For a few minutes after the song died away everything went very still and peaceful
- a moment of pure magic, and all of us, women and men, felt the power of peace,
until the next surge of movement came.
These were very powerful experiences for us all. The potent confrontation
between women and men, peace and weaponry seemed to epitomise the imbalance
in the world
and the dilemmas which we face in our relationships with each other. Some
of the men inside the fence had women friends or relatives on the outside
and both
had to deal with the consequences. Some were sympathetic to the women's
point of view, but like women, men are also trapped by the structures of
patriarchy.
We were all changed by the experience of being there. Women we knew locally
were so moved that they left their husbands and children and went to live
in the Greenham
mud
for longer lengths of time.
Pluto
and Persephone
At some time during the autumn of 1983 after going to a peace vigil
at Greenham when I was about five months pregnant, I had the idea
of creating
a play in the
Glastonbury Assembly Rooms to honour the Greenham women and publicise
what was happening. I had just read the Greek myth of the rape and
abduction of Persephone
by the underworld god Pluto, which forms the basis for the Mystery
rites at Eleusis. For the first time for me a myth came to life as
I saw the
parallel between what
was happening in our present world and the pattern of the ancient story.
Persephone is the innocent child, virgin daughter of Demeter, the Earth
Mother. Pluto represents
the military/industrial complex that is raping Nature and her daughters,
stealing her bounty, putting nothing back, then seducing us all with
material goods, so
that we come to love him for the things he gives us. Hecate who comes
in search of Persephone when she is lost in the Underworld I equated
with the Greenham
Women, bearing the revealing light of truth into the darkness and helping
to bring back
reverence for the glory of nature. The parallels were simple and obvious.
Friends responded to the idea and quickly we pulled together a modern
dress production of the ancient myth with music to be performed in
the Assembly Rooms, as a winter
solstice celebration of our Greenham Women. The stage was divided down
the middle by a green fence like the one which surrounds Greenham Common
airbase, symbolically
separating the underworld from the natural world. Jamie George, the
co-proprietor of Gothic Image in Glastonbury's High Street, who had
come to Glastonbury
on the same spiritual wave as myself, Frances and William in the mid
1970's, played
Pluto, the underworld god. Clad in black leathers and large black cloak
he burst forth from the underworld on a motor bike/chariot, abducting
Persephone and taking
her down to his domain. In his world there were TVs, washing machines,
all the 'essential' trappings of modern life that seduce us away from
nature. Greenham
Woman was the hera (feminised
form of hero from the goddess Hera), Hecate rescuing Persephone from
the underworld and bringing hope for renewed life on earth.
This celebration of the Greenham Women was strong and moving even though
it had been brought together so quickly. Persephone-like it was the
seed for our later
productions. It awakened my childhood memories of how exciting theatre
is, how much fun it can be and as a primitive playwright and director
how drama allows
us to say things that otherwise may go unheard.
Inanna
and Dumuzi
My beautiful son Torquil, was born in early spring 1984 and for a time
I had my hands full adjusting to looking after two small children
on my own. The stormy
karmic relationship with their father, Emmanuel, meant that he was
often absent. However as a creatively intelligent woman, child care
and housework
were never
enough for me, my mind thirsted for stimulation. I love my children
intensely, but to be truly happy I also need to be inspired.
During
the summer of 1984 I went again to Greenham to take part in peace
actions, my determination to do something heightened by having two
small vulnerable
children.
At the same time I was very afraid that if I went too far and got
arrested or even jailed for what I believed in, they - those in authority,
the
government, the all-powerful ones above, could just come and take
my babies away, claiming
I was an unfit mother. I know that many mothers are immobilised by
this fear and cannot act against all that is so obviously wrong in
the world.
At Greenham
I began my first steps towards learning how to deal with the power
of that outside
authority, which says "This
is how things are and this is how they must stay. You're just a silly woman.
You don't understand anything. We have to have these weapons of war to keep the
peace." In recognising the real insanity of such twisted thinking
I began to think clearly for the first time about the effects of dominating
patriarchal authority both collectively and personally.
As a child I was intimidated into compliance with authority by my
father's black moods and anger. As a teenager I rebelled as best
I could, but
never too far.
In my adult life I have had to learn to stand alone in my own authority
against many internal and external critics. The voice of truth within
has always been
there but after its expression was crushed in childhood by parents
and schools, I myself had to learn to honour what it said. I had
to learn
to trust that
acting upon intuition would bring me what I have needed in life.
I have had to fight
the internal judge who sits on my shoulder as I write plays or plan
new ventures, and says,"How
dare you say that! It's too much! What will people think
of you?" I have had to learn to hold firm to the promptings
of my intuition when my more public adventures in consciousness have
pressed hostile
buttons in
others.
At some point during 1984 I read Inanna,
Queen of Heaven and Earth - Her Stories
and Hymns from Sumer by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer
(Rider 1984). This book tells the life story of the Sumerian goddess
Inanna,
Queen of Heaven, First Daughter of the Moon, the Morning and the
Evening Star. It is a
beautifully poetic translation from original cuneiform writing on
clay tablets from Sumer, dating back to 2,000 BCE, with commentaries
and
interpretations. It tells of Inanna's youth and beauty, her acquisition
of knowledge,
of the me
- the gifts of the soul given to her by Enki, the god of wisdom.
It vividly describes her love for the shepherd Dumuzi and the consummation
of the
royal marriage,
all in wonderfully graphic language. When Dumuzi turns away from
love
Inanna descends into the Underworld, to visit her older sister Ereshkigal,
who is mourning
the death of her husband Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven. In the Underworld
Ereshkigal fastens on Inanna `the eye of death' and for three days
and night Inanna hangs
lifeless from a hook on the wall, a green slab of rotting meat. She
stays there until she is rescued by two small sexless creatures made
from the
dirt beneath
Enki's fingernails. She ascends from the underworld transformed,
now equipped to rule over all three
domains of earth, heaven and underworld.
The language used is powerful, explicit and spiritual and it spoke
to me in a very deep way. It seemed to tell a story that still applied
to
modern day relationships,
to current women's issues and to political situations, such as Greenham
Common.
As my mind ached for some exercise other than trying to work out
how to survive a bad marriage without going mad, I had the idea of
adapting
this ancient and
powerful myth for the stage and with music. During the summer I heard
the wonderful voice of Jaki Whitren when she sang with her musician
partner, John Cartwright
at an International
Times gig. Jaki has a powerful three-octave range in her voice
which brought tears to my eyes. For me this is one of the physical/emotional
signals that a person is right for a part. Other signs are shivers
up
the spine and a
certain look in the eye. I knew that Jaki had had the esoteric experience
that meant she was capable of carrying the energy of Inanna, she
and John had both
studied with Alice Bailey's Arcane School. I talked to John and he
agreed to arrange and play all the music and after a few conversations
Jaki
agreed to play
the part of Inanna. Within a few short weeks there was much wonderful
music and many inspired songs.
I've
always chosen performers and musicians intuitively, but this production
of Inanna
and Dumuzi was the one in which I recognised that I had some
innate synchronistic talent for choosing performers, either by spotting
them
accidentally (!) in performance elsewhere or as they presented themselves
for parts. It has
never been that the people chosen were necessarily the best actors
for the parts. It is that some quality in the person chosen is the
perfect
expression of the
character they are playing, and as individuals they are themselves
ripe for transformation. In the beginning I saw that ripeness as
being to
do with developing personal
creativity, expanding talents and skills. As time has gone on I have
realised it is much more
than that.
John plunged into writing music and songs and organising musicians
to play. In true Ariadne style he encouraged those who were just
beginning to play music
publicly to perform. One of these was Lydia Lite, who has since become
well known for her talents as a sacred drummer and percussionist.
She is blessed with a
natural sense of rhythm and an esoteric understanding of the energies
invoked in sacred drama, being another ex-Baileyite. She has helped
to
create atmosphere
and hold the energy
field in many Ariadne productions.
Meanwhile I adapted the oldest written love story of
Inanna and Dumuzi into a modern setting. I paralleled the ancient mythic
story with
a present day love
story between a Greenham Woman and a Soldier on the inside of the
fence. The tale was one of love between a goddess and man, between
Sally,
a pregnant woman
and her Soldier-lover, then the separation that followed from their
different attitudes to love. It tells of Sally's loneliness, her
descent into the
underworld, of loss and grief at giving birth alone and then of
redemption and return to
sanity. In order to ascend from the underworld Inanna must send
someone else to take her place. In our story she sent the Soldier to
face
his own demons so
that he too might be redeemed. The play began with the mythic characters
playing their parts which were slowly taken over and then acted
out by the personal characters
of the Soldier and Sally, while the divine characters sang and
told the mythic story.
As I was working on the story in early November, my father had
a heart attack and died suddenly in the way he would have wanted,
on
the eighteenth
green of
his local golf course having just won a match. When I saw his dead
body I felt a profound excitement as death and the energy of the
Bardo's brushed
past me.
I felt no grief. I had never had the warm, affectionate daddy that
like all children I had yearned for. He had been a critical, Victorian
father
only occasionally
being able to show his love directly to me. When he died I felt
as if a huge weight
had lifted off my shoulders. I was freed to be myself.
The cast of Inanna
and Dumuzi came quickly together and within a few short weeks
again at the winter solstice, we had a magnificent production with
over 40
people taking part as performers, musicians, craft and production
people. Many well-known faces
from the Glastafarian community took part including David Manzi-Fe
as the narrator Neti, gatekeeper to the Underworld, Roger Frood
as Dumuzi,
Jolyon Fillingham
as the Soldier Dumuzi, Thyme as the pregnant Greenham Woman Sally,
the artist Valerie Neal as Ereshkigal, Australian black crow Katherine
Ahern
as Dumuzi's
sister Geshtinanna, the writer Nick Mann now famous for publicising
Sedona landscapes, as Enki and Ann Morgan as his sukkal, Isimud.
Among those
playing the Greenham
Women was Stephanie Leland, who was the co-editor of Women
For
Life on Earth magazine (Oh, where are you now? It was such
a great magazine), which had been among the first to alert us to
what
was happening
at Greenham Common. Some were amateurs, some were professionals.
We had no funding,
so we all did
it for love.
There were stages on three different levels, one high up representing
the mythic realities where the goddesses and gods made their appearances,
a second one three
feet off the ground where the human and mythic characters interacted
and a third stage at ground level where modern day characters played
their parts. This present
day level was again bisected by a symbolic Greenham chainlink fence.
The upper stages were connected by sloping planks of wood, which
were rather unstable.
Laura, who enthusiastically played one of Enki's monsters fell
off the slope, hurting her back. It took a long time to get better.
The
backdrop
to the stage
was a huge
collage of the vulva of Inanna, the source of creation.
The one-night performance was powerful and years later I can still
remember the pure magic of that evening with the beauty of Jaki's
voice, the glorious
music,
the beautiful language, the stillness, the power of performing
myth in relation to present day reality, the elation of having
brought
a dream
to life. Unexpectedly,
not really knowing what we were doing, we all experienced an awesome
mystery. We had found treasure unexpectedly.
It was a long play and I realised then that although audiences
may shuffle in their seats and get uncomfortable, something happens
during
a long
performance
that is understood in temples. By sitting there past the point
of restlessness we can be brought into a different reality - we
are
brought into the
now. Patriarchal spurt consciousness demands the quick fix of stimulation
and instant ejaculation.
But a woman's way is slower, moving with tides of feeling and sensation
which weave together patterns in the fabric of meaning. Since then
our plays, like
Buddhist/Hindu ceremonies have always been that bit longer than
is conventionally acceptable
in the west. One of my dreams is for the 12 hour epic performance.
I began the process of learning about producing and directing sacred
drama with this magical production of Inanna
and Dumuzi. I learned that most people are just waiting for
the opportunity to be creative and given an inspiring project will
pour
out their energy,
talents and time for the sheer pleasure of creation. I learned
that the secret of production
is delegation of responsibility. I learned to trust that everyone
who wants to do something - play a part, make a costume, paint
a set, will
do it on the whole
to the utmost of their ability and that is good enough. By agreeing
to be part of the process they are automatically inspired by the
informing energy and are
in tune. My task is to find the people whose time it is to participate
and then to let them get on with it. They are responsible to themselves
and the divine
for their efforts.
I learned from the example of the ancient Sumerian texts of the
power of poetry to say things that otherwise may sound too blatant
for
modern ears. To publicly
honour the breasts and vulva of Inanna without embarrassment, to
delight in the thick cream of Dumuzi the shepherd, to laugh at
the Soldier's Milk
Tray chocolates. I learned of the power of good music to cradle
language, to create atmosphere, to enhance emotions, to provide
continuity, to
seal the cracks in a performance. I saw how beautifully sung, meaningful
songs could open
hearts
and transport people into another reality.
I learned about writing songs. When I wrote the lyrics I could
hear their tunes and rhythms in my head, but I'm no musician. As
John
Cartwright and I worked
together he would come up with tunes that were completely different
to
the ones I could hear, but which were nevertheless perfect for
the production. From this
I began to learn that behind expression are universal non-verbal
languages that we each hear in a different way many tunes from
one source. I
have written songs
now with several musicians and this seems to be the way of it.
I hear one song as I'm writing
the words and then they play a different tune and it works.
I began to learn to trust in the magical, unpredictable processes
of creativity. Up until a day or two before the performance there
were
still a couple of roles
to be filled, one of whom was the all-important Fly who appears
at the very end of the story to tell Inanna where the missing Dumuzi
may be
found. Stanley Messenger,
the butterfly man, elder and ex-actor stepped in at the last moment
to play the Fly with great style (who could forget those wings
and
the tea-strainer
eyes!)
I learned through this and many later experiences to know that
during a production everything happens perfectly within its own
timing -
that there is no reason
to panic, the right person will always turn up to play a role.
Even when main characters change their minds about who they want
to play,
the correct
person
will always end up in the right place. There may be some shuffling
around to be done at the
beginning but it is just the puzzle shaking everyone into position.
In creating the play I had a strong vision of how scenes should
look with vibrating colour and light. I could see the palaces of
Sumer,
the White Quay, the Lapis
Luzuli Quay, the dark Underworld. Over the years I have seen scenes
3-D in my mind's eye in waking visions and in dreams. Often we
have recreated
these visions
on the stage. Sometimes translation from the dream to actuality
is incomplete. We've never had the money with which to totally
manifest
the Kretan palaces
or Tibetan temples, but the sheer creative talent that has poured
forth from people
into sets has more than made up for the lack of cash. With Inanna
and Dumuzi I began to learn not to worry about production problems
but to hold the creative space open to whatever is attempting to
express itself within the dimensions of a play. If something doesn't
work its
because something
else is trying to happen. There is no need to use force to constrain
events, to impose will upon circumstance. The play is an expression
of a reality that
already exists in another dimension.
We are the midwives who bring it to birth.
Having
said there is no need to impose personal will, I know that will
is an essential part of the creative process. Without it there
would
be no
play, no production.
Here I use will to mean a quality of the soul, which may be the
same but is often different from our personal will. It is will
that holds
an idea on course to
completion when there may be many distractions. It is will that
holds us aligned to our purpose. It is will that allows us to make
decisions.
The final me or
soul quality that
was given to Inanna by Enki was `the making of decisions'.
As well as being a mythic tale Inanna
and Dumuzi again celebrated the actions of Greenham Women and
showed a possible means of healing for both women and men as well
as the earth
through descent to the dark, underworld goddess. During the time
of the women's peace
camp at Greenham Common, American nuclear missiles arrived and
later were withdrawn from the airbase. Politicians said their removal
had
nothing to do with the women's
actions but we all know governments lie. It is the sustained opposition
of women and men of peace to these weapons of madness that will
remove them from the planet.
Those of us who took part in collective creative actions at Greenham
and elsewhere have experienced the reality that we have the power
to change the world for the
better.
For weeks after the performance of Inanna
and Dumuzi we all floated on a euphoric high. Something
wonderful had happened for us all. There were rumblings about difficulties
in people's relationships but these always seem to be happening
so it
didn't really
register as anything unusual. My own relationship with Emmanuel,
my children's father
continued to be difficult but that was nothing new. He gave me
no support in my creative endeavours and didn't even come to the
performance.
The
Moon Dance
In the springtime of 1985 I worked with a group of women on a
dance drama expressing the different energies of the Moon Goddess.
We
rehearsed together
at the Dove
Workshops in Butleigh, which is situated on the wing of the
Libran dove in the Glastonbury Zodiac. We developed an unusual combination
of our
voices singing
the names of long forgotten moon goddesses with music played
by Bron Bradshaw on dulcimer. Bron is a talented etcher as
well
as
being
a musician. In addition
there were drums and a wind harp, which makes strange eerie
sounds as air passes naturally through its strings. There were four
dancers - January
Jane dressed
all in white representing the new to waxing moon; Juliet Yelverton
seven months pregnant in red as the full moon; June Marsh the
dancer in yellow/orange/brown
as the waning moon and Willow Roe in mysterious black as the
dark of the moon.
Willow and I have an interesting karmic relationship. Earlier
in 1981 she had had an affair with Emmanuel in Wales as I was
giving
birth
traumatically to our
daughter in Somerset. Apart from the initial shock of finding
out, I strangely bore her no malice, which for a jealous Taurean
is
unusual. Willow later moved
to Glastonbury and has since taken part in many Ariadne productions
as
a performer and singer, and has designed and painted beautiful
wall hangings and made props
and masks. She is a talented artist and her energy is unique
and powerful.
Our dance was performed at the end of April at the Beltane
Earth Mysteries Camp which was held in a field at Butleigh,
near Glastonbury.
As the
sun was slowly
setting in the west and the full moon rose in the east the
four dancers entered the large grassy circle. The evening breeze
blew
through
the wind harp, randomly
creating a strange ethereal sound. Bron played a beautiful
tune on the dulcimer and we sang. The audience watched from
the edge
of the
circle
with all the women
joining in with the full moon dancing, chanting and drumming.
It was magic. Bron later released an audio-tape of the music.
Descent
to the Goddess
In the summer of 1985 my personal life fell apart.
When we were on a family holiday at Lyme Regis, Emmanuel told me
he loved
someone else. I had sensed it for weeks
feeling in my guts each time they made love, but he had
denied anything
was going on. I had begun to think I must be truly mad
because all my
instincts were telling
me he was with someone else. He denied it over and over
again, I was the one he loved. Against my own intuition I continued
to believe
his
words. In the end
I had to face the humiliation of asking her and of course
they'd been sleeping together. He loved her. He had been
lying to
me for weeks.
It had happened before
when our first child was born. Naively I didn't believe
it could happen again. It took me years to accept that this
is his Gemini
nature -
to love more than
one woman at once. As a Taurean I want no part of such
faithlessness. I fell into a chasm of such pain that I do not have the
words
to describe it. For months
I stayed in this grief-filled place, saved from suicide
only by the love of my children.
I couldn't leave them, they were innocent and born of love.
Lysistrata
Revisited
In the autumn in desperation looking for something to
make me laugh rather than cry all the time, I brought
together
LYSISTRATA REVISITED,
a reworked
version
of the Greek play Lysistrata or The
Flight of the Doves by Aristophanes, first performed
in 411BCE. At the time there was much antagonism in
Glastonbury between
local Glastonians
and the Rainbow Village, a group of people living in
trucks and benders at Greenlands
Farm near Wick around the back of the Tor. In
the original version of Lysistrata women
from opposing sides in a war between Athens and Sparta
agree that war is stupid and decide that they will
not make love
to their
husbands until the war stops.
At the winter solstice we applied the same solution
to our own local difficulty with hilarious effects.
Katherine
Ahern
played
Lysistrata
with great verve, the
other women being played by well known local figures,
including the lovely American Jennifer Cobb, Sheila
Craig, Willow
and Lawrence Sharpe
as an
unforgettable Myrrhine.
Ann Monger appeared naked and golden as the beautiful
Reconciliation, continuing the Ariadne tradition of
having at least one
if not more
naked bodies on stage
in a performance, revealing
beauty and innocence as well as sexuality.
The
men in the play all wore appropriately coloured phalluses,
beautifully made from stuffed knee-length socks with
sticks down the middle
to keep them upright, by
my sisterfriend Melanie Templer. I remember in particular
David Beech as Cinesias, Colin Harrison the circle
dancer, in a business
suit
with a wonderful, glittering
phallus, Charlie Barley as the Rainbow Ambassador and
Bruce Garrard of Unique Publications, whose prick-stick
was accidentally
broken
just before
the performance
by the swing of a cloak, so he had to perform with
a bent phallus. As the men in the play became increasingly
sexually
frustrated
their phalluses
rose erect
and extended to over two feet long, glowing with colour.
It was very funny!
However this was only a brief respite in a long descent.
I continued falling into a great chasm of depression.
I was saved
from complete
breakdown by Melanie,
who gave me a present of an air ticket to Bali. I left
the children with their Dad and Melanie's then partner,
John,
and we went
across the seas
to the other
side of the world for six weeks. There I saw beautiful
Buddhist/Hindu temples and daily devotion to the divine
and live sacred
drama to encourage me. I found
some peace but I came back still hoping our relationship
could somehow work. When it didn't,
I fell further into the void.
I stayed in that place of darkness for over two years
after our production of Inanna
and Dumuzi. I didn't know what was happening. I
had no control over my moods or feelings. I couldn't
exert
any will-power
to
change how I
felt. I tried reading spiritual books for inspiration
but none of the ones that I had
known and loved in the past meant anything now. Alice
Bailey, who had been a deeply spiritual inspiration
to me for over
twelve years
said
nothing helpful.
Emotions in her cosmos are best transcended or suppressed
and I was in an emotional morass. Here was the dark
night of my
soul, but no
one described
this woman's
experience. The words, the language of all the spiritual
and esoteric
teachings was male and
didn't recognise this deeply feminine hole in the ground.
Then in the summer of 1986 by chance (!) I found Descent
to the Goddess - a
Way of Initiation for Women by Sylvia Brinton-Perrera,
Inner City Books, 1981. It was like finding water in
a thirsty desert.
It was
the first book that remotely described my spiritual
and emotional state. Up to that point
I had always had to translate my experience into masculine
perspectives that didn't fit. I began at last to understand
what had been
going on
for me as Sylvia
Perrera, a Jungian analyst, illustrated with examples
from her analytic practice, how the story of Inanna's
descent
to meet
Ereshkigal in
the Underworld, describes
a passage of initiation for women. In order to gain
our freedom as women from the patriarchally determined
roles
we play,
we are propelled
usually
unwillingly,
into the depths of instinct, to a primeval place where
we can connect with our inner female authority. The
pattern of this
descent is
expressed in the story
of Inanna's life and her
descent to face Ereshkigal.
Like the grey shapes revealed by the growing light
of the sun at dawn I began to see where I was and had
been
for
a long
time -
hanging like
a side of rotten
meat on a hook on the wall in the underworld. I had
been living out the story of Inanna in my personal
life. The
ancient Sumerian
tale
described
exactly how
I felt. In the myth Ninshubur, Inanna's sister queen
asks Enki the god of wisdom to help rescue Inanna from
the Underworld.
Enki makes
two tiny
creatures, the
kurgarra and the galatur, who are able to slip unnoticed
through
the cracks in the seven gates down to the Underworld.
There they mirror
Ereshkigal's agony
as she suffers from the pangs of childbirth. In return
for their empathy Ereshkigal grants them any reward
they desire.
They ask
for the body
of Inanna that hangs
from the hook on the wall. Reborn from the womb of
Ereshkigal, Inanna is restored to life and ascends
to the earth.
For me rescue came through a series of apparently unconnected
little events - finding Sylvia's book, beginning to
play with clay with
Pauline Watson who is
a potter and old friend, a brief word from William
Bloom telling me to throw a line to my soul which I
saw hanging
on a hook
on the wall,
and
finally asking
for help from a Relate counsellor who listened to me
and empathised with my grief.
Within
a few short weeks I ascended from the void. To my surprise
I carried with me an overwhelming creativity that I
knew could be applied
to anything - writing,
sculpture, cooking, knitting, work and play of all
forms. I had
touched the waters of the two rivers of life and death
that flow from beneath
the underworld. I
had dipped my fingers in Keridwen's cauldron of death
and regeneration and received healing and inspiration.
I began
making clay sculptures
for the first time in
my life. My first attempt was a large smooth head of
the Gorgon Medusa from which the snakes had fallen
away, with
Pegasus
emerging from
the centre of her forehead.
At the time I was just attracted to the image of rebirth.
As I made the sculpture I understood its appropriateness
and its
psychological
significance
for me. I
knew just how the deadly Medusa had felt and why. She
was terrified and enraged and no-one could look at
her without
being petrified
by her fright.
With Perseus
as my animus who stalks Medusa by looking at her reflection
in a
mirror, aided by Athene, goddess of wisdom - energy
of the soul, he cut off the Gorgon's head.
As he did so, unexpectedly, Pegasus the powerful, flying
horse of inspiration and intuition burst through, opening
my third
eye. My
mind began to
work again, inspiration began to flow, faster and fuller
than ever before.
I experienced
the truth that there are rare and precious jewels hiding
in the darkness of the underworld that cannot be found
anywhere else.
Once again
I had found treasure
unexpectedly.
My intuition had been confirmed as true although in
horrible circumstances. I would not doubt it again.
I would never
again settle for a love
relationship that gave me less than I deserve. To that
point in my life I had always
compromised,
wanting more from my relationships with men, more closeness,
more love, more intimacy than the men I chose were
able to give. I recognised
that karmically
I have always been responsible for these choices I
have made, from choosing to incarnate with a father
who would
be remote
and distant,
to all the
emotionally
absent while physically present lovers I have known.
Although it must
be said that nearly all men are absent most of the
time. When the time was ready I would
ask the goddess for a man who was himself surrendered
to her, who honoured women's truth and who
would honour me. If he didn't come I would stay single.
When I came back above ground, like Inanna before me,
who must send someone to take her place in the Underworld,
I set the
galla upon
my ex-husband
and his
lover, so that they too might descend to the goddess
to
later return restored to creative
life. Not all my grief was gone as I saw them run into
hiding.
The next realisation was that I had been living out
this descent ever since we had performed our version
of the
myth of Inanna.
Synchronously it also coincided
with the two year period of mourning after my father's
death. I had not mourned my father consciously, because
for me he
had been
gone
for a
long time, but unconsciously
I mourned him in the death throes of my relationship
to the father of my children. I felt an awesome sense
of recognition,
that
myths are not
just stories to be
idly performed, for enacted by those whose life patterns
are coincident they can bring transformation. As I
started to hear
what had been
happening
for other
people
in the cast of Inanna
and Dumuzi I began to realise that by performing
sacred drama those who participate live out their roles
in their
everyday lives and this
is intrinsic to the nature of sacred drama. As the
unconscious producer I had experienced
the whole story from true love to abandonment, from
descent to
ascent, coincident with what I needed for my personal
transformation. I hadn't
really known what
we were doing. It had come about by accident. We had
been playing with fire and I had got burned.
When
we perform without awareness of this connection we
are swept along by the archetypal energies invoked,
energies
over which
we have
no control.
We descend in pain
and suffering to the goddess or to whatever forces
or divinities are seeking expression. Having fallen
unconsciously
into
the chasm myself,
I began to glimpse
the possibility that if we could participate consciously
in sacred drama we might have the opportunity to creatively
transform
ourselves,
without
so much suffering.
As a spiritual form sacred drama automatically brings
in its wake emotional, psychological and spiritual
transformation. As participants
the only
choices we have are whether we will be
conscious or unconscious of the process.
As my brain began to function again I spent some time
thinking about the nature of myth. I compared the story
of Inanna's
voluntary descent
to visit the underworld
goddess, Ereshkigal, with the later Greek story of
Persephone's descent into Tartarus through rape and
abduction by the
underworld god Hades
or Pluto, known
as the Rich One. In early Greek myth Pluto was originally
female, a daughter of Cronos and Rhea, the mother of
Tantalus. Later
her sex
changed and
she became a god, equated with Hades. I began to see
the ways in which universal myths are
altered over time reflecting changes in the collective
unconscious and external society.
I began to question the assumptions we all make about
them.
For example, what is the real gender of the Underworld
regenerator, the one who rules the Shadowlands? In
the earlier Sumerian
myths she is Ereshkigal,
whose
transforming power the Queen Inanna must face voluntarily,
naked and bowed low so that she may truly come into
her power in all
three realms
of earth, heaven
and underworld. In later Greek myths as the Maiden
Persephone/Kore, the goddess does not go voluntarily,
but is raped while
out picking flowers
and then abducted
by Pluto into his underworld realm. This change in
gender reflects the brutal takeover of matristic societies
by
aggressive patriarchal
forces.
In my experience
the Underworld Transformer, whether she is called Ereshkigal
or Pluto, in her original form is a deeply feminine
power. She is
the Dark
Mother, the Black Goddess,
the Queen of Death. Her partner, whose death she seasonally
mourns is the Bull of Heaven, Gugalanna, the constellation
of Taurus,
which annually
dipped beneath
the Sumerian horizon. It is this Mother of Death who
must be faced when we descend into our dark shadow
nature. For
women
the agent
of that descent
is often though
not always a beloved man or a rapist. For men the agent
is often a woman. Voluntarily or accidentally it is
as the result
of our
sexual love relationships
that we
descend
to the goddess, to die and be transformed.
Astronomically Pluto is the outermost planet so far
discovered in the solar system, although there are
hints of another
small planet,
Persephone,
even further away.
Astrologically Pluto transits of a natal horoscope
indicate contact with this dark goddess. During my
years in the
Underworld I was
under the
influence of
a continuous series of Pluto transits, including Pluto
conjunct ascendant, Pluto opposition Sun in the 7th
house, Pluto square
Saturn, Pluto
opposition Moon,
leading eventually to Pluto square Pluto, which is
about assuming one's own inner authority. I experienced
these
transits as
slow, grinding,
remorseless change,
being suspended like a rotting side of meat on a hook
on the wall, with no escape, nothing to
be done but to experience the dull and aching void.
Looking back on the whole experience I have an overwhelming
and total respect for the magical transformative powers
of the Underworld
goddess,
whether she
be called Pluto, Ereshkigal or Keridwen. All I can
do is repeat the ancient Sumerian text
When I was about eight and living in Low Fell, Gateshead
[NE England], before the arrival of television, my friends and I used to
put on plays
in the garden
or on wet days in our garage. With a piece of material hung on a string for
a curtain we performed before our neighbours. Entrance was one old penny
and favourite
themes were about kings and queens regularly getting their heads chopped
off, or the Chief of Onga Bonga island. The best bits involved opening
and shutting
the curtains to reveal `the set' and dressing up - things don't change that
much. I loved the special occasions when we went to see real plays at
the Theatre Royal
in Newcastle or in the Little Theatre next to Saltwell Dene.
I
moved to Glastonbury in 1977 after I had dream at Wesak, the Beltane full
moon, in which I met and talked to all sorts of strange creatures who lived
beneath
the Tor. In the morning when I woke I surrendered to the Angel of Avalon
and gave myself to her. She took me at my word and began the task of transforming
me. Aaaieee...!
