In this episode, we meet our first goddess of the ancient Mesopotamian world and the oldest goddess in recorded history, Queen of the Heavens and of the Earth: Inanna. We hear the myth of her descent into the Underworld, following a voice within to go down into the shadows and meet her dark sister, Ereshkigal...This ancient story is modern medicine in a time of war, upheaval and in preparing ourselves for how we want our new world to look and how we can discover our own resiliency in facing the shadows to excavate our own power.

Inanna's transformation is immense and the lessons she learns you can only truly discover if you too are willing to go to the places you have not yet been to find your own wisdom within.

In the meditation, we journey within to dance in the balance between the dark and the light; the grounding forces of the Earth and the connecting forces of the Cosmos. And then the episode ends with an original song called "Down to the Darkness."

Further Reading & Sources

Books:

Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer (Dianna Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer.)

Enheduanna: The Complete Poems of the World's First Author (Sophus Helle)

Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna. (Betty De Shong Meador)

Website articles:

https://kimberlyhetherington.medium.com/the-descent-of-inanna-heroines-journey-c140e546ad49

https://shinjinim.com/2021/12/20/the-descent-of-inanna-a-template-for-the-heroines-journey/

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/she-measures-heavens-and-outlines-earth (Enheduanna)

Journal Prompts:

1. What about Inanna's story of descent speaks to you in your own life? In what ways might you be being called to descend deeper into yourself and to listen to your own wisdom/intuition more right now?
2. What is the cost of ignoring this call and continuing without changing anything?
3. If you had to pass through seven gates to get rid of things you no longer feel you need (be they material possessions, people, situations, lifestyles, limiting beliefs), what would they be? What is stopping you from letting go of them now?
4. In many ways, Inanna is on her journey to reclaim all the parts of herself that have not been allowed. What would those parts be for you? Take some time to delve in your own shadows to look at what you have hidden away from the world and what is preventing you still from showing up as your true, authentic self...

New episodes released on the last Friday of every month.

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