Article - Soul Recovery
Recovering Soul: Making the Unconscious Conscious through Image and Myth
Using the Sumerian Myth of Innana as a metaphor for soul recovery.
Many of us don’t need to worry about descending into the shadow to reveal its impact on our lives. The journey into Ereshkigal's world through the seven gates divesting ourselves of our garments has long been done. We are already hanging on a hook in Ereshkigal’s royal hall as Ereshkigal moans in agony beside us. Our problem is that we are stuck in the shadow world, living lives in the shadow.
Initially, our reasons for entering the underworld were legitimate. It may have been caused by grief over the death of or separation from loved ones, accidents, extended depressions, mid-life crisis’s, loss of employment, even quests for the unknown that left us baffled and alone, lost and unsure of ourselves. Now our fears prevent us from extending ourselves into the upper world. Issues of abandonment, loss, feelings of inadequacy, and lack of confidence keep us stuck in these dark netherworlds. We live half lives stuck in the shadow world of uncertainty and fear.
The problem is we don’t recognize where we are. We think that this is how life is, either stuck in bemoaning our fate and wallowing in the muck of our presumed destiny and then feeling guilty for feeling sorry for ourselves or making vain attempts to escape with the use of anti-depressants, alcohol, illegal drugs, food, sex, or the addiction of our choice. Not recognizing that we are already in the depths of the underworld we may follow the advice of self-help books and spiritual leaders who encourage us to attempt to sink further, to go deeper into the shadow, to really get to know what the issue is.
The issue is we are suffering soul loss. We have given up parts of ourselves as we made our descent and are unaware of our condition. In this dark and shadowy world there is nothing to compare ourselves to. Behind Ereshkigal set the seven judges of our unconscious, the Annuna. They judge our behaviors, determining penalties and further condemn our already weak sense of self. Here we are, stuck on our hooks, watching the world go by as we wonder what happened. Where did we go wrong? What is wrong with us?
The answer is nothing, except we have descended into the depths of our being, into the underworld, striped bare of our resources, and we have yet to recognize the means of our escape. Perhaps the first step is to sympathize with ourselves, with our current conditions, with what brought us to these depths in the first place. Join Ereshkigal as she complains and moans about her pains and life conditions. Empathize with ourselves and our current fate. Accept that we hurt, that we are unhappy, and that life is miserable for us at this moment. The next step is to recognize where we are and to begin the journey upward. As we recognize what we have given up we seek to reclaim it into our lives.
My Descent
In February of 1990 I moved to Germany to begin working for the U.S. Army as a drug and alcohol counselor. At a seminar in August of that year I met a friend who introduced me to a new spiritual path that is based on the use of contemplative exercises, dream work and out of body experiences to increase awareness of higher spiritual planes of existence. Its focus is primarily on the top two chakras.
In July of 1992, I decided to attend a seminar in Paris, France. The morning of the seminar I stepped in an elevator with two companions and subsequently crashed six floors into the basement. My two companions were injured and taken to the hospital. I knew at once that I had broken my back, I had heard the snap. I did not lose consciousness and waited in the heat of the small enclosure as the emergency workers brought the elevator into a position in which they could safely move me out of the elevator. I learned later that the elevator shaft had been built with the wrong type of cement. The elevator mechanism had broken free from the roof of the shaft, crashed onto the top of the elevator and shut down all safety mechanisms.
As I lay in the bottom of the tiny elevator I was in intense pain. It was a tiny space, only large enough for me to lie braced on an arm. I thought that my legs were broken because they hurt so badly. It was excruciatingly hot. I prayed to God and asked why he had forsaken me. What had I done to deserve this? Yet as I lay there I realized that it was a miracle that we had survived. Glass shards were all over the inside of the elevator and we had not been cut. I knew that Spirit had been with us during the accident or we would not have lived.
This accident broke apart my life in reality and metaphorically. It took several months to recover from the physical, emotional, and mental wounds. I believe that the elevator accident was a reawakening of my lower chakras and a call to heal the issues related to the lower chakras that I had been ignoring. It was a graphic and painful reminder. Security, health, and sexuality became important issues in my life. I literally crashed back into my body and my relationship with the Earth.
I also realized that I was ignoring the feminine nature of spiritual practice. I began to study many spiritual paths and have not limited myself to any one tradition. Earth-centered spiritual traditions have a special attraction for me. I feel deeply and directly connected to the Goddess. I feel open to communication with Her when I am in nature. It was through my feelings of connection to Persephone that I was led to further explore my spiritual path and hence led to understand at least a portion of my life’s purpose.
Recognition and Ascent
I have recently completed work on a doctoral dissertation. At one point in the research I fellt I was being specifically led to the archetype of the dark goddess. For many years I have had the book Descent to the Goddess by Sylvia Brinton Perera but had not read it. I decided that now was the time. I began reading the book and within a short time my leg started to hurt. In the elevator accident I had received an injury to my leg at exactly the spot where I was now feeling the pain . It felt as if a pin were being stabbed into it. The pain continued as long as I was reading the book, it stopped when I stopped reading. I had not had that pain before and I have not had it since. My body seemed to be trying to tell me something.
The book is about the story of Inanna as she descends into the underworld to visit her sister Ereshkigal, the queen of the underworld. The following is an abbreviated version of the myth: Before Inanna begins her descent she asks her servant, Ninshubur, to seek help if she does not return from the underworld in three days. Inanna begins her descent and is stopped by the gatekeeper Neti, who has instructions from Ereshkigal to stop her at each of the seven gates and have her strip off one item of her finery. When Inanna arrives at the royal chamber of Ereshkigal she is naked. Ereshkigal strikes her dead with a look and hangs her on a peg, where she decomposes. Meanwhile three days have passed and Ninshubur seeks help. She goes to the god of the Sky and to the god of the Moon, each refuse to help as it is the natural order of things, if someone goes to the underworld they die. Finally Ninshubur goes to Enki, the god of Underwater and the god of Wisdom. Enki has compassion for Inanna and creates two little beings from the dirt under his fingernails. The two beings, instinctual and asexual creatures, sneak under the gates and approach the royal chamber of Ereshkigal, to find the mighty queen of the underworld moaning from the pain she feels on her insides and her outsides. The two beings sympathize with her over her pain and suffering. Ereshkigal is go grateful that she desires to give them a gift. They ask for the body of Inanna, who they restore to life by sprinkling her with food and water that had been provided to them by Enki for just this task. Inanna is restored to life and returns to the upperworld. The myth continues from this point with Inanna choosing someone to replace her in the underworld.
I subsequently came to understand this was a major turning point in my life. It enabled personal healing by allowing me to comprehend issues that still needed to be worked through. Included in these issues was my relationship with myself, my acceptance of who I am, and the power I needed to reclaim those parts I had given away.
Reclaiming parts of ourselves that have been sacrificed, for whatever reason, is an essential part of an individuals recovery. Through sympathizing with ourselves we can feel compassion for our plight and sprinkling the water of self acceptance and love we can complete our ascent. Many of us are at varying degrees in this process. Some are still hanging on the peg at the bottom of the underworld and others have began their ascent. Becoming aware of what we have lost and reclaiming those parts are essential to return us to the recognition of our rightful place as Kings and Queens of Heaven.
(The following website offers an exceptional interpretation of the Innana myth: http://www.halexandria.org/dward387.htm)