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Why were Gilgamesh and Dumuzi idiots?
It started with Dumuzi. Dumuzi was an idiot for cheating on his wife Inanna, while She was in the underworld, facing and overcoming Her own dark side, Ereshkigal.
Gilgamesh was an idiot for rejecting Inanna's hand and offer of immortality as Her consort, and rushing off on "a quest for the holy grail", only to be denied this prize at the bottom of a lake by the Serpent Herself. And then he rationalized, his immortality will live on in his public works as king. Last time I checked, there aren't any of his public works standing. Gilgamesh was an idiot.
And so are we, when we reject the call of the Dark Goddess. And so are we...
What is Her call? Who is this Femme Fatale that rules our dreams and passions?
Introducing the Dark Goddess
The Dark Goddess is far more prevalent in our daily lives, than we think. She exists in our day to day relationships, as that agent in our conscience that calls for Wisdom. She has no respect for status. She abhors elitists. She is a non-conformist. She is the spirit of rock & roll in the 60's. She is the topless feminist marching in the streets. She is the nurse dealing with the frustrated patient. She is the philosopher singing Her praises :) She is a myriad of things, and many other things She is not.
In world mythology, we encounter the Dark Goddess over and over as that aspect of the Goddess that makes us uncomfortable. Inanna is a classic example of this. Inanna is represented as the planet Venus. She is the pure Goddess of altruistic love (virgin); she is the hot sexual Goddess (mother)... and the Goddess of war (crone / wise woman). And it is that last bit, the Goddess of war bit, the crone, the Sophia, that makes us uncomfortable. This was where Gilgamesh and Dumuzi lost the plot. This is the aspect of the Goddess, we all need to face and integrate within ourselves, if we are to make progress with the Creatrix of this universe.
The Dark Goddess as Transformer
What cymatics demonstrates very lucidly as a metaphor, is that Life within this universe moves from one ordered state of being, to a more complex order, in the following way:
- The resonant frequency of the organism / system has increased.
- At a certain point in the frequency shift, the internal order of the organism / system brakes down into chaos
- As the resonant frequency is further increased, the organism / system reorganizes itself into a higher order of complexity.
It is very critical to understand that the Dark Goddess as transformer, is akin to a doctor that has to sometimes hurt us, in order to heal us; She is not like a psychopath that hurts us for amusement. This is a very important point. The chaos, the pain, the confusion in our lives, all of it, can serve as an opportunity to transform on the level of our spirit and soul, and sometimes even physically, if we allow the Dark Goddess to complete Her work in our lives. Sure, we can stop Her operation in our lives for a time, even a lifetime. And when we do, She backs off, but not forever. Not forever. Like any good mother, She does not relent in Her mission of raising us, Her adopted children.
One of the best examples of the Dark Goddess as transformer in our lives, is in Her manifestation as Kali. In the popular Indian images of Kali, She is depicted with a blood dripping cycle in one of Her hands, and the heads of her enemies in another hand, and their skulls draped around her waste. When we ask who's heads Kali collects, any devotee of the Dark Goddess will tell you it is the heads of demons, which indicates the egos of Her devotees.
...and yes, there I used the 'e' word... a word terribly misunderstood around spiritual seekers, and even more abused by gurus and spiritual guides (both incarnate and disincarnate). Here is my take on 'ego and the Dark Goddess': it is not the intent of the Dark Goddess that we should abscond our personality! It is not Her intent to create any more Borg style, hive-mind collectives. What the Mother intends here, is that we bring our personalities into resonance with four constructs: our personal Spirit (Ka); our Soul (Ba) as well as with Her personal Spirit and Her Soul. The intent is to have a harmonic resonant dance between our incarnated personality (ego), and these aspects of ourselves, and Herself. A partnership, a dance - not a dictatorship.
Through-out all our transformations, the Dark Goddess acts as a guide, a psychopomp. This guidance is offered to us not only in this life, but also in the afterlife. This is also why we find iconography of the Dark Goddess in Her manifestation as Hekate, with a torch held in each of her hands. This is also another reason why Hekate is associated with crossroads. As guide to the soul and educator of the ego, the Dark Goddess guides us through our instincts and intuitions, and NOT through our minds. This guidance happens at the crossroads of our lives, in the thick or things, where the rubber meets the road.
The Dark Goddess and Taboos
But the immature ego, emotional-metal body, rejects the psychopomp. One of the most prevalent ways in which the undeveloped ego rejects Her is via cultural constructs such as dogma, convention and personal status. The undeveloped ego seeks safety in numbers, but this safety is an empty shell. At some point in a person's incarnation, his or her soul will sing the siren song of the Dark Goddess, under Her guidance, beckoning the ego to seek out something with more meaning and permanence, than prestige and material possessions. The ego may respond to the call and become a seeker. But dogma, convention and personal status often creates too much interference in the ego's resonance to his or her soul and spirit.
At this point the Dark Goddess may specifically encourage the seeker to deliberately move against dogma, convention and personal status. This is where the Dark Goddess will encourage the celibate priest to indulge in promiscuous sex; the bigoted vegetarian to eat meat; the undisciplined hippy to find a job, and work for 'the man'.
The simple fact of the matter is that the wise woman, the Sophia, has no respect nor time for the laws of men and their egos. What She does care about, deeply, is Life and the completion of the personal spiritual mission of each life form. One of Her primary concerns in this regard is that Her adopted children, you, me, and all Lifeforms in Her creation, discovers and lives their internal sovereignty, and do it in such a way that it is in harmony with our environment. This is why her law states: "ain harm none, do what ye wilt". The Dark Goddess is therefore to be found among those who cherish their own freedom responsibly, and who cherishes truth above all.
All of this makes Her the queen of fringe, truthers and the weird ones.
When the ego gains maturity in these acts, yes, absolutely. It is completely normal and natural that the voice of the Dark Goddess can be found in a seeker's deliberate sexual interaction with a priestess or dominatrix. It is also equally normal that the undeveloped ego of the "priestess or dominatrix", be a greater hindrance than a help in the spiritual development of the seeker. There are no easy answers, nor silver bullets here - exactly the way She wants it!
Does the Dark Goddess require worship?
No. She does not. She does not suffer from the same inferiority complex than some of the other self proclaimed demiurges does. But having said that, it is perfectly plausible, and often imperative that our undeveloped egos desperately need to offer Her utter worship and devotion. If this be the case, She will demand it of us, for our own benefit. And once again, the form this worship takes will differ widely from seeker to seeker. I hope the distinction is clear.
And what about sacrifice?
This is very much the same as with worship. The Dark Goddess requires no sacrifice in order to maintain a fragile identity (as with some of the other self obsessed demiurges :), but in the process of ego transformation into maturity, it is very possible that the seeker does need to make sacrifices. It is Her will that life evolves and thrives, but undeveloped egos often stands in the way of this, and in Her wisdom, She may require sacrifices to be made, in order for the ego to move forward.
Does this include animal sacrifice?
It is not the desire not the will of the Dark Goddess that animals should die for human egos. But throughout history, they have, and even there She will make the most of the situation.
Her endgame
The endgame of the Goddess is that each individual spirit who partakes in Her creation of duality, via a soul, which She entrusted to that eternal spirit, will reach a point where all internal conflicts has been resolved to the point where frequency increases does not cause a breakdown into chaos of the organism / system.
I also encourage you to research the myth of Isis, Osirus and Horus (if you have not done so already), with the role of Isis as psychopomp in mind. Also rethink the process of alchemy in this cosmic context. It is the same mission, guided by the same universal Wise Woman...
I like your article very much; I felt in alignment with your carefully made distinctions. Have you written about Lilith, the Dark Moon Goddess? and what is her relationship in the pantheon of Goddesses. I'm called to study up on her contributions to shadow..!
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