In Which I Hopefully Don't Totally Botch a Psychological Metaphor
I am not always one to look at myths from a psychological lens, but a train of thought today led me to look at the Descent of Inanna, a myth very close to my heart, from a slightly different angle. I was musing on the common interpretation of this myth as a metaphor for one's journey down into the dark depths of the consciousness to confront and ultimately unite with the hidden animus - in this case Inanna as persona and Ereshkigal as shadow, two sides of the same coin. The lesson to take away from this interpretation is therefore that to be whole, one must metaphorically die and be reborn, with the period of fallowness in the darkness a necessary component of the journey.
This reminded me of a card from my oracle deck that I often pull called Withdraw. It counsels a time of withdrawal from the external busyness of life for internal hibernation and stillness, a time of stasis in which you simply exist without creating or carrying out plans - much like the three days Inanna hung dead in the Netherworld. More significantly, the Withdraw card features a sleeping fox curled into a ball and urges the reader to call on Fox as a guide for helping you balance internal withdrawal when aspects of your life still require you to be active in the greater world (i.e. go to work, take care of the kids, etc). If you were on your journey into your own dark underworld, I thought, this guidance would be valuable.
Then it hit me. It's not just Inanna and Ereshkigal in the myth - Ninshubur, Inanna's trusted adviser and attendant, plays a major role as well. It is to loyal Ninshubur whom Inanna gives instructions on what to do should she not return from the Netherworld in three days. It is loyal Ninshubur who raises the alarm when Inanna remains absent after the third day, tearing at her clothing and hair and wailing with grief. It is loyal Ninshubur who begs various gods to help rescue her fallen lady and is ultimately successful in earning Enki's assistance. And it is loyal Ninshubur who is rewarded for her dedication when Inanna reemerges from the Netherworld.
Looking at the Descent myth from this angle, I think it would be safe to posit that Ninshubur plays the role of that part of our ego which must remain operating at the surface even when the rest sinks into the unconscious to commune with our shadow. We can't withdraw completely from the outside world; we need an aspect of ourselves that will advocate for us and ensure that our time in the darkness, as vital as it is to our wholeness, is only temporary. That hard-won wisdom found in death is only useful if it is brought back to the surface, after all. Ninshubur, then, is a deity we can call on to help us when we need to balance tending our inner selves through withdrawal while maintaining an active presence in our outer 'mundane' world as well.
I suspect adding Ninshubur to the Inanna/Ereshkigal duo also allows the Descent myth to better connect with some of the psychological theories of the self. For example, in psychology the 'self-concept' is our collection of everything we know and believe about ourselves and can be broken into three primary aspects: the affective self, the executive self, and the cognitive self. The affective self embodies our emotions, and thus connects best with Ereshkigal's raw anger and grief. The executive self embodies our behaviors and actions, and thus best connects with Ninshubur's role as Inanna's most valued assistant. The cognitive self embodies our beliefs about ourselves and desires to expand this understanding, thus connecting best with Inanna's confidence, independence, and her desire for knowledge. We need to understand and embrace all three aspects for a balanced self-concept, just as Inanna in the role of cognitive self needed to both confront her shadow/affective self and reunite with her loyal executive self.
We focus a lot in modern paganism on confronting and incorporating our shadow self, but we could perhaps do more to emphasize the necessity of fostering a healthy executive self/external ego/whatever you want to call Ninshubur's role. Knowing when to take action and how to advocate for ourselves is just as important as uncovering what waits in the darkness. After all, how else will we know what to do with our newfound knowledge?
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