Reframing my struggles with astrology has helped me not only re-commit to living here but to do so with wild aliveness, authenticity, and joyful presence. This is because astrology is a magical language: the words are more than new vocabulary terms. 

Astrology provides codes for accessing technologies for speaking magic, for healing, and for dreaming the emergence of new timelines for ourselves and for our world. 

In this episode, I share how on the side of portal of the magical word Scorpio, we open into a realm for healing our relationship to the unconscious, to trauma, to buried memories, and to the dead. 

You'll find here: 

- a study of the ancient Sumerian myth "The Descent of Inanna" - the precursor to the myth of Persephone 

- a look at ways modern psychoanalysis has shaped our understanding astrology and myth, and what this has to do with emergence

- a discussion of the 8th House in astrology as our closet and our underground, which tends to open up for us the deeper we go in our enmeshed relationships 

- co-dependency versus what I call "gate-walking" (how to hold sovereignty and our own shit within our deep partnerships) 

- the connections between alchemy, astrology, and psychology 

- my own version of the 7 stages of an underworld journey and why I'm so passionate for helping myself and those who are interested in learning with me to find tools and skills for moving through stage 2 (gnarly feels) and 3 (being with what's here). 

- how in ancient Sumerian language "ear" and "wisdom" are the same word, so in the original Descent when it begins that Inanna "opened her ear" to the Great Below, it refers to the wisdom she wanted to learn from the underworld, and how wisdom is so much of the gift of the journey 

- a discussion of how crucial it is to give our shadow self - the unconscious that bubbles up - a witness to listen and reflect back without judging, advice-giving, or solution-grasping 

This episode is so much of everything I am and everything I do. I love it. 

Learn about my new offering CAVE SPACE, an online learning container with 4 weekly lives but mostly pre-recorded teachings and exercises for you to experience at your own pace. I invited 12 contributors to bring their wisdom of the underground path to guide you in the dark. Most of them you will recognize from Moon to Moon or my learning containers. We meet Scorpio season. All replays available for folks who join later or can't attend. 

The purpose of CAVE SPACE is to give you magical language, tools, and exercises to greet yourself where it's often quite scary. The overall goal is the same as with all of Emergence Astrology: to help you trust your life. 

All participants receive my Scorpio workbook. The first 30 to register receive a Pluto ritual oil from Ashley Estabrook of Witches for Bernie. 

Referenced in the episode: Inanna, Queen of Heaven & Earth: Her Stories & Hymns from Sumer by Diane Wolkstein & Samuel Noah Kramer. 

+++

Podcast art: Angela George. Podcast music: Jonathan Koe.