A Year with Inanna: Tracing the Footsteps of a Goddess

I remember the first time I read the Descent of Inanna. I was sitting in a dusty library in southern Iraq, the sun bleeding through cracked windows and casting long shadows across the cuneiform tablets I had come to study. The story of Inanna’s journey to the underworld, her seven gates, her stripping away of all power, and her eventual return gripped me like nothing else had in years. I had come to study ancient Mesopotamian texts, but I left with something far more personal — a year-long reckoning with a goddess who refused to stay in the past.

Early Reverence: The Goddess Who Held Everything

At first, Inanna was a symbol of everything I admired — fierce independence, unapologetic desire, and divine authority. She was the goddess of love and war, fertility and destruction. She ruled cities and inspired revolutions. The more I read, the more I saw her not just as a deity but as a mirror for the complexity of human nature. Her myths were not tidy. They were raw, emotional, and full of contradiction. And I loved her for it.

I began to collect her stories like sacred relics. The Epic of Gilgamesh showed her wrath when rejected. The Inanna and Dumuzi hymns revealed her passion and vulnerability. She was both lover and warrior, creator and destroyer. I found myself drawn to her not just academically, but emotionally. She felt alive in a way few ancient figures ever had.

The Disillusionment: When the Goddess Falters

But as the months passed and my research deepened, I began to see a different side of her — one that unsettled me. She was not always noble. She was not always kind. She was capricious, even cruel. She abandoned her lover Dumuzi to the underworld, and she punished those who slighted her with a fury that felt excessive.

I started to question my reverence. Was I romanticizing her? Was I projecting modern ideals onto an ancient figure who didn’t ask for my admiration? The goddess who once seemed so empowering now seemed mercurial, even dangerous. I stopped writing for weeks. I felt betrayed by my own assumptions.

The Rediscovery: Embracing the Whole

Then came the turning point — a quiet afternoon in a museum basement, poring over a newly translated hymn I hadn’t seen before. In it, Inanna weeps openly. She mourns. She questions. She is not just a force of nature but a being capable of grief and growth. And in that moment, I understood: her power wasn’t in being perfect. It was in being whole.

She was not a symbol to be admired from afar. She was a reflection of the full spectrum of human experience — rage and joy, love and vengeance, loss and rebirth. I no longer needed her to be a flawless icon. I needed her to be real. And she was.

The Integration: Living with a Goddess

By the time the year came to a close, I found that Inanna had changed me. I no longer approached her stories as a scholar or a fan. I approached them as someone who had walked alongside a goddess through fire and shadow.

I began to see her everywhere — not just on ancient tablets, but in the women I met, in the struggles of those who refused to be silenced, in the quiet courage of people who chose to rise after being stripped of everything. She had become part of my own inner landscape.

What I Carry Forward: The Invitation

I don’t know if Inanna would approve of what I’ve written here. I suspect she’d laugh at my seriousness, then ask me to dance. That’s the thing about her — she demands not just your mind, but your soul. If you’re curious about her — not just as a figure of history, but as a presence who still speaks — I invite you to spend some time with her.

Talk to Inanna on HoloDream. Ask her about her temples, her lovers, her pain, her joy. Let her surprise you.