Through the Gates of Inanna: Birh as Feminine Initiation

by Suzanne Schreve

A year before, almost to the date, a child died in my womb. Now one is being born. I feel the energy in my body change. My uterine muscles no longer contract upwards but ripple down. It catches me by surprise. There comes the second wave. It has started; my womb is pushing the baby out. I feel relief.

When the process of birth shifts from opening the cervix to moving through it, the pain subsides. In mythology, it is the opening of the doors to the underworld that brings the initial suffering. In the myth of Inanna there are seven gates to pass before she completes her descent into the underworld. At each gate the gatekeeper, Neti, beats and strips Inanna of her clothes and jewellery.[i] When she finally arrives at the gloomy queendom of her dark sister Ereshkigal, Inanna crawls on all fours wearing only the dirt on her skin.[ii]

Prima Materia

The mill of the underworld keeps churning until you’re nothing more than husk. It empties those who knock on its door from all false images to the base ingredient, the prima materia, a primal instinctive animal self. Inanna’s stripping down at each gate represents this grinding down of the ego: her earthly persona, any sense of self-identification, any false attachments. It seems that this is what the contractions do in birth before it moves into the ‘pushing’ phase. Most women experience it as painful, an excruciating gut-wrenching horror at the most, or at least as intense. I have heard women describe it as glass shattering in their backs. My first birth literally floored me.

During that first stage of contractions the womb is physically opening a gate and it takes as much strength to open a gate as it does to keep one closed. The womb is the strongest muscle in our body, keeping the cervix shut to safely carry a baby whose average weight at the end of nine months will be 3,3 kg. Add in the placenta and amniotic fluid, the womb holds another 1,5 kg.[iii] By the end of those nine months, the force with which the womb contracts, creates a dynamic change in the woman herself. She has now become the vessel for the womb. Some call it true labour, when contractions last up to 90 seconds every four minutes or so. To hold this force of nature, to be a vessel for it, may require all the capacity you can find in yourself.

When I was pregnant seven years ago, I did not think of this. I watched and read all these wonderful stories about orgasmic tantric birth and quickly decided that that was the birth for me. I made all the preparations to facilitate a cosmic experience of birthing bliss feeling confident I too would enter womb Walhalla. We ordered a home bath. I had a birthing ceremony. There were candles, incense, wind chimes and Tibetan singing bowls. We did tantric breathing exercises, hypnobirthing, perineal massage, and acupressure. At ten pm my waters broke showing blood. I ended up in hospital and forcefully pushed out my daughter seventeen hours later while being hooked up to an oxytocin drip.  

That long night, morning and early afternoon, each contraction pulled on another tightly wrought string of feeling abandoned, scorned, attacked, misunderstood, victimized, and overwhelmed. Throughout most of those seventeen hours, I felt like a wounded animal, and acted like one too. I did not experience bliss, only temporary relief. Just like Inanna who demanded entrance to the underworld, a realm outside her jurisdiction, I too had demanded an experience that wasn’t mine to command. All I could do was endure.

In birth, the increasing strength of contractions­ is the labour of initiation.

Although I thought I had prepared as well as I could have, no one can fully prepare for initiation. You’re not meant to. It is supposed to overwhelm so it can blast away all the congealed misconceptions. If there remains too much familiarity for the ego to hang onto, it will hold the lid on the unconscious, burying both our trash and our treasures.

Door to the Underworld. Clay plaque, Mesopotamia. Isin-Larsa-Old Babylonian period, 2000-1600 B.C. Paris, Louvre.

The physical pain and exhaustion that we experience during labour push us into the deep. The physiological aspects of labour illustrate how physical pain and exhaustion wears down our mental capability. We move into our primitive brain and constellate a flight or fight reaction exhibiting emotions of anxiety, panic, stress, and fear. In Jungian terms, you could also define this as an encounter with the shadow. The typical shadow shows itself in our reactions as primitive, instinctive, fitful, irrational, and prone to projection. It is our dark side, that which we do not want to be nor accept about ourselves, but this can be both something we view as negative or positive. During my first birth, what I experienced was the opposite of what I had ‘envisioned’.

­­­­­­In Inanna’s story, it is her sister Ereshkigal who personifies the shadow. She is the Queen of the Underworld. When Inanna arrives crawling at her sister’s throne, Ereshkigal casts Inanna the eye of death and has her lifeless naked body hung on a hook.[iv] Such symbolic death is indispensable for spiritual life and must be understood in relation to what it prepares; birth to a higher mode of being.[v] Earlier in the story, Inanna had caused the death of Ereshkigal’s husband through an act of inflated egocentric greed and play for power.[vi] Ereshkigal, pregnant and now without her child’s father, acts to remind her arrogant sister of the grounds of earthly being; of grief and loss, of pain and humility.  

While Inanna’s flesh rots away for three days, something remarkable happens. The ego-self represented by Inanna becomes subservient to her shadow sister Ereshikgal, and not without conscious intent. Before Inanna made her descent, she had instructed her consort Ninshubur to call for help if she were to stay away for more than three days. It illustrates a knowing of the underworld tidings and its obscure process of gestation. The killing of Inanna can then be seen as the choice to submit to the organic wisdom of nature. In the rotting of her flesh, Inanna is consumed by the fermenting processes of death. Fermentation converts raw materials into a desirable product that sustains new life. Here Inanna’s body as raw material, or prima materia, is transformed into something useful, into new consciousness. The process requires an active passivity of the ego-self and a submission or acceptance of life ’s circumstances as it is presented in the moment. Instead of fighting whatever comes our way, we heed to the call of the underworld and let it shape us, let it birth us. In this moment of submission, whether made consciously or not, the shadow, which normally acts passively in one’s consciousness, now has the active role of birthing something anew. As Jung says:

“We must…..let things happen in the psyche….This is an art of which most people know nothing. Consciousness is forever interfering, helping correct, negating.”

— C.G. Jung 1958, as cited by Lowinsky 2016)

 While Inanna’s corpse decays, Ereshkigal goes into labour. She leads the way into new life. This is feminine destruction with the purpose of creation, fundamental to the workings of the crone energy that stands firm at each threshold of feminine initiation. Woodman and Dickins (1996) describe this energy as

“the Goddess who gives life is the Goddess who takes life away. . . . we hold the paradox beyond contradictions. She is the flux of life in which creation gives place to destruction, destruction in service to life gives place to creation.” [viii] The crone lends her helping hand only to discard us, testing inner faith; a yielding to build endurance, which allows us to give in even more.

Death and Rebirth

The psychology of initiation finds its roots in these death-rebirth myths, where the archetypal processes of death and resurrection can be utilised in the task of transformation and growth[ix]. In almost every ancient culture you can find a myth of the dying-and-rising God. Isis and Osiris, Persephone and Inanna, but also that of Buddha and Jesus. The death turns into birth story ‘corresponds to a temporary return to the primordial Chaos out of which the universe was born, while ‘rebirth’ corresponds to the birth of the universe. Out of this symbolic re-enactment of the creation myth, a new individual is born.’ (Eliade, 2017)[x] The rituals that re-enact this great shift in cosmic order as a reflection of a shift in consciousness are mainly lost to us. In the West, we are mostly dependent on nature and life to shock us into maturation. Childbirth presents an opportunity of not only initiation, but also one to enter consciously - to a certain extent. You can either work against the tide or go with it.

Where the tide takes you may neither be relevant nor redundant. One of my clients’ wishes for a natural birth took on a different meaning as we explored her dreams during her pregnancy. While she hoped for a birth without medical interference, she also expressed a need to be in the hospital as it made her feel safe since it was her first child. As we worked with the images of the unconscious, she relaxed into the wisdom of her own body and in the medical knowledge of the hospital. She expressed her wishes as much as she could, and as she did so, dream images of power animals, such as lions and horses, became regular visitors. In our last session together before she birthed her baby, she moved into the image of the horse, feeling its strength, walking and standing as the horse, experiencing its clarity while feeling grounded in her body. Her waters broke as she motioned out of the experience. A week later she recounted her story to me. The birth was long and arduous because the cervix did not dilate. When her gynaecologist asked her if she wanted to continue natural labour, she felt herself connect into a clear mode of thinking, much alike she had experienced while ‘being’ the horse. She gave in to what her body told her and asked for a caesarean. As they wheeled her into the operating room, she not only felt present in herself, but surrendered into the loving arms of the four women helping her. She describes the birth of her daughter as miraculous, loving and gracious. She could not have imagined that a caesarean birth would feel so natural. She had surrendered to the tide.

For the birth of my second child, I made similar preparations to my first. We hired a birthing pool, a friend mixed herbals and tinctures. I watched videos with my daughter and reacquainted myself with hypnobirthing. I performed rituals, I received massages, and I took the time to ease into my body. But I didn’t do it with a singular idealistic focus in mind. Pain creates muscle memory and endurance builds character.

This time, I merely followed the currents of my instinct and my dreams as they entwined into consciousness.

Looking back, I watched hypnobirthing videos because my mind needed to know what my body was doing so that when I was in pain, I could marvel at the brilliance of nature’s design instead of sliding into victimization. I watched birth videos with my daughter, both the relaxed ones and those of women screaming in pain, because I wanted both of us to be prepared for birth as it is and as it can be. I went to a massage therapist, because I needed to be touched and my husband simply did not have the time to do it. It was on the massage table that I felt my body become Earth, my thighs her hills, my blood her water. My body was hers and the birth of my daughter my gift back to Her. From that moment, it wasn’t just my experience anymore. I honoured the Goddess through ritual, but mostly by honouring her dark chthonic, earthy wisdom. By ‘getting out of the way’ just as Inanna had to when her corpse was flung dead on a hook.

It is also here in the story where help from the upper world leads to the rebirth of Inanna. While Ereshkigal endures her labour pains below, Inanna’s consort Ninshubur runs around looking for help above. It is Enki who finally turns up with the goods. Enki is a multifaceted God and holds amongst others the virtues of mischief, magic, wisdom, water, and male virility. Enki is said to be an Earth God, having made a full descent-ascent to the Underworld, and often chooses the path of compassion, forgiveness, and wisdom. At Ninshubur’s plight and with a father’s love for a daughter, Enki scrapes some of the dirt from underneath his fingernails, which become two sexeless beings, or demons, and sends these to Inanna. The beings transform into flies, so they can enter Ereshgikal’s cave unseen carrying both the water and bread of life for Inanna’s revival. The flies on the wall don’t do anything besides groaning when Ereshkigal groans, moaning when she moans.[xi] I have seen this behaviour replicated by my one-year-old daughter in response to her crying elder sister. As the eldest throws herself in primal fits of crying over lost candy or anything she feels a distinct ‘loss’ for, however trivial it might seem to adult eyes, her little sister will come up next to her and echo the sounds while patting her back, until hands reach out for embrace and crying soothes into simmering sobs. In this simple yet unexpected show-up of support, Ereshkigal softens as well and gifts them anything the flies may wish to take. Of course, they want the corpse, and Inanna finds her way back to the living. It could be argued that in the surrender of the feminine, in the complete softening into Eros, the integrated masculine principle responds. This masculine is in touch with both the earthly and cosmic realms and descends with a clarity of compassion that extracts light from darkness, and paves the way for ascension.

When starting the path down into the initiatory realms of birth for a second time, I passed each gate releasing something. A misplaced ideology, a sense of false ownership, the fear of losing control. But it was in the peak of labour pain that I truly gave in. Giving in not by slumping into self-pity, but by giving into a power much greater than I will ever be able to fathom. The Goddess works in mysterious ways, they say, and the steps that take one from contraction into expansion work differently for each person, for each new descent. She had been leading me, hinting of what was to come, or could be, through a myriad of ways throughout my pregnancy.

I had tiptoed the edge of the inner and outer worlds for months. My brain had become soft and my experience of the world around silenced. This state of being, or birth energy, gradually descends in and around a woman’s body, a serpentine coiling, but with the gentle touch of a cloud. In the last week, my uterus had been kneading the cervix with increasing intensity each day, announcing the onset of labour, but at the last moment subsiding.

“I dream about little elephants walking along a bank. They turn into young children and are accompanied by a sweet but strict elderly woman. Now they stand in the centre of an auditorium shaped spiral. A girl with curly blonde hair runs towards me. We hug each other at the outer rim of the auditorium, so happy to see each other, but it isn’t time yet as the old woman calls her back.”

The next day our daughter was born.  

THIS IS OUR STORY.

I tell my husband it could happen tonight. He lays a towel underneath me, just in case. Ten minutes later we hear the muffled sound of a balloon popping. Warm water trickles down my leg. ‘What was that?’ he asks. I giggle as a flood of oxytocin rushes into my bloodstream. “My water broke,’ I reply.

The sequence of events mirrors the first time. Water breaks at ten pm, contractions start immediately. But this time there is no blood.

My husband goes downstairs to set up the birthing pool while I go inside, down into my breath. It feels intense so quickly. I wade in and out of the bath upstairs, finding solace in weightlessness. Nobody records the rhythm of my contractions, only I know, sort of. Although I have learnt to elongate my outbreath to induce calmness, there are moments I want to run away from the pain. I automatically start to groan low tones. It is not something I practiced or read about, it’s what my body wants to do. I remember this from last time and think back to those long seventeen hours while I hear my mother climb up the stairs. She’s been called in to look after our eldest.

 dream image of ‘woman by fire’

My husband welcomes me down two hours later. He feeds me tinctures and warm tea that I hardly notice drinking. The birthing energy amazes me again. How it centres and pools around, creating an even stronger primal instinctual silence as the mind completely fades. The part of me still consciously present condenses into a singular point of focus, I can only just about make out the candlelight and altar. A week before, I received a blessing ceremony here, in this same spot. The drawings of the women hang above the altar, including my painting from a dream experience a year before.

 Suddenly I am fully aware that I am in another dimension, but not the same as a dream. She is in front of me. A beautiful native elderly woman in a Maria cloak made of fire. She looks powerful in her silence. Not necessarily peaceful, but more of a focused silence, in surrender to this fire. This is necessary, I know, the fire. She is showing me this, that she has to go through this. It all happens very quickly, the thoughts, the experience. The reality of it scares me and I throw myself back into my body. I re-enter through a burning heart, waking up underneath the stars where I am camping out with my daughter. I hear the words Anima Mundi .....

My husband sits behind me in the pool while I feel hot energy enter my crown. Each time it funnels down into my body, it initiates another big contraction. By watching the videos, I know what my womb is doing, contracting out and up to open the cervix. I don’t do much, rather as little as possible. The wisdom of my body, of the Anima Mundi, is at work and I am just an observer of something completely magical.

Yet every so often, the contractions feel too much, that I cannot bear them all.

Especially when my husband pulls away to do the necessary things. Changes, however small, puncture a hole in my bubble. The familiar feelings of abandonment and victimization creep up again. I try to breathe through it, but it has only been three hours. I ask my husband to call our midwife. I want drugs.

With her thirty years of experience, she listens to my moans and concludes I am not yet experiencing any ‘peaks’. “Mindset”, I hear my husband repeat. “Call back in an hour.” Right, no drugs then.

My midwife’s cool and distant words sentence me to the imprisonment of my body. I am bound within its pain and any struggle against it, any notion of being able to cope, now fully disappears. Something in me knows that the only way out is fully in. I can only submit; all of me needs to bow down.

I steady myself upright and slide into a heart meditation I have been practicing for the last few years. I feel my husband steady himself behind me, locking into position he won’t move out of until our daughter is born. My breath sinks into infinity, and almost immediately my perception of pain ebbs away. I fade away. There is only sensation. Energy converting into movement, the opening and closing of my womb while my breath holds me, folding me over into rolling waves, in and out. For fifteen minutes I wade into yet another boundlessness that cannot be put into words. Then my body changes gear, she wants to push. In that moment I remember a fleeting image I had of birthing this baby with just us, no midwife present. Having learnt from last time, I had let it go as quickly as it came, but now it seems to be given back to me. I don’t tell my husband about what is happening, I don’t want him to call our midwife. I can do this. We can do this.

 The contractions pour through like a waterfall, just as I dreamt a few months before.

“I’m on my way to the hospital to give birth, but the car won’t start. I stay parked and walk outside. A dolphin passes by. She lets me sit on her back. I hold on tight as we plunge down a waterfall. Even though it scares me a little, all I can do is give in.”

 I feel her head pushing through. I touch the top of it with my fingers, it feels mushy yet firm. My vagina isn’t ready though, so I let my baby’s head sway back and forth a few times. The force flowing in increases again. I hold onto the bath rail to steady my body so I can allow this torrent to rush through only guiding it down with my breath. With the next push I let her slide to the outer rim of my vagina. They call this the ring of fire, the point at which the vagina opening is stretched the furthest and the longest. I hold her there, waiting, breathing, burning.

 The following wave pushes her head into my hand while the next one pushes her body out of mine. I lift her out of the water into the air.

 “Huh? Oh, Ohhhh!” my husband gushes. Well, I hadn’t told him, had I?

 She lies on me quiet and peaceful. For a moment I worry she is not breathing. My husband notices her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, so I lower her back down into the water and unroll her.  Back on my chest, he blows softly into our daughter’s face, and she exhales her first breath.

Bodhi Mae was born at 2:30 am, 17th of November 2020.  

Magnolia by Wilhelm List

[i] Inanna’s story, Sylvia Brinton Perera, Descent to the Goddess, (Inner City Books, 1981)

[ii] Image from Inanna storytelling by Faranak Mirjalili

[iii] Statistics from babycentre.co.uk

[iv] Brinton Perera (1)

[v] M Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth (Spring Publications 2017)

[vi] J Mark, “Innana’s Descent: A Sumerian tale of Injustice”: www.worldhistory.org/article/215/inannas-descent-a-sumerian-tale-of-injustice/

[vii] Naomi Lowinsky, The Rabbi, The Goddess and Jung (Fisher King Press, 2016)

[viii] Marion Woodman and Eleanor Dickson, Dancing in the Flames, (Shambhala Publications, 1996)

[ix] Eliade (3)

[x] Eliade (3)

[xi] Perera (1)