Inner Journeys

As usual when I have disappeared for a couple of weeks, I have been struggling with a number of issues, and feeling down, being much too hard on myself. I only have to go back a year or two in this journal to remind myself that I do work on my issues in my own inimical way. I actually am doing quite well these days. Then I have to ask myself why I need such reassurance when I sometimes I really do know my worth. I still seem to need a lot of outside reassurance that I have worked hard-perhaps because so little has changed on the outside in the last four years. But I have indeed changed.

I am still at home, mostly, still in pain, still recovering from surgery, more alone really than ever before-all on the outside. On the inside, I keep on keeping on, working the issues brought up by the myths of goddesses whose names seem to rise up into my consciousness from somewhere deep inside (or maybe down from heaven), because I need the lesson.

A couple of weeks ago, I was happily driving along a nice back road, singing along to Mad Agnes (www.madagnes.com), when the name Inanna floated into my consciousness. My immediate response was, "Oh, no, not Inanna," and turn the volume up in the car. I sang louder, too. At home, I cleaned and fixed myself good protein and turned on the TV and the computer, and shut the name Inanna out. Firmly.

Unfortunately, I knew I was only putting off the inevitable, for my past experience with Inanna had been depression. Now, in case you are not caught up on you ancient Sumarian Goddess myth, Inanna was Ruler/Queen/Goddess of all of Sumaria, who decided she needed to visit her sister Erishkegal, Queen of the Underworld. She wanted to gain her sister's knowledge. Putting on seven layers of protective garments, she descended to the Underworld. At each gate, she had to take off one layer, until she faced her sister naked. Erishkegal immediately reduced her to a piece of rotting meat, hung on a pole.

Inanna first came to me many years ago now, before I was divorced from Meg's Dad, in the form of chronic, long-term Stygian depression. I truly was the meat on that pole, the emotional pain was so bad. Inanna was rescued, finally, to return to rule earth in a much wiser and insightful way, claiming and holding to the wisdom she had gained in the underworld to herself, while ruling her country better than before her descent. I found a better antidepressant and went into therapy.

When Inannna's name drifted into my mind, all I could think of was that depression would once again move in and shut me down. Surprisingly, the depression which lurks just below my surface didn't deepen. A wise woman I know pointed out that I had already live the first half of the myth, and needed to look at the second half, after Inanna returned to earth.

It was hard at first to imagine me, the me formed by such childhood pain that I surrounded myself by layers and layer of fat, as wise and insightful, holding my hard earned wisdom close to myself. Me, not squandering wisdom on the overly needy, Me, having the discernment to know when to share what I know about life, and when to keep it to myself, as Inanna does.

Then I passed a mirror. I am not the Margo I was, guarded by fat, wanting to please, to help everyone, anyone, so I could know I'm good, capable, worthy, valuable, and begging (passively aggressively) for outside assurances. I am at goal weight, I have traveled far without moving, and it will manifest in my life as time goes on. Not that I won't need outside assurance anymore, just less of it, and from the people in my life who I have come to value.

If none of this makes sense, it doesn't matter because I get it.

And I have begun to move out, open to attracting joy into my life. To manifest this, I asked Judi HeartSong to paint me a Goddess/Woman named Joy. She is the #7 of the latest Light Series (http://judithheartsong.blogspot.com/) At the bottom of the webpage look for "previous posts," and hit Light Series '07 to see the paintings. I asked her to do a Light Painting named Joy in November or December, saying there was no hurry, and She has been worth the wait! Once She is framed, She will join Hope, a Light painting Judi did for me nearly two years ago, when I needed hope was all I had to hold onto as I struggled through one medical problem after another. And I survived, on hope that rose from deep inside surgery after surgery after surgery, most of them alone

And so I am moving outwards, slowly,believing this year will be better than last. I am taking a 2 day training so I can volunteer with the Gentle Touch/Guided Imagery program at a local hospital. And I have joined a very small Yoga class run by a newly trained Yoga teacher who is a good friend. She wants to eventually work with yoga and the elderly or disabled, so I'll be her guinea pig, quite happily. And waiting for what comes next.

Enough for today, I bid you well.

Blessings, Margo