identity and powers. If this happening to the United States, to all citizens together, what might be taken away?
What comes first to my mind is ethics, a shared sense of propriety and civility. Our achievements in arts and science, and the shared spaces and institutions of civic life, like our national parks and libraries. The Constitution and our civil rights. The respect and confidence of our allies and trading partners. Our trust in each other. And perhaps our hubris and fantasy of goodness.
The list could go on and I’m sure that you can easily come up with own although it’s difficult to limit the list to seven! Or consider for the various social groups of which you are a part. If you and the members of this group– a community or country– are passing through the seven gates on your way to the underworld and Ereshkigal’s throne room, what might you be required to relinquish?
What signifies your valued identity? Your beauty, power, justice, and harmony? Upon what do these rest? What roles, tools, shared conventions and rules, what assumptions and practices that comprise the consensus about the proper way to behave and how the world should operate?
The value in this reflection as I see it is two-fold: one, to look at what’s unfolding from a different perspective, a perspective that might yield useful insights and suggest more creative ways to respond. And two, to locate these forms and attitudes in yourself and hold them up to the light. What has been their value? What could replace them? Can you make space for transformation?
Maybe this feels heavy and terrible and scary. “Utu, save me!” right? I feel this. I feel this without the myth, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the chaos and the growing cascade of wrongs, of suffering, and also, and also the incredible commitment and courage welling up in so many people in so many places, the passion to defend and care and love and create. So much passion on all sides, in every situation. Judy Grahn writes, “Inanna is wherever any kind of passion erupts.”
Do the passions we experience and witness point us toward Inanna? What does Inanna and her myth add? How can it help us– can it help us– find the courage to embrace the potential in this time?
You know, one reason that I like to look at Inanna’s larger myth cycle and not focus only on the descent, is that you see the foreshadowing of her journey to the underworld in the earlier parts of the story. For example, in the first myth of Inanna and the Huluppu Tree, her grandfather Enki attempts to get to the underworld. The underworld fights back with a storm and the tree is torn from its roots. It floats down the river until Inanna finds it and plants it in her garden.
Inanna goes where Enki and the other gods cannot. She goes because it is her destiny, it is in her nature. Back to the tree, Inanna’s throne and bed are made from it, that is, she is made from it. Inanna is the tree, a world tree, a bridge between the realms. When Ninshubur goes to the gods for help, she describes Inanna as the fragrant boxwood. And as I discussed in the 2020 episodes about this myth, the creatures that take up residence in Inanna’s tree can be seen as aspects of her shadow self, of what is unrecognized and requires integration for her to be whole.
In another of the early stories, Inanna and Enki the God of Wisdom and Sweet Waters, you recall that Inanna receives the holy mé from Enki. Among the mé is descent and ascent to and from the underworld.
And one other detail, the holy mé are unloaded at the Lapis Lazuli dock at Inanna’s temple in Uruk. Lapis is her stone. She wears jewelry made from it and again, Ninshubur describes the goddess as lapis that shouldn’t be broken into small pieces by the stone cutter. Lapis is a rich blue stone long associated with royalty and deities. Lapis imparts wisdom, courage, and truth, and can help you forge a deeper relationship with yourself and your inner divinity.
As I said earlier, Inanna is transformation, is endings that are also beginnings, is the cycle. I called the transformation that she undergoes and embodies an imperative, a necessity. I think the foreshadowing reveals the centrality of this theme and that we can use another strong word to describe it: inevitable. Unavoidable.
When difficulties appear, when hard times and suffering besiege us, we wonder why. We wonder if it could be prevented, and one of the old, old arguments or beliefs that we hold revolves around our goodness and the notion that hardship is a punishment. This is one of those ideas sunk deep into our consciousness, that god rewards the worthy and bad things happen to bad people. You hear it in Dumuzi’s prayer to Utu from thousands of years ago–“Look god, I did the right things, I did right by you so protect me.”
You know this dynamic, the judgments and blaming, self-righteousness and guilt. Who is wrong. Who is the cause of the trouble. Who deserves to suffer. This is hard to avoid, given our vulnerability in the world, our existential insecurities. And yet, it is also possible to see everything as part of the cycle of life. This doesn’t mean that we don’t take a moral stance or care. That we don’t take responsibility, nourish or defend as needed. It’s about suspending the justifications that allow us to imagine that we’re not part of the situation. Not part of the cycle. Not going to happen to us.
What if what is happening, what distresses you the most right now, isn’t a punishment or a reckoning or the result of some terrible past sin but rather an inevitable part of an all-encompassing cycle that touches all of us and will bring forth new life, new forms? An opportunity however challenging. Does this make a difference?
You always have a choice of framework. What you choose must feel true, it must resonate with your experience, and no one knows what’s underway or where this is going. There are no experts out there. Each of us needs to find our orientation, which may be part of the material undergoing radical change. In the words of Starhawk,;
“She goes down
As we go down
We follow her underground
Hail to Inanna
Who died
To become born.”
I have one more reflection to share with you but first let’s pause to extend a big welcome to new email subscribers: Alex, Cindy, Gita, Ahmet, Maria, Veronica, and Charles. Welcome to Myth Matters!
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Now, let’s consider the moments in Ereshkigal’s throne room that result in Inanna’s resurrection. The Queen of the Great Below is moaning like a woman in childbirth. Two gender-less creatures, embodiments of the in-between, of the both/and, express empathy for her suffering and she gives them what they wish for, the goddess Inanna, a bridge between the worlds, regeneration.
Inanna is brought back to life through the water and food of life sent by Enki. Note that Erehkigal also had the water and grain gift in her underworld domain. Inanna rises but the judges of the underworld tell her, “No one ascends from the underworld unmarked.” What is this marking?
Loss. Someone dear to Inanna will be sent to the underworld. The fact that it seems to be Dumuzi’s time doesn’t mean that he won’t be missed. We’ll talk more that in the next episode. None of us live outside the cycle. All of us will know loss. Empathy is what makes this bearable.
Empathy, like pity, is a deep sympathy. But empathy is more than the ability to recognize and appreciate another’s suffering. Empathy is the imaginative capacity to participate in another’s feeling, to join. Pity is an emotion that one feels for the Other. Empathy is a mutually shared experience that embraces the previously unknown and acknowledges that loss is something we share.
In the last episode about the courtship between Inanna and Dumuzi, I said that Inanna is the eros of the cosmos. She’s the force of any attraction, initiating a dance between the formed and the unformed, the manifest and potential. The context there, was the abundance and joy of this world, the creativity that is this life. Now, we see this dance between the sisters, between the upper realms and the underworld and empathy is the key, the catalyst, and the gift of that journey, the fruit of that dance.
Inanna, allow me to sing your praises!
If we have a better understanding of our need for myth, and all that our old stories offer, we can live more satisfying lives. We can inhabit a better story and create a more beautiful, just and sustainable world.
And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Take good care of yourself and until next time, keep the mystery in your life alive.
Links to past series on Inanna:
Myth in the Mojave 2016. I posted a five-part series on Inanna. Here’s the link to the first episode as the others are posted sequentially: https://mythinthemojave.buzzsprout.com/284203/episodes/1053975-the-sumerian-myth-of-innana-part-1-of-5-queen-of-heaven
Myth Matters 2020-2021. I posted a four-part series on the myth. Here’s the link to the first episode as the others are posted sequentially:
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