Astro-mythology of Venus Inanna
Ancient Sumerians and Babylonians had an intricate understanding of astronomy. Unlike many other ancient civilizations, they had discovered that what appeared to be the star (which we now know as Venus) that appears in the morning sky in the east for seven months is the same star that then appears in the evening sky in the west for 7 months. In between these events, Venus disappears; and this is when she is thought to be in the metaphorical ‘underworld’. This cycle takes 19 months in total. It is believed that the observable path of Venus through the sky is what
inspired the “Descent of Inanna”. The Goddess Inanna was worshipped as Venus, the brightest star in the sky, also known as “The Queen of Heaven”. In the tale of her descent, she makes a journey through 7 gates in order to visit her sister, Erishkegal who is known as “The Queen of the Underworld”. These 7 gates are believed to be correlated to the seven conjunctions that Venus makes with the moon, one for each month. When Venus rises in the morning sky; this symbolizes Inanna’s path to the Underworld. The first time that the moon meets Venus in the morning sky symbolizes the first gate she reaches where she is required to remove her crown.
The crown symbolizes her title, her worldly power. In removing it, she is, from a Jungian perspective, beginning the process of deconstructing her persona. Once a month, when Venus is seen in the morning sky next to the crescent moon, Inanna removes another item of jewelry or clothing. Jungian scholar Sylvia Brinton Pererra believes that the 7 gates in the story correlate to the 7 main entry centers or chakras of the body (p.61). With this in mind, enacting the myth would involve performing a ritual which removing blockages to each chakra.
These simple acts can be ritualized so that we are moving through the deconstruction along with the Goddess. The fact that this myth correlates to an observable astronomical event that occurs over 19 months gives us a framework for enacting this timeless practice of connecting psyche and cosmos as we go through the cycles of birth, death and rebirth.
