So, I Have a Question
I have a confession.
Until a few weeks ago, I had never heard of Inanna.
Not once.
Which is strange, because she's one of the oldest named deities we know of. She appears in some of humanity's earliest written stories, influenced later goddesses across multiple civilizations, and stars in a myth that has survived for more than four thousand years.
So...
How did I miss her?
"Goddess of love."
"Goddess of war."
"Mesopotamian goddess."
Okay...but none of those descriptions made me curious.
They felt like reading a résumé instead of meeting the person.
Then I found The Descent of Inanna.
And somewhere between the first gate and the seventh...
I realized I wasn't reading a story about an ancient goddess anymore.
I was reading one of the oldest questions humanity has ever asked:
Who are we when everything we've used to define ourselves is stripped away?
Okay...But Hear Me Out...
Whenever I stumble onto someone I've somehow never heard of, I have a bad habit.
"Alexa, tell me about..."
It's efficient.
It's also terrible at introductions.
Imagine trying to meet your best friend through Alexa.
You: "Alexa, tell me about my best friend."
Alexa: "Your best friend is a teacher. She enjoys live music, coffee, and astrology. She is an aspiring comedian."
Me: "No... tell me about my best friend."
Alexa: "I'm sorry. I don't have enough information to answer that question."
Exactly.
Technically true.
Completely useless.
That's what happened when I started looking up Inanna.
Every source seemed to describe her the same way:
"Goddess of love."
"Goddess of war."
Sometimes they'd add fertility.
Sometimes they'd mention Venus.
Occasionally, they'd tell me she eventually became known as Ishtar.
Those are all facts.
But none of them answered the question I actually had.
Who was she?
Because "goddess of love" doesn't tell me what kind of love.
"Goddess of war" doesn't tell me why.
It doesn't tell me what she wanted.
What she feared.
What made people keep telling her stories for thousands of years.
If we're going to spend time with someone who's been part of humanity's imagination for over four millennia, I don't want to meet her through labels.
I want to meet her through her story.
Fortunately...
That's exactly how the people who first knew her would have met her, too.
Tamra Teaches
Before we jump into Inanna's story, I want to show you one of my favorite parts of reading.
And not just myths.
Movies.
Novels.
Even the stories we tell about ourselves.
Symbols.
I could go into the nuances of what constitutes a symbol, but for our purpose, a symbol is something that stands for something bigger than itself.
A wedding ring isn't just a piece of metal.
It's commitment.
A graduation cap isn't just fabric and cardboard.
It's years of work.
A police badge isn't just shiny metal.
It's authority.
The object matters.
But what it represents is the point.
Stories work the same way.
Sometimes a storyteller wants you to notice a sword because it's a weapon.
Sometimes they want you to notice the sword because it represents power.
Or responsibility.
Or violence.
Or the burden of protecting other people.
The trick is learning to ask a second question.
Not just...
"What happened?"
But...
"Why this?"
Why a crown instead of a hat?
Why a gate instead of a door?
Why jewelry instead of money?
Why tell the story this way?
Those questions don't always have one right answer.
But they almost always lead to a richer reading.
That's one of the reasons I love mythology.
These stories weren't trying to recreate someone's Tuesday afternoon.
They were trying to make ideas visible.
Sometimes they did that by turning ideas into people.
Sometimes they turned ideas into monsters.
And sometimes...they hid ideas inside ordinary objects.
Which brings us to Inanna.
One of the oldest surviving stories in human history centers around a woman who walks through seven gates.
At each gate, she is required to surrender something she is wearing.
You can read that as a queen changing clothes.
Or...you can ask what each object might have meant to the people who first told her story.
Look at you! You're catching on...let's try the second one.
That's Wild
Imagine you're the Queen of Heaven.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
You wear the crown.
You command armies.
Kings seek your favor.
People pray to you.
If anyone in the ancient world was the IT girl, it was Inanna.
Then one day, she decides to visit the Underworld.
Depending on which version you're reading and how scholars interpret it, she's traveling into the realm ruled by her sister, Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Dead. What matters for our investigation isn't simply why she goes. It's what the journey requires of her.
She arrives at the first gate.
The gatekeeper stops her.
She can't enter as she is.
So she gives up something.
Then another gate.
Another object.
Another gate.
Another symbol.
Again.
And again.
Until the Queen of Heaven...
stands with nothing.
No crown.
No royal jewelry.
No robes announcing her status.
Nothing that tells the world who she is.
And that's the moment that stopped me.
Not because I felt bad for her.
Because of what the story didn't do.
It never acts like these objects are just expensive things.
Each surrender feels deliberate.
As though every gate is asking the same question:
If I take away the things everyone recognizes as "you"...
who's left?
That's wild.
Because suddenly this isn't just an ancient goddess changing clothes.
It's a story about identity.
About the strange way we attach ourselves to the symbols that tell other people—and sometimes ourselves—who we are.
Queen.
Leader.
Mother.
Doctor.
Teacher.
Manager.
Writer.
Partner.
The titles change.
The question doesn't.
Who are you...when none of those things can introduce you?
Wild Thoughts
Okay...
Can I throw one more thought on the table?
I've been thinking about those seven gates all week.
Not because I expect to wake up one morning and find myself wandering into the ancient Sumerian underworld.
Although...given my search history lately, I wouldn't completely rule it out.
It's because I started wondering just how many symbols I wear every day without realizing it.
Some of them are obvious.
Job titles.
Degrees.
A hat that literally says, "Softball Mama"
But some are harder to see.
Being the funny one.
The responsible one.
The smart one.
The strong one.
The fixer.
The caregiver.
The person everyone calls when something goes wrong.
Those become symbols too.
Eventually...
they stop being things we do.
They become who we believe we are.
And I wonder what happens when life takes one away.
When you lose the job.
When the kids grow up.
When the relationship ends.
When retirement comes.
When illness changes what your body can do.
When the thing you've built your identity around...
is suddenly gone.
Maybe that's why Inanna's story has survived for thousands of years.
Not because most of us will ever wear a crown.
But because every one of us will eventually stand at a gate we didn't plan to walk through.
And life has a way of asking for something we thought we'd always get to keep.
That's uncomfortable.
But maybe...that's also where we finally meet ourselves.
Go Wild
Before I go...
I have one more question.
If life asked you to walk through seven gates...
what would be hardest to leave behind?
Your job?
Your reputation?
Being needed?
Being right?
Being successful?
Being the strong one?
Who are you without the things you've spent a lifetime using to answer that question?
Maybe don't answer too quickly.
Some questions deserve to follow us around for a while.
And maybe ask yourself one more thing.
Have you ever believed a story about someone without ever wondering who told it first?
Wonder well.
