Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead, Dark Sister of Inanna

Ereshkigal. Ereshikal was the dark sister of Inanna, both of them goddesses in old Babylonian and Sumerian mythology.

(Sumer - "The Land of Natives" or "Civilised Kings) - was a civilization in the bronze age located in the region today known as Iraq).

Ereshkigal is the ruler of the great depths, and twin sister of Inanna, Queen of Heaven. The story of Ereshkigal is intertwined with that of Inanna, as Inanna meets her dark sister on her journey to the underworld, where she goes to visit Ereshkigal. Perhaps I will write that whole story in a different post.

Ereshkigal, anticipating the arrival of Inanna, decides to show her no mercy on her visit. The underworld that she rules is guarded by seven gates along a long road. Inanna, all set on reaching her sister, has to strip of one item - being her jewelry and clothings - at each gate in order to pass the guard. After a long and exhausting journey Inanna reaches the chamber of the Queen of the Dead, naked, humiliated, helpless. The mercyless Ereshkigal greets her sister by killing her by killing her, putting her in chains, and nailing her to the wall. A mercyless woman indeed.

Inannas visit to the underworld was to attend the funeral of Ereshkigals husband, the Great Bull Gugulanna. As Inanna still has her lover Dumuzi, Ereshkigal shows her jaloux side and aims at showing Inanna that her life and relationship is actually not as perfect as it seems.

But Ereshkigal is not a happy Goddess. The job of being the Queen of the Dead is tedious and thankless, depressive. She has lost her husband. Ereshkigal is in deep mournings, with the end of her relationship being a terrible tradeghy. In the midst of the mourning Inanna walks in with all her perfectness and light. She shines with complacent illusions, that Ereshkigal immediately sets out to destroy.

However the Great God Enki, anticipating events, had created two very special little creatuers, that were sent to save Innana from Ereshkigals claws. These creatures were small androgynes, both of them both male and female.

Note: Old Babylonians used transgered priests/priestesses (galaturs and kurgarras) - who wore costumes that were masculine on one side and feminiine on the other - the sides being reversed for masculine women and feminine men. In India existed the hijas that were also holy transgenders present at weddings to bring luck and to symbolize the holy union of the male and female. So actually what the mourning Ereshkigal just wants. the union, the wholeness of the unified male and female principle - the Holy Matrimony or Hieros Gamos.



When the two transgenderes creatures arrives in the chamber of Ereshkigal with the suffering, dead Inanna nailed to the wall, they are intuitively able to look deep into Ereshkigal. They can see her sadness and her sorrow. Therefore they weep tears of sympathy for the Queen of Dead.

The tears are reaching Ereshkigal deep withing, something frozen inside her comes alive. She gets moved and decides to let Inanna free. Still she wants to teach the loveblinded Queen of Heaven a lesson about denial and hypocricy, and lets Inanna free only to take hold on her lover Dumuzi instead of her.

Now the Queen of Dead, still a coldhearted woman, has got what she wanted: the sacred union which she gets with her new, stolen lover. Dumuzi is fated to spent the rest of his life in the underworld, together with the Queen of the Dead. Back in Heaven, Inanna weeps and weeps, and eventually the sister of Dumuzi, Ninshubur, offers to spent half of the time in the underworld instead of Dumuzi. Then Ereshkigal has her lover Dumuzi half the year, and his sister as a companion the other half. She is still not really satisfied though.

In all this, Inanna underwent a great transformation. She made huge sacrifices by being humiliated and losing her lover to her sister, but with time she learned to share her lover with her sister in the underworld.

The story of Ereshkigal does not end here though. In later times the Great Goddesses decides that they now need strong male companions to accompany them in the ruling of the world. Ereshkigal, however, is not not fond of this idea. Though she wants to unite with a man, she wants the man to be weaker, less powerful than her, like Dumuzi and his sister. Ereshkigal was totally used to being the unquestioned ruler of the underworld, she was teaching others hard lessons without learning from the herself.

A day came where Ereshkigals domain was invaded by the god Nergal with the aid of fourteen demons. Nergal demanded the hand of Ereshkigal and to rule the unerworld together with her in equality. Ereshkigal refused, and was thrown down off her throne and only in terror agreed to the terms of Nergal that then became King of the Underworld at her side.

Fenrir

As mentioned in another post, Fenrir is one of the three children of Loki and the giantess Angrboda. Better known as the Fenris Wolf, Fenrir is a huge, terrible monster, in the shape of a wolf. A prophecy has been saying that this wolf and his family will be responsible for the destruction of the world. Therefore, the gods did catch the wolf and encaged him. The only God that dared feed the monster was Tyr, the norse god of battle.

When the gods were to catch Fenrir, they first tried to trick him. They dared him that if they chained him he would not be able to break free, and said that he was weak. Fenrir therefore let them put him in chains, but he easliy broke free, as were the chains a mere cobweb.
Then the gods only saw the possibility of a magic c
hain, so they asked the dwarfs to make one. The result was that the dwarfs forced a magic, soft and thin ribbon which they named Gleipnir. It was so incredibly strong, that one would be fooled by its appearance. The ribbon was forced by 6 elements: a cat's footstep, the roots of a mountain, a womans beard, the breath of fishes, the sinewas of a bear and a birds brittle.

The gods once again used the same trick on Fenrir. It was not easy to lure him into to it this time though - as he thought it would be much to easy and no challange. He finally agreed, but only on the condition that one of the gods would have to put his fist between the wolfs jaws. Tyr was the one making that offer.

The wolf could nowhere near break free from the chain, but as a revenge bit off the hand of Tyr.

Bottomline, the gods were very pleased with themselves and their catch. They carried Fenris to a huge rock a mile down into the earth called Giol, and chained him to it. They now put a sword between the jaws of Fenrir to prevent him from biting again, and they left him there.

It was then only at the outbreak of Ragnarok, the chaos and destructino that would end the world, that Fenrir broke free of the chains and joined the battle against the gods. Fenrir then seeked out Odin and devoured him. Vidar, son of Odin, then avenged his father and killed the wolf.

What could be the mythological and psychological significance of Fenrir? Wolves are seen very widely in myths and faerytales, and often represent a wild and destructive natural force, belonging to the wilderness, that which is outside human control. It is some dark force that lures in the dark, in the woods, and just waits to consume us whenever we wander into the unknown. In the Little Red Riding Hood we find the wolf inhabiting the forest between the girls and the grand mothers home, as well as we know story of the big bad wolf. Even more significantly we have the whole concept of the werewolf, the evil creature that will hunt the night at fullmoon. The wolf would be a symbol of the fierce natural powers that a human cannot control - of the dark forces in the unconscious that are having a great power over us, a power strong enough to actually devour us, and therefore we fear it greatly.

Underworlds

In numerous mythologies, religions and fantasy settings we find the concept of the underworld. This is, of course, because the concept of the underworld has significance as an archetype. That is, it resembles a psychic force or pattern that operates in all of us.

What is the underworld? In greek mythology the underworld is ruled by Hades, in the norse mythology by the godess Hel. Hel is of course the word the christians would later use to describe their notion of a Hel, though the concept is very different.

The underworld is the place that the dead go to. But yet they are not dead, they are alive, or dead-alive. They are living a dead life in the underworld. It is said that in the underworld you can't eat anything, or else, you will never be able to leave. The underworld is also a place of great emptiness and despair, a place where nothing is valued, and nothing is lived, yet the lives of the inhabitants go on and on....and on..

The underworld is the place where you can eat and eat, but never be satisfied. You can touch, but never be touched. You can drink, but never be fulfilled, and sleep, but never get rest.

The underworld as an arcetypical force or concept refers to the land of the dead that exists in all of us. When a living human goes to the land of depression, of emptiness, to a world without dreams, without hope, without magic. When the sparks of life are lost, yet life goes on and on. It is something that is to some extend known by every human, and thus everyone gets touched by these tales. Depression is when you eat without getting satisfied, or when you touch without being touched. When you go through days of the life without really living.

The tales tell us about the human conditions, or the conditions of the human psyche and the challenges that we go through in our lives. Challenges that have basicly been the same throughout the ages. Myths from ancient tiems still have the same relevance as they once had, but sadly our cultures lost its myths, leaving the individual lost and ungrounded. Myth and stories are the connection between man and universe.

Hel - The Queen of the Underworld

The giantess Hel is the ruler of the underworld, Helheim, in norse mythology. The underworld is the land of the dead, placed below the surface of the earth.


Hel is a cold giantess, greedy and indifferent to both the living and the dead. Other names under which she has been known is Hella, Holle, or Hulda. Helheim also went by the name of Niflheim.

The trickster god Loki once entered into a relationship with Angrboda, a giantess, and together they produced three children. The first child was the Fenrir - the fenris wolf, the second child was iormungard - the giant snake of the ocean that encircled the earth. The third child was Hel, goddess of the underworld.

Prohesies had told the gods of Asgard that one day three siblings would appear that would only bring evil and disaster to the world. Now the gods figured that Loki and Angrbodas three children were exactly these. The reason for the evil of these siblings were not only that their mother was a giantess, but at least as much that their father was Loki, the trickster god that had bruch much evil about.

When the great god Odin learned about the children he decided that they were to be brought to Asgaard, because that would be the safest. They were to be raised as Aesir - a tribe of warriors of gods and goddesses. Odin ordered the gods to travel to Giantland to catch the children and bring them to Asgaard, which they did.

The child Hel had been born with all the bones on one side of the body fully exposed. This made her life dificult, as all the other gods found her disgusting and terrifying, and everyone would avoid her. For Hel, the existence became dificult and lonesome, and she had no friends. One day, when it became all to much, she dicided to visit Odin, to ask permission to leave Asgaard. Odin sympathised with Hel, and actually granted her her wish. On top of that, Odin granted Hel one of the nine worlds, the world of Niflheim, and named the placed after her, Helheim. And so, Hel became the goddess of the dead.

In return for having been granted a world to rule, Hel also was given certain responsibilities. She now had to care for the dead in Helheim, which were those that had died of old age, sickness, and had not died in battle (those that died in battle had their souls given partly to Freya and partly to Odin). Hel now was the one to judge the souls arriving in Helheim, and the one deciding if they were good or evil, and to what degree. According to this classification she would allocate the souls to one of the nine levels of Helheim.



hel has been known as the Dark Mother Goddess, the Goddess of Death and Afterlife,  the Underground Earth Mother, and also as Nefele, Goddess of Shadows. In Denmark she was worshipped as Elder Mother.

The Death of Balder

Balder was one of the gods in the norse mythology. He was the god of light and joy, purity, innocence and reconciliation. He was son of Odin and Frigg.

Everyone loved Balder with his shining beauty and his gentle, soft spirit. Friendly and good to everyone, he was considered the best of the Gods, although he was actually not powerful.

One night Balder began to have evil dreams, dreams of his own death. He came to his mother Frigg and told her about these dreams. Wise as she was, she knew that dreams were to be taken seriously. Something had to be done. Frigg sat out to protect her son from the fate that seemed to await him by travelling the lands to make everyone and everything promise that they would not hurt Balder. She got an oath on this from everything - gods and humans, plants, stones, poisons, deseases, metals, just everything.

Now the gods in Valhalla invented a game.They would stand around Balder and shoot at him with their bows, and see how the arrows would always just find their way around him. Nothing could hurt Balder.

There was just one little thing. The trickster god Loki did not like Balder. He was jaleaux, and hated how Balder was popular, and how everyone just liked him so much. Loki changed his apperance to that of an old woman and cam to Frigg and asked about if there was really not a single thing in the world that could now harm Balder. Frigg, suspecting nothing, admitted that there was one thing. A little tree in the west, called the mistletoe, had been too small and too unimportant to ask for an oath. So then Loki immediately travelled west, and got his hands on a mistletoe. Of the mistletoe he made an arrow.

The gods still played their game, standing around Balder throwing knives and aiming arrows at him. One man standing in the area was the brother of Balder, the blind Hod. Loki tricked Hod into shooting at Balder with the little mistletoe arrow. Aiming at Balder with the guidance of Lokis hand, he shot the arrow. The mistletoe hit Balder directly. Balder died, pierced through the heart.

All laugther stopped, all joy vanished. It was like the earth stood still. In the midst of party and good times, Balder, the kind god of light, was dead. Sorrow and despair now surrounded the dead god. And the dead god now had to go dark and misty way to the land the underworld ruled by the dark goddess Hel.

Everyone was in sorrow for Balder, and in his dispair, Odin sent his other son Hermod to Hel, to plead for mercy for Balder. The goddess finally agreed on letting Balder remain alive, letting the light god stay in the lands of light, where darkness had fallen, but on one condition. Everything had to make an oath again, everything, dead or alive, had to weep for Balder. With this message. hermod returned to Valhalla. Now Frigg sat out on another journey through all the lands, making everything, dead or alive, promise to weep for Balder. As everything loved the light god, everything willingly promised to weep for him. But as the last thing, Frigg came to the house of an old witch named Tøk, that would not promise to weep for Balder. Tøk was again Loki in a disguise. Because of this, Balder now had to remain in the underworld.

The gods took the dead god and placed him on a funeral pyre dressed in crimson cloth, and set him aboard his ship Ringhorn. It was the largest ship of the world. Balders wife Nanna, having died of a broken heart, was placed beside him. Also, Balders treasures and horse were put on the ship. The pyre was now set on fire, and the giantess Hyrrokin pushed the ship to the sea, so that it would sail to Hel.

Loki did however not remain unpunished, as his crime was easliy discovered. Hod was killed by Vali, son of Odin and Rind, born just for the purpose. With the dead of the god of light chaos, conflict and darknoess arose everywhere in the world. This was the beginning of Ragnarok, the big end of everything.

From the ashes of Ragnarok, and the last root of the tree of life, Yggdrasil, which had not been destroyed, a new world would arise. From here everything, also Balder and Hod, would come back to life again, and the world of light and darkness would once again be restored.







Of all the twelve round Odin's throne
Balder, the beautiful, alone
The sun-god, good and pure, and bright,
Was loved by all, as all love light
                                            (J. C. Jones, Valhalla)

The archetype

Den Schweiziske psykiater Carl Gustav Jung beskrev de psykologiske arketyper, som er en slags universelle grundformer der opererer i alle menneskers bevidsthed. Arketyperne har indarbejdet sig i bevidsthed gennem tusinder og tusinder af år - og de samme arketyper eller 'arketypiske former' kan således eksistere hos alle mennesker - men måden hvorpå de udspiller sig kan være aldeles forskellig.

Mens en arketype i selv blot en abstrakt form eller et mønster i psyken - kan man også tale om det arketypiske billede, som fx viser sig i drømme eller visualiseringer. Der er her tale om et slags urbillede - symbolske billeder med særlige betydninger. Et eksempel på en arketype kunne være slangen. Slangen ses ofte som et symbol på død og opstandelse - netop fordi slangen kan skifte sin ham og forny sig selv. Således kan slangen referere til den psykiske proces - død og genfødsel - som et menneske kan opleve i sit liv, og når slangen - som et arketypisk billede - optræder i vore drømme, kan vi derfor være opmærksomme på hvordan netop dette tema enten udspiller sig - eller er parat til at udspille sig - i vores liv.

Jeg skrev før at arketyperne var indarbejdede i alle menneskers bevidsthed igennem tusinder af år. Jung beskrev på samme grundlag ideen om det kollektive ubevidste. Dette er altså et ubevidste - lidt på linie med hvad Freud beskrev hos individiet, blot i en kollektiv forstand. Dette kollektive ubevidste er således et slags universelt informationsfelt hvori arketyperne finder deres ophav.

Andre eksempler på Jungianske arketyper er den store moder, faderen, barnet, djævelen, den vise mand / kvinde, tricksteren og helten. Disse arketyper træder frem gennem menneskets fantasi og kreativitet, i drømme, billeder, mytologi, religioner, kunst og musik - netop fordi de er kræfter i vores ubevidste som på forskellig vis udspiller sig i vores alle sammens liv. Det er derfor at mytologiske og eventyrlige fortællinger kan ramme os på et meget dybt niveau, som kan være svært at beskrive med vores almindelig bevidstheds sproglige begrænsninger. I drømme kan vi fx møde en slange, en klog gammel kvinde, eller andre mere subtile eller skjulte udspilninger af arketyperne. I fantasyfortællinger finder vi dem også tydeligt - Frodo, Gandalf og Anakin Skywalker, for eksempel. I statuer, kunst og arkitektur kan vi se et væld af arketypiske billeder præsenteret.

Jung mente at arketyperne primært var rettet imod fremtiden. Meningen med arketyperne er at lede mennesket ind mod sit livs mission og nærmere sin egen kerne - til det sted hvor livet potentiale kan udleves til det fulde. En analogi hertil er frøet der spirer til at blive et stort og frugtbart træ - med en indbygget visdom og kraft der dirigerer træet til at udfolde sit yderste potentiale. Menneskets liv og udvikling er langt mere indviklet og dramatisk end dette, og i menneskehjertet er der mange kampe der udspiller sig.

I Asgård levede de nordiske Guder det evige liv - og Asgården var et cirkelrundt afgrænset land i midten af verden. Udenom dette land lå de dødelige menneskers land - et land hvor der var stor tumult, krige, kærlighed, lykke, sorg og død - som endnu en cirkel. Yderst, uden for menneskenes land, var uhyrerenes og jætternes område, et barsk og koldt sted. Og det var midt imellem de to yderpoler - Gudernes og Jætternes lande - midt i menneskehjertet - at de store kampe måtte udkæmpes.

Jung brugte betegnelsen individuation for den proces som et menneske går igennem for at blive sit eget yderste potentiale. Individuationen er en sand helterejse gennem verden, psykens store rejse - hvor alle de arketypiske kræfter, Guderne og Gudinderne, troldene og jætterne udspiller deres kampe.