Meet Ninshubah

Those of you who know me well (well, as well as can be known from what one says – and doesn’t say – in writing) will know how much I love the myth of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess and queen who seems – to me at least – to represent the totality of a woman’s experience.  She moves from youthful innocence, exuberance and heady sensuality, through maturity, power, motherhood and queendom (queenery? queenness? queenity?) to soul-searching, darkness and, ultimately, inner wisdom and knowledge. 

She realises that there is meaning below ground as well as above and takes one of the great archetypal descents in mythology – to visit her dark sister Erishkegal (her shadow side).  As she descends she sheds the outer trappings of success and the world, faces the dark and is killed and hangs on the meat-hook.  Meanwhile, above ground, she is betrayed, abandoned, let down, forgotten. 

Ah, but we are always alone in the underworld.  Ultimately we are all alone.  Wherever we are.

Now there is a character in this who is usually overlooked in the commentaries.  No, not Dumuzi, Inanna’s consort, who frankly doesn’t give a damn that she is stuck in hell.  No.  It’s Ninshubar, Inanna’s sukkal, her servant.  Servant is not really the right word - a sukkal can often have powers greater than his or her master or mistress (which, in itself, is worth pondering). 

Bear with me.  Now it is Ninshubar who arranges Inanna’s rescue.  At which point every woman reading this is probably nodding vigorously. Because, let’s face it, if you wanna be rescued, never rely on a man – your girlfriends are always the ones to pull you up from a pit. Men often fear the dark emotions - they shudder at the meat-hook - despite their love of war, their desire for violence, they generally shy from bloody and messy emotions.  But a woman will jump up and hold your weight, won't take a blind bit of notice of the blood and gore, will stand firm and hold you.

But, more than that (and this is – finally – my point); it is Ninshubar who does the ‘above ground’ stuff while Inanna is shifting, changing, going down deep within; plunging the depths of the abyss; being ripped to tiny shreds.  And yes, as in all myths, Ninshubar is another part of Inanna – a fraction of the whole.

And so it is in life.  Few of us are able to sink totally into our deepest selves when the meat-hook commands.  All those who battle with the dark know this. We have responsibilities; we have children; we have partners; we have jobs and mortgages and bills to pay.  So somehow – no matter how hard it may be - we have to put on the brave face, we have to strap on a mask and pretend we’re okay – to ourselves as well as the outer world.  We have to function – at some basic level – even if we feel like our limbs are being torn apart.  And that’s Ninshubar – the quiet, necessary part of the psyche that puts on the semblance of normality; that smiles, that laughs, that says the right things, that keeps everything ticking over.  No more than ticking, because that would be superhuman.  But ticking is enough.

Thank feck for Ninshubah.

Just don’t look too closely.  Don’t look into her eyes.  Because they are dead.  Stone cold dead.

Inanna

I’m not really in a blogging state of mind. Have been feeling a bit flat. Not quite depressed but just a little sunken, shall we say. Not sure why. Maybe it’s the total lack of any perceptible movement on the move - silence reigns from all quarters apart from our mortgage company who are inundating us with bits of paper telling us of another fee or a further insurance we don’t need. Maybe it’s the fact that my new computer is languishing upstairs – large and gleaming and totally out of touch with the larger world (hence pretty much unusable). Maybe it’s because my ‘author’ has taken off to Moscow leaving me drumming my fingers and hacked off as, if I’d known, I could have planned nice things to do with James (but instead he’s booked up in the way of all eight-year olds nowadays). Or maybe it’s because I’ve just heard of another friend with a serious life-threatening condition.

Or, then again, maybe it’s just one of the down times. I truly believe that it’s impossible and not even really desirable to be totally UP all the time. It’s the main gripe I have with the New Age movement – the insistence on relentless positivity at all costs. You cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought and all that. Yes, I do think it’s good to keep positive on the whole and that our thoughts can and do affect our reality but (and it’s a bit but) I don’t think anyone should expect to be on a permanent high all the time. It’s not natural. Nature has its highs and lows, and its sort of in the middles too.

When I was doing art therapy I became fascinated with the myth of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess who was one heck of a feisty woman. She loved life big-time, juggling the roles of queen, mother and red-hot lover with all the ease in the world. But she realised that there has to be balance; she felt the need to descend, to go down into the underworld to meet her sister Erishkegal, queen of the dead. As she went down, she was divested of all her earthly glamour and glory. When she finally met her sister she wasn’t exactly greeted with open arms and a cream tea – she was slung up on a meat hook and left to rot for three days. Psychologists looking at the myth often say it’s a vital process, this going within, this going down, this putrefaction.

Spring, of course, should be an up time. When everything is going bonkers outside, it feels like being a bit of a party-pooper not to join in. But it’s hard to feel totally joyful at an overly warm dry spring when the spectre of climate change is whispering over our shoulders. The house martins have arrived but, as Adrian pointed out, how will they repair their homes under the eaves without any mud?
But over and above all at the moment I keep noticing the blackthorn – frothy flurries of white, like bridal veils all over the hedgerows. And, as all country-dwellers know, the pretty dainty flowers hide a nasty crop of thorns – scratch yourself on blackthorn and the cut will frequently go septic. So up and down, sweet and sour, pretty and putrifying go hand in glove. I’ll probably be right as rain (yes please) tomorrow.