INTRODUCTION 

When I was a child, my older sister asked if I wished I had been born a boy. I said no, that I liked being a girl. I didn’t at all feel inferior to boys. Only years later, into my adulthood, did I understand why she had asked that question. My youth and innocence blocked me from seeing the limitations that society often placed on girls and women, and although I didn’t know it then, I carried an inner power that stemmed from long, long ago.

I grew up not knowing about the historical and legendary women of my birth country, Iraq, otherwise known as Ancient Mesopotamia. Their presence was so obscured by the hostile political and religious environment of the Middle East that I didn’t even think they existed. Luckily, my parents decided to immigrate to the United States where, at the age of ten, inspiration to pursue my dreams began through the Western women who had achieved great works of literature, music, medicine, and other accomplishments.  As I grew older, I began to learn about my own ancestors.

Maria, my great grandmother, was a legend in her time. She was a powerful businesswoman and a healer. Maria courageously rode horses through the deserts in the northern part of Iraq when it was rare for women to do so.  She was so loved and respected in the community that one of her sons abandoned his last name from the father and took on her first name, Maria, as the family surname. His decision caused a separation within the family, given that in a patriarchal society it is customary to take on the paternal name. But I imagine, for him, it was like choosing to say he was Prince Phillip’s son when his mother was Queen Elizabeth II.

My paternal Aunt Hassina was a midwife and nurse in Fallujah, a city which dates back to Babylonian times, was host to important Jewish academies for many centuries and later became known as the city of mosques because of its over 200 mosques. She was one of a few Christians in that city, if not the only Christian. She lived there alone with her son after her husband went missing in some war. Mostly she delivered babies of the wives and daughters of sheiks.  My aunt worked for decades amongst tribes who highly loved and respected her. She also helped save a number of lives, especially newborn girls. Long ago, when Fallujah was just a small town, it was customary amongst Arab tribes for the father, if he so desired, to bury a newborn girl. Some men wanted to do just that, and my aunt was such an educated, smart, and compassionate woman that, through words, and by citing the Koran, she, a Christian woman, was able to convince them not to.

In my adulthood, I began to discover some of the legendary women of ancient Mesopotamia who had been buried, literally, until about a hundred years ago, when archaeologists dug them up and an untold story arose.  Thanks to these findings and to writers, historians, and lecturers who have valued the women of that region and therefore kept them alive, there’s now plenty of information to read about them. Yet, despite the wealth of material available, this is still a fairly new topic that the majority of people are not aware of. After all, these women’s stories were buried for thousands of years and only about a hundred years ago began to resurface.

While that land has come to near ruin, the goddesses’ original roles as oracles, astrologers and politicians can still be ascertained from their depictions on stone tablets and pottery art that was collected from the archaeological research.  Over the years, I found descriptions about them scattered in various books and articles, reminding me of the Diaspora of Iraqis over the years. I wanted to place them under one roof, i.e. book, to recount their tales as a storyteller not a historian or academic, and as a woman from their lineage.

Not all the names of the mother goddess are mentioned within this book, just the prominent ones.  Most goddesses had a long list of names because each culture and nation changed her name to suit their language. Many names included similar attributes, overlapping and assimilating with other goddesses’ names. For instance, Inanna, the goddess of the Sumerians, is Ishtar in Akkadian, another Mesopotamian language different from Sumerian. Ishtar came after, and she was the goddess of the Babylonians and Assyrians. Both Inanna and Ishtar bear the “Queen of Heaven” title. The Assyrians and Babylonians inherited much of the Sumerian culture, but their language was different.

As a civilization with a rich oral tradition, a certain amount of embellishment snuck into these ancient stories, and the embellishments seemed to grow larger from one telling to the next. So it’s natural to assume that the stories of these legendary women, similarly to all historical accounts that are thousands of years old, are probably a combination of fact and fable. But more importantly, their stories teach us a great deal and are much needed today, given that these women’s deliberate removal from the history of that region has caused the Middle East to be in utter shambles.

Once a friend, Feather Redfox, wrote to me, “The loss of Mesopotamia’s culture is unfathomable to me as is the loss of the feminine power, especially in all the world. It is good for you to be that voice for I believe the world’s only real hope is healing through the feminine.”

There was a design and rhythm to the Garden of Eden, a balance and harmony. Then, when women lost their power through a pattern of falsehoods. We live in a time of vision when people are searching for a new and more balanced way of life. To create that balance, we first have to heal the earth by opening up these stories and putting them back onto the page and into our collective memory. To bring forth a transformed understanding of feminine consciousness, and create a healthy marriage in society that’s based on equal male and female energies.  In the following pages, you’ll find divine role models and lessons of thousands of years ago that continue to permeate our culture with their ancient ideas reminding us of the divinity in every human and the goddess in every woman.

• Update #1 - Mesopotamian Goddesses is now published! Jan. 29, 2019

  Dear wonderful readers, 

  I want to first thank you for your interest in my latest and 13th book, Mesopotamian Goddesses: Unveiling Your Feminine Power. …

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