Underground Ruminations

In every blogger’s life, there comes a time where all things become rote and moot and thoughts are not coherently formed. All feelings are muted and everything seems to be under a blanket. Blogging is difficult in normal circumstances, but especially when something happens that completely sidetracks you and forces you to back off of your usual activities. The time comes to think long and hard about decisions made and yet to be made. I’ve been somewhat “underground” lately because of such happenings. Something occurred that totally obliterated what I considered my normal, daily life and I can’t shake it, nor do I want to shake the feelings that have come to the fore because of it. I need to dig down deep and ruminate for awhile before coming completely back to the surface. I am holding my spiritual breath, so to speak. IF I want to come back to the surface that is. Like the goddess Persephone, I’ve been forcibly taken down to a realm of which I know nothing about, yet thought I knew everything about. It’s not hideous or harmful, just different, and the normal routines are not working to stabilize my life as they once did. I can’t sleep and my thoughts are like ants skittering in all directions when that giant human foot comes stomping down among them.

If you recall, Persephone was a maiden daughter of the Goddess Demeter when she was kidnapped by Hades and taken to his underworld home. Demeter despaired of seeing her daughter again and in the etiological manner of such myths, winter set in. Yet, every spring, Hades allows Persephone to come to the surface and see her mother. The obvious connotations of marriage and loss of virginity are obvious ones, but psychically, the myth holds a fascination for me that goes beyond the obvious. Persephone becomes Queen of the Underworld and has more control there than she ever had on the surface with her mother. Virginity has some power, but sexual awareness expands that power. Demeter may mourn her, but Persephone is now finally fully grown into the woman she was made to be. Despite the horrible implications of Hades’ capture and rape of Persephone, that without his “help” she does not become this fully realized “woman,” there are undertones of a more self-contained woman; one who grew into her role as Queen despite how she got to the underworld in the first place. She used her circumstances to help many of the lesser gods and goddesses fulfill tasks of love and sexual fulfillment. She comes into her own.

Using my past to find pleasure and fulfillment in the present is something that I’ve always wanted to embrace. One never forgets what forms us as children. Life comes at you quickly and sometimes you have no option but to simply react. It may be violent and harmful and psychically damaging, but we face it anyway. We have to. Sometimes we botch our reactions and wonder why we didn’t do it differently, but the older I get, the more I realize that even the consequences of such botched choices and actions hold valuable lessons and yes, even fulfillment. You just have to face it. No mistake is irrevocable. The choices we make are just that, choices we made as broken, damaged people. We cannot be blamed for that. We should not be shamed for that. We did not choose it. Sometimes things choose us and no matter how hard we fight it, it remains there. Like Persephone, we were captured and raped and made to live in a Hel of someone else’s making. We were forced to confront Be-ing in all it’s rawness. Going underground willingly to face that brokenness and finding what heals us is a deeply personal choice. But, we MUST make sure we have the right guides along the way and unconditional love in the process. And.. you may have to go back underground repeatedly to do it.

I am not afraid. In spite of the dangers, I finally feel safe.

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Part of the Synchroblog here at Mahud’s site below:

Mythology Sychroblog: Journeying To Otherworlds

2 Comments August 28, 2008 at 9:20 pm by mahud

Thank you all for your fantastic contributions:

1. Faith and the Hero’s Journey (Hawk’s Cry: The voice of a witch)
2. Journeying to Otherworlds: Access Denied (Between Old and New Moons)
3. Lions at the Door (Quaker Pagan Reflections)
4. More Than These Words (Aquila ka Hecate)
5. Journeying to Otherworlds (The Dance of the Elements)
6. Mythology Synchroblog 4: Children’s Story for Mabo (Pagan Dad)
7. Underground Ruminations (Gorgon Resurfaces)
8. Synchroblog: Journeys to the Otherworld (Bubo’s Blog)
9. Otherworlds Synchroblog: Olympus (Paleothea: the Ancient Goddess)
10. Symbolic Saiho-ji and Otherworld Journeying (Symbolic Meanings)
11. Becoming pagan in America – an otherworld journey (Executive Pagan) New!