The House Of The Ishtarite

It was 2024, and I had been dealing with about a year nonstop of pushing hard to get medical treatment for my heart disease. I had had my first surgery, which was exploratory to see how bad my heart disease was, as my medical team had been gaslighting me and hitting the brakes on every effort I made to get treatment for the past seven years. Spoilers; it was incredibly bad, and my medical team rushed to cover their asses as soon as they realized I wasn’t faking it or being overly dramatic, as they had previously branded me in the full horror of their (trans)misogyny. Even then I was well enough spiritually attuned to know that I wasn’t likely to survive the next surgery, I just had this feeling and knowing that I couldn’t shake, a knowing that I would be crossing over the Veil during that surgery. So I buckled down and in 21 days of 18+ hours a day of writing and editing I completed the First Edition of The Way of the Ishtarite, my grand contribution to spirituality and religion in this world. I was right; I died during the operation. But what I couldn’t see coming was that Inanna would sit with me while I was in cardiac arrest, holding my Spirit in place in my body, ensuring that I would be revived and able to continue working for her in this world. I made my way home from that failed surgery battered and exhausted, shocked that I was resuscitated successfully – it took four attempts and caused third degree burns from the defibrillator pads – and more devoted than ever to serve my Goddess however she wished of me. I heard from Her once again soon after, wherein She instructed me to step up and lead Her people as Her priestess. As I did not have a physical temple to attend, as she does not yet have a physical temple anywhere in the world, I knew that if I was to be Her priestess it meant that I needed to find Her people. Priestesses do not exist in isolation of congregations. Solo practitioners cannot be priestesses unless they formerly served a congregation, and though I had been a Völva for the Vanir in the past, that did not grant me right to call myself a priestess for Inanna. I knew that to fulfil what was commanded of me it meant that I had to put in the hard work once again. So I took to Reddit, initially. I knew that she wanted me to help people, she had made that much very clear, and with my very disabled status, online community service work seemed to be the only way to do that.

It was there on Reddit that I volunteered a few hundred hours of answering questions, handing out sound advice, and trying my best to teach people in a forum that is to a classroom what herding cats is to operating a help desk. While volunteering there I found Meadow Davey, a then new to Inanna but highly experienced pagan of the formerly norse flavor (like myself) who stood out to me head and shoulders above the rest as someone special. I quickly offered my services to her (free, of course!) and sparked the flame of our friendship in doing so. It wasn’t long before I was approached by someone I had never heard of, who was (in)famous on some parts of the internet, who goes by the initials “LB”, who asked for my help. She had just started a new Discord server named “The Church of Inanna”, and she wanted my guidance and assistance towards making it operate like an actual pagan temple. I felt Inanna’s gentle encouragement, so I leapt in with both feet first. I knew nothing of her past, and honestly did not much care, as it was not my duty to judge, it was and is my duty to help, and help I did. Within a few weeks I rebuilt her entire Discord server from the ground up, and renamed it “Temple of Inanna”, to encourage the right folks to find it, and to avoid triggering those folks with echoes of religious trauma that is all too often evoked by the word “Church”.

Over the next few months I was elevated to a high leadership role, as I had functionally been the de facto leader of the temple already since my onboarding, as LB was largely inactive outside of her delivering weekly sermons which we later found out were entirely AI generated. I did not own the server, I did not have total executive power over the temple, but I had a green stamp to greenlight whatever was good for the temple and its congregation, which was growing fast. By the six month mark we had several hundred congregants join the temple, and I had successfully trained Meadow Davey to be a fully-fledged priestess of Inanna of the Amalu rank and specialization. Our temple was big enough and busy enough that we were starting to spend a lot of time doing what any inclusive organization spends most of its time doing; problem solving, dispute resolution, and management of human resources. Personally I was still teaching congregants and advising them full time in addition to the leadership duties I was fulfilling. We had a happy and healthy congregation, and the model of operation I set forth was working well. It was at that point that LB had decided to return to full activity within the temple, and she had strong political aspirations which she planned to use the temple to accomplish. We clashed on almost every ground of interaction, but most notably when it came to leadership style and what the temple was to be for. She had ultimate power within the organization, and with it she went on to make decisions that the qualified clergy and congregation did not support. Over the next six months the temple continued to thrive, but behind the scenes the clergy I had trained and appointed were at odds with the clergy LB had appointed, and our respective approaches to management and general temple operations were in constant conflict. The temple as it stood could not become what I knew Inanna wanted for it to become with how LB was running it. I received commands from Inanna to bide my time and continue to serve Her there despite my discomfort and stress levels rising with each day. For five more months my clergy and I endured in the Temple of Inanna, where we did our best to help the people we promised we would help.

August 27th 2025 arrived and I was given another command from Inanna to “split the temple” and create my own temple for Her, and with it carry all who would follow me into greener pastures where transparency and integrity were not bonuses to be sprinkled on top when it suited, but as bedrock foundations to always be abided. It was then that I officially launched “The Temple of Inanna’s Light”, and I and the clergy that I personally trained and ensured the qualifications of migrated over here, leaving the Temple of Inanna behind forever. We were blessed that more than a hundred of our congregants, which corresponded to roughly 87% of our active congregation, decided to follow us here. We all knew that splitting the temple would be a major disruption that would be difficult for people to navigate, and it would risk the stability of both resultant temples, but we also all knew that it was the right thing to do, even if Inanna had not commanded us to do so. It was indeed the right thing to do, because the result of the move and founding of our temple was that our congregation began to heal and grow. Our commitment to transparency, integrity, honesty, true inclusivity, honor, and above all remaining in strict resonance with Inanna’s ethos made our temple a very special place where people felt safe to open up and not only share who they truly are, but to trust us as sacred advisors and healers devoted to our collective and individual well being.

Over the next year our devoted clergy deepened their skillsets and honed their skills and knowledge, as I continued to train and guide both our clergy and our novitiates – those who aspire to become clergy. It was a great pleasure to welcome aboard two more fully-fledged priestesses to our ranks. Our community weathered many storms as various divisive hot topics came and went, and we healed, bonded, and grew together as a result. Meadow Davey fulfilled her duties as my protege, and rose to become a Entu Priestess who could stand on her own merits against anything that came to challenge her. She leads our people with her massive compassionate heart, and ensures that Inanna’s will is always done, and Her expectations are always met. Still today, Entu Meadow and I, Entu Siri, work tirelessly every day to ensure that everyone who enters our sacred temple is greeted with compassion and dignity, that their needs are seen to, that their truth is honored, that their well being is ensured, regardless of how they identify or believe.

Here in late 2026 our community has weathered many storms, from political to technological, to personnel issues, to formal official affiliations with other temples coming and going, and more. We stand together united in our purpose and devoted towards our goals. We are here to teach the religions of Anunna-Umun and its largest and primary sect; Ishtarism, to help our community of congregants and guests heal their spiritual wounds and learn to thrive and endure life’s challenges, and to guide anyone and everyone who enters our sacred safe space to find their footing on their own path through life and spirituality, through using the ethos and mythos of Inanna as our guide, while also teaching all who yearn for connection with the Divine Queen of Heaven and Earth to not only come to know Her, but to reach out to Her, and communicate with Her for themselves. We clergy do not act as intermediaries between you and Inanna, we act as guides and medics on the side of the road of life, who teach you to find your own path to Inanna’s embrace.