Transformation and awakening: Dumuzi's Dream

This is the last episode in a 4-part series on the Sumerian myth of Inanna: Dumuzi’s Dream and The Return. After Inanna ascends from the underworld, she chooses her lover-king Dumuzi as her replacement in the Great Below. 

What happens to him? What meanings can we find in this action? Did the goddess betray her husband? Is this cruelty or compassion?

I hope you find value in Dumuzi's story and welcome your thoughts and comments-- feel free to share them with me.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Myth Matters an exploration at the intersection of mythology, creativity and consciousness. I’m your host Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide beautiful crazy world of ours, I’m glad that you decided to join me here today.

I hope you enjoyed the conversation with singer composer Kelli Scarr in the last episode. Thanks again Kelli, for sharing your thoughts and vision and music with the Myth Matters community.

This episode is the last in my 4-part series on the Sumerian myth of Inanna. We've looked at the myths of Inanna's first days and the acquisition of her powers, the courtship between Inanna and her lover-then- husband, the shepherd Dumuzi, and Inanna's descent to the underworld. As you may recall, the descent part of the myth ends with Inanna's choice of Dumuzi as her replacement in the underworld. 

Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Great Below, agreed to give Inanna to the little creatures that the god Enki sent to her rescue her because they expressed empathy for her suffering. The creatures brought the goddess back to life. But no one can leave the underworld unmarked. Someone near and dear to Inanna must take her place in the Great Below and a crowd of underworld demons came back to this world with Inanna to ensure that this transaction took place. Inanna said "No" when the galla proposed taking Ninshubur or one of Inanna's sons. Then they came across king Dumuzi, sitting on his throne under the apple tree.

Dumuzi didn't miss Inanna in her absence and she now fixes him with the eye of death. Dumuzi escaped the galla with the help of his brother-in-law, the sun god Utu, who turned him into a snake. But underworld rules are not easily broken.

Which brings us to the next part of the myth, called "Dumuzi's Dream" and "The Return." Once again, my primary source is Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer.

I have some thoughts to share with you but for now, I invite you to relax and listen the story. Let the words take you where you need to go and note the details that call to you or the questions that arise. They are clues to your concerns and the place this story occupies in your life right now.

Dumuzi's Dream

His heart was filled with tears. The shepherd's heart was filled with tears. Dumuzi's heart was filled with tears. He ran back to the steppe and stumbled across the grasslands weeping, "Oh frogs in the river, call for me! Oh crabs in the river, weep for me! If something happens to me, if I disappear, please tell my mother. My mother will mourn for me. My sister will mourn for me."

Exhausted, Dumuzi lay down among the rushes to sleep. He dreamed a dream. When he awoke he rubbed his eyes and trembled. Terrified by his vision, Dumuzi called out for his sister Geshtinanna "Bring me my wise woman," he said, "Bring me my little sister Geshtinanna. My sister the scribe, who knows many songs, who can interpret dreams. I must speak to her. She will tell me the meaning of this dream."

 Geshtinanna came to her brother Dumuzi. He said, “A dream my sister, I must tell you my dream. Rushes grow thick about me. A single reed trembles alone. A double growing reed bends in the wind, first one is removed and then the other. Water is poured over my hearth. My churn is broken. My drinking cup falls from its peg. My shepherd's crook disappears. An eagle snatches a lamb from the sheepfold. A falcon catches a sparrow. My sister, your goats drag their lapis beards in the dirt. No milk is poured, the cup lies shattered, the sheepfold is given to the winds.”

Geshtinanna spoke. “My brother," she said, "don’t tell me such a dream. Dumuzi, I don’t want to hear this dream. The rushes that grow about you are your demons, the galla who will surround you. The single reed is our mother, who will grieve for you. The double reed is you and me, for we will share the same fate. We will both be taken away. When the fire on your hearth is put out and your churn is broken, you will be seized by the galla. Then my goats will drag their lapis beards in the dirt and I will tear at my cheeks in grief. You are the lamb Dumuzi, and the sparrow. You will die and your house will be no more.”

Geshtinanna had scarcely finished speaking when Dumuzi heard a sound. “Quick sister," he cried, “Run up to the top of that hill, quickly, quickly, and tell me if the galla are coming.” 

Geshtinanna and a friend of Dumuzi’s ran up to the top of the hill. Dumuzi cried "Do you see them?" The friend cried "They are coming. The galla, the large galla  are coming with thongs to bind you.” Geshtinanna cried "Oh my brother, hide!  Hide your head in the grass!"

 "My sister," Dumuzi said," tell no one of my hiding place. My friend, tell no one of my hiding place. I will hide in the low plants. I’ll hide in the tall grass. I’ll hide in the ditches in Arali, on the edge of the steppe.” Geshtinanna and the friend swore secrecy. “Dumuzi, let your black dogs, your black sheepherding dogs, tear us to bits if we betray you,” they said. They all ran away in separate directions.

Now the galla reached the crest of the hill. They looked out on the grasslands and saw no one. Where shall they look? The small galla said to the large galla, “Dumuzi must be very uneasy, he must be afraid. A man in that state of mind will not be at a friend’s house. He will not be with his mother. Let’s look for Dumuzi at his sister Geshtinanna’s house.” They clapped their hands gleefully and went searching for Dumuzi.

 The galla went to Geshtinanna. "Show us where your brother is," they cried. Geshtinanna was silent. They offered her the water gift but she did not speak.They offered her the grain gift but she made no sound. The galla threatened Geshtinanna. They pressed up close to her. They made ugly noises. But she was silent. The galla tortured her. They poured pitch into her vulva. But Geshtinanna refused to make a sound.

The small galla said to the large galla, “Forget it. Who since the beginning of time has ever known of a sister revealing her brother’s hiding place? Let’s go to see Dumuzi’s friend.” 

They went to the house of Dumuzi’s friend. They offered him the water gift and he accepted it. They offered him the grain gift and he accepted that too. They asked him where Dumuzi was hiding and he told them, “Dumuzi is hiding among the low plants.” The galla looked but they didn't find Dumuzi. They returned to the friend. “You need to tell us more,” they said. The friend said, “Dumuzi is among the tall grasses.” The galla searched among the tall grasses but they still didn't find Dumuzi.

The demons went back to the friend. “Okay,” he said, “Dumuzi is in the ditches in Arali on the edge of the steppe.” The galla went to that place and found Dumuzi. They grabbed him. Dumuzi turned pale and wept. He cursed his friend. The galla bound and beat Dumuzi and he raised his arms once more to Utu. 

“Utu, I am your brother-in-law," he cried. "I brought gifts to your house and treated your mother as if she were my own. I am the husband of your sister, I danced on the holy knees, the holy knees of Inanna. Please turn my hands into gazelle hands. Turn my feet into gazelle feet so I can get away. Let me escape from my demons. Let me flee to Kubiresh.”

Merciful Utu granted Dumuzi’s prayers. Dumuzi slipped away from the galla and fled to the city of Kubiresh. But the galla followed him there. Dumuzi fled to the house of the old woman called Belili. He entered her house and said "I am no ordinary mortal. I am the husband of the goddess Inanna. Pour out some water for me to drink and sprinkle some flour for me to eat." 

The old woman poured out water and sprinkled flour. Then she left the house. The galla saw her leave and they entered. Dumuzi escaped the house and ran. 

He ran to his sister Geshtinanna's sheepfold and crouched among the animals. When Geshtinanna saw him there, she wept. She tore at her mouth, her eyes, her thighs.  

The galla climbed the reed fence. The first galla struck Dumuzi on the cheek. The second galla struck the other cheek. The third galla smashed the bottom of his churn. The fourth galla knocked Dumuzi's cup from the peg. The fifth galla broke his shepherd crook in two. The sixth galla smashed his cup. The seventh galla cried "Rise Dumuzi, husband of Inanna, son of Sirtur, brother of Geshtinanna. Rise from your false sleep. Take off your holy crown. Remove the robe of kingship, and let your royal sceptre fall. Naked, you go with us."

The galla seized Dumuzi. Geshtinanna's goats dragged their lapis beards in the dust. The wind blew through the sheepfold. Dumuzi was gone.

A lament was raised in the city and went up over the land. "Inanna weeps bitterly for her young husband," they cried. "Woe for her husband. Woe for her city. Great is the grief for those who mourn Dumuzi!"

Inanna was distraught at the loss of her husband. "Gone is my husband," she cried, "Gone is my sweet love, my honey man, my beloved has been taken from the city. The wild bull is no more. He has been taken away before I could wrap him in a proper shroud. I can no longer serve him food and drink, I can no longer lie down beside him. The jackal lies down in his bed. You ask me about his reed pipe? The wind must play it for him."

Sirtur, Dumuzi's mother, wept for him. She went to the steppes, to the grasslands where he used to wander, playing his reed pipe and tending his flocks. "Oh, my son," she said, "how I would love to hear your voice, how I long to hear your songs. Now there is only the wind in the reeds. I would go to him. I would see my child." Sirtur went weeping to the sheepfold, the place where Dumuzi was captured by the galla. She looked at the slain wild bull and stroked his face. "My child," she said, "the face is yours, but the spirit is gone."

Geshtinanna wandered the streets of Uruk mourning her brother. "Where is my brother? I would comfort him," she cried. "Where is Dumuzi? I would go to him. I would share his fate. My brother, the day that dawns for you will also dawn for me." When Inanna saw Geshtinanna's grief she was moved. She spoke to her gently. "Your brother's house is no more. Dumuzi has been carried away by the galla. I would take you to him if I could, but I do not know the place."

Then a fly appeared. It circled the air above the two women and flew close to Inanna's ear. "If I tell you where you can find Dumuzi," said the fly, " what will you give me?"

Inanna said, "If you will tell me, I will let you buzz around the beer halls and taverns. I will let you dwell among the talk of the wise ones. I will let you dwell among the songs of the minstrels."

The fly told Inanna and Geshtinanna to go Arali on the edge of the steppe. The two women went. They found Dumuzi, weeping. Inanna took her husband by the hand. She said, "You will go to the underworld for half of the year. Geshtinanna will go for the other half, as she has pledged to share your fate. On the day that you are called, you will be taken. On the day that she is called, you will be set free."

Then Inanna placed Dumuzi into the hands of the eternal.

Holy Ereshkigal, I sing your praises!

Well, Inanna sends Dumuzi to the underworld in her place and then she misses him. The sister Geshtinannna volunteers to share her brother's fate and this is arranged. And the myth hymn ends with praise to Ereshkigal, Inanna's sister and goddess of the underworld. What do we make of this?

One thing that jumps out for many of the people with whom I've shared this myth is the nature of the interaction between Inanna and Dumuzi as a married couple. Alas, all too familiar. The experience of being disrespected, the hurt feelings and the impulse for revenge. She disappeared for three days and he acts like he couldn't care less. They bring out the best and the worst in each other and their marriage is a container for mutual transformation. That’s one level of meaning. 

On another level, we can look at Inanna and Dumuzi as symbolic of the attitude of patriarchy during a transitional time when the authority of the goddess was being questioned. I'm thinking of another Sumerian myth, the myth of Gilgamesh. The heroes express disdain for the goddess and criticize her for her fickleness. Inanna/Ishtar makes them regret this. Still, speaking for myself, their behavior is infuriating for several reasons, including the fact that Gilgamesh is an arrogant ass-hat. I love this Sumerian myth also and will post a link to my series about it with this transcript, so you can listen if you aren't familiar with it.

Gilgamesh really is a bad actor for part of his story. I don't know that we can say the same about Dumuzi, can we? He is disrespectful and yet the people mourn his passing and say he was a good king. Even Inanna grieves. She fixes her husband with the eye of death and later mourns him. She sends him to the underworld and also claims to miss her honey man. What do we make of this? Is she fickel? There's got to be more at play than vindictiveness and remorse. Inanna is a goddess, and while she expresses feelings that we recognize, the significance and motivation aren't necessarily the same. 

Inanna and Dumuzi are partners on a transpersonal level. They are personifications of the natural cycles of life and death, for example. Inanna is Life and Dumuzi is the transitory manifestation of life. Inanna is the earth and Dumuzi is the seed, or in the language of the myth, Inanna is the sheepfold and Dumuzi is the sheep. I talked about this aspect in my 2021 explorations of this myth and will post the link to those episodes with this transcript. 

The meanings of this partnership extend beyond fertility, reproduction, and physical death. Inanna and Dumuzi speak to us about goddess and human, immortal and mortal. About what is inevitable and what is possible, about what is beyond our control and our vulnerability to those forces. This is cosmic. As the ancients said, "As above, so below." Observable patterns in the heavens have a parallel on earth. You might think of the lunar cycle and the literal actions and metaphorical meanings of the moon woven into our understanding of this celestial body as a material object and a symbol. Inanna is the planet Venus. One of her icons, the eight-pointed star, is the planet Venus.

Venus is the brightest object in the night sky after the Sun and the Moon, making it very noticeable when it's visible. The Sumerians attached great importance to this celestial body and its movement. Venus is both an evening star and a morning star depending on the stage of its orbit, and there are times when it disappears from the sky completely. Venus shines bright in the west as the evening star, disappears below the horizon for a period, and rises again as the morning star in the eastern sky. The planet Venus disappears and reappears as does the goddess. In the story of Inanna's descent, when she arrives at the first gate, Inanna tells Neti the gate keeper that she is on her way to the east. A reference to the morning star and a new dawn.

I'm struck by the claim that Inanna is fickle, a denigration of her powers that emerges as she is gradually replaced by a god. As the Queen of Heaven and Earth, Inanna comes and goes, disappearing regularly like the planet Venus and also acting unpredictably like our mother Earth, a source of sustenance and destruction, of food and shelter and fire and flood, acting according to laws and principles that are beyond our understanding. 

Recall that the development of agriculture and animal husbandry, which introduced a new wrinkle into the human and nature relationship, are part of the sociopolitical context that led to the demise of the goddess. People in the now dominant culture have tried to control her for centuries. Have stripped her-- goddess and earth-- of soul and sacredness. Some are willing to kill everything, including themselves, rather than acknowledge their dependency on her and the supremacy of her cycles.

There's a lot to think about: the goddess and her powers, the earth, mortal females, our human vulnerability, fear of the unknown, transformation, and death. What we reject and try to control. Who we blame. I wonder about Inanna's powers and the forces that she personifies, and the comfort and discomfort she evokes. I also wonder about the gods that came later, the monotheisms of "God the Father" built upon her myths, and contemporary misogyny and fear of death. Interesting that what is "female" has been characterized as irrational and capricious, the root of all evil.

This observation by Judy Grahn, a scholar and poet who works with Inanna's mythology, also feels relevant. The innovations of the Sumerians created a new level of prosperity, a condition that changed the conversation between nature and civilization and attracted invaders. Grahn writes, "A massing of wealth brought by civilization and industry, which is accompanied by the ceaseless expansion of comforts, along with the expectation that this will continue 'forever,' sets people up for equally massive disappointment, rage, and grief when the comforts stop." 

Today, many people have the expectation that productivity and wealth will grow and grow indefinitely. Not only that they "will" grow but that they must, that any decline or interruption in their accumulation of wealth and comfort is unfair, a mistake, a travesty. And yet, there can never be enough to absolutely protect us from the many forms of dangers and tragedy in life, or from its ultimate end. We must seek our security elsewhere.

Scholars of Sumerian literature have noted that components of Sumerian mythology were incorporated much later into the book of Genesis. The creation in a god's garden with an important tree, for example, or the Great Flood that drowns everything and everyone except for a couple chosen by god and the creatures they take with them in their ark, described in the myth of Gilgamesh. Some have compared Solomon‘s Song of Songs with Sumerian hymns like the one I shared with you in the courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi. There are also parallels between Inanna‘s descent to the underworld and the crucifixion and resurrection of the Christian Jesus. 

Inanna is stripped, struck, killed, hung on a peg for three days and nights, then brought back to life. She reappears on earth transformed by her descent. So too, Jesus. And both of them, as Betty Meador and Judy Grahn point out, are very personal gods with an emphasis on love. Gods who converse with ordinary people one-on-one and step into the lowliest of situations. Jesus hung out with beggars and prostitutes. Inanna was a shapeshifter who traveled everywhere, a goddess who would “drink from a puddle with the dogs." She embraced and contained everything.

Jesus's love may lack the sexual dimension but still, the tremendous love between the deity and the human, whether friend, disciple, child, or lover is the essential message of both. Many other deities and myths emerged to address the mysteries of love, sacrifice, death, and the promise of renewal between the time of Inanna and the time of Jesus. Ishtar and Tammuz, for example, Isis and Osiris, Demeter and Persephone. 

The myth of Demeter and Persephone were the foundation of the Eleusinian mysteries, one of the greatest mystery cults in Western history and an important institution in the ancient world. For over 1500 years, tens of thousands of men and women made the journey to Eleusis to be initiated into the sacred truth of material and spiritual existence and thereby lose all fear of death. From what we know about this ritual, it was a powerful symbolic statement of Inanna's cycle. The cycle of life, death, and regeneration.

Fear of the underworld. Fear of death. This is and has been part of our psychology for a very long time, maybe from the beginning of our self-consciousness. Dumuzi's fear is well known by us and a great force even when repressed in the unconscious. In her reflections on the myth, Diane Wolkstein suggests that Inanna opens up the passage between the underworld and this realm and then gives the task of maintaining this connection to the humans, Dumuzi and Geshtinanna. She points to the lapis beards of Geshtinanna's goats. 

As I mentioned in the last episode, lapis is Inanna's stone and many objects associated with her, like her dock in Uruk and her beads, for example, are made from it. Lapis is a beautiful blue stone long associated with royalty and deities. Lapis imparts wisdom and courage, and can help you forge a deeper relationship with yourself and your inner divinity. The passage is from life to death to life in the literal sense and also the psychological, the movement or conversation between conscious and unconscious and the ego deaths and transformations that we undergo.

Geshtinanna's love for her brother is greater than her fear. She accepts the underworld initiation. Like Dumuzi, she will spend part of each year with Inanna and part with Ereshkigal, the dark aspect of the goddess. This is a sacrifice into spiritual awakening. When the galla seize Dumuzi the final time, they cry "Rise Dumuzi, rise from your false sleep." The one who descends rises with new eyes and understanding. The journey transforms us, softens the hard edges of our personhood and our dualities.

Here is a meditation on the dual nature of the goddess by Théodore De Banville. (The Goddess by Théodore De Banville translated by Stuart Merrill)

He writes:

"She had opened an immense hole in the soft ground, which she quickly digs up with her skeleton fingers, and bending her ribs and inclining her white, smooth skull, she heaps together in the abyss old men and youth, women and children, cold, pale, and stiff, whose lids she silently closes. 

'Ah,' sighs the dreamer, who sadly and with heavy heart sees her accomplish her work, 'accursed, accursed be thou, destroyer of beings, detestable and cruel Death, and mayest thou be dominated and desolated by the ever-renewed floods of mortal life!' 

The grave-digger has risen. She turns her face; she is now made of pink and charming flesh; her friendly brow is crowned with rosy corals. She bears in her arms fair naked, children, who laughed to the sky, and she says softly to the dreamer, while gazing at him with eyes full of joy:

'I am she who accomplishes without cease and without end the transformation of all. Beneath my fingers the flowers that have become cinders bloom once more, and I am both She whom thou name is Death and She whose name is Life!'"

Let me pause here before my closing comments to offer a big welcome to new email subscribers:  Angela, Beth, Gael, Nancy, Jen, Rob, Pam, Kirsten, Don, Geraldine, Linda, Hedi, Ron, Alice, Gita, Jim, Celeste, Diana, Ellen, Irene, Susanne, and Jo. Welcome!

If you're new to Myth Matters, I invite you to head over to the Mythic Mojo website. You'll find a transcript of this episode with the links that I mentioned and information about the mythic mentorship and creativity coaching that I offer. You can also join the email list if you'd like to receive links to new Myth Matters episodes in your inbox.

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Much of the scholarship around the ancient Goddess with a capital "G" originated with the work of archeologist Marija Gimbutas. When asked why she believed these cultures were important, Gimbutas said “Through an understanding of what the Goddess was, we can better understand nature and we can build our ideologies so it will be easier for us to live.” 

There are choices and actions that each of us can take every day to support and nurture life. To care for the people, plants, and animals around us. To appreciate sensual embodied experience as a portal to joy. To appreciate beauty. To become more sensitive and devoted to the world. To cultivate an understanding of life that accepts the cycles. Ending are also beginnings. The myths of Inanna convey the core values we need to participate in a life-affirming manner: reciprocity, compassion, empathy, and love.

Act with a conscious intention of honoring the cycle of life, my friend. Find the opportunities in your daily routines. Recognize your agency as a co-creator of this time and expand your circle of care. And if, when, you feel helpless and despairing, remember that regeneration and renewal take place regardless, fueled by forces beyond us. Regeneration of the earth and world, of spirit and heart. Good use can be made of everything, even of our messes. In the words of Antonia Machado:

"I dreamt last night,

oh marvelous error,

that there were honeybees in my heart,

making honey of my old failures."

If we have a better understanding of our need for myth, and all that our old stories offer, we can live more satisfying lives. We can inhabit a better story and create a more beautiful, just and sustainable world. 

And that's it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. We're in this transformative cycle together my friend. Take good care of yourself and until next time, keep the mystery in your life alive.