" The great place, kur or irkalla, is the land of the dead. For a Mesopotamian, this place was not a hell, not a place of punishment. It was simply another realm where the dead lived, where the light was thinned, where dust and silence held sway.

Ereshkigal ruled there, together with the seven Anunna judges.

In some accounts she is the elder sister of Inanna, the daughter of the sky god An. In some old Sumerian poems it is said that Ereshkigal was originally in the heavens and was drawn down to the underworld by the dragon Kur. So her kingdom is not a choice but a loss.

This small detail changes her character. Ereshkigal did not take what is below by wanting it, she found herself there and made it her home.

The underworld has seven gates and each gate is guarded by a warrior god. Inside, the messengers called Galla, the Anunna judges, and her vizier Namtar (whose name means "fate") serve her. Her throne is made of black stone, the old texts say; but to read her not as a queen who carries evil but as a lady who carries grief is what is true to the Mesopotamian.

The best known of her myths appears in Inanna's descent. But the story should be read very differently from Ereshkigal's side. Look at the telling not from the sister's side but from her throne.

When Inanna arrives at the gate, Ereshkigal is startled and angered. Because no one, no god, not even a sister, can come into the realm of the dead in their body. It feels like an insult, like a refusal to recognize the weight of death.

The rule of seven gates is not an ordinary custom, it is a threshold of respect. To leave something at every gate is to admit the bareness of a human before death.

When Inanna comes before the throne having left everything, Ereshkigal looks at her with the eye of death. There is anger in that look, but underneath, something else can be read. Some interpreters read it as grief. Ereshkigal did not want to see her sister below. She hangs her on a hook.

The Akkadian Ishtar's Descent adds a more detailed scene. While Inanna is below, all reproduction stops in the world above, animals do not mate, humans do not unite, plants do not yield. So Inanna's absence sets off a natural grief. The gods intervene. Enki sends his rescuers.

" To soothe her, they answer each of her groans with a groan of their own. In that moment, as if she were bringing someone into the world, Ereshkigal agrees to release her sister. Here the myth has to be read with care.

Ereshkigal is not a monster. She is a lady in grief, and when a being arrives who can share that grief, she opens.

" Once the gods held a great feast above and sent a messenger to invite a representative of Ereshkigal as well, since she was below and could not come. She sent her vizier Namtar up. All the gods stood and showed respect to him, except for a war god named Nergal who remained seated and did not rise.

Ereshkigal heard of this, grew angry, and summoned Nergal below. She would call him to account. With the advice of Ea, Nergal went down.

He passed through the seven gates and arrived at the throne. But what happened was not expected. Ereshkigal looked at him, and instead of calling him to account, she fell for him.

They stayed together for seven days and seven nights. Then Nergal tried to escape upward. " With Ea's mediation Nergal returned to the underworld and became Ereshkigal's husband, joint ruler with her.

This story shows another side of her. Ereshkigal is not only an accepting, mourning queen; she is also the holder of a deep passion, a love, an attachment. She had many temples but the best known was at Kutha, in northern Babylonia.

In the Akkadian period this city was considered the gateway of the underworld, and the Emeslam temple there was dedicated to Ereshkigal and her husband Nergal. Her symbolic colors were purple and black, and lapis lazuli and mother-of-pearl suited her. The seven-gate motif stayed at the heart of all underworld imagery.

What does Ereshkigal say to us today? The modern reader often imagines her as "the terrible queen," but the myth always describes her in grief. Her kingdom is not a domain of punishment, it is a domain of acceptance.

The Ereshkigal within us is the part that carries grief. When a loss arrives, an ending, a disappointment, even a long exhaustion, a throne within us turns to black stone. It can feel as if no one can see us there.

Modern life does not love this descent. It expects us to remain up above, to stay cheerful, productive, shining. Yet Ereshkigal's lesson is this: grief too has its lady, and she does not tire of waiting there.

The denial of grief is what keeps it from softening.

The most beautiful moment of the myth is when the rescuers answer her pains with their own. When did Ereshkigal open? " She opened when someone came who could repeat her moan as their own moan.

The myth says something close to what modern psychology says: the healing of grief is in a shared groan. In astrology this energy touches the deep field of Pluto, but it represents not so much Pluto's transformation as the long wait before transformation that has to happen first. Ereshkigal does not frighten.

She only takes you in, and inside, she patiently waits.