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amerasuu's review against another edition
5.0
One of my favourite teachers, I did this as a class so I wanted to read the book
labyrinth_witch's review against another edition
4.0
I simultaneously wish I had had this book in undergrad, grateful that I am reading it as this precise moment, and feel like I need to read it a couple of more times to really absorb it.
I read this book at the tail-end of reading a chapter from Women Who Run With Wolves, Motherhood, and other related books on fairytales and labyrinths. And I honestly don't know if it would have made as much sense to me outside of the context of these other books as it did within them. But within the frame of the other non-fiction and fictional works, it fits like like last missing piece.
What Meredith seeks to normalize with this volume is that "existential crises" are actually "existential descents" into the underworld of our psyches or to the source of our souls. That there is 7 gates through which ones descends, and it is vulnerable and necessary. We actually need these descents in order to be mentally healthy. She begins the book by saying that we ought to have learned of this process and had rituals built around it to make it less scary around the time of our first menses, and that we would have seen older women in our community undergo such descents. I keep coming back to this idea- how much easier would high school and underground have been if I had know this was supposed to happen? If there had been a map? If I saw other women emerge okay? Perhaps the depression wouldn't have seemed so debilitating. In fact, Meredith posits much like Clarissa Pinokola Estes that depression simply means we have been away from our soul-source for too long.
The books, while a short volume, offers many ritual ideas as well as diving into the mythology around Inanna, Psyche, and Persephone. Once of the most intriguing rituals she suggests is making a map of your descents. I tried it one night, combing back through journals and correspondence, to discover that true to myth I do actually make my descents for 6 months of the year and by ascends for the other 6 months. Little did I know that I was undergoing Persephone's journey all along.
So much of this narrative completely reframed my approach to my own mental health that I find myself reeling from the reorientation. One of the aspects that I loved most was the reframing of the purpose and support that dark goddesses offer. Hekate, Hel, Erishrigol, Persephone, and all the others from your tradition. They exist for a reason, to teach us things we cannot know with our conscious minds. But truths we can only feel in our bodies, our souls, our dreams.
I want to buy this book to make rituals around my own cyclical descents, especially now that I know when they will most likely occur. And I want to make a map of those descents- talk about them openly with my friends, with my childrens as they grow.
Highly recommend as a menarche gift, if you suffer from depression, and if you have or are experiencing a series of existential "crises." Please know, they aren't a crisis at all. It's all meant to bring you back to yourself.
I read this book at the tail-end of reading a chapter from Women Who Run With Wolves, Motherhood, and other related books on fairytales and labyrinths. And I honestly don't know if it would have made as much sense to me outside of the context of these other books as it did within them. But within the frame of the other non-fiction and fictional works, it fits like like last missing piece.
What Meredith seeks to normalize with this volume is that "existential crises" are actually "existential descents" into the underworld of our psyches or to the source of our souls. That there is 7 gates through which ones descends, and it is vulnerable and necessary. We actually need these descents in order to be mentally healthy. She begins the book by saying that we ought to have learned of this process and had rituals built around it to make it less scary around the time of our first menses, and that we would have seen older women in our community undergo such descents. I keep coming back to this idea- how much easier would high school and underground have been if I had know this was supposed to happen? If there had been a map? If I saw other women emerge okay? Perhaps the depression wouldn't have seemed so debilitating. In fact, Meredith posits much like Clarissa Pinokola Estes that depression simply means we have been away from our soul-source for too long.
The books, while a short volume, offers many ritual ideas as well as diving into the mythology around Inanna, Psyche, and Persephone. Once of the most intriguing rituals she suggests is making a map of your descents. I tried it one night, combing back through journals and correspondence, to discover that true to myth I do actually make my descents for 6 months of the year and by ascends for the other 6 months. Little did I know that I was undergoing Persephone's journey all along.
So much of this narrative completely reframed my approach to my own mental health that I find myself reeling from the reorientation. One of the aspects that I loved most was the reframing of the purpose and support that dark goddesses offer. Hekate, Hel, Erishrigol, Persephone, and all the others from your tradition. They exist for a reason, to teach us things we cannot know with our conscious minds. But truths we can only feel in our bodies, our souls, our dreams.
I want to buy this book to make rituals around my own cyclical descents, especially now that I know when they will most likely occur. And I want to make a map of those descents- talk about them openly with my friends, with my childrens as they grow.
Highly recommend as a menarche gift, if you suffer from depression, and if you have or are experiencing a series of existential "crises." Please know, they aren't a crisis at all. It's all meant to bring you back to yourself.
sophielrobinsonauthor's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Amazing. I've purchased this in a physical copy to go through slowly on my own after reading though once fully. I love it's thoughtfulness and discourse on the dark goddess mythos in ancient religion and fairy tales.
keelygorski's review against another edition
5.0
When I stumbled across this book, I already had that feeling that something was wrong in my life. I wasnt happy and the things I enjoyed doing I didnt care about anymore or had to force myself to do just to stay in routine. I was just existing and that was it. I ultimately felt the Dark Goddess breathing on my neck and was scared because I knew the walls of illusion that is my life were getting ready to crumble, and I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I started reading this book on a thursday, I believe. That following sunday morning, when I got up to get ready for work, my relationship of two years (best friend for 6 years) ended with him saying he didnt want to be in a relationship anymore. I was entering into the underworld and questioning everything I believed to be real.
This book is/was just what I need/needed during this time because the Dark Goddess and I have met several times, and I have always been dragged into the underworld kicking and screaming, not wanting to face my reality. This book explains why we need these moments of darkness in our lives to learn and grow and if we accept this time and work through it, we will come back into the light more balanced and happier individuals. The exercises and rituals are great, and I am currently working through them right now. Along with explaining in detail her understanding of the myths of Inanna, Psyche and Persephone, Jane Meredith also adds her own personal experiences showing that we all go through this period of darkness and its a part of the normal cycle of life. It should not be considered a bad thing to experience depression because it is at this time that we grow stronger and learn compassion so that we may understand and help others who maybe facing their own Underworld Journey as well.
I definitely recommend this book to everyone. Those who are going through a tough time and those who are completely happy with life. Change is inevitable, and you never know what tomorrow will bring.
I started reading this book on a thursday, I believe. That following sunday morning, when I got up to get ready for work, my relationship of two years (best friend for 6 years) ended with him saying he didnt want to be in a relationship anymore. I was entering into the underworld and questioning everything I believed to be real.
This book is/was just what I need/needed during this time because the Dark Goddess and I have met several times, and I have always been dragged into the underworld kicking and screaming, not wanting to face my reality. This book explains why we need these moments of darkness in our lives to learn and grow and if we accept this time and work through it, we will come back into the light more balanced and happier individuals. The exercises and rituals are great, and I am currently working through them right now. Along with explaining in detail her understanding of the myths of Inanna, Psyche and Persephone, Jane Meredith also adds her own personal experiences showing that we all go through this period of darkness and its a part of the normal cycle of life. It should not be considered a bad thing to experience depression because it is at this time that we grow stronger and learn compassion so that we may understand and help others who maybe facing their own Underworld Journey as well.
I definitely recommend this book to everyone. Those who are going through a tough time and those who are completely happy with life. Change is inevitable, and you never know what tomorrow will bring.
andreag23's review against another edition
5.0
People from spiritual communities tend to over-emphasize the light. But the darkness and darker aspects of ourselves, in our souls have to be integrated as well into our lives in order for us to be completely true to ourselves – and this is what this book is about. It It is not so much about shadow work, but there are some similarities to that. In the course of this book, the author interpretes several myths of descent to the underworld from various angles, many of them on a psychological level – the descents of the sumerian goddess Inanna, and from Greek mythology Persephone and Psyche and she also retells parts of them in a beautiful style.
She tells about her own experience with rituals about such descents in spiritual groups with other women and also gives practical advice about how to do a four-part ritualisation of a descent into the Underworld and a following ascent, with many suggestions for creative approaches. She also writes about classical fairy tales and the evil queens/stepmothers/witches/fairies in them – and compares their often life-threatening challenges for the heroine of the tale as ways of initiation, which makes them similar to the Dark Goddess, as the author shows.
Jane Meredith also writes about how some people seem to be stuck in the Underworld – for instance with experiences in their everyday life with abuse, loss, grief, addictions, recurring depressions or other painful experiences. For these she recommends seeking also help in the everyday world, for instance by counselling or therapy. But I guess combining that with the suggested rituals might be helpful as well for some people.
I‘d recommend to read the whole book once and then, if you are willing to work through the rituals, read those parts again carefully. The author also recommend to have a check-in person for when the rituals are done and I think this is a good idea, because I guess those rituals, especially of descending into and staying in the Underworld could be quite intense and it is surely a good thing to be able to talk about them with a close person.
This is an intense book and a treasure for anyone who wants to follow and meet the Dark Goddess or feels called by her.
She tells about her own experience with rituals about such descents in spiritual groups with other women and also gives practical advice about how to do a four-part ritualisation of a descent into the Underworld and a following ascent, with many suggestions for creative approaches. She also writes about classical fairy tales and the evil queens/stepmothers/witches/fairies in them – and compares their often life-threatening challenges for the heroine of the tale as ways of initiation, which makes them similar to the Dark Goddess, as the author shows.
Jane Meredith also writes about how some people seem to be stuck in the Underworld – for instance with experiences in their everyday life with abuse, loss, grief, addictions, recurring depressions or other painful experiences. For these she recommends seeking also help in the everyday world, for instance by counselling or therapy. But I guess combining that with the suggested rituals might be helpful as well for some people.
I‘d recommend to read the whole book once and then, if you are willing to work through the rituals, read those parts again carefully. The author also recommend to have a check-in person for when the rituals are done and I think this is a good idea, because I guess those rituals, especially of descending into and staying in the Underworld could be quite intense and it is surely a good thing to be able to talk about them with a close person.
This is an intense book and a treasure for anyone who wants to follow and meet the Dark Goddess or feels called by her.
talking_to_trees's review against another edition
3.0
I love the idea around exploring our dark and shadow selves, and although this book seemed to be that, it was not. At least not in the general and practical sense. I think it might reach and speak to a very particular niche (people who have dealt with trauma and are struggling to get past it, as well as wiccans). Perhaps. Personally, I found it all much too dramatic and unnecessary.
The writing became extremely repetitive, to the extent that I started skipping pages, and ideas and examples simply weren't complete. The writing and punctuation was confusing at times, several times there were personal recounts that just left me wondering what and why, and even the rituals were largely the same thing over and over.
This is a theme we need to explore more, but this is not the book that will give us that exploration in a practically applicable way.
Having said that, I gave it 3 stars because there is value in it, and the first couple of pages were good enough to get the idea across.
The writing became extremely repetitive, to the extent that I started skipping pages, and ideas and examples simply weren't complete. The writing and punctuation was confusing at times, several times there were personal recounts that just left me wondering what and why, and even the rituals were largely the same thing over and over.
This is a theme we need to explore more, but this is not the book that will give us that exploration in a practically applicable way.
Having said that, I gave it 3 stars because there is value in it, and the first couple of pages were good enough to get the idea across.
dreamofbookspines's review against another edition
3.0
This is the first pagan self-help book I've read (or even seen actually). As a general rule, I'm not a fan of self-help books. I think the author makes a lot of good points, though it's unclear how some of her advice is to be carried out. The author primarily focuses on three myths: Inanna, Persephone, and Psyche. I like how she imagines their stories in addition to using them to illustrate her points. The rituals are by far the most valuable part of this book (for me).
melissaclair18's review against another edition
5.0
This book was difficult to get through. I was not prepared for the level of intensity that this book brings because when I heard others talk about it they made it seem easy, and maybe it was for them. The realisation that I have been in the underworld for most of my life was a hard pill to swallow. I would recommend this book only to people who are ready to do the work. I would also recommend to read the entire book before doing the descent.
shonna5000's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting, but not what I expected. I thought this book would be more generally about using trance states and inner journeying in shadow work, but it is more focused than that, outlining a rather specific series of rituals. I found it more instructional than creatively inspiring.