One of the many sources for Etana: Dalley, Stephanie (1989)

Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh and others.

Oxford, Oxford University Press.

The Evening Star (Venus / Inanna) appeared gloriously in the skies, and soon the navy velvet of the night was going to fall. It was then that Etana spotted in the horizon the last Gate of his Ascent Journey this time, the Gate of Ishtar. Heart pounding with anticipation, he braced himself for the eagle’s landing. In front of him, the elegant lapis lazuli walls carved with golden lions and rosettes were a sight to behold. In Babylon, the Gate of the Gods,

  (private entrance Gate of Ishtar / Inanna into Babylon, Marduk‘s patron city)

it was the Gate of Ishtar that led the processional way to the holy precinct of the Great Gods. So it was in the Everlasting Babylon of the Soul.

(Texts: All Artifacts, Color Coding, & Writings in Bold Type With Italics Inside Parenthesis, are Added by Editor R. Brown, not the Authors, Translators, or Publishers!)

(gods in blue …mixed-breed demigods in teal…)

           

            (Etana carried in flight to heaven / planet Nibiru, by eagles / alien pilots)

“I thank you for the ride, my friend’, he said to the eagle (pilot)

         patting the neck of his feathered friend as he got off his back.

         ‘I have an important request: would you be so kind to wait for me here?

I feel I need to go through these gates on my own.’

‘Even if I wanted, friend and king, my entrance would be barred… ‘,

whispered the eagle, and if Etana were not so anxious to proceed,

he would most certainly have stopped to ask what his friend meant by that cryptic statement.

(Kish tale of King Etana lifting off Earth by eagle for planet Nibiru)

The king of Kish took a deep breath to center himself and stepped through the Gate,

and the familiar clouds involved him to lead him to the Inner Realms.

He allowed himself a couple of minutes to adjust and then proceeded forwards.

Soon the clouds dissipated and he saw himself in a large well-lit room

whose glassed windows (5,000 years ago!) let in the magic of sunset hour, the rainbow colors of the changing skies.

The room was long, a hall fit for kings, and upon a dais he saw Her (Inanna).

His heart knew who She was, and so he proceeded.

 (Inanna & grandfather Lord Air Enlil; Commander Enlil, King Anu, & Enki above in alien sky-disc)

How long had it been since She, the Great Goddess of Love and War (Inanna),

and Enlil, Lord Air and the most important of the younger generation of the Anunnaki gods,

had come to earth, in search of a king to rule the land?

He, Etana, had been their choice.

Now, after all these years, Etana wondered whether

They had made the right choice.

And this realization was killing him deep inside.

No matter what, he proceeded to kneel and bow to the ground respectfully in front of Her.

 (fair-haired Inanna served by early “modern man”, fashioned from their image & likeness)

His eyes dared to face Her (Inanna) adoringly.

             (highlighted long hair of Inanna, desired by all, gods & mixed-breeds)

Youthful, tall, long dark hair that showed glints of gold in the sunset hour,

She wore a fringed dress of a soft color and fabric he would not be able to name.

              (Inanna, Goddess of Love & War)

The garment was a bit lower than knee length, golden leather sandals and a crown of flowers was upon her forehead.

As long ago, She had come to him as the Divine Huntress, the Warrior, the spirit of love and adventure.

 (giant alien Anunnaki goddesses stand before Inanna seated over her battle lions; lion under Inanna‘s dais, her zodiac sign Leo)

Lions slept under the dais of Her throne.

They looked like contented cats and not ferocious beasts.

He remembered Her so well, and She had not changed at all.

‘Lady of my Heart, Champion of my soul, I lend you graces’, he greeted, ignoring the lions and concentrating on Her.

‘It has been a long time, King of Kish‘, She replied.

He breathed hard.

‘Perhaps too long… now I know this for sure’.

            (giant goddesses Ninsun & Inanna with much smaller lions at her feet, & alien technology in hand)

She rose to her feet, the lions did not stir, and to his utter amazement,

She moved towards the large window on the Western Quarter and sat graciously on the window sill,

 

         (Inanna in the window, original to later epics of the “woman in the window”, “woman in wait”, etc.)

Her back to the twilit skies.

She made space for him to take a seat by Her side, but he declined and sat on the floor.

Etana swallowed hard and started in one go, choosing carefully his words to address Her in the first place:

‘So much has happened so far, Great Lady, and I sincerely am not quite sure,

but somehow I feel I have reached a turning point which is recharging me and eventually will bring me success.

As if I were finally sort of discerning the light at the end of the tunnel, although it is just a hope.

It is associated with a turning of darkness back towards the direction of the light, the winter solstice,

the shortest day of the year, the day when darkness begins to decrease and the hours of daylight increase.

It is the beginning of a turn-around; a time of letting go of the old and making way for the new;

a time of new beginnings, and it starts with rest.’

  (young giant Inanna / Ishtar, Goddess of Love & War with lion, & king)

‘Nice rhetorics, but wouldn’t you like to go straight to the point?’, asked the Goddess, direct and frank as usual.

‘It has been a long and difficult journey for you since we last met.

And I can give you some clues for what has happened to you so far.

Would you like that?’

Etana sighed, but appreciated Her way of dealing with his awkwardness:

‘I need to clarify many, many things with you, my Lady.

Oh, I know well about being an initiate, your initiate.

It means the never-ending breaking out of old patterns, of everything that needs to be changed

so that a solid foundation can be established for living in all worlds.

This is exactly what happened to me so far… I just wish I had realized all this before!’

‘Can you elaborate more?’

‘Sure, I can.

I was meditating hard about what has happened to me so far since we first met,

           

                                              (semi-divine, Inanna, & Enlil, alien gods chose the 1st monarchs of their city-states, their offspring)

when you and lord Enlil chose me to be the first monarch of the land.

I came to some conclusions.

The trials of being a king and shepherd, the first ruler of the land.

No, better still, the trials of deserving my crown and as such becoming the (giant semi-divine mixed-breed)

living link between the people of the land and the gods,

You in special.

The difficulty of understanding and applying the discipline of power and empowerment,

to protect the weak and yet not to lose sight of the greedy and troublemakers

to attempt to get them back into the fold.

This was the meaning of the eagle and the snake, (Myth of Etana) wasn’t it?

A metaphor for me to understand the meaning of power and the exercise of justice

between irreconcilable oppositions within a nation that was being built?’

‘How so?’ She asked, her voice a quiet command.

                   (Mexican Coat of Arms;                        United States Great Seal, & on & on.)

‘The eagle and the snake can be seen as the warring factions of the land a monarch should keep close watch upon.

Difficult to unite, for they are different species,

although a truce can be established and maintained by the application of justice.

However, the greedy eagle is the one that poses the hardest trial for the king.

By betraying the snake and killing its offspring it needed more healing and more atonement.

And I meditated a great deal why I had to face all trials with the eagle, the traitor,

instead of lining up with the grieving snake.’

Tears started flowing copiously, but Etana continued relentlessly:

‘I was the snake myself, grieving for the offspring of my blood I so badly wanted to father.

The snake was the animal in me, raw energy and grief.

But I am also the king, responsible for peace, wealth, progress and health.

I could not leave the treacherous eagle to his devices,

I had to rescue him back, heal it and make it ascend with me to finally face you in the end.

Hit and crash approach this one of yours, isn’t it?’

Suddenly he also understood the eagle’s indecision to be accepted by the Goddess’ Gate.

The eagle might not be allowed to proceed through, because it had killed the offspring of his friend!

The goddess smiled: ‘But you never gave up and continued towards the ascent.

  (Etana taken aloft by eagle / pilot heading for their planet Nibiru)

Even when you fell off the back of the eagle three times, somehow you kept going.

One unworthy flight after another?’

Her words hurt, but somehow he felt She was clearly teasing him now, and Etana relaxed a bit.

‘I had to.’

‘Why?’

‘Because You trusted me, and even if I had failed, it was my duty to come to you and say so. Personally.’

 

            (Inanna, goddess-spouse to many semi-divine kings, & so dubbed the “Goddess of Love“)

He was about to tell Her how sorry he was for not having been able to give Her an heir of his blood,

when She seemed to change totally the subject.

‘A question for you, my king: what do you live for?’

Somehow he had expected that question all along, but not at this very moment.

The answer though came from the bottom of his mind, body, heart and soul.

‘To transcend. To learn and experience to make things be in all worlds,

even myself for as many times as it takes and REAL FAST with your help!

I live to deny all denials and to affirm all affirmations in a celebration of the sacredness of matter

so that my soul can fly unbound and free in all worlds I dare to fare.

And most of all, I live to experience the Underworld Descent of Existence in this Flesh as a Conscious Pursuit of Passion,

Joy and Magic to finally return in Wisdom and Love to the Source and Shaper of All’.

‘How far have you lived this truth in the last couple of years?’

Surprise and understanding gripped him hard.

How long had he grieved for a kingdom of the future,

while he had to rule the land in present time to the best of his ideas and ideals,

(Inanna, espoused many mixed-breeds appointed to kingships, go-betweens for the gods & earthlings)

how much time he had lost trying to breed his offspring

when he had not been ready to understand what it was to be a real father?

Father of the land, empowerer of the spirit of this people came first, were his duties he had not been able to see.

‘I have another question for you, my king,’

Her voice sounded deep and soft, and in the distance he heard a bell striking.

‘What is my Name?’

His breath caught for a second.

She was asking and giving at the same time the Key to HerSelf, the key he had kept hidden for so long within his very Self.

(Ishtar / Inanna artifact, many times over Inanna with many names, was depicted nude as the Goddess of Love)

‘Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, many are your names.

But I know You as the Eternal Moment in Me, my Soul Counterpart, Lover and Beloved as One,

the True Vision of Triumphant Joy and Humanity that Overcomes Death and makes You the Greatest of all Goddesses.

You are the answer to all my whys, World Soul I reflect on my own’.

She was smiling now and then Her face changed to reveal the faces of every single person

and being he had loved in his life, past, present and perhaps to come.

The last transformation was totally unexpected, because he saw his own face transfigured by joy,

younger and older images of himself in the most special moments of his life past and perhaps to come.

Then She was Inanna again.

‘You are really so slow sometimes to understand the basics, Beloved King.

Tell me, Etana, all the way when you were trying so hard to reach me and not being able to, how did you feel like?’

Her laughter was like the power of dawn ensouling the land for a brand new day.

Again, he braced himself for what was coming next.

‘I felt like a Fool’.. he blurted.

             (semi-divine king, goddess spouse Inanna, & Enki; Inanna holds the hand of semi-divine her mixed-breed spouse-king)

She stretched Her hands to hold his: ‘And do you think you would have come to Me otherwise?”