Initiation is a word we don’t often hear. Our culture is more about striving toward a goal, and accumulating external achievements. Religion often echoes this theme, emphasizing spiritual growth as a kind of constant self-improvement project. Both suggest a kind of linear growth, a constant upward trajectory.
Initiation, on the other hand, has to do with a process of becoming. It requires a relinquishment of previously held perceptions of who I am or should be, even a kind of falling apart. It often feels like the antitheses of achievement. As it is practiced in many indigenous cultures, it is a recognition of crossing a kind of threshold into a new way of being.
“You were a child. Now you are an adult.”
They are usually preceded by a quest or a challenge, in which the one being initiated demonstrates his or her ability to take on the responsibilities inherent in the new way of being.
In these cultures the process of giving birth is also seen as an initiation.
“You were a maiden. Now you are a mother.”
The suffering and struggle of the birth process initiates the woman into her new way of being. The labouring mother is viewed as having willingly approached the very brink of death to bring new life into the world, and returns from that journey forever changed.
In all of these practices that I know of, the one being initiated chooses to participate in the quest or challenge.
In the initiation themes of mythology, the quest is usually life threatening and comes about through circumstances the participant did not choose. The participant does what he or she needs to do to survive, and often to accomplish a challenge laid out for them by another. In the process, she or he is changed. They cannot go back to who they were before the experience.
Oe of the most familiar initation stories is that of Persephone, daughter of Demeter and Zeus. As a young maiden, she was abducted by the god of the underworld, Hades. Heartbroken at the loss of her daughter, Demeter, goddess of the harvest, refuses to allow anything to grow. As famine takes over the land, Zeus demands that Hades return Persephone. Hades agrees to do so, but first offers her pomegranate seeds to eat. As a result of eating the food of the underworld, she is now bound to it. A compromise is reached where Persephone is allowed to spend six months of the year above with her mother, and the other six months in the underworld as Hades’ queen and consort.
What intrigues me most about this myth is Persephone’s role in the underworld. While her ascent to rejoin her mother brings spring to the barren earth, she remains very much a secondary goddess. But in the underworld, she is Queen with authority equal to that of Hades. According to some versions of the myth, she comes to love Hades. She intervenes on behalf of others who make their journeys below and wish to be allowed to return above. She is transformed from a victim of circumstance to a woman in possession of her own authority.
This theme is present in our work of soul, though it’s something we’re rarely taught about. As I mentioned in last week’s post, being human means we encounter circumstances we do not choose, cannot change, and do not like. If we meet them as soul work, we learn how to soften our resistance to them, and are surprised by gifts of Grace.
It is this Grace that transforms our abduction experiences into initiation experiences. As we are softened by suffering, we experiences changes in our relationship with ourselves. We grow in our ability to bear with our own discomfort. In tending our own hearts, we discover our own inner wisdom, which is always directing us toward the Love of the Divine. We meet our own inner shadows, and the layers of defence mechanisms that have obscured us from our own selves. We discover the truth of who we are, created by Love, and reflections of that Love.
Here is the mystery of initiations—as we surrender to their work in us, we find virtues growing in us that we could not grow by our own efforts. We grapple with big themes like forgiveness, grief, and identity. We emerge with greater compassion for ourselves, less need for the illusion of certainty, and a greater desire to be the expression of Love into the world.
When we are in the depths of the abduction, we are unable to even imagine that anything of value could emerge from our suffering. As we trust the wisdom of Life itself, and do the work of being fully present to our resistance and our heartache, we feel changes unfolding within us.
This is the humility of soul work. It’s not about feeling ourselves to be less than, but rather acknowledging our place in the flow of life. We are affected by what life brings our way. We’re not out to conquer our challenges, but rather to be transformed by them so that we emerge with greater capacity to love ourselves and love those around us.
Next week, we’ll discuss the importance of our companions in our soul work, and how necessary they are in times of abduction and initiation.
