The Descent

Tuesday’s Group was another great session with Eating in the Light of the Moon by Anita Johnston. We went over Chapter 15, The Descent: Meeting the Shadow. Johnston describes the descent as the point a woman reaches when “she realizes that complete recovery requires a willingness to descend deep into the depths of her being, to confront all those aspects of herself that she would just as soon leave hidden in the dark.”

The story that goes along with this chapter is so lovely that I want to share it with you:

In an ancient Sumerian myth, Inanna, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, decided it was time for her to replenish her powers since she was feeling them waning. She knew that in order to do this, she needed to descend into the underworld. Her people pleaded with her not to do this for the underworld was ruled by Inanna’s vicious sister, Ereshkigal, Queen of the Great Below. It was a very dangerous place and many of those who journeyed there never returned. Inanna insisted, however, and so her closest assistant devised a plan to send help in the event that Inanna did not return in three days.

Even though Inanna was the Queen of Heaven, Ereshkigal insisted that she enter the underworld the way everyone else had to: by passing through seven gates. At each gateway she had to remove a piece of her magnificent regalia and be judged by the gatekeepers. She arrived in the kingdom of the Great Below, naked and judged by the seven gatekeepers. Ereshkigal, true to form, killed her and hung her body on a peg.

After three days had passed without Inanna’s return, her assistant set in motion a plan to rescue her. When Inanna’s parents refused to interfere with the ways of the underworld, Inanna’s assistant sought help from Enki, the god of waters and wisdom. Enki sent two little creatures, neither male nor female, both endowed with the gift of empathy, to rescue Inanna. The creatures were able to slip through the gates unnoticed, carrying the food and water of life.

When they encountered Ereshkigal, they found her mourning the recent death of her husband. The two creatures sat with her in her grief. Ereshkigal was so touched by the empathy they offered and was so grateful for it (since no one before had ever approached her with compassion), that she granted them their request for Inanna’s body. They took her body and revived her with the food and water of life and Inanna to her kingdom with her powers fully restored.

I really like this story quite a bit. The idea that in each of us, there is this underworld where we hide our shame and embarrassment and guilt; feelings of worthlessness and abandonment. I like the idea that traveling to that place and seeing and caring for that injured shadow self can, in the end, be the very key to my own….well, salvation.

Leaving the Group, our therapist moderator reminded us that the descent isn’t something beyond our reach; that, in fact, we’re IN IT right now. Being in that room, being in recovery, means being in the descent.

I, for one, can’t wait for the ascension.

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