Who Was Inanna? The Queen of Heaven, Her Descent to the Underworld & What it Means to Be a Priestess in the Modern World
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For the last three years I have been journeying with, studying, and being initiated by the goddess, Inanna.
She is known as the "Queen of Heaven and Earth," a Mesopotamian goddess beloved to the Sumerians in what is now modern day Iraq.
Inanna's journey is not just a myth but also a spiritual template for those seeking to understand the deeper meaning of sacrifice, rebirth, and the energy of the sacred feminine.
Inanna, also known as Ishtar, was worshipped in ancient Mesopotamia, particularly in Sumer, around 2000 BC. She was revered as the goddess of love, war, fertility, and political power. Her primary title, "Queen of Heaven and Earth," signifies her dominion over both the divine and earthly realms. Inanna's influence extended far beyond Sumer, as she was later identified with other powerful goddesses, including the Greek Aphrodite.
She is deeply connected to Venus, known as the daughter of the moon and the morning and evening star, who also goes through a cyclical death and rebirth process when viewed from Earth. Her orbit around the sun creates a 5 petaled rose from the perspective of Earth. A full rose cycle takes 8 years to complete, during which there are periods where she is retrograde and direct, as well as periods where she is visible and non-visible.
The Descent of Inanna
Inanna's journey to the underworld is one of the most compelling stories from ancient mythology.
Although she was at the height of her power and had everything she could possibly want - she just could not let go of the whispers, the calling she had to go to the Underworld.
Just like we all have deep callings in life, we are sometimes pulled away from the conventional path, to make a choice, or sacrifice, that does not quite make sense to the people around us.
Eventually, she listens to the call and descends through the seven gates of the underworld. She told one of her trusted servants before leaving, "If I am not back in 3 days and 3 nights, please tell the elders and arrange for help to come get me."
As she descends to the underworld, she faces seven gates. At each one she has to give up one of her earthly powers —her crown, jewelry, robe, and eventually status as a priestess and queen.
This stripping away symbolizes the necessary sacrifices we make to undergo transformation. To honor the death and rebirth process that is inherent in one of our great life initiations.
Embracing Dark and Light
Inanna soon meets her dark counterpart, her sister, the Queen of the Underworld, Ereshkigal, who represents the shadow side of the feminine—the pain, rejections, and neglected parts of ourselves.
It is only after Inanna confronts Ereshkigal and the dark side of her nature that she can ascend again, reborn and whole. But first, she must die to her current self, and is hung on a hook for 3 days.
After this time passes, her trusted servant calls for help and is able to send two fairy helpers down into the Underworld with the breath and food of life to allow her to rebirth.
This journey of descent and return is the essence of what it means to be a priestess: to navigate the duality of life and death, light and shadow, the hero's journey, the heroine's quest, to gain the wisdom that is needed to come back to one day guide others...
My Story
My story with Inanna begins with the conscious conception of my daughter Ella in June 2021.
After a year of living in Hawaii, where my business thrived, and I felt deeply connected to the land and community, I began to feel the call to motherhood. My husband and I, feeling the presence of a spirit with us, left offerings at the holy mountain Kalalea on Kauai—a place where souls are said to enter and leave this world. By the time we returned to Hawaii from a trip to the mainland, I was pregnant.
Our lives began to reorient around the impending arrival of our daughter. We realized that we needed to leave the sacred land of Kauai and return to our families on the mainland. We ultimately chose to birth our daughter surrounded by the mountains of Colorado, in a valley where my husband grew up.
Every choice along the journey felt right, but I did not quite understand the magnitude of the sacrifices I was making and what I was giving up until after we settled in Colorado.
It was the start of winter, and immediately I noticed I couldn’t feel the land. The plants were dormant, and I hadn’t experienced a true winter in over a decade. In the course of our move, I had given up my car, my friends, my status as a yoga teacher in my community, and a sense of belonging in a community that had known me for years.
In this new place, I felt like a nobody.
The birth of my daughter was a powerful experience, but the postpartum period was humbling. Our savings dwindled, and my husband’s business was impacted by external events. I spent my days alone, rocking my baby and mourning the life I had left behind. More sacrifices were asked of me: my sleep, alone time, the space and time to write, to practice yoga, and to work, were at this time, released. Without the proper self-care time I was used to, my chronic tension headaches worsened. I grieved. I felt profound loss. I felt stripped down to my core.
But somewhere deep inside I knew to trust. I remembered the story of Inanna I had head heard in my Birthing from Within birth class, and I trusted this was all part of a necessary initiation.
Even though I had accomplished all I had dreamed of before becoming a mother: a thriving business, dream location to live, a beautiful love and friendships, there was a call, a call from my daughter, that I could not deny, and I was willing to release all of it.
Like Inanna, I was being stripped of everything that once defined me. It was only by trusting in the process and embracing the unknown that I could begin to rebuild.
After making peace with a new identity, and that life would not be what it once was, things I had lost began to return. I began my work with women again, we found our way back to a familiar lands in Northern California, and a series of miracles allowed us to buy the home we had dreamed of.
But I was not the same person I had been before. Something inside me had dramatically changed.
Have you experienced an initiation like this? Perhaps it was the loss of a loved one, a big move, becoming a mother, an injury, the loss or change of a career...
These experiences can strip us down, forcing us to confront our shadow selves, the identity we once knew, and undergo an ego death. It is through these challenges that we truly learn the meaning of faith.
Inanna's story also teaches us about the cyclical nature of being a woman. For the first two weeks of our menstrual cycle, we are the Queen of Heaven, embodying light and creation during the follicular and ovulation phases. In the second two weeks, we face the Queen of the Underworld, as we journey through the luteal and menstrual phases, embodying the dark feminine. Can we fully embrace both? How can we integrate the dark side of the feminine into our lives and acknowledge the wisdom that comes from it?
To be a priestess is to navigate these dualities with grace.
It is to burn away past versions of ourselves to meet the highest expression of who we are meant to be.
This journey requires us again and again to let go of control and trust in the process of transformation.
This is just a small piece of what I share in the Way of the Priestess Initiation program.
This year I am sharing a new module guided by the goddess guide Inanna.
We will explore our life initiations, and allow a rebirth to take place, saying goodbye to the parts of ourselves that are no longer in alignment for our path forward.
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What Initiation Are You Going Through?
As you reflect on your own life, consider the initiations you have gone through. What have you had to sacrifice? What is your soul being called to now? What will come of this transformation, and who will you become?
The path of the priestess is one of continual rebirth. Like Inanna, we must descend into the underworld, confront our shadow, and return renewed. This cycle is the key to our growth and the deepening of our service as healers, spiritual leaders, and guides.
Inanna invites us to embark on this journey of transformation.
Are you ready to step into the fire and meet the highest octave of your expression?
What will you leave behind, and what will you gain by following your deepest soul callings?
Inanna and the theme of Death & Rebirth is just one of the goddess guides and modules we explore in the Way of the Priestess Curriculum. Want to learn more?
Book a free call with me to explore this opportunity.
With love,
Meredith
