A tiny truth for the longest nights, a video, and a PDF

It's the season of giving, and I have quite a bit for you this week! Savor slowly as you unwind into the holiday season.

This is the last full post of the year. It includes a video and PDF to help you complete the journey of letting go over the coming weeks (we began the journey here). For the next two weeks, I will pre-schedule a short post to guide you through the remainder of the journey. Note that the video and PDF for paid subscribers will be more extensive than the posts.

A Tiny Truth:

Holly was hung on doors and windows during the longest nights because it was believed that spirits, who were thought to be abroad, would get caught on the spikes and be unable to enter the house.

I love bringing in a bit of greenery as a remembrance of life at a time when the landscape is gray-tinged and the light is dying. When I was younger, I’d invite friends to sit vigil on the longest night, waiting for one year to pass and the next to be born. As others fell asleep on the sofa or floor, I’d force myself awake— over and over —superstitiously believing the world had ended with sunset and that its rebirth was dependent on my vigilance.

It’s been decades since I’ve sat up all night, eating M&Ms, staring into the void, waiting for the first rays of the sun to reawaken the earth. My current rituals are simpler: I light a candle and make a list of everything I want to leave behind in the year that’s been. When my list is done, I toss it in the wood stove and burn it down to ash. Sometimes, Andrew joins me. We don’t look at each other’s list, just write, then burn.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Believe it or not, you’re getting something similar through Inanna’s journey: you are seeing what matters to you and what doesn’t, what you might want to leave behind and release. On the journey’s final day, you will ascend back up through the gates, choosing at each what to carry forward into the new year. Gate by gate, you’ll reemerge from the underworld, contemplating what, from each category of your life, you want to pick back up— what you want to carry with you. It’s really not dissimilar to the assessing people do as a new year approaches.

Note: If you are in the Southern hemisphere, where you are coming to summer solstice, perhaps thinking of this as year-end work will make it feel more relevant.

Keep this end in mind because the next two gates are difficult. But through a quirk of timing, you’ll hit the ascent on New Year’s Eve, and feel squeaky and new as you step into 2025.

To open the sixth gate, Inanna must give up her rod and line. These are ancient measuring tools which became associated with sovereignty. While the origins are a bit murky, I think of the rod and line as the tools used to measure the length and breadth of one’s kingdom. Inanna's rod was made, not of wood, but of Lapis Lazuli.

Out of curiosity, I pulled out The Illustrated Crystallary to see what I had written about Lapis:

Lapis Lazuli

Step Up to Sovereignty

Sovereignty has always been about relationship: Lapis Lazuli has reminded pharaohs and empresses that they rule in accord with the spiraling heavens and the turnings of time. Lapis will lengthen your spine and help you find your voice, and she expects your actions to match your regal bearing. Lapis reminds you that no matter who you are, you are a caretaker: of yourself, of those around you, and of the earth. You are sovereign in connection with the realms of spirit. Lapis Lazuli will be your rod and your mantle but only you can find the inner fortitude to rise to the relationships she helps you to embody.

Inanna was a Goddess, not an earth-bound Queen. When I think of her rod, I imagine it was used, not to measure hectares but instead to measure souls, to know the length of a spirit's journey. When she gave this up, she was losing both her ability to see deeply into others and, also, sovereignty over herself and her soul’s path. She is surrendering the last vestige of control on a cosmic level.

Even during the times when I have no clue if I have a soul or if it has a path, I’m a hundred percent certain I don’t want to give up those possibilities. It feels to me like the guttering of all hope. An admission that our human lives are truly and forever meaningless.

What gives your life meaning and purpose?

In the video below, we’ll go over:

• the final gate,

• the ascent,

• and I’ll chat about why I do this, what it means to me, and why it’s important especially coming into this cosmically chaotic New Year.
  

In the PDF below, you’ll find:

• compiled info on all the gates,

• questions to contemplate as you make the journey,

• ways to ritualize your descent.