U is for Underworld – Pagan Blog Project 2012

This is something that caught my attention back when I read Dark Moon Rising (link goes to my review of the book, on Syrens). The idea of katabasis being a personal, internal journey where you face a particular Part Of You that you really wish wasn’t there.
 
I’ve seen Miss Sugar talk about two options that Magically Minded People have when it comes to dealing with the parts of oneself that are in the way, holding you back, etc. The therapy route and the magical (banishing) route.
I admit, I’m going to go with the therapy route pretty much every time. I’d much rather figure out why something is there in the first place (so I can stop it causing more crap to crop up later) than just shoo away the symptom. (Maybe that’s not what she meant, granted).
That said, I do love the idea of using magic and ritual to gain that understanding.
 
I’ve recently discovered Barking Shaman, the blog of a fellow named Wintersong, who teaches about crafting ordeal rituals (and other rituals) – for self and others – that are specifically meant to accomplish the kind of cathartic self-meeting “that can sometimes happen as an by-product, intended or otherwise, of the kind of play that we do in the kink/BDSM world”.
 
Which is great! 🙂
Here’s hoping I can attend a Dark Odyssey at-which he’s presenting one of these workshops.
 
However. I’d also like to learn how to go into my own depths in a non-trauma-induced way.
 
My wife is a free-diver, and she talks about “the blue” and “the black” of deep-diving in the ocean. As a watery creature, I suspect that my Inner World is a watery one. I’ve been on the shores of a lake, when I’ve gone into Inner Space during Pagan Schola. I have a Monster who comes out when I let my sadistic side get free during S/M play, and that one lives among the river reeds (there is mud under my fingernails and duckweed in my hair, don’t you forget it). And so I’m wondering if, perhaps, my Inner World has a “blue” and, deeper than that, a “black”.
 
I’m wondering what parts of myself I would meet if I went deep enough. Hopefully, over the course of 2013, I’ll figure that out.
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.