A low mist hung over the stone-crafted hills but a row of lamps lights the way, splashing gold dully onto the gray, cottony air. A woman moves through them, shrouded, a veil cast about her long neck. It is Demeter, the graceless one, by whatever name she was then known. In the cave by the flowing lake, its skin pebbled by the blue skiffs of the stars, the god lies stretched on the skin of a fallen bull. The queen moves slowly, no music attends her step. Yet it is not always for beauty that men die, nor is beauty only of the form and the face. Unseen in the night she passes another woman, tall and slim, headed in the other direction. Their fingers brush under cover of darkness and each disappears into night.

Across the ancient land the rivers swell, Tigris, Euphrates. Nothing is abroad tonight. Fear keeps them to their huts. Except for the priests, who have been very busy since the dawn brought its message. In the small shrines at the turnings of the river, now , the priestesses wait and bow their head in silence. They are waiting for the goddess to pass by. Not Demeter. Ishtar. Inanna. Queen of the Heavens. The first gods formed the princess from the blood of the forest and the crust of the Earth. Tonight she descends into darkness to take the throne of death from her sister, the fearsome Ereshkigal.

Through the shadowed wood Demeter walks, her step steady towards her hidden lover. Beauty blossoms around her.

To her gatekeepers, older than herself, Ereshkigal gives orders that her sister be permitted to pass, but held to the ancient decree. At each of the seven gates of Hell, the princess must give to the gatekeepers an offering, a gift. Inanna has nothing but her clothing, her seven veils with which she has bewitched the heroes since the dawn of time. Ereshkigal dismisses her guards and sits on her throne to wait. Her priestesses have been busy as well, in their black vestments, to match her sister’s white, as her black hair matches her sister’s gold, as its opposite. As the bringer of spring walks the passageways of bone she gives to each gatekeeper a veil and arrives before her sister, as all of us will, naked and unarmed. There is no other way to enter death’s kingdom. For a timeless moment, they stand facing each other, alone in the heart of the Earth, light and dark. Each alike in silence.

Under the shadow of the sky, her feet floating above the Earth—for she is the Earth-- Demeter pulls the tent flap open.

In a place beyond thought, time’s essential architecture connects this moment to all such moments, now and ever, and the shadow behind the darkness begins to recognize what it once was. Two hands, one above ground and one under, touch, through darkness, across a field of white, hewn stones. The hands explore the fabric of their bonds, and the test the strength of the curtain. A shadow turns and for an instant the night moves. The night is a covering to hide the white flank of a maiden. Or a swan. In a royal tent, a meeting of two gods. Under the Earth, a meeting of two sisters. Dark forms converge together. There is murmuring, a sudden light, then darkness again. The pale sliver of moon slips behind a cloud. . The wind cries, shuddering, an angel calling in a long-lost tongue.

No one hears; It is the only thing that remembers. A maiden descends. A maiden is given up. This is all happening…

The myth tells us that, somehow or another—it is not clear how—Ereshkigal wins the battle and Innana, in some sense, dies. She is hung on a hook in hell, there to remain until her father, Enki the sky god, is forced to bargain with Ereshkigal to bring Inanna back to life so that the Earth can bloom again, just as in the Demeter-Persephone-Zeus story. But even that story is sketchy, with little detail or explanation and for a very obvious reason. The two women were alone in the chamber under the Earth. There were no other witnesses. No one could know, for certain, what happened between them.

And the story as it is ignores certain constants of time and the universe, certain continuums, which can not safely be ignored. I will tell you what really happened.

In a chamber below the Earth, two peerless goddesses stand naked, facing each other. It is to each like looking in the mirror. For a long moment, they merely stand, as each measures her opponent. But there is a difference. As they stand, locked in silent struggle, a year sketches its form on the peerless Inanna’s cheeks. It is the hand of Hades, her bride, the shade cast by her taking. The year, the handprint on Inanna’s cheek, is the margin between them. The battle is over. Innana bows her head and without a word, goes into the dark princesses’ power.

Of all the goddesses, only two are said to be more beautiful than the maiden, whether Ishtar, Inanna, Anat, or Persephone. These are Demeter, the Earth. And Ereshkigal, the dark goddess of Death.

But in that very moment above the Earth the coupling of Zeus and Demeter prepares again her revival, and in that single instant of rebirth she will be every inch Ereshkigal’s equal. Until time and death take her, again. Then to be reborn. This battle does not happen once. It happens every year. And every year it has the same result. The priests know this, whatever they tell their followers. And it is for this that they are silent, mournful, why they do not act and pray. It is for this. It cannot be changed. It will always happen, and happen again. And it must.

For an invisible thread connects the three goddesses and each, emotionless, only conducts the stations of an eternal cycle. For we dream of ourselves as the servants of the gods, but they are the servants of humankind, and we, both of us, are servants of the higher power. They are figureheads, actors, explaining to us what we cannot have from God himself. The gods are as powerless to change their destinies as we are own, perhaps more so. For, in the halflight of the changed palace, Hades in the maiden’s arm becomes Chronos. And all three goddesses, at once, are the same queen. In truth, Inanna is not defeated by Ereshkigal. Rather, Ereshkigal becomes her.

Before Innana, there is no Ereshkigal, who can only be seen as she is left behind. And after Inanna, she is Demeter, full in wisdom, and all the powers of the changing Earth. They are the same. She is only, ever, meeting herself. And outside the season turns , again, and again, from peerless winter, to mutable spring, to the harvest time of summer when the bounty is fullest, but most perilous. And in fall, Hades the harvester is king of the year.

And we know this, though it is written in no book. For we fall in love with Ereshkigal, the peerless one. That dark, smoky glance in the crowded bar, the peerless smile, made as the moon in our memory, as eyes meet in a coffee shop, or at the supermarket, that is her, the dark queen, the one without the mark of time upon her. The perfect instant, the one which made our hearts stop. But we cannot love Ereshkigal, who is perfect, we can only seek her, hunt her, and she may let us succeed. As she let her sister. Her self. And when we take her, and when we hold her, she cannot be Ereshkigal, for she will cry and she will hurt, she will rage, and she will sleep. And you will love her more than you ever thought possible, for your goddess will become, almost, a human woman, but you will see how she is not. She will know it is you because you will see the light which will shine from her when she is in springtime, and the dark, when she is in winter, and you will find each more beautiful than all the eyes and all the loves with which this world is girded around, a shining invisible band which is our connection to the almighty. And sometimes only you will remember what she is. That is when she is Inanna, the goddess of love and beauty.

And last, beyond the fiery need of that first discovery, and the following loss which makes even more beautiful the thing it shrouds, lies the strength and wisdom of Demeter, who alone can be relied upon. Who is what we need, not what we want. Whose face and form cannot match that of her twin daughters, but whose is the most beautiful of them all for her silent mystery, and the unbearable knowledge of her soft, loving eyes. She is the mother of men, the caretaker, and with her silent gaze she puts together whatever darkness has put asunder. In Demeter, alone, it is possible to rest, to sleep, and live a life that is not consumed. Zeus had no choice but to return Demeter’s daughter to the world above. He could not resist what he needed, more than all the youth in Hera’s green eyes. She returned her daughter herself. She was her daughter, herself.

For a woman is not these three in turn, but these things together. Continually. At every age. And she is beautiful whether the darkness outlines her, the light caresses her, or whether she has mastered each of these. And she will do all of these things a thousand times a day, she will master herself, and let herself go, you will chase her and find her catching you. And in a certain look, or smile, a wisdom or a caprice in her eye, you will remember, every day, the moment when you met Ereshkigal, and when you knew her enough to call her Inanna—for you pulled her from the Earth to become yours, though it made you Chronos--and you will remember when she became Demeter and possessed the thing that sought to hold her, and you will find yourself in the wonderful chain that you did not know you were forging for yourself. As long as Demeter lives, Inanna cannot die, and Ereshkigal cannot change. And it must and will always be that way.

And more we will never forget that Inanna is proud, and impetuous, and she will try to take what is not hers, and sometimes she needs saving from herself. And we will never forget Demeter will do what she has to do, will love Zeus not out of love but because it is necessary, and she is capable of making terrible choices for the sake of her children, and what she loves, and you may never know if she’s doing it because you may never be able to see what is behind her eyes. And most, we will never forget Ereshkigal lives in hell, for if we had never met her, we could perhaps have lived. And if we had lived, we could have been happy. And love is a burning torment that makes the gods laugh at least as often as it makes them weep. Because it is terrible to be alive, where the only thing to do is love, and love is a walk down the bone path into hell. Which is the only way to heaven.

This is love. To find the triple goddess and to be its servant and its master, to own what owns you, and to build with your little love a piece of that thing which the Sky knew when it loved the Earth, peerless and impossible, which it gave up, which is our death, our only hope for eternal life, and the one thing in this world worth living or dying for. And it is impossible and the only thing worth looking for. It has never happened. And it will never stop happening. The gods will never let us keep it. And we will never stop trying. And if we ever get it, it will surely destroy us, and we can only do our best to love being destroyed.

What should live must be carried onwards by those who die—thus we all serve the great dying goddess of life. Who is also the queen. And also the maiden.

And you must,” he said, pausing at last to look me in the eye, “you must accept death .Even after the boy is born—you will have to accept death, as you will see. But this, and only this, is what gives life not just to you but the whole race of man. Do you understand?”

I did. I did. I couldn’t help it. I laughed. And he smiled. And he said, “This is for Yitzhak.”

He took my hands, and we disappeared.