Kin Inanna was an ancient festival celebrated to honor Inanna in the city of Nippur, dating to the third dynasty of Ur. I’ve decided to do a series of public rituals for this festival as part of my ordination project. What better way to begin my pagan ministry work than with helping to revive an ancient celebration of Inanna! I hope this will be interesting to the Mesopotamian polytheist community and even people on other pagan paths.
I’m planning out a series of public (online) rituals to celebrate Kin Inanna. I’m thinking Thursday, September 19th for the first, either the 21st or 22nd for the second, and the 24th for the third. It will probably be around 7 or 7:30 pm on Facebook Live. I have to rehearse and put the finishing touches on my rituals to see how long I’ll need for set up and for the actual rituals. I’ll put up a Facebook event when I get it all sorted out in the next couple of days. I believe Live videos can be re-watched later, so if you wanted to participate, but can’t make it, you can still participate asynchronously (unless I mess up too bad and decide to remove it!)
One of my assignments for my pagan clergy training class this week was to create a “statement of beliefs” featuring ten statements about my beliefs. The instructor suggested using the 10 Commandments as inspiration for formulating our statement of beliefs, which I was resistant to, as the bible isn’t at all part of my belief system, and the first couple statements in the 10 commandments are a blatant slap in the face to my beliefs and practices. I ended up taking a look at them and – very loosely – using them as inspiration for my statement of beliefs list.
Here’s what I came up with (these could, and probably will at some point, change as I progress in my practice):
The Gods are real and are accessible to anyone who seeks Them.
Myths are meant to help us understand the Gods and their relationship to us, nature, and each other. They aren’t meant to be read literally, but to be used as a source of inspiration.
Deeds are more important than beliefs. Live an ethical life and respect the beliefs of those walking different paths.
Honor the divine and live according to your spiritual values in your everyday life. Living a spiritual life is an act of devotion.
Nature is sacred, and we are all a part of it. It is our sacred duty to protect the Earth, and to strive to repair the damage that our species has caused.
Honor the cycle of life by honoring the dead and caring for the living. Know that death is not the end.
The Gods value all forms of gender and sexual expression, and all forms of consensual sexuality and love. You are a sacred being just as you are!
Own your actions. Don’t be afraid to take credit for your accomplishments, and responsibility for your shortcomings. Always strive to do better and to learn more.
Be true to yourself and your beliefs. But remember that beliefs aren’t set in stone. It’s normal and healthy for beliefs to evolve as you progress on your spiritual path.
Love is everything. Love the Gods. Love the Earth. Love yourself. Love each other.
I finally got around to making videos of my experiences with the Threshold and Foundation sections of Rod and Ring. These videos are pretty brief. I’ve already shared more about the Foundation rituals earlier in this blog. (I don’t think I did blog posts about Threshold. That might have been before I started writing openly about my spiritual explorations).
I’ve been seeing an idea that deity work is only for advanced practitioners of paganism or witchcraft popping up in online pagan spaces lately. In this video, I talk about why I disagree with this idea, and why I believe that deity worship is the foundational aspect of pagan religious practice.
This was just a quick video I made after seeing some Reddit posts this morning, even though I already have a whole list of other videos I want to make.
I discuss the myth of Enki and Ninmah, where Enki finds a place in society for Ninmah’s “deformed” creations and share my interpretation of how this myth applies to the value of people who are considered disable based on my personal experiences.
One of my assignments for my Pagan Clergy Training class last week was a series of journal prompts. One of the questions, “How did you come to paganism?” ended up with me writing a lengthy several page answer, so I thought that would make a good video for my channel. I suspect a lot of pagans have similar long winding journeys that eventually brought them to their current spiritual paths.
I’m nearing the end of my Order of the Rod and Ring initiation journey and I’ve been thinking a lot about where I want to go next in my spiritual path. While this initiation will make me able to perform priestly duties with regard to serving the gods and maintaining their temple, I still feel like to actually take on a title of clergy or priestess, I need to be able to actually serve the pagan community. So I have decided to take a pagan clergy training class, which starts next week! It is through an organization called Greenwild Mystical Academy. If anyone reading this is interested in joining me, you can find more information here: Accepting the Call: Pagan Clergy Training. This is a general course for anyone following a pagan spiritual path who is interested in training to take on a clergy role.
I don’t know completely where this will take me yet, but I’m trusting in the Gods that this is the path that They want me to pursue right now.
Today I thought I’d share what my daily devotional practice to Inanna looks like, and how my altar is currently arranged. I just switched the table I use for my altar to a slightly taller one with slightly more surface space a couple days ago.
This is what my altar currently looks like. On a riser in the center is a statue of the goddess Inanna. In the riser in front of her is a small offering bowl where I burn incense. She is surrounded by a few small stones which are symbolic offerings to Her. I eventually want to make a new riser to look like a whole ass ziggurat to put Inanna’s image on, but I don’t know what materials to use to make such a thing yet. I want the statue to sit a bit higher up compared to the plants, but I still want plants on there, and they need to be in large enough pots to account for their roots.
Close-up of the statue. Made by Etsy seller Blagowood.
On either side of Inanna I have two potted plants. The pink pot to the left contains a crepe myrtle and a hibiscus. There’s no specific symbolic reason for these particular plants. I wanted something that flowers to represent a “spring/beginnings” and feminine sort of energy, and I had plenty of seedlings of these outside (Crepe myrtles from my Arbor Day society membership and hibiscus just pop up everywhere in my yard and garden). The cypress to the left was a gift. I feel it represents more of a masculine energy, as well as fall/winter as an evergreen. It’s not doing too well indoors, so this one will probably be planted outside around November and replaced with something else. I’m thinking a spider plant or something else that does well indoors and is safe for cats. The other two from the pink pot will eventually go outside too.
I have three candles. The center one represent Inanna. I light this one first during my daily devotionals and rituals. I use a large circular clear multifaceted candle holder, which I feel nicely represents the pure yet multifaceted energy of Inanna. Using a utility candle, I light the left one that is in the pink skull candle holder from the center candle’s flame. I think of that one as representing myself, and Inanna’s light shining through me. The third candle holder is where I put candle used in spells or specific rituals if I have one I’m doing that day. Otherwise I light it at the beginning as representing sharing my light with the world at large. I use tea light candles typically, as they burn out quicker if I forget to put them out when I’m done. I’m currently using Hanukah candle as my utility candle because I found some that share a portion of the profits with Sharsheret, an organization that helps women with hereditary breast cancer from the BRCA1/2 mutations that are commonly found in women with Jewish heritage. It feels like a nice way to honor my ancestors too, even if I don’t worship the same deity they did in recent generations.
I light incense offerings from the left candle that sort of represents myself to represent giving of myself to Inanna or any other deities I’m giving offerings to at that time.
After the candles and incense are lit, I do a short prayer/meditation using the wrist prayer beads I keep on my altar. I got the prayer beads from etsy seller HearthfireHandworks and I use the prayer that she included with the beads, with slight modifications, though one of these days I’ll probably rewrite the entire thing to better reflect my personal relationship with Inanna.
I think of raccoons and crows as my animal guides, so they are represented on my altar. The raccoon represents the earth element to me, and the crow is obviously air.
All of the classical elements are represented throughout my altar, but they are more “concentrated” in certain designated spots. On the left side of the altar, I have the tools related to the feminine elements of water and earth. I have a container for holy water and a sprinkler tool (made from a miswick stick, rope, and a quartz crystal) for water and earth. I also have a coaster to designate the spot for my chalice, a selenite pentacle altar tile (for charging and cleansing small items), a wood altar tile with an ankh symbol (where I set spell components until I need them. There is goldenrod freshly harvested from my pollinator garden on it in the picture.) The cup is in the way in the picture, but I also have a trilobite on the riser next to the skull candle holder for water and earth, also to represent the past (Earth’s past, obviously, and mine. I got it from the Seneca Cavern’s gift shop as a child). There is a painted shell that says “love” on top of the soil of the left potted plant. I found it while cleaning up trash in the Metroparks. I meant to re-hide it, but it found it’s home on my altar for now. I also have an peat turf sculpture of a cat from Ireland, which I feel gives my Irish ancestors representation, again, even if I haven’t been called by their particular deities.
On the right side, of course, I have greater concentrations of the air and fire elements, commonly considered more masculine in energy. The cauldron I use as an incense holder brings back a bit of feminine energy to the air/fire of the incense being burned. I have my little bell that I got from the Buckland Witchcraft Museum gift shop (I really like museum gift shops, if you haven’t noticed), which also represents air. Its not really visible, but there’s a lava rock I illegally brought back from the beach of Hawaii’s Big Island for fire (and also earth!). The skull-shaped speaker I use to play ritual music through is kinda hidden behind the big candle holder. I usually keep it on the floor, but I had extra space when I rearranged everything. I might swap it out for a garden gnome though, and put the speaker back on the ground. I guess I don’t really have the masculine elements represented as much as the feminine ones, but I’m also completely okay with it. This is my personal practice. I do what I want!
For music, lately I’ve been using the album “Inanna” by Neurotree. I don’t know anything about the artist, I just found it on Amazon while looking for books about Inanna (I bought the album from iTunes though). I found literally nothing about the artist other than that one album when I tried to look them up. It seems kinda sus, since usually there would be at least some info about the actual humans behind the music somewhere on the interwebs, but whatever. I like it.
In the center, right in front of the riser for Inanna’s image, I have a big chunk of quartz. I got it at some witchy/Halloween event last year in Lakewood in a scoop of “witch confetti.” The lady I bought it from picked it out of her mixture of odds and ends special for me, which was so nice! It reminds me of a mountain top, so I like to keep in down in front of Inanna, like she’s rising up above the underworld. (“Kur” can mean both “underworld” or “mountain” in Sumerian. It can also refer to foreign/eastern lands).
The tablet behind the quartz translates to “The strength of my god completes my own. Inanna is praised!” Idr if I posted the tablet as a blog post yet.
The yoga cat statue is kind of like a stand-in worshipper sort of thing. I read something before that back in the day figurines of worshipers would be left at the shrines of deities to continue “worshiping” the deity in the person’s absence. Idk how true that interpretation of the artifacts is, but I liked the idea, so I’m using the yoga cat statue in that way. It even has an 8-point star on its tummy!
This is all my own personal practice and what is meaningful to me. If I were ever called upon to put together something for the community at large for whatever reason, it would obviously stick more to traditional kinds of imagery and associations (i.e. less just making things up as I go along).
