One of the interesting things about Ereshkigal is that there are no surviving images of Her from ancient times -- and very few modern ones, come to think of it. There are a few descriptive lines in the texts which have come down to us, but they are contradictory. In The Descent of Inanna Ereshkigal is frightening sight; in The Marriage of Nergal and Ereshkigal She is so alluringly beautiful that Nergal forgets all the wise advice he's been given and spends six nights in bed with Her.

I've created a couple of collages of images that I've placed over my personal shrines, trying to convey the complexity of Her character and the different facets of my relationship to Her, but no one image captures it all. Which, on reflection, is probably true of most deities -- or any individual.

Yesterday, however, I turned one of the last pages in the Neil Gaiman collection Death, The High Cost of Living, ( And found this amazing image )

It's only been during the last few weeks that I've begun to realize just how significantly my grief over LM has had an impact on things like my priestess training and my work (or, more properly lack of work) on the Ereshkigal devotional. Now that the pain and the gray veil have lifted almost entirely, I can see how much energy it took to grieve and to just keep going.

Since sannion has stepped down from his leadership positions in Neos Alexandrina, I'm working with a new editor. I was worried that it would be hard to work with someone new, but so far he's been great. Filling him in on my status brought this project back to the center of my attention, and I asked him if he could help me set a series of short-term goals to bring this to completion. I'd feel bad about not asking Sannion for this assistance earlier, but I don't think it would have done any good. Ironically, I had to climb out of the underworld before I could put in the serious work on the devotional to the Queen of the Underworld. Call it my graduate thesis. ;-)

Or maybe not a wink. Maybe that's exactly what it's supposed to be. Maybe, aside from my own energy issues, I needed to experience the whole cycle myself before I could bring the project to fruition.

Jeremy is concerned that I don't have enough material yet, so here's one more call to you or anyone you know to share poems, fiction, rituals, personal experiences and prayers honoring The Queen of the Great Below.

I've changed my default icon from the Ereshkigal-Inanna-Priestess rotation to this one of Darkness and Light. This one speaks more to my current need to integrate both polarities within myself.

Persephone yearning for Hades. . . .





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I found this image a day or two ago. It's called "Persephone and Demeter" (by Susan Seddon Boulet), but the way things are developing for me, I prefer to see it as Persephone in her above and below manifestations. . . .





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Eleusinian Mysteries.




Thank you, sannion, Dionysus, and Kerenyi.

If you've been reading along and missed alfrecht's comment on my Persephone/sovereignty post, you may want to go back and glance at it. It seems that a word that insisted in being included had a deeper implication than I realized -- and more associations.

Last night, I was just settling onto the couch with Wolfling to snuggle, after writing that previous entry and then reading alfrecht's comment, when my phone alarm beeped to remind me it was time for my regular Tuesday evening household altar rite with Tiwaz and LM. I don't believe this! I cried, suddenly having a new appreciation of the term "god bothered."

I went to the altar and addressed myself to Tiwaz, but my head was still pretty much spinning from everything that had already happened, and it was hard to concentrate. I made sure to say my usual thanks for the safety and prosperity of our household, and then made what has been a recently habitual prayer for help in having the income I need to support myself and Wolfling comfortably.

For the first time, I felt some resistance. This is something I'm going to have to test with divination, but what I thought I was getting in response was a firm caution that we would be taken care of, but that I need to let go of some of my own expectations about what is best for Wolfling and what level of affluence I live in. There were some strong urges to follow through on some thoughts I've had about selling some excess stuff I've accumulated over the years, reducing my need for "x" amount of space, and being more conservative with my money.

I thought of more than one LJ friend who is a spirit worker of some kind, and whose focus is so much demanded on their Work that they are not able to maintain the kind of job(s) that they might otherwise have.

I've never had the career I grew up expecting to have. Over the past few years, I've said that it's been because I've not had the right kind of ambition for one, that I never knew what I wanted to be and didn't feel like putting out the effort for something I didn't want; maybe what's been going on at a deeper level has been preparation for this stage of my life when I'm to focus on Work rather than career.

Certainly I've been thinking for a while that the less I "need" to maintain, the more choices and flexibility I'll have when considering jobs -- both vocational (spirit related) and "day job."

I won't pretend that I wasn't troubled by what I thought I was hearing last night -- even as I found it somewhat ironic that after all I had just experienced I was worried about the gods somehow not taking care of me.

It was very hard to fall asleep last night. My head was still spinning. Finally I realized that despite all I had just been through and all I had written here and to a couple of friends, I had not yet addressed myself to Persephone directly. *headdesk

So I spent a few minutes doing that: thanking her for her attention and messages, telling her that I looked forward to learning more about what she has in mind, and etc. Honestly, I don't remember most of it. She didn't feel close yet, not like Ereshkigal. I did feel Ereshkigal last night, and She was smiling -- with a bit more pleasure and warmth than usual. I seem to be on the right path.

Strange, dense dreams last night, including an appearance by Bear -- in the midst of a bunch of other animals. But while many of them came closer -- even into my house -- Bear looked at me and wandered off into the woods. Bear has been my ally for many years, although I've never done the kind of close personal work that would develop that relationship more deeply. This morning, the only animal I remember being in my house was a large gorilla who mauled my breast.

I'm still feeling more than a bit overwhelmed this morning. . .

My grocery store has a large display of pomegranates. I guess I'll be picking one up soon. .

. . . I was chatting (via Yahoo) with a friend who is owned by the Morrigan -- and she suddenly went "Ouch!" And then she told me that she couldn't remember what she'd said after what had been an opening remark -- twenty minutes earlier.

It turns out that the conversation I thought I'd been having with her about the topics in my previous entry was actually a conversation with Babh.

At this moment I am both deeply grateful for all the attention I've been getting recently and wanting to crawl into bed and hide under the covers before Persephone decides to hurl any more clue-bats in my direction.

A couple of days ago, anax_anarkhos said something to me about my emergence from my grieving making me seem like "Persephone kissing the springtime." That image took my breath away -- and it was all the more startling because I've never identified with Persephone. Inanna emerging from the underworld, yes -- but never Persephone.

Except that Inanna hasn't 'been there' for me recently. I think she's waiting for me to grow back into her. She's so passionate. I think she's waiting for me to rediscover my passions before we start to working closely again. It's part of my need to be new. Persephone is definitely 'new' to me. . . In ways I never expected.

A couple of years ago, all adrift, I went into meditation to get a sense of where I was. I found myself in a wild wood, at night. I found a clearing, then set out a ring of small stones and sat down within it. I had a cauldron and a blade. I knew that I had to sit there until I found my answers.

Now when I go within I am standing naked on the top of a grassy hill. A pleasant breeze is blowing and I'm facing the early morning light -- about as classically "East" as one can get. Eventually I need to walk down the hill, to rejoin the living world, but for the moment I'm still in the borderland. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, but my skin still feels the heat of the underworld. It would be so easy to step back into the welcoming shadows. . . into the welcoming arms. . .

This is what I wrote during my afternoon break at work:

I've been thinking of Persephone a lot from my hilltop. . . Behind me, my passionate husband, bound to his place in the underworld. My heart is with him, but I can not live there all the time.

Not even if Zeus had not decreed it.
[A new thought there, and a radical one. . . What if Zeus's decree had been not to appease his siblings but because it truly was in the best interests of the girl?]

Before me, somewhere beyond the hills, is my mother. . . I've blamed her for trying to keep me a child -- but did I project my own fear onto her? It's easy to grow into a new person when you're in a new place, but harder to carry that newness back into the familiar places.
[Adria knew that, with the very air of her high school trying to press her back into her previous shape, her familiar roles. . .]

Blame Hades, blame Zeus, blame my mother. . . It leaves me the perpetual victim, always at the mercy of the will of others.

Hekate chuckles from her place under the apple tree. I hadn't seen her until this moment, but of course she is here at this crossroads.

"The rest of them are bound to their places," she tells me. "Only you are free to move. Only you have the full freedom of the crossroads. You are my heir-in-spirit, my god daughter."
[A gray, cloaked figure on the side of the bed in a little girl's dream. I am your mother she told me, and I cried back No, you're a witch!. I had the dream twice before I was five years old, vivid and terrifying. Never to be forgotten.]

Hekate gives me a key. "You control your own going out and coming in."

Inanna was stripped of her carefully-selected finery when she descended to the underworld, and we have no account of her picking any of it back up. I am naked on my hilltop. I must choose, choose deliberately and with full ownership of the consequences, what I will "put on" before I re-engage with society. What garb, what regalia, what roles and honors and secrets and silences will I wrap around me and use to adorn myself, to announce myself to the world and to others?

The choice is mine.

I have (almost) always seen Persephone as a victim.

Today, I experienced Persephone claiming her personal sovereignty.

Today I was affirmed as an initiate of the mystery of the sacred crossroads.

Being reborn hurts.

Being 'between' hurts.

For all my growth, I remain a Queen of Swords.
For those of my type, ambiguity sucks -- and where I am now is full of ambiguity.

There is continuity with the past, yes -- but the old answers, the old methods do not work.

Even my sexuality seems to be impacted -- and being smacked up against that this afternoon was not a happy or comfortable experience.

I retreated into my practices this evening -- retreated to take refuge in them, rather than pick them up like a heavy duty. That, at least, is a positive change.

I sat in my meditation posture (back against pillows against the headboard of my bed, soles of my feet together, hands loose in my lap) and did four-fold breaths, then relaxed into more natural breathing. I started to frame questions about my emerging identity, about my future.

Immediately I got a crystal clear message in my mind: In the past, your identity was based on what you thought, what was within. Going forward, it will be made from what you do.

( Unpacking the Message )

The funny thing is that I can't be sure who sent those words to me. Usually my inner senses are clear enough that I have some sense of who is addressing me: a deity, a spirit, LM, or my own projection of someone from my life: my father, a teacher, etc. This message didn't seem connected to anyone in particular.

I think, based on some other messages I've been getting lately, that it is most likely my higher self. I've been getting quiet but clear messages lately which have been nudging me into better choices about things like alcohol and doing my practices. It's been very clear that although I don't consciously address myself, it's not an external being nudging me. It's me, my knowing-better self. And that feels like a great step forward.

All those stories did shape who I am. The identity I created for myself was real. But despite some very positive elements, it has proved insufficient to deal with being a full adult in this world. It is insufficient to my vocation. It is insufficient to being a good parent (including the need to provide for my child materially).

This also neatly folds in with the other meditations I've been doing around consciously embracing the more explicitly (to my formulation) masculine power archetypes, in particular the King of Swords and the Emperor. All of my most important work has been inward-focused. It's time to claim the yang energy, the Chokmah energy of the Tree of Life, and start projecting outward.

I wanted to add an amusing (to me) story from my experience at last week's women's circle.

LM had been absent during my morning ritual practice, but I felt his presence as I got closer to the meeting place. I was happy to have him with me, of course, but asked Are you sure you're supposed to be here? I mean, this is a women's circle. He gave me what amounted to a non-committal shrug, neither denying my observation nor explaining himself.

As I mentioned in my entry, I experienced some resistance during the meeting, and it started with the embodiment/grounding sequence which was the first activity. I usually feel resistence to such things anyway, and the language used by the leader made it even worse for me. (I can only take so many repetitions of "lovely woman's bodies" and "sweet, soft curves" language.) I did my best to engage, however, and was helped by the sensation of LM's hands on my shoulders and his strong, earthy energy aiding in my grounding.

Then it was time to sing. A drum was brought out. As another woman began a steady rhythm and started to sing an invocation I felt a frisson of energy run through LM. Up to this point, the meeting had been safely social and open. The drum and the song shifted it -- for him, anyway -- into a different kind of space, a Women's Mysteries space. That's it, he rumbled. I'm outta here. It was in no way dismissive of the song; quite the contrary. He recognized a shifting of energy into sacred women's space -- and he knew that to remain longer would be a violation.

It was actually rather charming. . .

I'm finding myself staring at my current group of icons and feeling at a loss.

I love having a large collection of userpics and selecting Just The Right One for each entry, but I don't have much that feels appropriate for this new stage of my journey.

My own skills at making icons are limited. I find pretty pictures and crop them. And at this time I'm not even finding pretty pictures that fit. If any of you like to make icons and feel inspired to make one (or more) to help me illustrate this stage of my journey, I'd appreciate it.

I keep feeling like I'm standing naked on a hill as dawn eases into day: new and fresh and tender -- but no longer raw. I am in the East, and a new, unknown path lies before me, but am not a Maiden.


I will give a free tarot reading to anyone whose icons I use.
If I have the bandwidth, I'll do a tarot reading for anyone who has made an icon, even if I'm not able to use it.

Yesterday I attended a women's circle meeting for the first time. (I've sat in more than a few women's circles over the years, of course. This was my first meeting with this group.)

The other members seemed to all be lovely people: present, committed, really striving, friendly, warm, and quirky. I felt very comfortable there, like I had found a previously unknown pocket of my tribe -- a rare occurrence. I'd had a phone conversation the night before with one of the leadership team, and had been delighted by the resonance between her use of language and my own.

But when the circle actually got underway, I struggled a lot.

( Goddess-y Generalities )

I met my first boyfriend when we were in the 8th grade, although we did not begin dating until the spring of our sophomore year of high school. Our relationship was rather tempestuous, with several rounds of being together and breaking up that continued into our college years. What was special about him, however, was that we managed to remain best friends even during most of the times we were not together romantically, and he was one of the people who helped me escape from the emotionally abusive relationship I was in just after I graduated from college. We became estranged shortly after Wolfling was born, but reconciled last year. He has always been an important figure in my life.

I do not experience any romantic or sexual chemistry with him anymore, but a few times during the past couple of years I've dreamed about the two of us being intimate again. We talked on the phone yesterday evening, and last night I had one of those dreams -- and it felt more self-conscious than usual.

( Cut for those who don't care about other peoples' dreams )

Beyond that exchange, it was another night of dreams involving moving -- often in ways that violated normal traffic rules -- and searching, surrounded by figures from my life. So far, I've never found whatever it was in the dream I was looking for.

During the last six weeks at my temp job, I've logged more than 2,000 reports of violations of terms of service: images of extreme violence or sex, and vulgarity and profanity (sometimes in words, sometimes in images) directed at other users in comments. During this same period I've also reviewed at least as many violations reported by others. I've also viewed several thousand more animations that don't technically violate the terms of service but which are vulgar, in bad taste, and/or violent. And I just had an important realization.

I can respond to each of these animations -- and, by extension, their creators -- with frustration, revulsion, anger, resentment, and even despair. . . OR I can take a moment and send love and blessings to the creators.

Whether or not my few moments of blessing ever have an impact on the lives of these strangers, I know which choice will end up making my life better.

Via jalkr and others:

You are The Hierophant

Divine Wisdom. Manifestation. Explanation. Teaching.

All things relating to education, patience, help from superiors. The Hierophant is often considered to be a Guardian Angel.

The Hierophant's purpose is to bring the spiritual down to Earth. Where the High Priestess between her two pillars deals with realms beyond this Earth, the Hierophant (or High Priest) deals with worldly problems. She is well suited to do this because she strives to create harmony and peace in the midst of a crisis. The Hierophant's only problem is that she can be stubborn and hidebound. At her best, she is wise and soothing, at her worst, she is an unbending traditionalist.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Adopting a practice of asking my gods for help has also been important. I am one who abhors approaching the Divine as gumball machine, expecting treats to roll out in response to my every whim -- but in my desire to avoid showing disrespect or immature helplessness or unwillingness to take responsibility for my own well-being and results, I'd gone too far in the other direction.

Each night this week I've been asking for help: for help with my job and finances, for help guiding my daughter through some unexpected transitions, for help with growing as a priestess. I ask for help without expecting Them to drop everything in my lap, but with an awareness of my current limitations. My requests include an affirmation of my desire to be more effective at doing my share of the work in each of these areas.

Not only do I feel that my challenges are less overwhelming than they were a little while ago, I'm also feeling less lonely. And I can't tell you what a comfort that is.

Sometime early this morning I dreamed that I was in an apartment with my mother, my sister/daughter (Wolfling and my sister often seem to be a single person in my dreams), and a young woman who was a friend of my sister/daughter. Something in the conversation made me recall and mention that when I was in the 7th grade my best friend and I would sometimes put chocolate syrup on pepperoni pizza (not because we particularly liked it, but because it was a passion of a character we had created). My sister -- she was definitely my sister in that moment -- turned to me and asked if there might be a time when I didn't tell that story again.

I don't remember now what I said in response, but it was brief and bitter and not very nice -- earning me a rebuke from my mother, despite my 40+ years of age.

I lost it. I have never in my life utterly lost my composure with either of my parents, but in this dream I simply could not take any more. I started with an even more bitter pseudo-apology and then went into a litany of everything I've been dealing with for the past several years, starting with LM's death, then three moves, losing my job. . . In my dream it went on and on, and I didn't hold anything back. It was amazingly cathartic.

At the end of my eruption, my mother was contrite, I acknowledged that I had been snarky with my sister but did not retract my anger. I'm not sure now if I brought up the fact that she had been the first one to be unpleasant.

In the past, I've had what I call "screaming dreams" when I've felt like my boundaries were being violated. There's a confrontation and I start shouting so loudly that I wake up gasping, with a sore throat. Those dreams have always been ones of frustration and even fear, of feeling trapped and helpless. This dream was of a different quality. I felt liberated. Even now, the inside of my chest feels less tight.

I've been more consistent with my practice this week, including almost-daily Middle Pillars, and have been adding a breathing practice Thorn Coyle shares in Kissing the Limitless that includes images of unbinding -- something I've been wrestling with for months. Last night I also finally got to Malkuth in a Qabala meditation cycle in John Michael Greer's Paths of Wisdom. I feel pretty confident that last night's dream is a consequence of the confluence of these practices.

It's taken me well over a month to do the first cycle of Spheres in the above-mentioned meditation. I'm supposed to do one Sphere a day -- which means that a cycle should take ten days. I almost went back and started again after a long break, but it felt important to get through one cycle and finish it rather than keep restarting in an effort to be perfect. I now feel a sense of accomplishment, and am ready to start again with Kether tonight. The instructions say to do four complete cycles before moving on to the next stage. I reviewed the basic instructions again last night, and of course I'd lost track of the details. Starting tonight I'll refresh my memory with the instructions before I re-read the description of the Sphere. But still -- I'm not beating myself up over not having done it "right". I'm celebrating that I persisted and finished, and that I have been experiencing definite benefits, even with my imperfections, and feeling jazzed about starting again. And wow is that a difference for me!

Breathing and relaxation practices are not chores I habe to accomplish. They are blessings I bestow upon myself.

I'm going through what feels like a very significant spiritual transition right now -- so much so that I'm not going to post about it until my teacher and I have had a chance to talk through all that's come up over the past couple of days.

What I can share is that last night I felt no resistance at all to any of my practices, not even the Middle Pillar, even though it was later in the evening than I like to get started. There was no feeling of stress, no Idunwanna, no headache, no hunger, no fatigue -- all of which are typical responses to my decision to start my practice cycle in general and the Middle Pillar in particular. In fact, as I transitioned to the Middle Pillar I felt a bit of pleasant anticipation.

Things are shifting.

What has changed?

The most significant thing seems to be asking my gods for help. I've been asking for help every day around my career and vocational work, and I think this is one way my prayers are being answered.