This shape-shifter is back and ready to fight even more gods. After becoming Inanna’s champion, Val is an ordinary starchild in an ordinary cult with ordinary humans. The war over and branded with a star on their shoulder to mark them as her personal fighter. While the outside of the temple looks as if it could fall under the slightest breeze, inside is teeming with women and eunuchs serving the goddess. The roof garden is full of life and a lazy river in the temple perfect for relaxation. The strays that roam the streets and ships that fly in the night sky kind of the same as the forest back home. It’s not the worst life while waiting to learn what battle they might fight next. But things change when a woman is found dumped at the door. Nearly beaten to death and Inanna the only one who has the power to save her in time, a starchild’s world is about to become a lot more violent, again. The human speaks of a man nicknamed “Jackie” taking prostitutes off the street as part of a game. The closer to dying, the more points earned. A rumor he competes against others in a twisted competition. But when it seems that is the worst Jackie could do, he murders his family and goes missing. When Inanna’s twin and god of the sun and justice teams up for divine law and order, it becomes far worse than they ever imagined. The one man with a knife quickly turning into five gods and a demented plan they can only guess what the end goal is.

The Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology covers sources from Mesopotamia, Syro-Palestine and Anatolia, from around 2800 to 300 BC. It contains entries on gods and goddesses, giving evidence of their worship in temples, describing their 'character', as documented by the texts, and defining their roles within the body of mythological narratives; synoptic entries on myths, giving the place of origin of main texts and a brief history of their transmission through the ages; and entries explaining the use of specialist terminology, for such things as categories of Sumerian texts or types of mythological figures.

Gods in the Desert explores the fascinating religious cultures of the ancient Near East. From the mysterious pyramids, tombs, and temples of Egypt to the powerful heroes, gods, and legends of Mesopotamia, Glenn Holland guides readers through the early religions that are the root of many of today's major faiths. Holland compares the religions of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Syria-Palestine, including Israel and Judah, from the Neolithic era through the conquest of Alexander the Great. He provides a historical survey of each region, then discusses the gods, the rulers, the afterlife, and the worship rituals. This accessible overview makes clear how these religions converged and diverged, and are intimately connected to many of the religions we recognize today, sometimes in surprising ways.

Ishtar is the first book dedicated to providing an accessible analysis of the mythology and image of this complex goddess. The polarity of her nature is reflected in her role as goddess of sexual love and war, and has made her difficult to characterise in modern scholarship. By exploring this complexity, Ishtar offers insight into Mesopotamian culture and thought, and elucidates a goddess who transcended the limits of gender, divinity and nature. It gives an accessible introduction to the Near Eastern pantheon, while also opening a pathway for comparison with the later Near Eastern and Mediterranean deities who followed her.

Brings together theoretical interpretations of shame with clinical studies and integrates major concepts from psychoanalysis, Jungian analysis, developmental psychology and anthropology.

Some stories are considered make-believe while others are considered "real." The question that one must ask is, "What is real?". The conflicts that characters face in all tales are real enough. The choices they make and the outcomes that occur are certainly real. Choices are often contingent upon the current conflicts being faced, and that is undoubtedly real. Jack faced a giant who wanted to eat him while King Arthur faced Saxons who simply wanted to eat. Who is real and

The “tree” is the vertical dimension of aspiration,individual growth,and intellectual and spiritual development. The “hoop” is the circular representation of our relationship with humanity and the earth. Using examples from Native American and other ancient traditions, Chris Hoffman shows readers how to develop both parts of the whole to help people lead a more contented, complete existence.

From the beautiful apsaras of Hindu myth to the swan maidens of European fairy tales, stories of flying women-some carried by wings, others by clouds, rainbows, floating scarves, and flying horses-reveal the perennial fascination with and ambivalence about female power and sexuality. In Women Who Fly, Serinity Young examines the motif of the flying woman as it appears in a wide variety of cultures and historical periods, in legends, myths, rituals, sacred narratives, and artistic productions. She considers supernatural women like the Valkyries of Norse legend, who transport men to immortality; winged deities like the Greek goddesses Iris and Nike; figures of terror like the Furies, witches, and succubi; airborne Christian mystics; and wayward, dangerous women like Lilith and Morgan le Fay. Looking beyond the supernatural, Young examines the modern mythology surrounding twentieth-century female aviators like Amelia Earhart and Hanna Reitsch. Throughout, Young demonstrates that female power has always been inextricably linked with female sexuality and that the desire to control it is a pervasive theme in these stories. This is vividly depicted, for example, in the twelfth-century Niebelungenlied, in which the proud warrior-queen Brünnhilde loses her great physical strength when she is tricked into surrendering her virginity. Even in the twentieth-century the same idea is reflected in the exploits of the comic book and film character Wonder Woman who, Young suggests, retains her physical strength only because her love for fellow aviator Steve Trevor goes unrequited. The first book to systematically chronicle the figure of the flying woman in myth, literature, art, and pop culture, Women Who Fly offers a fresh look at the ways in which women have both influenced and been understood by society and religious traditions throughout the ages and around the world.

Embrace the darkness for there you will find the light. We all have been told in this patriarchal system that to look for salvation is to look upward and outward to a god or gods to worship. We are not here to worship, but to look inside ourselves and embrace who we are and grow to our full potential. Inanna is the archetypical Goddess of love and war. Her descent into the Underworld is a reflection of our journey of going inward to face our true nature. When we fight this, we then are at war with nature. Lilith is Inanna's handmaiden as we ourselves can also become partners with Inanna. Realizing who we are we then embrace the balance with the female archetype with the male archetype which will bring us wholeness as women become stronger and men and women come to love themselves. This new perspective is what is taken place as we enter into the Age of Aquarius.