My Descent

My Descent Story

There was a time I would have said “I’ve done it all, I’ve really lived”!!

Even with young kids in tow.

I had always said yes to life when it came knocking.

I’ve said yes to travel, to adventures, to living overseas. I said yes to more than one “once in a lifetime love affair”.

I lived with a playful open heart.

Even when it got broken, I didn’t close it.

The very nature of living a full life, dictates that we will inevitably face the dark.

If I didn’t know better, at the time, I’d have said I had taken numerous trips to the underworld and popped back up again by sheer force of will. Proud of my inner strength.

Then, in 2012, amongst all of the other evolutionary and energetic shifts in the collective, Pluto crossed my ascendant and I was thrust into the biggest Underworld initiation of my life. This time for real.

On the floor of my new kitchen, in a strange place, with no family, and very few friends, I dissolved into nothingness.

I remember the thrust of descent blotted out my vision with bright yellow sparks. I couldn’t make out the edges of the room.

I felt my DNA shifting and rearranging. I knew nothing would ever be the same.

I didn’t have the strength to scrape myself off the floor this time.

My husband came home from work and moved me to our bedroom.

For days I stared at the ceiling fan, round and round it went.

I couldn’t shower. I couldn’t eat. I could hardly see.

Almost a week later, my very exasperated man, finally sat down on the bed beside me, and tried to muster all of the empathy he could…

“You need to get up. Your kids need you, I need you. It’s been a week. That’s enough.”

I remember thinking, “I have four kids. They do need me. There is no one else here to help with them. He has to work. I do need to get it together”.

So I tried to swallow all my pain. Stuff myself into shape that just didn’t fit anymore, and keep going.

All the while holding an enormous amount of resentment that I hadn’t been able to fall apart.

And so of course, I got sick.

Chronic pain set it. My appendix got infected. It would leak into my body, and it would patch itself up with scar tissue.

A very apt metaphor, for what I had done on the outside.

I went on this way for almost three years as my life slowly fell apart.

Because when the deity of the Underworld calls you, she will not be denied.

She requires nothing but full submission to the dismantling.

There is no place that we can will ourselves out of an Underworld encounter once the gates open.

We can try. But eventually she will have her way with us….

It’s a common theme that we scrape at the edges of the tunnel on our way down.

Throw our arms and legs out to the sides to keep us from plunging into the deep abyss.

Try to hold on to some semblance of our old life.

Because descent feels so utterly unsafe.

And we have “responsibilities”. Life dictates that we keep it together.

Our paradigm insists that “loosing it” is for weak people.

But this orientation only leads too more destruction in its power-over stance. It’s utterly paralyzing. Stasis sets in as we fight against the downward pull.

I needed to find a way to give myself permission to finally let go and fall into the groundless place below.

It would have been really helpful to have a map, or a guide. To know and understand what was happening to me.

#Underworld October 22nd.

I’m going to give you my map. And what I’ve learned about being called to the underworld.

Link to register in the here.