Some of my winter reading is rereading Descent to the Goddess by Sylvia Brinton Perera. The journey of Inanna is an ancient Sumerian tale about the queen of the upper world who travels to see her sister Ereshkigal in the underworld. Perera uses the story as a way of bridging the gap between what’s conscious and unconscious and bringing to light the things we keep buried in the dark, our gifts as well as our fears. Perfect for long winter ruminations.
In truth both light and dark reign within us and the battle is coming to terms with ourselves as a whole, our goodness as well as our more shadowy self. What’s lurks underneath in the depths are the things we’ve pushed down, all that appears unacceptable, and what can ultimately bestow some of the greatest gifts in our lives.
This dark current isn’t out to get us, it only wants our respect. Perhaps a healthy and reverent respect for where we stumble and fail and the assorted frailties of life. We hold ourselves back when we refuse to honor all the parts of ourselves. We get caught in fear and overwhelm about not being or doing enough and become frozen solid. The truth is we can get stuck in the darkness, we can be devoured by the shadow side of ourselves if we refuse to see and accept these less than desirable aspects of ourselves.
As we approach the longest night of the year that stretches out into a long, cold winter we are reminded of this eternal descent and the eventual rebirth. It’s easy to hurry through to what’s next and a bit uncomfortable to languish in the dark of our interior unknown. But here is where our true power resides, in the gifts we’ve refused to claim. Jung has a famous quote, One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious, and the journey of Inanna is all about making the darkness conscious. How do we know when we’ve hit a subterranean gem, our first impulse is usually to run, deny, or ignore. These are sure signs of being called to see what’s hidden in our darkest places and to face it straight on.
Don’t forget the soul is infinitely resilient and that light shines through even in our darkest hours. This truth certainly needs our respect as well, but the descent begins with our deepest fears or most painful wounds. We can start at the bottom and build a firm foundation by honoring all the pieces of who we are, not just the parts we like or the places we feel most comfortable. Inanna has to hang on the peg for three days but she does get released by her dark sister, her shadow self, and it can be the same for us.
Release comes more from empathy than understanding, more of being and surrendering than overpowering and forcing. We don’t control what we don’t understand, we have to acquiesce, we give ourselves over to what’s still forming and patiently waiting in the shadow of ourselves to be born. And somehow in this transference of control to surrender we gain our power back, maybe in ways we never owned it before. When Inanna ascends from the underworld she retains her former power and in addition gains her sister’s power. Now she is Queen of Heaven and Earth.
The same can be true for us. The miracle isn’t just coming out of the forest and back into the light, it is in bringing with us the power of our newly revealed gifts and the wisdom the dark places within us have bestowed. This is what expands and enriches us. We are being released back into the world with a greater reverence and understanding of who we are as a whole and the depths we carry inside.
The uncharted territory of winter is calling, the death of the old self and our rebirth into greater wholeness.
kb
