Irkallu Spread in Action

For Kin-Inanna this year I decided to test my Irkallu spread. First I used my Native deck in one shot to see if it was possible, now I tested it with the Sumerian deck that it is intended for. It took me 24 days to work through, now I decipher it. I should fully break down both to see how they line up. I still have the paper of the Native's cards in the pile of layout notes. 

Technique: (This can be dealt all at once, shuffled once and pull one a day off the deck, or perhaps even do a proper card-of-the-day with shuffling) I placed the Irkallu card at the top of the spread to focus on during my daily meditations. I focused on the intent of my ancestral prayer rituals while shuffling. I left the deck face down next to the Irkallu card and flipped over the top card every day after my prayers. I spent a few minutes reflecting on the message received.

1. Mašu: Reason to take the shadow self quest. 
  * Girtablullû: Gnosis through pleasurable pain. 
    - This position has two scorpion-men guardians of the tunnel at the base of the twin mountains. Girtablullû is also a scorpion-man of sorts, with bird features. It was interesting to me that he would come forward at this location.
    - My reason for seeking within is to expand my spiritual aspects that have been semi-dormant for too long, even if it is painful.
2. Id-ur-rugu: The challenge to conquer.
  * Lahmu and Lahamu: Protection.
    - Interesting that the card that portrays the twins as protection/guardians lands on the spot that is my burden. Is it protecting others that is my burden? The thing I need protecting from? Or the need to be protected at all?
    - This could be an ancestral card, it contains the land that is now Iraq and part of Israel. My maternal haplogroup, the first woman in my lineage, is from that region 40k yrs ago. This would land around the time when these gods were worshiped. Maybe my burden is simply, finding "my people." That loneliness of not knowing family or a story of where I come from or fit. I have spent all ancestral months and most of the past several years trying to access unknown ancestors and that genetic memory (which lead me right into that region, even food, music, and dance instincts).
3. Ur-Shanai: Your guide through this journey
  * Bašmu: Gifts you the ability to shape-shift into magical fire. 
    - Bašmu has shown himself to me a lot over the past year in nudges and protection.
    - This fire card does not specify for any specific use so I feel like it was not a warning card, but a "light your way" card.
    - I should make it a point to work with him more.
4. Neti @ Gate 1: Strips your defense- What are you guarding against? 
  * Kulullû: venomous attack; bloodthirsty for vitae and sexual energy
    - She has been active a lot as well, pretty much since I've made the deck.
    - Perhaps this is a warning against vampiric attacks around me.
5. Uridimmu @ Gate 2: Strips your food and supplies- Are you nourishing or harming yourself? 
  * Tablets of Destiny: You have all of the knowledge in the Universe; you control your fate. 
    - This is one of those times to be dead honest with myself. It appears to say I am nourishing myself, but when you look again, it says "you control your fate." AKA I can knowingly do actions that are good for me or that harm me.
    - At the time I pulled it, I was doing great at nourishment, even got my immune system back. Then a few days ago I had to fall off of my regiment and ended up with gastroparesis back. So not only did I harm myself, I'm having to skip nourishment in order to fix it. Gotta love when you're right Uri...
6. Kusarikku @ Gate 3: Strips away your clothes- What are you repressing? 
  * Kulullû: death, decay, and entropy
    - This seems to be saying I am repressing some form of decay within myself. "Pull up your boot straps and keep going like nothing is wrong" mentality in hopes that it will heal itself.
    - Systemic infection?
7. Mušuššu: @ Gate 4: Strips away your jewels- Why do you need to conform? 
  * Ama-Tiamat: Purge illness, healing
    - This speaks to me on many layers in both non-conforming and conforming ways.
    - First looking at the image, the woman is transcending and transforming. This is- I do not conform (as well as the alchemical meaning of the card).
    - It does say conform in the way of health. I had to give in and do things "their way" to try and get help gaining any amount of health back. Now I am in this non-conformist who works within the medical system as much as I can.
8. Girtablullû @ Gate 5: Strips you of your headdress- Where are you misusing your intellect? 
  * Ama-Tiamat and Ada-Abzu: Creation, primal parents, love
    - With my family situation I tend to retreat into a mess of the defense mechanisms to remain functional. It has helped me be a "working cog" in society, but I think the card here tells me this mechanism hinders my ability to create a family for myself.
    - In saving myself I rationalized that isolation, dissociation, and intellectualism is how I shall deal with the hole left by not having a nurturing family.
9. Ugallu @ Gate 6: Strips your mask- Who are you behind the mask you wear for society? 
  * Ušumgallu: Grants use of venomous fire for malediction work. 
    - I am fire and venom. I poison people who dare to touch me wrong. I can heal, but not in this incarnation.
10. Ninnghizhidda @ Gate 7: Strips your flesh- With your soul laid bare, what is your deepest fear? 
  * Lahmu- Grants his knowledge of magickal warfare and strategy for malediction. He also gives use of lightening. 
    - The interesting thing about pulling this card was the voice I heard when I did. It changes the meaning of this card a bit. When I pulled the card I heard clearly, "aggressive men." Like Lahmu was saying "not afraid of defending yourself in general or of my teachings, just men who remind you of your abusers."
    - It's come up in readings a lot this year in various decks. No matter how much I try to go into childhood wounds and believe that my largest wound is that mother wound or other abuses back then, it's not what comes up. The wound that comes up as my soul's largest pain is the fear that "a man who claims to love me will be the one to kill me." This is something that has attempted to happen throughout my life (father, bfs, husbands...) til 30 so it's a valid worry.
11. Anunna: Seven of the Anunna sit as judges to see if you are worthy of joining the lalartu (spirits) or of being turned into a corpse and hung on a meat hook to be tormented for eternity. 
 (pull 1-7 cards here, I pulled all 7 just to see what I'd get)
  a. Ugallu: 218, astral vortex into the Void; she's a spiritual storm here
    - Smiley faces in the storm plus highly spiritual card. Favor 
  b. Mušmahhu: Cosmic serpent; 3rd eye, creative power, immortality, lightening, primordial energy, knowledge of the mysteries of life. 
    - Beautifully spiritual card. Favor
  c. Ugallu: Grants use of storm for destruction. 
    - Ugallu is calmer than the other storm deity, even in a destructive state. I would consider this a soft No Favor.
  d. Thaumitan: Connecting worlds. 
    - (This is his first appearance) Thaumitan is the amphisbaena who connects the physical and spiritual worlds. Not only is this a spiritual card, but it's like I'm getting the OK to come and go. Favor
  e. Mušuššu: Vampirism (blood, sex, and death energies) and necromancy. 
    - I'm going to guess this is an emphatic No Favor.
  f. Mušmahhu: Grants venom for protection
    - A protection version of her, it is Favor
  g. Kusarikku: very destructive death magick, curse, and malediction. 
    - This is very much No Favor.

Favor: 4  No Favor: 3 ... I pass! 

12. Ereškigal: She judges your compassion. 
  * Lahmu and Lahamu: Fertility, elemental silt. 
    - First born children of Tiamat and Abzu, the twins in this serpent form represent elemental silt.
    - They gave birth to many of the subsequent children evil and good.
    - My compassion is great like silt; grounded and earthy, yet watery and flowing. It is perfect for growing new life.
13. Nergal: He judges you harshly on your worthiness to be there. 
  * Uridimmu: Black Gnosis.
    - This card could have a book written about it, but to put it simply-- Uridimmu takes the person and places them upon the altar at the top of the highest ziggurat in the Black Pyramid city. There he uses his nuclear destructive force to rip the body and soul apart to force evolve the consciousness.
    - I could take this as Nergal approves of me, esp as a child of Tiamat and under the protection of Uridimmu.
14. Inanna: She gives stern, yet just advice from the heart. 
  * Mušuššu: Dominion over the dead. 
    - This incarnation grants you dominion over the dead.
    - I feel like Inanna is giving me the strength to speak up against and command and ancestors who tried abusive tactics again this year. -- and I did just that.
15. Dumuzid: He gives you arrogant, self-serving advice, that may bite you in your rear. 
  * Uridimmu: Black Desert.
    - This card is utter destruction, like past catastrophic annihilation where nothing survives on a planet (no plant, animal, bacteria, amoeba... nothing). Isolation on a cosmic level. Nothingness.
    - This is on bitch of a way for Dumuzid to advise me to just accept being alone from family and accept that empty feeling.
16. Geštinanna: Her advice comes from compassion and mediation. 
  * Ūmu Dabrūtu: Shape-shift into elemental fire; phoenix. 
    - Storm on a fiery level. Ūmu Dabrūtu grants the ability to turn into fire and raise like the phoenix of newer lore.
    - Geštinanna is giving me the counselor's advice, to transform and rise above my past.
17. Lalartu: place for my ancestors to speak. 
  * Bašmu: Protection.
    - Fiery serpents raise out of your shoulders and above your head protecting you from your enemies.
    - My ancestors whom I sought from Iraq (in the beginning of the quest/spread) are around me, protecting me.


Root Card: Extra info for underlying need. //which seems redundant since it is covered in position #1
  *  Ušumgallu: Kundalini 
    - Twin cobras go into your 3rd eye then weave their way down then back up your spine activating your energy centers and expanding your mind. This is the kundalini card.
    - My root problem is that I am out of balance and need to get back to practice with kundalini work. This is much like the first card in dealing with consciousness expansion.