Inanna’s Descent is an ancient Sumerian myth, but I don’t experience it as old in a dusty-clay-tablets-on-a-museum-shelf kind of way. Quite the opposite: this myth feels alive because descent is alive.
By descent, I mean those seasons when life takes us downward and inward… when old roles stop fitting, identities loosen, protections fall away, and we are left asking questions we cannot quite outsmart. Most of us know something about this, whether or not we have ever called it descent. So I often use Inanna’s Descent as a map for loss, identity change, midlife, grief, and return.
I don’t remember when I first came across the story of Inanna… but what I do remember is the first time I enacted it.
It was over twenty years ago, in a circle of women. I think it may have been our Autumn Equinox gathering — a season when, in that community, we often “consented” to descend. (I mean, nature doesn’t really give us a choice, we’re crossing the threshold into the dark half of the year, and headed towards winter solstice whether we like it or not. But consenting added some sovereignty.. a choice around, “let’s see what I find in the dark”.) Anyhow… we moved slowly around the circle, imagining the seven gates of the underworld. At each gate, we removed something: a layer of identity, a protection, a symbol of who we were in the world.
By the end, we stood (at least inwardly) naked. Raw. Exposed. That feeling of nakedness… of having no titles, no roles, no armor… never left me. It became a question I always seem to carry: What is underneath all of this? Who am I, when the layers fall away?
The Myth of Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld
Very briefly, the myth goes like this:
Inanna, the Sumerian Queen of Heaven and Earth, decides to descend to the underworld. To do so, she must pass through seven gates. At each gate, the gatekeeper demands that she remove something she carries: symbols of her power, her status, her identity.
By the time she reaches the underworld, she is naked, and faces her (shadow) sister Ereshkigal in the depths. Ereshkigal orders Inanna killed and she is then hung naked and lifeless, upside down on a hook. (No worries, though, three days later she ascends again, with the support of some helpers and magic. 😉 )
Though she does indeed ascend, it does not feel like a story about triumph, or a metaphor for “becoming your best self.” It is a story about consensual stripping of layers of identity, about entering a realm where the rules and norms and ways that once sustained you no longer apply.
And then, yeah, hanging naked on a hook… essence laid bare. Finally, ascending — not as some newly perfected self, but marked by the journey, and perhaps more deeply aligned with what is essential.
Inanna’s Descent as a Living Pattern
Since that first ritual, I’ve returned to this myth again and again. Sometimes it’s intention, seasonal… every autumn when the natural world itself is descending into winter. And sometimes only in hindsight, when I realize I’ve been in a dark place for a long time before I remember the map Inanna offers.
Descent may arrive in our lives through grief, breakups or other ruptures, depression, childbirth, monthly blood, identity crisis, aging, illness, bodily changes, or a deep loss.
Many people encounter descent very clearly in midlife – not because midlife is the underworld, but because by then, the protections of youth have worn thin. (I’ve written more about midlife as a threshold rather than a crisis.) The strategies that once worked no longer do. The questions grow louder. For many, it’s the first time descent can’t be bypassed.
(And, to be clear, if midlife begins the autumn of our lives, it’s pretty clear that we are headed toward winter, no matter how much we’re in denial of that in the spring and summer of our lives…)
How Naked Is Naked?
The nakedness in Inanna’s story is not something we recreate literally. We meet the stripping to the degree our lives allow… shaped by context, responsibility, nervous system capacity, and support.
Descent is not about spiritual endurance tests, pushing past your limits, or trying to annihilate the self. It is about noticing what is already falling away: the roles, protections, performances, and old forms of power that may no longer be able to come with you.
If this myth resonates, I offer a 9-week Inanna’s Descent coaching process — a way to enter the story, not just read about it, with care, pacing, and companionship.
Why This Myth Still Matters
It is a heroine’s journey… downward and inward. It’s not an outward hero’s quest per se, it embodies transformation through surrender. It reminds me that some seasons of life are not for fixing… but for staying present while being undone. And that, paradoxically, can be deeply humanizing.
From a Jungian depth coaching perspective, this is also the terrain of individuation… not as self-improvement, but as a slow turning toward what is most essential. When familiar identities fall away, something quieter has a chance to be heard. What Jung called the Self, or what some might call Soul, does not often speak loudly. It waits for moments when the ego’s usual strategies have been exhausted. Descent creates that kind of listening space.
Descent with Companionship
Over the years, I’ve worked with this myth quietly — one-on-one and in groups — as a way of accompanying people through descent with more consciousness and care.
This is not fast work, and it probably isn’t for everyone. But for the right person, it can offer a kind of orientation when the ground has gotten mushy… or disappeared entirely.
9-week Inanna’s Descent
Want to work with the myth, not just read about it?
I offer a 9-week, one-to-one Inanna’s Descent coaching process using the myth’s seven gates as a guide for grief, transition, identity, shadow, surrender, and return.
If you’d like to be informed when I open this up for online group work in autumn 2026, send me an email and I’ll put your name on the list.