THE UNDERWORLD JOURNEY

Every awakening involves a death.

The death of old social ideals, stories or identities.

To die means to journey into the underworld and re-emerge new and clean.

 

We cannot evolve unless we learn to let go.

We cannot let go unless we embrace change.

And we cannot change unless we stop trying to control.

 

And what we afraid of?

The underworld journey itself because this means the end of the old way of life.

 

Rightly so.

This path means sure death and destruction of everything we are afraid to lose.

 

Yet it is the mythic path that draws us ever onwards in life.

The path of renewal and resurrection.

The path of evolution and emergence.

 

The underworld descent is a key part of the journey of life, of soul and of spirit.

Every great myth, hero’s tale or adventure involves a path into the depths and shadows of our existence.

 

Here there be monsters, but they are all made by us.

The underworld is populated by our shadow thoughts, emotions and stories.

All the rejected ‘children’ of our life that we have exiled to the subconscious realms.

 

In every tradition across the world there are initiatory rights that ask us to descend and face these self-made demons, coming to know them as parts of ourselves. Reclaiming them back into the weft and weave of our narrative as strength, wisdom and compassion.

 

Jeshua descended into ‘hell’ for 3 days and 3 nights to liberate the beings of darkness before ascending and resurrecting into the light.

 

Inanna journeyed into the underworld past the 7 gates – at each one leaving a part of her identity behind before she surrendered to death completely and was brought back to the light.

 

Osiris, after being murdered by his brother and cut into 14 pieces, resided in the underworld until Isis, his sister-wife resurrected him through the force of her love and conceived a child of the light, Horus.

 

Every human soul is asked to descend into the underworld of their soul in order to remember the parts of themselves they have rejected. Once these aspects that have been shrouded in the darkness of forgetting are reclaimed, we can reconnect to a new more powerful sense of purpose, vision and calling.

 

We arise reborn into the light of a world and a new identity.

 

Perhaps society is undergoing just such an underworld journey right now as we speak these words.

 

Perhaps each of us is being asked to play our role in the unfolding story of darkness and light playing out on our planet so that it can transform.

 

From the inside out.

From the below to the above.

 

Perhaps it is time that we all stop running.

Embrace everything we fear.

And come home to a new sense of who we are and the story we are here to live.

 

Perhaps the time has come for us all to face the music.

Of our soul song.