Mesopotamian Love

Oftentimes, it seems like modern female ideals are made to cater to a specific part of womanhood: be it the tender, semi-passive side of the loving and caring partner; or be it the wrathful side of the evil “witch”, the one who catalysts war with her look and vibes: the arch-murderer even. 

However, for us it is quite clear the femininity is not a one sided archetype but a rounded experience containing the whole scope of emotions - from the easy-breezy, pastel-esque ones onwards to the harsh and dark hues. 

As the ideal female has been limited and even forgotten at times, it is quite necessary to look back to our ancient cultures (yes, they are ours; the fact that X person was born in Y geographic place does not, in my view, limit its conciousness - especially spiritual conciousness, to derive meaning only from Y ancient heritage and mythologies. On the contrary: to better understand the spiritual meanings of our human-made myths we have to reach to the largest scope available and look for the mutual, for the sameness which will contain the needed hints to detect our very nature. 

Who is Innana?

In Mesopotamian culture, the cult of the goddess Innana was strong, and she embodied both war/sex and beauty/love. She was the main revered deity in the ancient city of Uruk, and her sculptures and reliefs were found across various Mesopotamian cities. 

How was she described?

As she was the embodiment of both love and war, the writings and literature about her were quiet varied. For example, a very famous tale is called The Descent of Inanna into the Underworld. In this myth, Inanna chose to go down to the underworld when her sister, Ereshkigal, was mourning her husband’s death. However, in a very underworld-ly fashion, Inanna had to go through 7 different gates to get to her sister. In each gate, she was forced to lose one of her clothing items: from her veil to her jewellery and her clothing.

But the darkest truth was that she could not get back to the human world after visiting the underworld, that is, unless she found a living human to replace her there. And so Inanna was relcutant to change with her son or her friend. Finally, she chose her then-husband to replace her - simply because she has found him drunk and definitely not mourning her absence... 

A very different work is that of the female scribe Enheduanna, which is a hymn dedicated to Inanna’s powers. You can read it here.

What can Inanna teach us about the real role of Venus in astrology?

When thinking about it from a Mesopotamian perspective, it is clear why many people have a misconception about the power of Venus as a planet in astrology. In Sumer, Inanna was known as the goddess of both sex/war and beauty/love. It was only later that her round character was divided into two separate goddesses: Venus/Minerva (in Roman terms) or Aphrodite/Athena (the Greek equivalent of the same goddesses). It gets even darker thinking how Inanna was, according to some sources, the most popular deity in ancient Mesopotamia. Seems like she was more relatable and therefore, adored, as a goddess of not only the pretty and pink hues of reality but also the darker shades of existence...

In such fashion, knowing the myth of Inanna and her dual powers reminds us that Venus is not just about love and beauty, but is also very much about sex, power, desire to get to that love and beauty. So you could say that the dark side works in favor for the light side. 

Very symbolic that Saturday, as the day of Saturn, is Shabbat for Jews. Shabbat in Hebrew literally means "to stop״, as in, to refrain from doing any work. So for observant Jews Saturday is a day when using your phone, computer, cooking and many other activities are forbidden.

This is mainly done to give your time to pray, talk to your family and just rest from the hurdles of the passing week. However, it can be very easily viewed as "limiting". Yes this day is super limiting in its nature, but it's for your greatest spiritual good.

And I learned this only after getting acquainted with the spiritual nature of Saturn as the planet of limits. As this limit Saturn poses to your really has got to help uplift you somewhere. It is there to teach you.

And does Shabbat have a Mesopotamian origin?

From “Babylonian Calendar” on Wikipedia:

“Among other theories of Shabbat origin, the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia of Isaac Landman advanced a theory of Assyriologists like Friedrich Delitzsch[7] that Shabbat originally arose from the lunar cycle,[8][9] containing four weeks ending in Sabbath, plus one or two additional unreckoned days per month.[10] The difficulties of this theory include reconciling the differences between an unbroken week and a lunar week, and explaining the absence of texts naming the lunar week as Shabbat in any language.[11]