2.2 Naked and Bowed Low

Inanna's Path. An archetypal journey of descent, shedding, facing, transforming, and returning.

“What is this?” Inanna gasped for the seventh and final time. Neti did not hesitate or grow bored. He stood over the goddess, now naked and - for the first time in her entire existence - ashamed. Not ashamed of her exposed body or her journey. Inanna was ashamed of her powerlessness. Something in her heart had turned hollow, brittle, and dry. Who she had been in the warm light of the Above felt lost now, exiled, banished, small, and forgotten. Neti responded the way he had done six times before already. “Quiet Inanna,” he said with a voice that grated against her bones. “The ways of the underworld are perfect and may not be questioned.”

In the cold dark with nothing left to wrap around her nearly mortal body, Inanna’s teeth chattered. She tried to anchor her jaw into place but bit her lip instead, bright red blood welling at the wound. She nearly wept at the emptiness of her soul. But she was here, having squeezed through the final gate, smeared with the thick amniotic waters of her sister’s domain. Inanna was still Inanna, but she was also something else now. Something less. Something primal. Something guttural. Something undone.