Embracing Your Inner Underworld Queen in Times of Rebirth

At a time when our world is meeting an unprecedented level of social unrest, grief, illness, death, and the total unknown — no wonder we’re all experiencing a surfacing of some funky personal and collective shadows!

Today, I invite you to have a feel into an amazing, forgotten feminine archetype: Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld.

An ancient Sumerian myth tells us of the Goddess Inanna, Queen of Heaven & Earth, and her decision to descend to the Underworld, to see what exists beneath the veil there, and meet her dark sister, Ereshkigal.

Ereshkigal represents our shadow self, our exiled self, and our disowned shadows and wounds.

What’s too painful to feel, what’s too uncomfortable to look at.

Ereshkigal is Inanna’s forgotten other half. The feminine that’s been cast out in the shadows, forbidden, unacceptable to society and to our modern, civilized selves.

Yet, Ereshkigal tells us that there is feminine power in our shadow.

We can reclaim our wholeness there.

Our shadow typically originates in unresolved pain from our inner child (from gestation to birth, childhood, and teenage years), as well as unresolved pain within our family lineage.

We can sometimes try to cover up our shadow self by adhering to patriarchal ways of ‘getting over it,’ bypassing it with positive thinking and spiritual principles, or ignoring our true feelings to keep the peace (with others, or with ourselves — to keep our ‘reality’ together).

Our shadow often magnetizes wound resonance relationships, where we find ourselves in unloving or abusive situations, or relationships that continually surface feelings of unworthiness and powerlessness.

Shadow feelings can show up through sudden anxiety, fear, terror, self-hate, rigid control, grasping, lack of self-worth, and more.

Many of our shadow behaviors are actually wound protections — layers of defense that keep us ’safe’ from feeling the pain or overwhelming feelings underneath.

In other words, there are ‘feelings beneath the feelings’ we unconsciously protect ourselves from fully experiencing.

Art by Wayne Barlowe

Art by Aly Fell

What happens when we embrace our inner Underworld Queen?

We can navigate our personal shadow world with humility, self-love, and even curiosity.

We can not only surrender to her — we can become her. Merge with her, and inherit her vast fertile wisdom.

This part of us, our own inner Dark Goddess, knows that we must descend to the Underworld to unearth a forgotten or hidden story.

To excavate a precious soul treasure, beyond what can be seen with the naked eye, beyond the obvious.

The womb, our power center, is our root. The womb is essential in all shadow work.

(Note: All humans have an energetic womb. This is the center of spiritual, creative, and sexual power I’m referring to.)

Cultivating our relationship with our womb instinct is how we stay anchored, and centered. How we explore with discernment, self-love, and from our power (not giving our power away to others, or to the wounds themselves).

Without being rooted in our womb, we can get lost in the Underworld. We can feel endlessly disassociated, chaotic, or spinning in circles.

A safe, loving container, rooted in the power of the womb, is what allows the magic to happen.

This is womb consciousness. Holding a womb or loving container, like a mother with enfolded arms, around whatever is alchemizing, transforming, and needing a place of comfort and gentle rebirth within us.

We can hold a container for our pain, our fears, our questions that currently don’t have an answer.

What we find out in the story of Ereshkigal, is that she is set free when she is sent beings of compassion who totally merge with her pain, and honor, hear, and commune with her deepest aches!

It turns out that her pains are actually the moans of labor! Her grief and heartbreak are a birthing.

☾ How has your shadow self been peeking through lately? What waves of overwhelming emotion or discomfort have you noticed?

☾ Can you see how this shadow lives beyond you and extends into your family lineage, and even the world?

☾ What do you think is going to ’save’ you? (money, security, a job, a relationship, etc.) How have you been protecting from feeling ’the feeling beneath the feelings’?

☾ When you step into your inner Underworld Queen, what is she truly feeling? What is she wanting and needing?