Journey Through The Underworld

To Know The Dark
Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark too blooms and sings,
and is travelled by dark feet and dark wings.

Alex's Address

In many ancient myths, goddesses, gods and heroes find themselves in the underworld, a place of challenge and trial, where normal rules and ways of doing things don’t apply.

In the overworld, they may be powerful and dominant. But here, in the underworld, they are weak, and others are in charge. To emerge, they will need all their resources, their guile and, in some cases, help from others.

 Sometimes this trip is freely chosen, usually to restore a lost lover to life, like Ishtar and Tammuz or Gilgamesh and Enkidu.

But sometimes they find themselves abducted to the underworld, or trapped there, like Persephone.

 A journey through the underworld was how many cultures understood the processes of change and transformation that make up our lives.

 Such journeys could be voluntary, as in initiation rites, or less consciously chosen, such as in extreme grief or, as it was for me, depression. Christian mystics have called this kind of voyage ‘the long dark night of the soul’.

What do you do if you find yourself in the underworld? And how can you get out again?

The first step is to understand why you’re there. It may be that you’re on a short-term loan from the overworld, needing to process grief with an obvious cause, like a loved-one’s death, or a particular pain, before you can return to normalcy.

But it may also be that you have something to learn, change or consider. If you have found yourself in the underworld as a frequent visitor, or if your stay is dragging on, there may well be a reason for this.

I don’t mean the universe has it in for you.

 I just mean that sometimes – more often than we think – the underworld can be a place of transformation, change and growth.

 In his poem ‘To Know the Dark’, Wendell Berry tells us that sometimes an absence of light can be helpful. Get accustomed to it, and we can find a new world whose existence we did not even suspect.

 In Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem ‘Parents of a Murdered Palestinian Boy’, two parents face what may be the cruellest thing that can happen to them. And then, they turn it into something utterly beautiful, a gesture of compassion that staggers in its generosity.

 I see in this act an acceptance of the terrible aspects of the human condition – the existence of weakness, falling short, cruelty and selfishness – and a refusal to let it dominate.

 The psychologist Carl Jung would be impressed by this, but not surprised. He argued that it is only through understanding our weaknesses and transgressions that we have the chance to develop emotional maturity.

He called this the ‘Shadow’ side of human nature – the things we don’t, or don’t want, to understand about ourselves, and the urges or desires we bury as inappropriate or improper.

 For Jung, only by understanding and assimilating our own Shadow can we develop our full potential and achieve psychological health.

 A more recent school of thought - Ecopsychology – holds that that our suffering arises not purely from within, but also, and perhaps primarily, out of broken relationships to the natural world. It can be a rational response to the hardships experienced by many that we witness.

 Many people find themselves in the Underworld when they see the full brutality of life, the needless suffering and cruelty, and perhaps even worse, the necessary suffering. I don’t imagine a gazelle being eaten by a lion enjoys it much.  How can we leave the Underworld when above ground, so to speak, there is so much suffering?

 I think there are many ways out, but the doors become more perceptible when you understand what it is you are needing to learn. Do you need acceptance to deal with something awful that has happened, but which is now unchangeable? Do you need to grapple with your Shadow side to restore yourself to psychological health?

 In many spiritual traditions, there are figures whose role includes the teaching of wisdom. Interestingly, these are often female, with goddesses in various pagan, Hindu, Buddhist and even Christian traditions (the more Gnostic ones) seen as the teachers of spiritual insight and truth.

 They are also often goddesses of transformation and paradox. They are happy to teach, but they don’t always make it easy, and they can often appear as rather scary.

 The wisdom-teaching goddess I have been drawn to is the Crone. In Wiccan and other neopagan traditions, the trinity is female, not male. There is ultimately one Goddess, but She has many faces and can be divided into three main aspects – the Maiden, Mother and Crone. These correlate with the phases of life: birth and youth, maturity, and ageing/death.

 Have you seen The Simpsons Movie? One of my favourite parts of this is when Homer, having been even more selfish and obtuse than normal, is left to his own devices by Marge and the kids. He has to go on a journey that is both literal (walking from Alaska to Springfield) and metaphorical (the quest for understanding).

 He is helped in both by a Native American Shaman, whom he calls "indian Boob Lady". For me, she is the Crone: patiently teaching the same lesson over again, albeit with the odd slap, until the penny finally drops.

 So, a journey through the Underworld can be a source of enlightenment.

 It may not be. Sometimes you’re just there.

 But it can be. And if you ever find yourself there, sit down quietly, and ask yourself: why am I here?

 Perhaps, if we can be open, from pain and labour can come beauty; and, if we are assiduous, even personal transformation.