This morning I was listening to one of my favorite
singers, Chaka Khan. The song blaring from my speakers was one of her classics, “Through the
Fire.” Although the song has been a favorite of mine for years,
it suddenly took on a new meaning for me this morning.
As I listened more carefully to the song’s lyrics, it
brought me back to the ancient Sumerian story known as “Inanna’s Descent to
the Nether World.” For those who are not familiar with the myth, the goddess
Inanna—who was known as Ishtar to the Babylonians—made an extremely dangerous
journey to the underworld to rescue her lover, Tammuz.
The Jews, who were allegedly held captive by the
Babylonians during the sixth century B.C.E., named all of the months in their
calendar after Babylonian gods. On the
17th day of Tammuz, many Jews fast from sunrise to sundown. In
Babylon, Tammuz was worshiped as a sun god. It is believed that the Hebrews made a golden calf on the 16th day of Tammuz while Moses was on Mount Sinai. The golden calf was dedicated to the ancient Kemetic netert (goddess) Heru Het/Het Heru, who would correspond to Inanna if we were looking for her in the Sumerian pantheon of deities.
In an effort to rescue her lover from her evil
sister Ereshkigal, the ancient Sumerian Morning Star descended from heaven all the way to the
lowest level of the netherworld which is divided into seven levels, each of
which are separated by gates. As Inanna passes through each gate, she is robbed
of one of her precious jewels and royal garments by one of the shadowy guardians
of the netherworld.
The goddess Inanna
The goddess Inanna
By the time Inanna reaches the seventh level of the underworld she has been stripped completely naked of her royal vestments. All of the reminders of the goddess’ material wealth and divinity were violently taken from her by force. The goddess of love, war, beauty and fertility was forced to bow before Ereshkigal and the Anunnaki judges of the netherworld. With their evil gazes they turned Inanna into a corpse right before they lynched her. However the god of wisdom, prince Enki, arranged for her rescue and revival through his masterful use of magic.
Inanna subsequently frees all of the spirits trapped
in the netherworld and leads them through the streets of Sumer. What happens
after they hit the streets is unknown since the clay tablet that the story was
recorded on broke before it could be translated by archaeologists. Fortunately,
we are all free to write the ending of the story for Inanna, because her story is
our story and we are the authors of our own lives.
Inanna’s plight speaks directly to the millions of
Black women who came through the Middle Passage and endured the African
holocaust. The ancient story concerning
Inanna is in so many ways a foreboding of this tragic historical event. It is a
known fact that some of the prisoners of war brought from Africa across the
Atlantic to the Americas and the Caribbean came from royal families. And even
those who did not come from royal families still came from a royal lineage if
we refer back to traditional African spiritual teachings which say that we are
the offspring of rulers from the stars. In the Middle Passage, the sushumna—the
channel through which Kundalini energy
flows through the chakras—Black women lost their wealth, which is their mental health and knowledge of self.
Like Inanna in the Sumerian myth, millions of women
from the African continent have endured unimaginable grief and torment, much of
which still continues to this day. Several of them were stripped of their
divinity and hung from trees just as Inanna was hung from a stake. The U.S.
constitution, the very document that grants U.S. Citizens their civil liberties,
regarded African women who were forced into slavery as three-fifths of a human
being. These women were the descendants
of great thinkers, artists, scientists, architects and leaders who set the standard
for everything that we associate with the best that humanity has to offer. How
ironic is it that their own humanity was called into question by people of a
lesser heritage?
The seven gates that Inanna fell through represent
the seven chakras, the seven energy channels of the human spirit which carry
the luminous spark of divinity. The lowest of the chakras is the root chakra.
All trees have roots, even those baring strange fruit that come in the form of swinging
corpses. At their lowest point, millions of Inannas were hung from trees in the
United States of America alone.
As I listened to Chaka Khan’s song, “Through the
Fire,” I realized that going through the fire doesn’t necessarily have anything
to do with a woman suffering to earn a man’s love, although that scenario is undoubtedly
applicable to the song . On a deeper, more meaningful level, the song is about
the trials and tribulations that one faces in their personal effort to reunite
with their higher self. It can be a
perilous journey, and anyone who says that they have all of the answers to
the questions posed by life’s challenges is lying to you.
In the image above you can see Inanna disciplining a lion, which is one of her symbols. The depiction represents mastery of self in the pursuit of a higher calling. Another symbol that belongs to Inanna is the eight pointed star which often appears in Islamic art, especially those composed by Muslim Moors. Inanna’s sacred day is Friday and her color is green, which both carry special significance in Islam as I discussed in The Secret Herstory of Islam.
In the image above you can see Inanna disciplining a lion, which is one of her symbols. The depiction represents mastery of self in the pursuit of a higher calling. Another symbol that belongs to Inanna is the eight pointed star which often appears in Islamic art, especially those composed by Muslim Moors. Inanna’s sacred day is Friday and her color is green, which both carry special significance in Islam as I discussed in The Secret Herstory of Islam.
I know that this isn’t one of my lengthier entries.
Nevertheless, I hope that these reflections will give strength and hope to
those readers who are currently going through the fire.