Love is Love, a story about the Goddess of Love and War

Love is Love, a simple tautology designed to breakdown thoughts that love between people who have the same gender is not as beautiful or blessed by God as love between people who have different genders. Many religions equate God with Love, especially Christianity, however, many religions including some branches of Christianity have problems with LGBTQA relationships.

If Love is Love, what is Love? The article found on Wikipedia is a great introduction to the notion that we have many understandings of what Love is. I encourage you to read it unless you’re better informed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love.

The Goddess of Love and War, known to the Sumerians as Inanna, is one of the oldest Deities known to humanity. She was not a mother, but a divine whore (and proud of it) whose temple was the tavern. She was proud of her invention of the many things people do with each other when having sex with each other. She is best known from these stories: stealing the mes (the positive and negative aspects of civilization) from Enki, the God of Wisdom; destroying mount Ebih for defying her authority; for unleashing her fury upon the gardener Shukaletuda after he raped her in her sleep; for her role in Gilgamesh and the death of the Bull of Heaven; and for her descent into the Underworld.

The Bull of Heaven, killed by Enkidu and Gilgamesh, was the husband of her sister, Ereshkigal. In the descent into the underworld, Inanna goes to console her sister for the death of her husband, a death Inanna is responsible for. She surrenders all her divine powers and authorities, hard one and stolen, and then enters naked into the throne room where she is judged, found guilty, and hung upon a hook like meat. It is Enki who sends two sexless beings to rescue her.

What little we know of the worship of Inanna indicates that her followers were often gender fluid. Within the worship of the Goddess of Love and War, Love was Love. This was a Goddess of Love that accepted you for who you were, a Goddess of Love who reveled in the delights of sex, a Goddess of Love who delighted in passionate sex between people who met over drinks in a tavern, a Goddess of Love who would go to War to destroy you if you disrespected her or raped her in her sleep.

Love is Love.

Inanna is also associated with prostitution and with Opium.

The Goddess’ descent into the underworld is not a degradation. It is the journey of renewal we all go through. It is also and specifically the journey out of addiction that all addicts face. A journey where you suffer immeasurably until you emerge free of the ravages of the drug.

Love is Love.

It is only Love that can get you through addiction. Love of self. Love of other. Love of God. Without at least Love of Self you won’t have what it takes to withstand being hung on the hook.

This is one of the reasons I wrote Johnny Talon and the Goddess of Love and War. Love is Love, and Love is what you need to fight a battle worth fighting: the battle against addiction.

Johnny Talon and the Goddess of Love and War will be available for purchase at a fine book seller near you on February 22, 2024.