In the next story, Inanna goes to Enki's place for dinner and drinks. As he gets drunker and drunker, Inanna talks him out of more and more until she leaves wearing the Me, the laws of the universe.
When Enki awakes from his drunken sleep, his seneschal informs him of the theft. Really upset, Enki sends his men after her. As Inanna travels the river to her home, she evades Enki's men one after the other. When she arrives at her home port, she presents her people with not only the Me that she stole, but discovers that the Me have grown to include all the womanly arts of civilization.

In story three, Inanna decides she now wants to rule the underworld.
After all, she already has heaven and earth. So she fakes her way into the underworld. The Dark Queen, however, isn't fooled. The Dark Queen sees the Truth in all living souls. Inanna is brought into the
underworld, being forced to remove one item at each of the seven gates she must walk through until she is standing naked before Ereshkigal. Without a chance to say anything, Ereshkigal takes
Inanna's soul from her and hangs her from a tree.

Up above, Inanna's servant goes to each of the gods and begs for help for her mistress. Each of the gods refuses –Inanna knew the rules, no one escapes from the underworld, not even the gods. It was her own fault, she needed to pay for her mistake. Only one god agrees to help, and that's Enki. He creates two golems, soulless creatures, and gives one the water of life and the other the bread of life. They make their way into the underworld and sprinkle these items on the dead body of Inanna. Her soul returns and she escapes
from the underworld.

Inanna begins as a child, first discovering the joys of her powers and has things created for her instead of doing it herself. Next she steals someone else's powers and gives them to her people. Granted, this is a generous thing to do, but it is still the product of theft and manipulation. Her soul is visible to one person, though; the Queen of the Underworld. By taking her soul away and being hung on a tree, the tree of knowledge, Inanna is forced to learn that growth must happen within even if someone else forces it upon her. Inanna
entered the underworld as a spoiled child who did nothing to earn her crown, and left as the Queen of Heaven.

No matter what myth we read, they all revolve around the same concepts –inner growth and transformation. Our place in life must be earned, no one is owed anything, no matter what we here in the West believe to be otherwise. Spirituality is about self-transformation and union with our personal gods. A throne, a sacred marriage bed, a
declaration of self-made laws being waved over one's people; these are magnificent things but didn't do one thing for the growth of her soul. The greatest magic was Inanna rising from the dead, a rebirth of her soul, and bringing her True heart to her people.

To face our True self is a painful thing. To be forced to look into the mirror and recognize our self. How many are brave enough to look into the mirror? To stare at our dark side, acknowledge it, and make
it our friend. By shining the light of truth upon darkness, it is no longer dark. It is no longer a scary thing. We see into the mirror and our true self stares back at us. We can release those unwanted
aspects of us, leave them in the underworld, and bring life forward with us.

The magic we seek is the magic that is created when we reach that union with our personal gods. This is an individual act, we cannot do it for someone else. Encourage each other to look into the mirror and encourage each other to show our true face to the world. We can encourage and lead by example. We cannot transform anyone except our self. Lead by example, don't look for the magic wand and fairy dust.