Why the Ancient Mesopotamian Story of Inanna Queen of Heaven is Important Even Today

Stories, especially mythological ones, can teach us so much about ourselves and the human condition. Even though they put forth events that usually aren’t factual, the characters encounter situations and behave in ways that mirror back to us eternal truths that have always been present in human lives. And it’s these eternal truths that are the point of stories that go back thousands of years.

One such story is that of Inanna. Inanna was a goddess in ancient Mesopotamia. She was worshipped as the Goddess of Heaven and Earth. As a character, she was a diva and wanted to have an affair with a hero named Gilgamesh. Unfortunately, Gilgamesh refused her advances, which enraged Inanna. To teach Gilgamesh a lesson, Inanna sent the Bull of Heaven to attack him. However, Gilgamesh ended up killing the Bull of Heaven.

Now, the Bull of Heaven was married to Inanna’s sister, Ereshkigal, who was Queen of the Underworld. So, his sister-in-law, Inanna travelled to the Underworld to Bull of Heaven’s funeral in the Underworld as a sign of respect for her sister and probably because she was feeling a little guilty of at least indirectly causing his death.

Inanna sets out for the Underworld, dressed in her full ceremonial regalia to show her power. To enter the Underworld, Inanna would need to pass through seven gates. The angry and grieving Ereshkigal, forces Inanna to give up an item of her lavish regalia at each of seven gates:

1. Gate of Authority – Inanna must surrender her crown, symbolizing her connection to her godhood, her connection to heaven, and her divinity.

2. Gate of Perception – She is made to surrender the lapis measuring rod and line (or sometimes lapis earrings depending on the version of the story), stripping her of her sense of magic, her insight, and imagination.

3. Gate of Communication – She surrenders a double stranded, beaded necklace, releasing the ways she no longer communicates the truth and her authenticity.

4. Gate of Compassion – Inanna is made to take off her breastplate, symbolizing her emotional heart and the release of all the ways she no longer truly loves herself.

5. Gate of Personal Power – She surrenders a golden hip girdle at her waist (or sometimes a gold bracelet around her wrist), stripping her of all the ways she tried to have power over others or gave her power away.

6. Gate of Creativity – She surrenders her ankle bracelets, stripping her of all the ways she no longer truly valued herself.

7. Gate of Manifestation – Inanna finally surrenders her royal robe, called the Garment of Ladyship, stripping her of life force energy.

Thus, Inanna arrives in the underworld naked, stripped bare of all her garments of protection and the authority that she misused when her pride and desire for retribution put the Great Bull of Heaven in harm’s way. Then, her sister, the grieving Ereshkigal, kills Inanna and hangs her corpse on a meat hook.

Meanwhile, back on the surface of the earth, three days and three nights pass. Awaiting her mistress’s return, Inanna’s handmaiden implored the god Enki to send two emissaries to the Underworld to find out what happened to Inanna. Enki instructs the emissaries to go to the Underworld, listen to Ereshkigal’s pain, and to acknowledge her grief. When the emissaries do this, it miraculously heals Ereshkigal’s depression, hurt, and anger because it allowed her to name her pain as the emissaries witnessed it without judgment or a need to fix it or make it different then what it was.

Grateful for someone acknowledging her pain, Ereshkigal hands over Inanna’s corpse to the emissaries, who revive Inanna with the water and food of life. After Inanna awakens, she begins her departure from the Underworld back the way she came, through the 7 gates, collecting her vestments in reverse order as she is renewed and reborn.

• At the Gate of Manifestation, the last gate she passed through on her way into the Underworld, she retrieves her royal robe, reclaiming the healthy potency and expression of her own life force.

• At the Gate of Creativity, she retrieves the ankle bracelets with a renewed and healthy connection to her value and self-worth.

• At the Gate of Personal Power, Inanna retrieves the golden hip girdle for her waist (or bracelet around her wrist), reclaiming her personal power.

• At the Gate of Compassion, Inanna retrieves her breastplate, symbolizing the healing of her emotional heart and her renewed ability to truly love herself and others.

• Going through the Gate of Communication, Inanna gets back the beaded necklace, reclaiming healthy, authentic communication of her true self.

• Passing through the Gate of Perception, she takes back the lapis measuring rod and line/small lapis earrings, reclaiming her sense of magic, insight, and imagination.

• Finally at the Gate of Authority, Inanna retrieves her crown, reconnecting to heaven, her divinity, and her godhood.

Because of her trip to the Underworld, Inanna gained the experience and knowledge of pain and darkness. Wiser and humbler, she reclaimed her place as Queen of Heaven and Earth.

While the plot of this story is fantastical and obviously not based in fact, it’s the eternal principles and truths that still strike chords with us thousands of years later. Symbolically, the seven gates can correlate with the seven chakras. At each gate/chakra, Inanna was forced to surrender a trapping of her ego. Then, as she appears before her sister who lives in the Underworld, facing Ereshkigal is like encountering all her shadow parts that led to the unjust treatment others, like Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven.

Stripping Inanna of all her tools of power required her to surrender or “die” to who she believed herself to be to be renewed and transformed as more authentically who she was meant to be. This is the message of Inanna’s descent and ascent that reminds us that wisdom comes through repeatedly surrendering to and going through the ordeals and challenges of our lives that polish us and move us a little more away from our ego and towards authenticity. If done with intention, the process brings our egos through metaphorical deaths as we are reborn into a more empowered and authentic way of being.