From Divine Help To The Return

Inanna's Path Week Three Recap

There have been moments while writing this series for you that I have paused to close my eyes and visualize the inner catacombs that I myself have traveled. I’ve lain down in the grass and wept over new realizations surfacing through my keyboard. I have been waking up every morning, making my coffee, and then writing this well-known and intimate story as if I am remembering another lifetime. I suspect you have felt that way at times while reading it. Because we are in these words, my friends. These archetypes and inner territory journeys are our birthright and our inheritance. We’ve already traveled this way before, it’s only a matter of remembering.

This Week’s Recap:

3.0 The Moment You Asked For Help, They Were On Their Way

We pulled up another old story, one from a neighboring spiritual ecosystem that had been heavily influenced by the Sumerian empire. We wove myth together and made room for it to become a salve for our hearts.

“Closer and closer the kurgarra and the galatur flew, spurred by the sound of Ereshkigal and the scent of Inanna’s rotting body. Deeper and deeper into the realm of the dead. Further and further towards an impossible task that only beings of expanse and transformation could ever attempt. The kurgarra and the galatur raced to Ereshkigal’s throne room, wondering if Enki had reached too far this time. The smell of decay, rot, and curdled divinity hung sharp and sour in the air. What if there was nothing left to revive?”

3.1 For Three Days

We recognized the prevalence of the number three inside of many, many mythologies and then we wrote it into our own personal lore.

“What we have been taught to believe is the most deceitful part of ourselves - our wild and indomitable hearts - has actually all along been our truest, most empowering life force. We have not descended in order to conquer or avenge. We have descended to love our broken, angry, lonely, feral parts back into being.

We have come to kiss the wall.”

3.2 Belly of the Whale

We recognized the belly of the whale, the World Womb, as a new expanse of inner territory. Not a punishment or a final ending, but a realm of metamorphosis.

“The metamorphosis of the whale is a life-renewing act, not a life-ending one. But for those who are unwilling to meet the backside of a beast’s spine, to float and wait in the hum of silence, there is no godd to encounter here. Only an exile and a desperate loneliness. This is what we truly face when we are swallowed.”

3.3 Ereshkigal's Lament

We named the importance of solidarity, of being mourned with and for.

“She knew what they were really asking, what mutual exchange they had in mind. The kurgarra and the galatur were asking if Ereshkigal would release her despair and anger and anguish - everything embodied in Inanna, the Goddess of Love - into their care.”

3.4 What It Takes To Resurrect

We witnessed as Ereshkigal and Inanna took the first step of repair.

“Inanna gasped, her eyes wide and lit from within. A glow spread below her dark skin, bringing the light of shimmering rainbows back to her bones. Her back ached where she had been impaled, but the water of life spread to fill the wound. Slowly, certainly, her body knit back together. Still naked and almost mortal, Inanna stood clasped between the hands of Ereshkigal. For the first time, the sisters stood eye to eye, and Inanna, who had spent 3 days in a higher silence, did not rush the moment. She let Ereshkigal search her eyes, let her see that there was no malice there.”

3.5 The Return Part One

We set a hymn over our lives, a declaration of reclamation and self-honoring.

“At every gate, another part of her lay waiting for reclamation. All she had loved, treasured, and lost was restored to her as she climbed. Tears flowed freely down her now wiser face and joy rose like incense. “Holy am I,” Inanna chanted into the abyss. “Holy is Inanna,” chanted back the Great Below. She could have sworn she heard the faint echo of Ereshkigal’s whisper joining the swell, “Holy are you, sister.””

It’s never too late to start the journey of Inanna’s Path. You can find the full series HERE and you can adjust your membership at any time to become a paid subscriber. Go at your own pace, fellow travelers. Discover your own natural rhythm and honor it.

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This series has been written from the fertile soil of Kalapuyan land near the Multnomah River (now known by a settler’s name). Almost every word has been written from my backyard with my bare feet in the grass and with reverence for the people who carry displacement in their bones and who will someday be the rightful stewards of this land again. I recognize them as the original storytellers of this place (something I have learned from Holly Ringland) and I hope the ground itself feels the offering of this work as it spreads.