The Back Door to Hell

I am learning to listen to my restlessness, to honor it as a pointer rather than wallow in it as a distraction. This morning, I let it lead me directly to a journey rather than to yoga, and was frustrated when I could not get anywhere near the Gate with which I've been working.

It took a while to realize that that wasn't where I was supposed to be going. It wasn't where I was being called. When I stopped to ask the previously wordless urging where I was supposed to go, there was one word: Ereshkigal.

The road to the dark Underworlds, the road to Hell, to Hel, to Dis, is well documented. Like many magical places, there are multiple ways to get there, but some markers are clear: you go through caves, over dark rivers, or through downward paths and seven gates.

Not me. Not this morning. I've done my initiatory descents -- enough to earn a different passage at this time, anyway. Besides, I had an invitation. I went round the back, to the stage door, as it were.

( The Back Door to Hell )

Another Side of Ereshkigal

I did some googling of Ereshkigal today at work, not expecting to find much.

I was startled to find an article called Nergal and Ereshkigal: Re-Enchanting the Mesopotamian Underworld.

I'm not as much of an expert on this mythos as I would like to be, so I can't speak to how well the author's conclusions actually fit within the Ancient Near Eastern worldview, but they hit very close to home for me here and now.

The author asserts that instead of being a story of the subjugation of the goddess by a god -- a too-often repeated motif -- this is actually a story of two powerful, lonely beings who each end up surrendering something to find happiness and mutuality together. There's a certain amount of reading between the lines -- but I think that can be a legitimate factor in working with myth (so long as it's identified as such).

I'm used to thinking of Inanna when I think of divine-royal marriage, but I've never really been impressed by Dumuzi. He always seemed to me like a rather spoiled pretty boy who was raised above his station because the goddess thought he was cute, and when the tough times came, he failed every test.

Nergal reminds me very much of LM, which makes it easier for me to buy into what Lishtar writes about how what looks at first like subjugation can turn into mutuality.

I find it fascinating.