Underworld Connections
Nov. 15th, 2007 05:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosI'm finally making doing the kind of work again in my spiritual life that I can write about coherently in an unfiltered post to my main journal. There's been a lot going on, but so much of it has involved Unverified Personal Gnosis (UPG) and/or sacred sexuality -- not to mention being very much in the figuring-out-what-it-means phase -- that writing publically has been problematic. But I made some cognitive connections recently. . .
First: Ereshkigal. She's the goddess who rules Irkalla, the Sumerian underworld. She's most widely known these days as the sister of Inanna. When Inanna finally makes it through the seven gates of the underworld during The Descent of Inanna and enters Ereshkigal's throne room "naked and bowed low," Ereshkigal "fixes her with the eye of death," kills her, and hangs her body on a peg for three days until a couple of innocuous messengers arrive, empathize with her labor pains, and move her to generosity. Her lesser known myth, called Ereshkigal and Nergal is about how she comes to marry and share her rule with Nergal, the god of war and disease. Whether their story is one of the gradual subjugation of the Divine Feminine to the Divine Masculine, or one of sacred marriage and the re-enchantment of the Sumerian underworld is a matter of personal perspective.
Although I started doing underworld work shortly after![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
uncrowned_king died, Ereshkigal is not someone I deliberately contacted. The connections were made during two inner journeys that started out with me either not knowing where I was headed or getting something different than what I had expected.
I'm realizing a couple of things about Ereshkigal.
1. The Descent of Inanna has been a powerful myth for me, a significant source of both healing and inspiration, but previously I've only addressed it from Inanna's side, her perspective. Working with Ereshkigal and her side gives me a more holistic understanding of the myth and, on a deeper level, a participation in the energies that preside over descent rather than make a descent.
2. In both her primary myths, others violate her and/or her realm in some way. For whatever reason, people think they can cross her with impunity. In both cases, they are proven wrong -- but it's an interesting pattern, however limited the source material.
3. Looking back on the three words/phrases I posted yesterday: they are all shadow aspects of myself, things that aren't usually talked about openly or touching parts of myself that I have marginalized and/or hidden over the years. Ereshkigal, as Queen of the Underworld, is in a psychological sense a queen of our suppressed and hidden selves. Through my work with Her, I've been strengthening these shadowed parts of myself so I can draw on them with more confidence -- and more openness. My base of personal power is widening and deepening.
I am being empowered on a deeper level than I've been for a long time. The following is from my priestess journal, describing and encounter with Ereshkigal:
Then She pointed out that for all my life I've been working solely from my own power. "Your Christian faith disempowered you," She stated. I tried to argue, but She pointed out that however comforting or ethically grounding it was, it did not make me confident, or encourage me to think for myself or trust my own decisions or defend myself. All of which is true. There is a lot of good in Christianity, and much of it that I still treasure, but it was not a source of empowerment for me.
"And since you lost that faith," She went on, "you've been working solely from your own power and resources. Of course there's been a limit to your confidence, and to what you can accomplish. But now you're starting to feel that you're connected in to so much more than just yourself. And that's what's starting to make a difference: in your vocational development as well as your spiritual practice."
The thing about the version of Christianity I grew up in is that it made me so intent on not doing something wrong: not breaking a rule, not doing anything that might cause someone else discomfort, that it made it hard for me to do anything openly that was strongly creative, original, or risky. I hate to say it, but it put a limit on my growth in certain areas. It put a lot of what was important to me into shadow. Ereshkigal is helping me bring those shadowed areas to light.
And, I need to add, it's my Christian background that keeps nudging me to make sure that this work isn't solely focused on myself, that I'm actively measuring my practice by what good I'm doing beyond myself. Am I growing in the "fruits of the spirit" (love, patience, faith, generosity, etc.), and am I making an active effort to heal, to do the "works" (to use the Swedenborgian term) that make those traits authentic, rather than reveling in warm-fuzzy feelings that make me feel good but don't do good.
How am I doing on that? I believe I am more grounded in love and patience. I believe that I'm finally having the confidence in myself and my spiritual wisdom to step up and start sharing, through my now-active spiritual direction practice as well as the classes I'm working on. I still haven't moved beyond the immediately personal and comfortable, I admit -- but this process is still pretty new. I'm giving myself a bit of time to widen my sphere of action. It hasn't been six months yet sinceuncrowned_king died, and less than that since I started this path.
Feral: a creature who was domesticated but is now wild, living outside the boundaries and rules of domesticity
Underworld Priestess: one who works with deities and contacts in the underworld, sometimes one who helps others spiritually excavate and illuminate the shadow aspects of their own lives, and/or who helps others make deliberate, voluntary descents or heal from involuntary ones
Hierodule: literally "sacred slave" but in common usage, one who channels the love of the divine (usually a goddess) through erotic and/or sexual contact; one who worships using the ritual of the hieros gamos ("sacred marriage") either with a mortal partner, with a spirit partner, or with a deity.
And yes, I am all three of these things.
First: Ereshkigal. She's the goddess who rules Irkalla, the Sumerian underworld. She's most widely known these days as the sister of Inanna. When Inanna finally makes it through the seven gates of the underworld during The Descent of Inanna and enters Ereshkigal's throne room "naked and bowed low," Ereshkigal "fixes her with the eye of death," kills her, and hangs her body on a peg for three days until a couple of innocuous messengers arrive, empathize with her labor pains, and move her to generosity. Her lesser known myth, called Ereshkigal and Nergal is about how she comes to marry and share her rule with Nergal, the god of war and disease. Whether their story is one of the gradual subjugation of the Divine Feminine to the Divine Masculine, or one of sacred marriage and the re-enchantment of the Sumerian underworld is a matter of personal perspective.
Although I started doing underworld work shortly after
uncrowned_king died, Ereshkigal is not someone I deliberately contacted. The connections were made during two inner journeys that started out with me either not knowing where I was headed or getting something different than what I had expected. I'm realizing a couple of things about Ereshkigal.
1. The Descent of Inanna has been a powerful myth for me, a significant source of both healing and inspiration, but previously I've only addressed it from Inanna's side, her perspective. Working with Ereshkigal and her side gives me a more holistic understanding of the myth and, on a deeper level, a participation in the energies that preside over descent rather than make a descent.
2. In both her primary myths, others violate her and/or her realm in some way. For whatever reason, people think they can cross her with impunity. In both cases, they are proven wrong -- but it's an interesting pattern, however limited the source material.
3. Looking back on the three words/phrases I posted yesterday: they are all shadow aspects of myself, things that aren't usually talked about openly or touching parts of myself that I have marginalized and/or hidden over the years. Ereshkigal, as Queen of the Underworld, is in a psychological sense a queen of our suppressed and hidden selves. Through my work with Her, I've been strengthening these shadowed parts of myself so I can draw on them with more confidence -- and more openness. My base of personal power is widening and deepening.
I am being empowered on a deeper level than I've been for a long time. The following is from my priestess journal, describing and encounter with Ereshkigal:
Then She pointed out that for all my life I've been working solely from my own power. "Your Christian faith disempowered you," She stated. I tried to argue, but She pointed out that however comforting or ethically grounding it was, it did not make me confident, or encourage me to think for myself or trust my own decisions or defend myself. All of which is true. There is a lot of good in Christianity, and much of it that I still treasure, but it was not a source of empowerment for me.
"And since you lost that faith," She went on, "you've been working solely from your own power and resources. Of course there's been a limit to your confidence, and to what you can accomplish. But now you're starting to feel that you're connected in to so much more than just yourself. And that's what's starting to make a difference: in your vocational development as well as your spiritual practice."
The thing about the version of Christianity I grew up in is that it made me so intent on not doing something wrong: not breaking a rule, not doing anything that might cause someone else discomfort, that it made it hard for me to do anything openly that was strongly creative, original, or risky. I hate to say it, but it put a limit on my growth in certain areas. It put a lot of what was important to me into shadow. Ereshkigal is helping me bring those shadowed areas to light.
And, I need to add, it's my Christian background that keeps nudging me to make sure that this work isn't solely focused on myself, that I'm actively measuring my practice by what good I'm doing beyond myself. Am I growing in the "fruits of the spirit" (love, patience, faith, generosity, etc.), and am I making an active effort to heal, to do the "works" (to use the Swedenborgian term) that make those traits authentic, rather than reveling in warm-fuzzy feelings that make me feel good but don't do good.
How am I doing on that? I believe I am more grounded in love and patience. I believe that I'm finally having the confidence in myself and my spiritual wisdom to step up and start sharing, through my now-active spiritual direction practice as well as the classes I'm working on. I still haven't moved beyond the immediately personal and comfortable, I admit -- but this process is still pretty new. I'm giving myself a bit of time to widen my sphere of action. It hasn't been six months yet since
uncrowned_king died, and less than that since I started this path.Feral: a creature who was domesticated but is now wild, living outside the boundaries and rules of domesticity
Underworld Priestess: one who works with deities and contacts in the underworld, sometimes one who helps others spiritually excavate and illuminate the shadow aspects of their own lives, and/or who helps others make deliberate, voluntary descents or heal from involuntary ones
Hierodule: literally "sacred slave" but in common usage, one who channels the love of the divine (usually a goddess) through erotic and/or sexual contact; one who worships using the ritual of the hieros gamos ("sacred marriage") either with a mortal partner, with a spirit partner, or with a deity.
And yes, I am all three of these things.
