The Third Gate

The night sky is beautiful in it's starry mystery, and even more so when I learn how the planets tell story after story. Mythic tales are taking place all night, in moonlit or moonless sky. The stories unfold while we sleep. The Wise Ones of old listened and took care to write it down for us. Those who want to awaken get up, peer through sleepy eyes, and listen to the ancient wisdom.

A Goddess has been descending.

Venus, as the Morning Star, enacts the tale of Inanna, passing through 7 Gates on her way down through the depths of the Mother. She goes to visit Ereshkigal who presides over the Underworld. Up to last Saturday, November 7, She had previously gone through two Gates, but this one representing the Throat Chakra, is often one that proves most difficult. Like a bottle neck, psychic debris accumulates here and we can find the path is congested with resentments and regrets.

The descent is an initiatory right of passage that all are welcomed to participate in through meditation and journeying. Through Venus, Inanna shares the timeline of her descent story with us, collectively and individually, so that while we experience common themes, the personal journey is unique onto each.

Soul Journey ~ I stand at the Gate. It is liminal space. It is a threshold. Once I step through, who I once was I will no longer be. I don't stand alone however, a dream figure holding sheaves of wheat is by my side.

The Gate is magnificent made of wrought iron adorned with golden triskeles. It's impossibly large as it reachers almost as tall as the incense cedars and deodars surrounding it. It appears to guard a palatial estate in what Shamans refer to as the Lower World.

I wait for it to open. Nothing happens.

I come closer and pound on it. Still nothing happens.

I speak to it...call to Her, or anyone who might hear. Still nothing.

I wonder if I'm focusing enough, or if I'm doing something that keeps the Gate from opening to me.

Because it won't open I start to look around for another way of entry. The dream figure is waiting patiently seemingly unconcerned and not offering anything by way of suggestions.

After sometime a small wood door appears down at the bottom of the grand Gate. It's very narrow, and very low to the ground. I reach for the small handle and the door opens easily. I peek through with one eye but see nothing. Getting through this tiny door is another story. Remember Alice? But there's no potion, or rabbit. There's only the dream figure waiting.

Back in ordinary reality, I get up off the ground where I am meditating and physically enact the journey. By embodying the difficulty, the bewildering puzzle, I live my question 'how do I get through?' After a few minutes of enacting my own inner journey, I suddenly feel an inner 'karplunk' as if something internal has fallen, and an unpleasant experience that has been bothering me comes to mind. I resist the urge to complain. In this sacred space I listen quietly. My Soul wordlessly reveals the truth of the matter: I need to let go of all the ways I have not listened to my inner voice. I need to accept that what looks like rejection is truly protection. I need to trust that a bounty of love and creativity is available to me for the asking. Following the story of Inanna, I know it is now time to symbolize these insights by taking off my necklace, symbol of the Throat Chakra.

A slow trembling takes over my body like a pleasant hum. I recognize it as personal power returning.

I get it - I needed to empower myself through this letting go so I can move forward on my own quest.

The dream figure hands me the sheaves of wheat - the promise of bounty - and they become part of who I am.

The little wood door closes just at the moment that an intrepid little Mouse sneaks through, and the 3rd Gate opens just wide enough to let me pass.