Journey to the Dark Goddess

Mind Body & Soul Ezine Book Review:  Journey to the Dark Goddess – How to Return to Your Soul by Jane Meredith Published by Moon Books  Paperback: £12.99 Author website: http://www.janemeredith.com/

Jane Meredith, a Goddess practitioner, writer and ritualist, provides a valuable method to relieve depression and grief by integrating a darker part of our life which is repressed to our detriment. The ancients provided a map in the form of myth. Life wisdom is achieved in confronting death before it happens. The Goddess was the one who wove the thread of life, cast on, and struck down, and She is the one to guide our journey to a life review - and to wholeness.

Jane Meredith sensitively describes the journeys of Underworld Goddesses, Psyche and Persephone, and the path of Inanna is detailed, as the great Queen of Heaven makes her descent through the Seven Gates of the Underworld. She removes all her earthly possessions because they will not serve Her in the eternal realms. There She meets Her dark sister, Ereskigal for a life and death, and death to life story.

Jane very generously escorts us on her own personal journey through these myths, explaining how we can also follow this rite of passage ourselves safely in order to gain wisdom for our life, to confront our demons, to relive and release old hurts, and to then return to the world of the living to live a better life than we could otherwise have done without the deep knowledge of death. When we reflect on a life lived, we consider how we need to grow and develop as a soul. These ancient rites re-enacted take us to our core where we make realisations that are beyond what we could make in our ordinary daily lives. This is the magic achieved through working with archetypes - the life changing personalities that we meet, speak to, and work with on these extraordinary inner journeys.

The path to the grave in order to gain wisdom is as old as time itself. I was reminded of the response of Jesus to Nicodemus, to a question about the saved and the unsaved and how to attain the kingdom of heaven, ‘You must be born again’! In the occult tradition, death and rebirth are to be experienced on the inner levels, such as in Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki’s Sacred Cord Meditations, or within past life regressions, for instance. 

The journey of Inanna is one I was guided to take with Helen Brown, a Jungian psychotherapist and Swedenborg teacher in a group workshop. The Swedenbordians are safe and very knowledgeable in the spiritual fields and their events are very powerful. Each part of the re-enactment is a 'never to be forgotten' experience. I have since that time used the Sacred Cord Meditations. 

I led a group at the Spirit of Isis Centre, Waltham Abbey. Members took various roles within the story.  Some were Shades of the Dead, or Charon who rows across seekers across the murky waters of the River Styx requiring a coin, each way. The Styx flows sometimes gently and sometimes roughly. Cries of drowning people can be heard and some seen. Do the seekers stop to drag the drowning bodies in, risking upturning the boat? An interesting conversation that could take all night takes place! 

Charon embarks the seekers on the shore, and immediately casts off, leaving them to meet with the demonic three headed dog, Cerberus, who guards the Lord and Lady of the Underworld, but will - for a piece of bread - leave his guard post allowing participants to slip past and meet the Lord and Lady of Hades to speak to them. They in turn, as members of the group, wearing all kinds of royal regalia, channel wisdom for the seekers. We had some interesting group counselling from that All Hallows meeting! 

Each time I perform these rituals as a participant, I am aware that I am not afraid of death - yet I am afraid how I will get there. And my tears are for my loved ones who I do not wish to grieve for me and how much I would give to take away their pain. My thoughts are of great sadness that I leave a massively overpopulated planet where the pollution of seas, soil and skies will further eliminate species, and cause illness and death to all our wonderful planet’s life forms.  

I think The Journey to the Dark Goddess is an amazing journey to undertake, but one not to be conducted without caution for those with an unstable disposition. It requires safeguards both during and after, when the revelations gained in the Underworld are brought to the surface for evaluation, a therapist might be useful, if not necessary. This is a journey for the mature seeker of enlightenment and self-knowledge. The Dark Goddess is with us always, whether we are aware of her or not. 

Also by this author - all recommended:

Rituals of Celebration

Re-visioining Medusa

Aspecting the Goiddess

Elements of Magic

Aphrodite's Magic

Magic of the Iron Pentacle

Circle of Eight

Recommended - Review by Wendy Stokes   https://wendystokes.co.uk