Ascend – Your Long Dark Journey Into Light

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In the myth of the goddess Innana’s Descent, our heroine passes through seven gates, losing one of her wordly attachments or her adornments at each gate. Ultimately Innana must give up all control and completely surrender herself. All of her old illusions, false identities and defenses render her powerless in facing her dark twin, Ereshkigal.

“The all seeing judges at the gates of the underworld perceive Innanna’s hidden, split off parts and condemn her. Stripped of all her coping mechanisms she must confront her demons. The heroine gives up the path of resistance used by those on the masculine path – the path that fights against the flow – and instead moves into allowance “going with the flow” and taking each challenge in stride. – The Descent of Innana translated by Wolkstein and Kramer, From 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt

Business Heroines are like ancient goddesses. Sometimes we take on more than we bargained for. I’m quite sure this was the case with the goddess Innana. She has no idea what she signed on for when she owned her desire to be queen of a coveted throne.

This ticket to ride included a journey into the darkest night of the soul. One, I am told, is essential for the conscious creator of a new world order. Just as Innana’s descent was essential in order for her to fully ascend, I, too, as an emerging Business Heroine, have descended into the truths I’d long forgotten but most need to know.

Descent is essential to ascent. For girls to emerge into true goddess – not just a “wanna be” queen with a pretty throne and a shiny crown, things will get a little messy, raw and painfully real before you see the light of who you truly are meant to become.

Some of the stories about Innana’s descent suggest she willingly sought the throne. Me? I’ve fought my emerging goddess tooth and nail (forgive me goddesses, I knew not what I was doing)

Me….a conscious creator? The new world order?

A lofty pursuit indeed…or is it my “lofty destiny” to become one who fully owns her place in the new world?

It must be who I am becoming…it must be.

The wisdom of my inner voice whispers – my compass of true north.

The rest is just my story confusing fiction with truth.

What do I believe in this land of confusion? I stumble along in the dark until I take another leap of faith.

Another leap of faith.

And so the journey of the enlightened entrepreneur, our beloved Business Heroine.

Am I her? A modern day Innana ascending from the descent?

If I choose not to allow the descent, I will never ascend. This I know to be true from my attachments.

I will die a thousand slow tortuous deaths over and over again without being reborn. I will remain forever in the despair and darkness of desperate clinging, attached to a comfort zone that no longer exists.

I choose rebirth.

I shiver in the face of my choice…until I recall bearing witness through story and nature.

As I fly shivering into the face of my greatest fears, I remember stories I have been told…ancient myth guides lighting the way through the darkness…truths not fictions of fallacy or fantasy….

I remember the Phoenix rising from the ash.

Only after the burn.

I recall the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis.

Only after the skin has been stripped from the caterpillar.

Suffering is my imagination attached to martyrdom. Perhaps the golden parent will arrive at last….

Stripping off the skin is the only remedy for this kind of illusion.

Strip away.

Leave me naked, raw and most certainly bleeding. So says the fear mind.

So I cling to the stories of the goddesses, clutching them close to my heart as I turn away from avoidance, as I release my attachments.

Bring it on, says the whispering voice of my courage.

And so I ascend.

When I look up from the shame I am no longer ashamed.