Images of Death

[qos]

A friend shared, in a locked post, an entry about a particularly gruesome crucifix that has recently been removed from a church in West Sussex because it scared the children and did not create a welcoming atmosphere.

She also included a link to an image of the crucifix in question. And yes, it's fairly gruesome.

But as I absorbed the image, I was startled when I saw it not through the lenses of my Christian upbringing and symbolism, but through those of my current Underworld practices.

Ereshkigal is not a "death Goddess" -- but she is a Dark Goddess, and she is the Queen of the Great Below, the Land of the Dead. One of the discussions I've been having with myself is that my relationship with Ereshkigal is very positive, and Her image in my mind is usually attractive: and yet many of Her primary depictions in literature are grim and terrifying, reflecting humanity's fear of death and decay. Have I been avoiding dealing with that very real aspect of Her nature?

Seeing this crucifix, I saw an image of Inanna's rotting corpse hanging on the hook in Ereshkigal's throne room, a vivid reminder of the fatal end which no one, not even the Queen of Heaven, could escape -- and yet there is, as in Christianity, a simultaneous faith that death is not the end, that even in the midst of the most gruesome despair, there will be liberation, re-creation, transformation. My work with Ereshkigal is significantly about having the courage and faith to dare the dark places, the fear, the loss and the dis-memberment, and win through to transformation, and help others to do so as well.

"Let her paint on an inch thick, to this end she must come," said Hamlet to Yorick's skull. So must we all. . . and yet we will pass beyond. . .

So where does that leave me in my images of my Queen of the Great Below? I'm not sure. . . but I think I would be wrong to leave images like this out of my iconography.

Comments

[alfrecht.livejournal.com]

In my (admittedly jaded) view, that crucifix isn't gruesome, so much as just of a particular modern art persuasion that likes such emaciated figures. Kids are scared a bit too easy by certain things these days...

(I'm prompted to recall the last Solstice Mumming at my dad's, when a styrofoam mannequin head on a stick was serving as the "talking severed head" in the Otherworld, and my stepmother kept saying to my youngest sister, who was about 8 at the time, "It's not real, it's not real, it's not real." You'd think a kid would know that an undecorated, white styrofoam head on the handle of a shovel wasn't real...?!?)

I was reminded immediately, though, when viewing that crucified depiction of Jesus of the image of Akhenaton that I had in my head when I was writing "The Appearance of Ereshkigal in Egypt"...

[oakmouse]

What a bunch of weiners. :-/ A Grunewald altarpiece would probably scare them into convulsions. Jeez, people, worshiping a dying god is not all shiny-pretty!

You're right that it would be a mistake to leave images like that out of your work. They're not the whole story, but they're part of it and that part needs to be honored.

Just sharing my perspective

[unicorndelamer.livejournal.com]

The church I was raised in didn't have crucifix icons all over the place, and they tended to gloss over the physical reality of what Jesus' body would've looked like at the end of his death up on the cross. Of course, there would be images that I came across when I started taking a more serious interest in who this Jesus was and what happened to him (I think I was somewhere between 8-10). The images of him on the cross - even the really gruesome ones - never frightened me. A part of me was very sad that he had to suffer so much pain and that the people were so mean to him, but I also remember that I gained a sort of comfort from those images. I would look at his battered, broken, bloody corpse and think "He knew all this was going to happen, and he did it anyway, all because he loved us. People who hadn't even been born yet. And some of those people would never even thank him for it." This comforted me because it showed me that there was something much bigger and more important out there than the fate of our physical bodies. Yes, we die, and sometimes the way we die isn't pretty, and eventually death isn't pretty for any of us - no matter how we die...but that's not all there is. It's just a body and the love and generosity of spirit that we are capable of is so much MORE than that, that even when you've smashed and stripped away the outer shell, you still can't touch the spirit.
Jesus could've called the whole thing off at any second. But he stayed.

[silverhawkdruid.livejournal.com]

Well, call me a weirdo, but I liked it! I think the artist has immense talent, and I hope one day to visit the museum where it is now housed to get a better look. How fortunate for me that Horshamn is the town where my older daughter's partner's family live, and in fact I think that it is their local church at the heart of this story. Talk about a coincidence! :-)

[die-uberfrau.livejournal.com]

I wasn't all that horrified by the crucifix. But then, yeah, chthonic Deities, I know Them well. :3

I'm waiting for H.R. Giger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.R._Giger) to make a crucifix.