At any given time, people choose to do different things. Whenever I am describing an event I witnessed, others were doing very different things and having different first-person impressions. This particular gathering ran over Memorial Day weekend. About 60 queer folk were there. All Hail Inanna, First Daughter of the Moon.
Many voices join in, some laughing, some serious.
Mirth and Reverence. The woods echo with these ancient words, written thousands of years ago, miraculously preserved from ancient Sumerian rituals to the goddess before the rise of the patriarchy. Her bereaved sister, the Queen of the Underworld, replete with a fright wig, and breathing fire, lashes out and kills Inanna with her grief and anger at the loss of her love. Then Inanna's father, Enki, creates from beneath his fingernail two creatures 'neither male nor female,' who, because of their place outside of clear gender identities, are able to pass through the gates of the underworld to bring Inanna back to life. These ancient words came alive for a circle who knows well the power of slipping through the cracks and the gates that modern culture has erected to keep us out.