Inanna all around us (even if we don't know it).

Inanna all around us (even if we don’t know it)

In the book Maia by Richard Adams, Occula, a black slave-girl, invokes Kantza-Merada. She uses the same epic stanza as in the book Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth.

Then, as she entered the fifth gate,
The gold rings were taken from her fingers.
“Pray what is it now you do to me?”
“Most strangely, Kantza-Merada, are the laws of the dark world affected.
O Kantza-Merada, do not question the ways of the nether world.”

The sixth gate is the jeweled breastplate, the seventh, the fine garments of her body.

“Most strangely, Kantza-Merada, are the laws of the dark world effected. O Kantza-Merada, do not question the laws of the nether world.’
At the word of the dark judges, that word which tortures the spirit,
Kantza-Merada, even the goddess, was turned to a dead body,
Defiled, polluted, a corpse hangin’ from a stake—

“Kantza-Merada, from the great above she descended to the great below. The goddess abandoned heaven, abandoned earth,
Abandoned dominion, abandoned ladyship,
To the nether world of darkness she descended.

Maia asks why did the great goddess was turned into a dead body.
Occula replies, “Why she died for us of course. She resigned herself to every foul thing that could happen to her.”
Maia said, “Then what?”

“After three days and three nights had passed away—
“Upon her defiled body,
Sixty times the food of life,
Sixty times the water of life they sprinkled,
And Kantza-Merada, Kantza-Merada arose.
When Kanzta-Merada ascended from the dark world,
The little demons like reeds walked by her side—
(Adams, 98)
Occula then says she wandered the world, and that’s another story, but she was saved. And Kantza-Merada does indeed save Maia and Occula, the Goddess of Love is also the Goddess of the Underworld, and it gives her even more power, more power to save the female from masculine treachery which is so profuse, which has always been profuse.

Another book that has has Inanna but by her other name, Ishtar, is Piers Anthony’s Pretender, which is about an ultra-intelligent cosmic being NK-2 which inhabits the body of a Babylonian scribe named Enkidu, and marries Ishtar and becomes a god himself.

I decided to invoke Inanna and ask her for help myself. It has worked, worked in ways that I cannot yet comprehend or understand. Inanna is still prevalent, she is all around us, and while I do not speak for all womankind, I know I need her. Inanna, thank you for your assistance in matters of which we spoke of. Inanna, thank you for watching out for the feminine, the life-bringers, who are so easily overpowered by masculine forces (or not so easily, if a woman invokes the Goddess).

Inanna Today

Inanna Today
21st century fertility is somewhat different than that of ancient Sumer. The Sumerians were interested in fertility rites because the ways of reproduction remained scientifically unknown. The food supply was also not in as much abundance as it is today and reserves were perishable. Women with curvier figures were more fertile because they were obviously well-nourished.

Today’s society is largely patriarchal and this leaves women feeling powerless. A powerful female figure is unknown. Women are treated as a different class of society. Women’s rights were violently oppressed for many years and continue to be to this day. An objectification of women has been common to both ancient Sumer and the US. Inanna fulfilled society’s need for influential Yin energy. A basic female essence is necessary for there to be a unified whole. Modern western society is so Yang infused that it is aggressively lacking in balance.

This objectification is prevalent because men repress their feminine energies and view them as inferior. The best and only way to keep this viewpoint in a conscious and intelligent way is to dehumanize a woman and judge her by her sexuality, i.e. fertility. By consciously and vigilantly idealizing women and treating them as objects, the masculine authority can not only justify treating women as inferior but keep them that way.

This “killing two birds with one stone” has fooled women into thinking they are in actuality inferior to men. This also helps keep men in power, if the women themselves are made to feel and continue to feel powerless, they will never attempt to take any power for themselves, leaving it all in the hands of men. If a woman is less than perfect, than she has no right to be seeking power—rather she is too busy using every means at her disposal, even surgically altering her appearance at the expense of her health, spending time and money with cosmetics, clothing, dieting and exercise, all pastimes to keep the woman from thinking about what’s REALLY important. Rather, her physical appearance is the ONLY thing that matters and the approval of her mate.

Is this mate be it male or female, really taking as much time and rating his or her self worth on his attractiveness? No. Not nearly as much. Most heterosexual men barely keep themselves hygienically clean and neglect their physical appearance as much as it is socially acceptable. They are not judged not nearly as much. Men in power, bosses, managers, supervisors, most are unattractive, overweight, middle-aged men with trophy wives who still cheat. Men do not have to take care of their offspring nearly as much. All blame and responsibility go to the mother.

Inanna is one way for a woman to REMEMBER her power.

The Goddess is Within Everywoman

I chose to use a picture of myself. I posed for many pictures, trying to feel as if I were the Goddess herself. This involved a relaxing of many of my moral codes, including ones involving prostitution, stripping and casual sex. I did not personally participate in these activities, but what I did was change my relatively puritan view of such activities into a WWID? i.e. What Would Inanna Do (Think)? about these activites? Well, not only did she think these were just fine, but also felt them as a powerful, liberating female force rather than a negative, sugjugating one. By allowing a woman to be sexually free and in charge of her own body, she may use it to support herself and her family. This would be a radical contrast from Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid" a powerful tale that is one of my favorite novels (and a good movie too). In the Handmaid, a woman's reproductive organs are property of the state (due to low birth rates because of nuclear waste and chemical pollutions in drinking water, air and food). The women who could reproduce were divorced from their husbands (husbands were usually murdered) children given up for adoption for politically powerful childless couples (most likely all of them). Society was changed, People were married for political and religious reasons, and only powerful and rich were allowed to marry, thus making the average married couple 50+ years old. These couples were the only ones allowed to be married all single men being forced to serve in the military or as staff on the political party or personal waitstaff in the mansions. The women were called "handmaids" and had to wear a red sacklike dress and veil (a symbol of their fertility) and were given to these couples as a "vagina from God" as you will. This is a eye-opening, life-changing book because it forces us to look at our country and the direction it's heading. As much as I dislike pornography, the fashion industry, exotic dancing and prostitution, these things are much preferable to the alternative (Handmaid-like society). I thought about these things while taking the pictures and while digitally manipulating the one I chose for the assignment.