I’ve been exploring the worship of several other deities in the Sumerian pantheon lately, in addition to Inanna. Early this year, I started my journey through Samuel David’s Rod and Ring in an effort to become better acquainted with some of the other deities in the Mesopotamian pantheon. The main motivation being that, by becoming acquainted with and better understanding some of the other deities in Inanna’s circle and in the wider Mesopotamian pantheon, and better understanding the original religious context that she was worshiped under, I can build a deeper relationship with Her. I already have a place for Dumuzi, Inanna’s consort, and Ninshubur, Inanna’s sukkal (advisor) in my personal practice. I had been feeling drawn to Geshtinanna, Dumuzi’s older sister and Inanna’s sister-in-law, but I didn’t really where to start with her. Most of the information I find on her only mentions her in passing in her role in Dumuzi’s descent. Technically, I will be working with Geshtinanna as part of my journey through Rod and Ring next month, but it turns out she decided to show up a bit early.
As “coincidence” would have it, this month in one of the ANE polytheist groups I recently joined, the service was all about Geshtinanna! The autumn equinox had recently passed, making this the time of year when Geshtinanna returns to the underworld to take Dumuzi’s place.
One of the things I learned about her that stood out the most was that, of all the deities, Geshtinanna was the only goddess who was regularly depicted with close female friends other than those directly related to her. As such, she can be revered as an embodiment of sisterhood between women and supportive female friendships.
Geshtinanna was also considered a sort of mother-figure as well. As Dumuzi’s older sister, Geshtinanna filled a mother role for Dumuzi. She was regarded as a caring and loving sister to Dumuzi.
These aspects of caring female friendships and nurturing family support are energies that I desperately need to bring into my life, not going to lie. I feel like, since I’ve invited Her into my practice, I am slowly starting to better understand/experience these things. Do those count as Mes? I’m not really sure, but I feel like that’s the best word to describe such things. It’s obviously a slow process. She can help guide me in the right direction, but I know she isn’t just going to do the work for me. Despite what a lot of pagans seem to think (based on questions I see posted to social media all the time and spell instructions urging practitioners to invoke random deities they may or may not actually worship), you can’t (or at least shouldn’t!) try to invoke deities you have no existing relationship with just to “make” them do some task/help you with something just because it’s related to one of their associated domains. That’s just rude. That would be like if some random stranger just knocked on my door and asked me to babysit their kids just because they heard I work in childcare as my day job. No going to happen, and please get off my lawn! But that’s a whole rant for a separate post.
Geshtinanna is associated with grapes, grapevines, and wine and her name is often translated as “the grapevine of heaven.” She is also known as Amageshtin or Mutinanna (in the Emesal dialect). In my own UPG she seems to prefer to be called Amageshtin (“Ama” meaning mother). I find she has a very caring and motherly type of energy about her (in the few weeks I’ve been actively working with her).
I made for her a little statue to include her on my little shrine that also has space for Inanna, Ninshubur, and Dumuzi. I made it from wild grapevines that I harvested in the rain during the last new moon, which was also the day of a solar eclipse. I made some wreaths with my harvest as well. While my other statues were made from clay, I thought it was appropriate to make Geshtinanna’s from grapevines. This figurine is a bit fragile, so eventually it may have to be remade or perhaps reinforced with clay, but I like how it turned out. It could always be re-crafted once I improve my vine-weaving skills.
I don’t have Her whole shrine spot ready yet, but Her statue lives alongside Inanna, Ninshubur, and Dumuzi.
Since Amageshtin is so intimately entwined with the grapevine, I was a bit hesitant to start working with her in the beginning. Wine isn’t really my thing, and isn’t something I naturally connect with, and I typically avoid alcohol in general now since the whole breast cancer thing. (I typically use hibiscus tea as a substitute for wine in rituals that call for wine – it has that same deep red color and its energy is just lovely. In my experience, Ninshubur in particular enjoys hibiscus – obvious UPG alert!). But wine can still be offered to deities even if you don’t personally imbibe, and she seems to enjoy regular grape juice just as much. I’ve been using grape juice as offerings more than wine. Since I don’t personally care for wine, offering it always feels like “here, I didn’t want this, so I guess you can have it,” whereas grape juice feels more like “this is good, so I wanted you to have some too!”
I’ve also been working with Ningal a bit too. I did her ritual from Rod and Ring this month (technically I had my first experience with her during the full moon last month while doing some light trance work as well. I’m not sure if it was “real” or whatever, but I’m trying to learn to trust my intuition in these types of things) and felt a connection there, and a feeling that I should be involving her in my regular practice in some way. I’m still exploring what this means, which I suppose is technically a lifelong process (anyone who tells you they have all spiritual things figured out is either delusional or trying to sell you something or both). I’ll make a separate post about Her soon once I’ve gathered my thoughts a bit more and finish the painting I’m making for Her in Adobe Fresco so I can include it in the post. I want to make her a statue too and set up a shrine, but I’m still thinking about what the statue should look like, and whether or not she should share the same space as Inanna, Ninshubur, Gestinanna, and Dumuzi or have her own space.
