A few months ago, I had the most puzzling dream. Puzzling in that I had no clue what it meant, though I somehow knew there was something to it.
I was traveling through different worlds visiting friends. Some lived in the lands of luxury, others from the seedy part of town. Others lived in traditional colonial homes and still others chose a bohemian lifestyle by the beach. I didn't stay long in each venue. I had so many people to visit. After a while I started to miss home. I had wandered far without realizing it, but I so desperately wanted to go home just now. I stopped to ask directions for the quickest way home. Each person I came across begged me to stay here a little while longer. I told them I could not, it was time to go home. Finally one woman told me there was a quick way to get home but the road was not the safest. By this time I didn't care...I just missed home so much. I told her I was ready, just point the way. Warning, upon on warning she heaped on me. I just saw it as just another trying to keep me away from home. I followed her directions and set upon the road she cautioned me against. As I kept walking the way got darker. The characters I passed got more sinister. They all knew I wasn't from here, though they did nothing to stop me. In a short time I came across the king of the lands. He told me that in order for him to grant me safety to my destination, I needed to do him a favor. He didn't specify what it was, but I agreed. As it turned out, he demanded a high price. What he required was everything within an inch of my life...my body, my soul, my pride, my allegiance. He organized a great feast and spectacle. He set up an altar on which to lay his sacrifice. Me. He laid me on the altar for all to see. He began to perform various acts of brutality and torture, removing all semblance of myself to the riotuous cheering of the crowd. Through it all I endured quietly. This the deal I made. Finally he stopped... There was nothing left to take but my life, that he didn't want. He gently took me into his arms and removed me from the altar. The square was now empty there was nothing left to see. He took me to his home and started to care for me. Over time nursed me back to health while I became pregnant with his child. One day I gave birth to his child and decided to stay to raise my son. When the child was about three months old, he told me I could leave. I told him I wanted to remain here but lovingly he said I didn't belong here. He granted me safe passage and gave me many precious gifts. He promised to never be but a whisper away and that my son would be well cared for. So with his blessing and fortunes, I headed for home.
Home was so strange and unfamiliar to me. I had been away so long, it didn't feel like home anymore. For many days I floundered, what had I given up? I felt so alone and miserable. A once recognizable place, now a foreign country. Suddenly it began to dawn on me, home didn't change, I did. This was not home anymore. Following this realization, I got rid of almost everything. I purged from my life all but what served me now. Slowly I would go about rebuilding the home I now wanted to live in. From time to time on this mostly solitary journey, I met a kindred spirit and found now I didn't require too many things in my life. Too many things were a distraction. I had found a few things that made me really happy in this new simplicity. In addition to simplicity, I found my true self and my power. Once long ago, I thought my power lay in someone else, outside of myself. Today I know my power as my true self.
So that was the dream. Not long after, I started to come across the story of the goddess Inanna. Many of them related her journey into the underworld and all the suffering she endured, culminating on being hung from the meat hook, left to rot. Yesterday, though, I learned that that was not the end of her. She was rescued and released and made her way back to earth and heaven, along the way revesting herself in all she had lost. Only this time the garments were finer, more precious, and more befitting of her now more immense power. She became a more ruthless, cunning, more powerful god than any other god or goddess of her equal. As I read this conclusion, the light bulb exploded. My dream and my journey made sense. There is no going back, the only way forward is going All In.
Inanna represents the soul's evolution through hardship and bitter experience.
