This is the introduction to the new series of books that is being birthed out of me. This three book series will explore many of the collective unconscious archetypes found in symbolic every day items, people and stories that have built our society, and humanity at large. Please enjoy this introduction and the Preface!
Stories can be powerful. When they are well crafted, executed and delivered. Whether via speeches, books, print ads, video ads or movies.
Stories I believe are the actual framework of our internal belief system - of our consciousness and our unconsciousness all blended together.
Stories are what make the world go round. They ARE the foundation of our world.
From the most effective parents to the most effective politicians - and everything in between - their ability to convey a story that connects, touches and moves the listener is how they get their jobs done.
Fictional stories also allow room for the millennia of collective unconscious and conscious storytelling medicine to be rolled into the mind in a much more digestible, fun and entertaining way.
This is why I have decided to tell this story based on my own life in a fictional format. Because it allows me to dive into your inner world with more grace and ease. Resurrecting stories that are within each of us from the most ancient of storytelling days, sitting around the fire and listening to our elders share their wisdom. Through their stories - they both entertained and taught us about the mysteries of our world, our life, our purpose and more.
Before we begin, it felt pertinent to share a bit more about where this story originates from, why it will feel so powerful for you. Why it might even contain the power to completely change your life. It all starts with a little cosmic body that is closest to us here on Earth - the Moon.
One of the most ANCIENT of stories built into our subconscious is that of the Moon’s story when she was seen as a Goddess. The Moon Goddess in the most ancient of stories was triune natured. She birthed (new moon), brought life to its fullness (full moon) - and became the destroyer of life (Waning to Dark moon phase) in order to make the fertile fodder for the next cycle of life.
Her mystical changing cycle was noted to also mimic the yearly cycles (seasons), the growing and harvesting cycles - and women’s monthly cycles.
It was not lost on our Ancestors the mystery of how the moon’s cycle lined up with women’s time to bleed each month. Before the invention of electricity, when we lived under the moon and stars, women would bleed when the moon disappeared from sight and was “dead” to the world. The women would seemingly “be dying” - just like the moon. Yet they did not, and neither did the moon. Both would come out stronger, healthier, more alive after their “death” each lunar month.
For these reasons and more, the Ancients based their calendar off of the Moon (and thus “Moon” is at the root of the word “month”).
Out of all the stories about this Starry Night Lover of ours - Her descent and resurrection happening in three days time - was the most mystical, powerful part of the story - packed full of mystery to unpack on how to transform death into life.
Since it mimicked the woman’s cycle of death and rebirth so closely - women were seen as the Gatekeeper’s of Life and Death themselves. For in their bodies there LIVED the truth of life needing death, and death needing life that our Ancient relatives saw reflected ALL around them on this planet.
Why is this important to know?
It will help you to understand how Jesus’ story that permeates Western Culture grew to be such a large, impactful story - and will help you uncover more to this universal story that spoke of a circle of life, where death was revered and honored instead of feared and rejected.
What does the Moon’s story have to do with Jesus? How are they connected?
Let’s take a look to see how it probably happened.
It was a common practice in the ancient world (and even today) to borrow - or just hijack - stories from surrounding tribes. Especially if one tribe had beaten the other tribe. By taking the “Other’s” story as their own, they could help wash out the previous tribe’s customs, heritage and uniqueness - and assimilate the tribe into their own. Making the “Others” more like them - and them more like the “Others”.
The area of the world Jesus’ lived and died in was rich with the story of death and rebirth built into their stories, their belief system and their culture. Even Abram of the Jewish scriptures - who eventually was renamed Abraham and the supposed father of Christianity - stemmed from Sumer. There in Ancient Sumer archaeological evidence has uncovered an even more ancient text that appeared to be a religious text for them of their Goddess, Inanna. In Inanna’s story there is a tree in a garden, a serpent and - a choice to abandon her heavenly throne and descend into the underworld (for there was no idea of hell back then, not even in Jesus’ time). All of this is followed by a resurrection three days later.
Compare these two writings:
“My Lady...Inanna...abandoned heaven and earth...
She abandoned her office of holy priestess to descend to the underworld….
When after three days and three nights, Inanna had not returned…”
~ The Descent of Inanna: From the Great Above to the Great Below
“...Christ...was raised on the third day
~ 1 Corinthians 15:4
Inanna's story goes on to share that for her to be resurrected, someone had to take her place in the underworld. She found her husband (the masculine energy counterpart) to be unrepentant when she returned, so she sentenced him. His sister loved her brother deeply though, so it was decided that they would split the year - with Dumuzi taking 6 months and his sister the other 6 months.
For the people of Sumer, this story had deep symbolic metaphorical meaning for their psyche. Furthermore, it was also a story of how they understood the seasons turning from Summer (dominated by the masculine energy of productivity) to winter (dominated by the feminine energy of rest/death/regeneration).
Thus, this story helped tie their understanding of both their physical and psychological realms to the understanding of the Earth. When they could see the physical manifestation of their inner world, their stories took on deeper and deeper levels of meaning - penetrating the psyche deeper and deeper - helping them understand how all they saw and all they were were intimately intertwined in a never ending circle of life.
However, over the years, as this story got passed down within the growing dominance of the new socio-political structure of patriarchy, the spiritual world that once had been rich with Feminine principles of life and death began to look more and more like the socio-political world. By the time of the historical Jesus, the tidal wave of replacing the Feminine flavored stories with male flavored heroes had gained much momentum.
As the first century passed after Jesus death, one can see evidence of the Jewish holidays becoming embedded into the Christian faith - i.e. Passover being the holiday closest to Easter. As the new religious order spread across the European world via socio-political conquest, the tradition of assimilating the old into the new continued. So the new rulers took the old stories and their corresponding festivals and migrated them into a unifying faith under one male god. (Which was a reflection of one male ruler which had already preceded the spiritual flip.)
Where once we humans had multiple goddess and gods to represent our multifaceted personalities, where once we celebrated the vital body of the woman in her triune nature as key to creating and birthing life - humanity became a monotheistic culture making Jesus and Father God the masculine star of those stories.
Furthermore, as the years progressed and we started to deem the women’s mysteries that had once been the spiritual foundation of our Cosmology evil/sinful/shameful - we shifted away from seeing life and death as part of never ending cycle designed for the betterment of All into the idea that beating death the goal (which made birth a one way ticket to eternal life or damnation, and gave rise to the myth of the Fountain of Youth).
Another way of how Jesus' story was assimilated with the Moon Goddess is this: the power and nature of the triune goddess found in the Moon Goddess (as Virgin/Maiden/Child, Mother, Crone) was nicely hidden in the trinity of Jesus, Father God and the Holy Spirit. The Father (god), Mother (Spirit, tho most of us have been stripped that the Spirit of Christianity is feminine) and the Child (Jesus). If I had to line up the aspects I would do so as this: Jesus as Child/Virgin, Father as Mother and Spirit as Crone.
The Power of this story of death and resurrection, of a savior, of a trinity and of three days in the grave cannot be understated. The idea of a soul:
- Willing to sacrifice their life for humanity (whether it be Jesus or the Moon Herself),
- To go into the “underworld” where there is no light - just pure darkness (which is not evil as we will see)
- To face the “demons” of that world (which again are not evils as we believe they are) so that…
- The Soul (Jesus or the Moon) could be resurrected for the betterment of the Whole…
Well it is a powerful, powerful story - is it not? The idea of a Savior? Of redemption? Of someone willing to face our inner demons in place of us?
Yet actually - this is where the story of the Moon and of Jesus differ. Or at least our modern understanding of Jesus’ story.
I say it this way because I believe in the original tellings of Jesus’ story - they WERE in line with the earlier mystical teachings. These teachings would have held that Jesus’s story of death to life was symbolic, a metaphor, a way to help us understand the invisible ways of Source. That had always been understood on some level and told via the stories (we call myths) of the cultures that predated Jesus’ story.
It was a teaching of what EACH INDIVIDUAL SOUL needs to do for themself. Face their own “inner world, demons, death” - i.e. shadows as Jungian psychology calls them - in their own “underworld” (subconscious).
They would have never said someone external to them could do that for them. They also would have never said that death could or needed to be beaten. Their understanding of the power of death to create life was so far evolved past our limited sight.
They did not fear death. Quite the contrary. They lived in a state of constant willingness to live or die as was deemed needed by the greater force that controlled all of the Universe their bodies resided in.
And - they understood how to harmonize their own Divine-like consciousness to enact their role as the Gatekeeper of Life AND Death - so that ALL of life in the Cosmos was in harmony with ALL of life in the Cosmos.
They understood how to be their own Savior. How to redeem themselves - each and every time they came to the Gate where Life and Death met. Knowing, understanding that they were one and the same thing - if they allowed death to work its powerful magic. It they allowed themselves to stop fighting death and simply relax into it - then Death became the Pregnant Void of All Pure Potentiality.
If not, if they fought and resisted death - then death would become the destroyer and devour them in the most horrific way. Making them feel they needed saving from death.
Said another way: If you act as your own Savior by ACCEPTING DEATH as a necessary part of life - to create more life in you and the world - then you need no savior.
If you don’t act as your own Savior - you will fear, fight and resist death - thinking it will destroy you - and pray for a savior from it.
Do you see the circular dichotomy this picture paints?
Yes, these are BIG concepts and realities beyond what most of us even dare to allow ourselves to think about. That is why they, along with many other symbols that are meant to help us understand Death as Life, are better embedded in a modern day story that will help us gently re-awaken the power of this Gatekeeper energy within each of us.
Shall we begin?
