SO I'VE FOUND ANOTHER EXCUSE TO WRITE ABOUT THE GODDESS INANNA

sometimes known as Lady of the Date Clusters 😭 (scroll to the end for event updates 🍓, tickets still available for the three I've got coming up!)

qotd: 

"The Anuna gods crawl before her august word whose course she does not let An know; he dares not proceed against her command. She ... changes her own action, and no one knows how it will occur."

Excerpt from Hymn to Inanna, trans. by Jeremy Black et al. 

Here I am trying not to weep as I stand in front of The Queen of the Night Relief at the British Museum :’) this particular relief dates back to the Old Babylonian period, between the 19th and 18th century BCE, and is said to depict the goddess Inanna/Ishtar (or maybe her sister Ereshkigal, no one can seem to 100% agree).

Frances Carey, head of national programmes at the British Museum in the late 1970s, wrote this rather tasty limerick about the relief:

'There was a winged figure from Ur
Whose identity we may only infer
That the owls left and right
Make her Queen of the Night
That mysterious female from Ur'

I mean the artefact wasn’t even found in Ur but hey ho. Don’t let provenance get in the way of a RHYME.

The point IS I have loved this goddess, in all her iterations, for many many moons (look how long my hair was in that pic). Last year I devoted a whole newsletter to the Descent of Inanna (the o.g. story of Persephone’s journey to the Underworld) which you can read here:

DEMONIC, TRANSGENDER FLIES, A DIVINE STRIPTEASE AND THOSE PESKY POMEGRANATES - wtf is a katabasis and why should you bother reading about it ??

So when I say I WELCOME any excuse to write about Inanna I seriously mean it. I’ve always felt drawn to the goddess, she was my way in to discovering my love of Sumerian mythology, and she’s just so POWERFUL and TEMPESTUOUS (read: messy).

So what was her DEAL?! Let’s get into it.

Babylonian Astarte figure.

So Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of war and sex (WHAT a combo), either the wife or daughter of the sky god An (honestly probably both, you know how unwell the ancient gods were when it came to keeping it in the family).

In other versions she’s the daughter of the moon god Nanna or Enlil, the god of wind. In her earliest manifestations she’s chiefly associated with the storehouse, dates, wool, meat, grain all that lovely (and important!!) stuff. She was also connected to rain and thunderstorms, because of her relationship with the sky god An (yes, the one that’s either her husband or father). Her connection with thunderstorms meant that lions were also her thang as the roar of a lion evoked a thunderstorm! Her martial power may ALSO be due to her connection with storms. If that wasn’t ENOUGH of a CV, Inanna was ALSO a fertility goddess.

Offering in the form of a female statuette.

Known for her youthful beauty and her impulsiveness, Inanna was not maternal or wife-material by any stretch of the imagination. Idk about you but I am always searching for a historical antidote to the whole virgin Mary situation we got bombarded with by school/church/SOCIETY.

Inanna’s characterisation is also full to the BRIM with contradictions, our gal contains MULTITUDES. She presided over fire AND fire quenching, celebration and WEEPING, fairness & enemies. Inanna also had an astral vibe, being closely connected to the planet Venus, the morning and evening star ✨

Surface view of the planet Venus.

If you’ve read my previous newsletter on katabasis, you’ll know that in some versions of mythology Inanna was married to the fertility deity Dumuzi, (and famously says to him, “Plough my vulva, man of my heart,” which was ofc an agriculture reference but OBVIOUSLY NOT JUST AN AGRICULTURE REFERENCE) but in the Epic of Gilgamesh (the oldest ever epic poem, which I will circle back to and devote a whole newsletter to at a later date), the goddess attempts to seduce Gilgamesh, the mortal protagonist, and he SPURNS the goddess, listing off all her previous lovers that she has cast aside/literally + metaphorically DESTROYED. (Imagine if hinge had reviews, I seriously cannot decide whether that would be fabulous or horrendous). Also, because of the whole katabasis/journey to the Underworld thang, she was clearly closely associated with death and the Underworld ~ her iconography has been found in and around PILES of grave goods, like, the most out of any deity.

Inanna receiving offerings on the Uruk Vase, ca. 3200-3000 BCE.

Something a lil spicy also went down in ancient Sumer (because of its spiciness, it is HOTLY contested) ~ there was a ritual marriage, a recreation of the so-called “sacred marriage”, between Inanna (represented by her priestess) and Dumuzi (represented by the ruler) to ensure prosperity and consolidate religious and political power. It has been argued that this was an intellectual, abstract sorta thing (i.e. the king didn’t reeeeeeally get down and dirty with a sacred sex worker), but I prefer to take it literally (and defend my unfounded opinion with a concerning amount of fervour). The “sacred marriage” helped cement the connection between the ruler and the divine world (like how every Roman emperor was somehow related to Aeneas and therefore the goddess Venus), which really drives home how much political sway the goddess Inanna actually wielded.

Me geeking OUT in front of the Processional Way leading to the Ishtar Gate at the Pergamon Museum, Berlin.

Brief bit of historical nerdiness: I have to admit that I STRUGGLE to keep track of Inanna, Ishtar and Astarte because, like so many things in the ancient world, they are fabulously entangled, their depictions and descriptions do genuinely blur together/overlap hugely. To CLARIFY (mostly for me but also for you), Inanna and Ishtar are regarded as being broadly the same goddess, with Inanna being the Sumerian goddess and Ishtar being her Akkadian name. The main thing that sets Akkadian Ishtar apart is that her militaristic aspect was highlighted a bit more. Astarte is the West-Semitic version of the goddess that was worshipped in Egypt, Canaan and the Ugarit and by the Hittites (an ancient Anatolian people).

Now onto the actual EXCUSE for my historical fangirling (like I ever need one).

Darling Adele of Adele Jade very kindly gifted me one of her Goddess Inanna Adornments which I fell in love with as soon as I saw a photo :’)

I’ve been SUCH a fan of Adele’s work for years now ~ she creates such special treasures, all inspired by the ancient world. I actually invited her to have a stall at my after hours event at the Hellenic Museum in Melbourne a few years ago and everyone was obsessed.

check out her website here <3

I wear my Inanna pendant every day and I absolutely treasure it. It goes with everything and honestly it makes me feel POWERFUL (and messy).

I’ve pulled this description straight from Adele’s website (it reads far more elegantly than my typical writing style that evokes a squealing piglet):

“Artisan Adele Jade has… created and hand carved a relief of the Goddess Inanna. She then incorporated the ancient art technique of lost wax casting to create an alluring adornment, designed to be worn daily, as a reminder of your innate strength. The finished piece encapsulates the look and feel of a precious unearthed ancient relic.

The Goddess Inanna is an ancient Sumerian Goddess of love, the moon, fertility, abundance, self realization and feminine power. She is often shown as a beautiful strong winged feminine warrior woman flanked by two lions to symbolize courage and protection.

Sumer was a rich culture cradled in Southern Iraq, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and known as the cradle of civilization. Inanna’s shrine, the ‘House of Heaven’ was located in the ancient city of Uruk. Female Goddess worship was sacred during this time as female energy was honored as the matrix of creation.”

Firstly Adele has used the ancient technique of WAX-CASTING to make them??? Secondly why are we not using matrix of creation as a feminine descriptor always???

Read her full description here: Goddess Inanna Adornment <3

Here I am BASKING in the Australian sun, channeling a goddess full of contradictions, wily, unruly impulses, and ANCIENT POWER.

Follow Adele on Instagram here: Adele Jade Made and check out her website here: Adele Jade.

Seriously she has the dreamiest collection of vases, homewares, jewellery and beeswax candles that I have literally bought in bulk from London. I cannot hype her up ENOUGH.

Brb gonna go eat a pile of dates and give in to my most wily/unruly impulses xxx

Few quick event plugs if you’ve made it this far 🥂

I’m co-hosting a poetry symposium in LA on Friday the 24th of March ~ you can find all the details here:

Pure Nowhere & Cosi's Odyssey Present: A POETRY SYMPOSIUM

early bird tickets are still available if you’re after a discounted price (sliding scale is also available, head to the link for details).

I’m also collaborating with Charlie Ann Max to bring you another Renaissance & Rebirth themed FÜDE Dinner Experience on the 26th of March (also in LA!) ~ visit the website for more info/tickets:

THE FÜDE DINNER EXPERIENCE ~ Renaissance & Rebirth ~ In collaboration with Cosi’s Odyssey & Bruxa

And last but not least, there is ONE SPOT left for Dildo Decorating with Adele Brydges in London on Saturday the 1st of April ~ head to this link for all the info:

The Art of (Self) Pleasure x Cosi's Odyssey

If you’re not based in LA or London but have some pals that you think might be keen please fling these links at them, helping people connect with the ancient world & themselves is what drives me with everything I do and building this community is such a huge, important part of that <3