Ereshkigal, My Mother, and Me

By Jody Gentian Bower Ph.D.

Dating back at least four millennia, the Sumerian/Akkadian myth of the “Descent of Inanna” tells the story of how Inanna, the Queen of Heaven, descends to the Underworld realm of her sister Ereshkigal to attend the funeral of Ereshkigal’s husband. Inanna is stripped of her clothing and jewelry—all the trappings of her status—as she passes through the gates to the underworld, until she stands naked before her sister. Ereshkigal looks at her with the “eyes of death,” and Inanna immediately dies. Her body is hung on a hook in the cave to rot.

She is revived three days later when Ereshkigal’s pain—not just her grief, but the pain of childbirth, for she is in labor—is assuaged by genderless beings who come for Inanna and sympathize with Ereshkigal. Mollified by feeling that at least someone understands her and cares, Ereshkigal restores Inanna to life and lets her go back to Heaven. But nothing will ever be the same for Inanna, because Ereshkigal represents a wisdom that Inanna lacks: the ability to see the world as it truly is. Sylvia Brinton Perera says that Ereshkigal forces Inanna to see “not what might be good or bad, but what exists before judgment.”^[1] To see clearly, without illusions. Inanna goes home and, looking with clear eyes, realizes that her husband has not only not missed her, he’s been plotting to take her throne.

Mollified by feeling that at least someone understands her and cares, Ereshkigal restores Inanna to life and lets her go back to Heaven.

British Museum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Finding Ereshkigal

The majority of writers who address this myth focus on Inanna. They see her journey as a metaphor for a woman’s psychological descent and return. Jean Shinoda Bolen, for instance, thinks Inanna’s death is the death of her former “nice” persona as she “discovers the self-hatred, worthlessness, hostility, pain, and rage that she had avoided feeling and knowing, until now…the blinders drop away.”^[2] But when I read the myth, I was drawn to Ereshkigal. Who is she, what does she want, why is she in the cave, could she leave if she wanted?

I was drawn to Ereshkigal. Who is she, what does she want, why is she in the cave, could she leave if she wanted?

I signed up for the Mythological Studies program at Pacifica Graduate Institute already knowing what my dissertation topic would be: the story of the wandering heroine that I’d started noticing in novels decades earlier and kept finding in biographies, fiction works of every kind, even a play by Shakespeare.

Personal Resonances

At my oral defense, Chris Downing, the internal reader on my dissertation committee, asked me “Why are you so drawn to the wandering heroine story? While I recognize that it is many women’s story, in fact it is also my story, I myself am far more interested in stories of descents to the Underworld. Tell me, what is the appeal?” This question triggered a conversation between us that lasted for months through email and Zoom meetings.

Chris had grown up in a loving and supportive family. What she wanted for herself was always possible, always fostered. But at midlife, something happened. Despite her successful career and loving family, she began to feel that there was a hole in her life, something missing. Then a dream told her it was time to make the descent to the Underworld and meet “Her”—the Dark Goddess. She did so, and everything about her life changed. I too was raised in apparent privilege by a family that looked to others like a happy one. But this was an illusion. My childhood was marked by tragedy and alcoholism. Rather than supporting me, my parents alternated between neglect and criticism. My mother was always angry and we walked on eggshells around her. After I went to college, there were several times when I would come home only to be greeted with anger by my mother at the door. Like Inanna, I would be skewered before I could even speak.I told Chris, “The descent story doesn’t appeal to me because I grew up in Ereshkigal’s cave.” I thought that I had no need to seek the Dark Goddess; she had raised me! Like the heroines of the novels I studied, my soul’s aim was to get away from that dark cave and find the place of light and warmth Chris took for granted.

I came to see Ereshkigal as more than Inanna’s shadow bearer, more than a catalyst for change

Yet in time, I came to understand and reconcile with my mother. A talented artist, she’d never been able to fulfill her own daimon, her calling, because of the demands of a large family and my father’s reluctance to take an active role in raising us. A cathartic moment for us both was when she said to me “your father has always put me in the position of the bad guy” and I replied “yes, Mom, I know.” My dad seemed nice, but out of his own fear of confrontation, had manipulated us all to see Mom as the problem in the family while also ensuring that we never actually talked to her. Mom, as a result, felt isolated and became suspicious and prone to wild accusations.

Empathy as the path forward

All Ereshkigal wants is empathy, for others to see her life and understand it. I came to see Ereshkigal as more than Inanna’s shadow bearer, more than a catalyst for change. Clarissa Pinkola Estés tell us that the key to dealing with the witch or the Dark Goddess is to approach her with respect, not just for her but for oneself as well.^[3] Empathy—acknowledgment of another person’s reality—is a form of respect. Given respect, she teaches us what we need to know, gives us the gift we need most—and lets us go.

I’ve been working with this myth for 15 years now. I’ve come to see Ereshkigal as a metaphor for the woman denied choices in her life, relegated to a corner of someone else’s story, ignored and dismissed. I’ve come full circle to find that she is not malicious, just misunderstood. As soon as I offered my mother empathy and understanding, she stopped skewering me and gave me the love and understanding I’d always craved from her.

Dr. Bower will be giving the first presentation for ISM's Living Goddess Part 2 on September 14th. If you wish to attend you can sign up here.

Works Cited

^[1] Perera, Sylvia Brinton. Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1981; p. 20.

^[2] Bolen, Jean Shinoda. Close to the Bone: Life-Threatening Illness as a Soul Journey. San Francisco: Red Wheel, 2007.

^[3] Estés, Clarissa Pinkola. Women Who Run with the Wolves. New York: Ballantine, 1992,