By Jeanne Denney
The other day a wise crone friend mentioned an ancient Sumerian story I had nearly forgotten. In it the heroine, named Inanna, descends into the “underworld.” Innana is the Queen of Heaven. Her sister is Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld (or in some stories, Queen of the Earth). Innana visits her sister dressed to kill in every symbol of her power and pride. But as she passes the seven gates of the underworld she is forced to remove one piece of her finery after another until she finally arrives in the underworld stark naked. More adventures ensue for Inanna. They include being ridiculed in anger by a tribunal, having the eye of death put upon her, and being hung on a meat hook for three days by her sis. Some hospitality. Ereskigal is miserable, frantic and we could presume jealous. As Rachel put it, “Of course she is. She is a little like moms with young children. Who really wants to be left alone at home with the kids?”
This simple remark relating the underworld to the plight of modern mothers brought to mind my own descent into motherhood some 25 years ago. I remember feeling like I had descended to a bizarre landscape for which I was unprepared, fighting at times for my life and sanity with four children entrusted to my care. Like Ereshkigal I was sometimes miserable and frantic. Like Innana, I indeed felt naked and betrayed by the culture in which I was parenting, and perhaps the sisterhood as well. It also brought to mind being with women through births in which they too arrived in the end naked, reduced to their essential nature to do battle with death and pain, while bringing new life into the world. Finally it reminded me of the sharp difference between young men’s and young women’s lives. It is curious that biology acting alone takes women into an experience of descent at just the same age that men make their most virile ascent in the outer world, focused on achievement, accomplishment and self-image. How difficult it was for me to accept this in my twenties and thirties when I had just started my own engineering career!
Unprepared for the Descent
I was introduced to a mother’s “underworld” at age 27. Many western women now enter mothering quite mature and empowered,with long resumes and successful careers behind them (their finery). Still, I haven’t met many American mothers who were not shocked by the changes children brought to their psyche. It is often a path of descent into our own early history, the wilderness of our primitive selves and, in this culture, into solitary confinement. In Mark’s neurological terms it is perhaps a return to the depths of the right brain where our own earliest overwhelming memories are stored.
My own story? My husband and I had met as engineers. We sat on the drafting floor together. Other than the fact that Nick was a few years older, we had nearly the same education and experience. But after our first child our lives became drastically different. I was tucked away in a house in the suburbs with an infant who cried 19 out of 24 hours a day, while he began a magical ascent up the company hierarchy, eventually to become a part owner of the firm. Four children arrived in our home. While his career grew, I worked here and there part-time as an engineer, but mainly descended deeper into the mire of motherhood. I was often happy with babes in arms, but I also remember feeling at times as if my identity was falling like Inanna’s jewels and clothes at the gates.
Viewed from the topside male world, it was. I lost my worldly power. Meanwhile, in the world of my female psyche, I was undergoing a strong tempering, a testing, a death/rebirth experience of exponential proportions for which the culture had no name. Nothing prepared me for meeting the wrath and the desperation of an inner Ereshkigal, the strange sister. Later I would sometimes indeed feel as if I had been hung on the meat hook and left to die within the “eye of death” of my self-judgments. It was crazy. I felt bombarded with internal and external mandates to be an utterly child-centered, patient, loving and joyous parent. From family, community and schools I felt single handedly responsible for producing children who were attractive, mannerly, who read early, scored high on standardized tests, and behaved appropriately in school. They were further expected to be highly enriched, motivated and later to know exactly where their lives were going. Our culture naively and rigorously expects Mom’s (and Dad’s) to produce all this while being strictly from Heaven and strongly resists the Dark Sister (which I notice only makes her darker). Is it any wonder that Ereshkigal lives? It is remarkable that our love withstands these crazy conditions for loving.
Maintaining Sanity in an Insane World
Feminists for many years have decried the insanity of western motherhood. I am not a new voice in this collective cry. But I do notice that we do not have enough guides or maps for putting motherhood, history, culture and neuroscience together in new ways that help us embrace the darker parts of our experience and turn them to the gold that Jung knew they were. Usually we attempt to stay in heaven and hope to win the gamble of suppressing the darker parts of ourselves. Mark and I wonder if there is a better way. Perhaps we do not need to wrestle for our freedom all alone.
In the end Inanna was rescued after much politicking and a few horse trades. I was too. Inanna was undoubtedly more wise and less naïve post-journey, and so am I. Indeed, what ultimately saved Inanna were small creatures (fashioned from the fingernail dirt of a god, no less) who showed Ereshkigal compassion. It was learning compassion for my own inner Ereshkigal that saved me, too. The trip did much good for both my dark sister and me. I now consider her a kind of sage, a source of wisdom and strength for when heaven is just too much to bear.
P.S. Having each done the work of embracing our own dark heart material as it emerged in the wake of our last offering, Mark and I are ourselves a bit more tempered and once again ready to reprise the online Embracing Mother’s Dark Heart webinar for a limited number of people. Click here to find out more information about the upcoming offering.
PS Some Inanna stories relate the underworld as an actual geographic location somewhere below the equator in Africa. Yes, and this is where Ereshkigal lived somewhat unwillingly–the Queen or ruler of the underworld. The story goes that this is where much of the experimentations took place in creating the homo sapien.(Inanna the Queen of Heaven and Earth also went to great means to obtain the seven symbols of power that she so graciously laid down on her way to her brother-in-law’s funeral.) An interesting connect the dots; recently (National Geographic) there were many findings of pits filled with beings seemingly on their way to becoming homo sapiens–but not quite. This was in a geographic location that is considered the underworld in Inanna’s story. One can imagine why the apprehension and admire the courage of Inanna.
cheers once again,
Cheryl
Wow, loved seeing the different perspectives on my sister Inanna and her story, and the impact she has upon us when we meet her. My perspective of this beautiful and historic true mythology has changed my life immensely and has changed my story. I had to chuckle when reading the affects she has had on child rearing and parenthood. My best friend Jackie (now deceased) would get overwelmed with her children ( 3 ) and threaten (not to them) to hang them on the meat hook. I had an entirely different experience raising my childrfen than most of my friends. Somehow I took to it without much stress at all–like farming, which I was doing at that time. It was not untill years later that I was introduced to Inanna via meat hook dreams, first, then poetry, then woman’s psychology, then masters research, spontaneous descent work, then more dreams and visions, and at last the Scientific Sumerian history came to me via the father of a young man (deceased) who had written an academic Ph.D. thesis. A beautiful beginning. I still laugh when I see meat hooks here and there in my travels or in my dreams, and now on this blog! Its not a bad place to take a rest or a time out, but pretty uncomfortable to be put on the hook unwillingly…
Cheers
Cheryl
Forgot the link to Pam England’s blog:
birthpeeps.blogspot.com
The Descent of Inanna is a powerful story and metaphor for the relinquishing, hanging, and Return to our true selves!
Pam England (author of “Birthing From Within”) has been using the story of the Inanna, as preparation for childbirth and parenting, for about 20 years. Many Birthing From Within Mentors and Doulas tell Inanna’s story in childbirth classes and birth healing circles.
Birthing From Within offers courses about Birth as a Hero’s Journey for women (particularly those who work in and around birth). You may be interested to read Pam’s blog, particularly her series on her Hero’s Journey, inclduing her painted mandalas and discussion of archetypes, and the Gates of Return.
Thank you for bringing Erishkigal out into the light! She needs to be heard and lived.
Hi Jeanne (& Mark),
Thank you for your honesty and the rich truth of your voice, hard won on your trail. Hat’s off to dirt and fingernails, to the feminine to be found in the archetypal Trickster (for in other myths it is Hermes/Mercury who helps Persephone to emerge from the underworld where she half belongs to Hades and Half to us… but her true mate turns out to be Dionysus, a dark compliment to her bright spring-bringing). As we work to find our Self in each other it seems we must somehow integrate the opposites of our darkness and our light; our lizard brains and our inner Buddhas. Perhaps what distinguishes heaven from hell in the here and now is the presence or absence of compassionate connection and non-judgmental understanding. So here’s to love in its infinite wisdom.
I really appreciate the writing. I am fully immersed in unearthing shadow material and hope to join the workshop. My work as mother has transformed my work as a therapist in terms of the inevitability of having to come face to face with this shadow material. I also really appreciate and feel in community by some of the comments. Patrice, I really resonate with your share. Much gratitude for all of you willing to be naked here as it is the path I am in the midst of and my ego is yelling “nooooooo”. So good encouragement.
Its nice to know others feel similarly. I think it’s so much easier to strip down if others are doing the same. It’s kind of an act of faith. Feel free to visit my blog any time, it’s a place where shadows are more than welcome 😉 The Heartbreak of Invention
Exceptional. Thank you.
Thanks for the link, Mark. I watched the TED talk while making chicken soup. So good. Blessings back you 😉
Wow! Thank you for sharing this deeply enriching post. I couldn’t help but think, when I read about the descent through the seven gates to our naked self, about the seven gates of the human energy system, the seven energy centers that can go from darkness of the unconscious, to naked vulnerability, to being clothed with the seven stars in the hand of the cosmic Yeshua spoken about in Revelation 1:20. Mary Magdalene was “healed” of seven demons and enlightened by Yeshua. Revelation talks about seven golden lampstands that the “star” Light can come into, the body becoming illumined from the inside out, Christ golden light in the core of our body, the tree of life, and the river of the unified field of God running on either side of our core resulting in 12 kinds of fruit and healing (Revelation 22). Thank you for bringing it all together for me! May we all “take root downward and bear fruit upwards” (Isaiah 37:31).
It is an evocative story indeed. Thanks for your further elaboration Yvonne.
Thanks for the insightful post, Jeanne. I find the isolation of our culture the source of a lot of pain for all involved, and especially women and young adults. Challenging the status quo tends to bring the wrath of entitled men- and women who have assumed that role as well- upon us. The absurdity of our system strikes me often- but I have yet to find one that is much better. To use the nomenclature of some parts of Africa, women are seen as “polluted” -with men having no responsibility for the pollution of pregnancy or childbirth, just the honor that comes with virility. No easy answers, but we must find ways to support each other and push back- it ultimately costs everyone if honor can’t be bestowed upon all of us.
Hey Martha,
So good to hear your voice and wisdom here. Thanks for the perspective as we do tend to idealize tribal culture somehow. I bet there is a lot more you could add. I look forward.
This was beautiful post, thank you for sharing it. I believe it wholeheartedly.
We must embrace the dark heart, (mother’s heart?), if we are to be whole and encourage wholeness in our associations (children, clients). But honestly, I find that a lot of people talk about doing this, but when you actually do show it they recoil and you are further shamed. I’ve seen this happen in small professional gatherings repeatedly. I think it might have to do with the fact that most of us don’t chose to find our darkside, we need to be pushed off a cliff to find it, to make that descent.
Censoring our wholeness is deeply embedded in the culture, particularly professional cultures where we are to dress ourselves in the finery of being “healthy and healed and well-adjusted”. I write a lot about my own “dark side” (not in the role of a licensed professional) on my own blog and I often feel very exposed. Yet I do this work as I am trying to expand the expression of what is natural, trying to show that being a conscious person can look quite different than what we have been taught to believe. It’s painful to become “naked” or rather stripped of finery but I believe we can’t really help others to heal until we do this ourselves. I believe it is our finery that actually promotes illness in our clients. Yet….I am surrounded by “high class” professionals who routinely censor the expression of the darkside material in others, who treat us as unorthodox at their professional meetings. There is a great cost professionally if we choose wholeness. At least that’s been my experience.
Then again, it could just be a deeply embedded problem to do with social class. I’m from the bottom layer and now circulating with those from above– who have been above for generations–has shown me that as a people we tend to split off darkness and distribute it to whole swaths of society, particularly those swaths that have no voice, those swaths who look to those from above for an explanation of themelves. This has been going on for a long time. For someone who is trying to ascend in society embracing their “darkside” in the presence of those who have been raised so far from it can be quite dangerous.
… and not to mention, very, very painful, Patrice.
Here’s someone giving a recent TED talk who speaks
eloquently about that “professional culture” you’re talking about.
As I’m sure you can extrapolate, it costs our culture profoundly.
Blessings,
Mark
Thanks for this Patrice,
Yes, know what you mean about the “professional” images. We get attached to them and hide behind them. Deadly. I have experienced it too. And yet resistance to knowing human shadow is so ubiquitous I can hardly think it is primarily a class issue. Maybe power just helps make that armor more impenetrable. I give you all good wishes in fearlessly opening up much more real spaces when the coast is clear.
I appreciate your personal probe into the depths of your experiences. Where to turn? Guides and maps are out there in droves in the books and authorities wanting parents to buy a prescriptive recipe for success, such as the prominent “sleep training” foisted on many a young family. But we humans are unique individuals, especially when we are very little. Getting personal support is essential for any mother or father embarking on the hardest job there is. Parents need all the help they can get. The strongest as well as the most fragile family requires a vital network of social supports.
“There’s dignity in struggle. It gives our soul muscle,” stated my teacher, the infant specialist, author and founder of Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) Magda Gerber, whose EducaringTM Approach includes both worlds, dark and light, as “curriculum” for mutual growth in family members.
“I have been able to use so much in my life that I learned in RIE. It enlightened me about my own childhood, and about me as an adult, and a parent. I am more able to separate my own feelings and shortcomings from the experience of my child. I think I have become more patient with myself and with my child (age three).” parent participant in weekly RIE Parent/Infant Guidance Classes for the first two years of life
Sounds like a terrific resource Elizabeth. I am glad to hear that there are people working to incorporate the complex world of mother’s inner life with the complex development of their children. We seem to be in infancy in that. Mark and I offer this in hopes of helping mother’s with themselves and their growth as an integral part of their child’s development. Thanks for a thoughtful response