The Underworld of Depression
The underworld can also be a state of mind that resembles the realm of Hades in which abducted Persephone was an imprisoned captive. It was a dim world inhabited by the shades of the dead, which were recognizable but without substance, bloodless images like holograms or like memories devoid of emotion. This is the realm of depression when we are cut off from our feelings, which illness and the effort to repress all feelings and fears can bring us into. We then act as if we were inanimate, obedient, cooperative objects. The diagnosis of a life-threatening illness and the need to respond immediately to medical advice about what to do invites us to dissociate from our feelings. Whether from depression or from dissociation, the result is often the same. Detached from emotions, a person can then be the picture of the good patient who enters the hospital as if it were a body repair shop.
The Underworld of the Soul
The underworld is also a soul realm, a place of great inner richness. This is the realm of Pluto—the Latin name for Hades—which means riches or treasures underground. This is the psychological layer that contains the potentials we have not developed, the talents and inclinations that once mattered to us, the emotions we hid from view and then lost touch with. Beyond this personal level lies the richness of the archetypal or symbolic layer of the collective unconscious, where patterns, instincts, all that is human resides, a deep core of meaning that dreams and creativity draw from. Here are the wellsprings of the soul, the spiritual instinct that directs us toward divinity in the same unconscious way that flowers turn to face the sun. Here the psychological quest for wholeness and meaning begins. Here in the archetypal realm, death and rebirth are metaphors, and the reality of physical death, which may be terrifying to the ego, is countered by dreams which have an entirely different perspective.
We can enter into this soul realm by musing upon the symbols, themes, and possible meaning of dreams that we record and remember; by following impulses to play, sing, or listen to music; to dance, paint, or draw; to honor and express what comes up when we are open to our own flow of feelings; to keep a journal; to write poetry; and through prayer and meditation, to be in silence or conversation at a soul level. When these gateways to the soul realm are familiar, access is not difficult.
This inner world of the soul is a foreign country for many, however. The extroverted person who prides himself or herself on being practical and logical, the caretakers who focus on the needs of others, the work-oriented for whom being productive is a measure of their worth, often have not ventured into their inner world very much. The resources of the inner world that can be tapped to help heal body and soul then need to be learned—which later chapters focus upon. To learn of the potential riches of this aspect of the underworld, to want firsthand knowledge and be willing to spend energy and time to get there, is the beginning. Keeping a journal— on paper, in memory—is a next step, out of which comes the value to oneself of attending to images, phrases, feelings, and thoughts that emerge out of one's own depths. A vivid dream needs to be attended to by writing it down; it will not likely be remembered otherwise, and even if remembered, details will be lost. Paying attention to the details of the dream may lead to musing upon parts of it, which leads to further memories and associations. It may move a person who otherwise might be either unfocused or focused on discomfort, or focused obsessively, to become absorbed in a communication from the dreaming psyche. To muse induces a meditative attitude, which is an open, receptive mind and heart. This is what solitude, meditation, or being receptive in prayer does for some of us. This is what backpacking, running, fishing, gardening, or sewing does for others.
Whatever it takes for us to hear the small still voice within, or reach the still point at the center, is the means, the access to the inner world of soul. When this realm is unknown terrain, or when illness makes ways we once used no longer possible, we can try ways that have worked for others, or learn from others. Just as one seeks a referral to a doctor and checks on credentials, experience, and affiliations, so is it possible to seek counseling or classes on various means of meditation, spiritual development, dream and journal work, and expressive therapies.
The Underworld of the Spirits
Life-endangering illness can have the effect of thinning the veils between this world and the otherworld of the spirits. People tell me such things as having had vivid, distinctly remembered conversations with figures they clearly saw and yet knew were not part of their ordinary reality, or of feeling the comforting presence of people who had died even though they neither heard nor saw them, or of telepathically communicating with an otherworldly figure when they were gravely ill.
Less common and more dramatic are the stories told by people who were near death when they met otherworld figures who told them that it was not their time. Two different women have told me of having an old, apparently Native American woman appear to them when they failed to respond to medical treatment and were dying; her appearance was an intervention that changed the course of the illness. One of the women had a fever of unknown origin that broke as a result of this visitation or vision. The other realized that she had been misdiagnosed, and efforts on her part led to a correct diagnosis of Lyme disease and proper treatment. Both women recovered and in their respective ways, became involved in bringing alternative medicine into more mainstream awareness. Illness brought them close to death and a nonordinary reality, which was both a turning point for the illness and the inspiration to help others after getting well.
At his memorial service, Gary Walsh, a San Francisco therapist turned activist, who organized the first candlelight AIDS march and debated Jesse Helms, was vividly present on film. In a videotaped interview done a few days before his death, he told us about being visited twice by a man whom many in the audience had known, a man who had recently died. While Gary was physically wasted in appearance, he was assertive, clear, and utterly convincing. He asserted that he was not asleep and that he was not hallucinating when this man appeared in his room and told him not to worry, that he would be there when Gary died and crossed over. Gary demanded in a prove-it-to-me tone that he appear to him one more time. A couple of days later, again when he was awake and mentally clear, this man appeared again, very briefly and impatiently, reiterating that he would be there when Gary died and obviously put out at having to make this extra visit, because he “had other things to do.”
Descending in Stages into the Underworld: The Inanna Myth
The descent of the soul into the underworld which illness can precipitate, does not always have the impact of a shocking, sudden, and unexpected abduction or the immediate devastation of being at the center of a major earthquake. Persephone's myth applies when this is so, but there is a second myth that parallels the experience of people whose illness and descent occur in stages through an incremental loss of footing in the ordinary world of good health: either they have an illness with a gradually worsening pattern, or they maintain the illusion of being in control and minimize the emotional impact of having a serious medical problem. The myth that resembles the journey they take goes back at least five thousand years to the Sumerian goddess Inanna.2
Inanna was the Queen of Heaven and Earth. Heeding the news that her sister goddess Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld, was suffering and in pain, she decided to pay her a visit. Inanna mistakenly assumed that she could descend with ease. She would find however, that the power and authority she had in the upperworld had no bearing on how she would be treated in the underworld.
Inanna knocked imperiously on the gate to the underworld, demanding that the door be opened. The gatekeeper asked who she was and then told her that in order to pass through, she had to pay a price. She found