(Image: Odysseus and the Sirens by Alexander Bruckmann, 1829)
Do you hear her calling you from the depth of the sea? Her siren song splashes through your soul. She swims in the depth of culture’s shadows. On the surface of things, she is painted as temptress, or a crone, a demoness, or a mer-witch hag, a destructive force, a rageful power.
Is she dangerous and terrible? Is she the very key to your freedom? Is she the embodiment of everything you fear? Is she the energy that carries the boat of the overculture to the deep ocean? As she drowns it, and our ship is wrecked, will she help us grow fins and fishtails, so we can relearn the origin of our being, blaze new trails in the waters of primordial possibilities, and repattern our way back to land?
The Gates of Hell
I hear her screeching as she burns like a bird in the flames of renewal. The spark of life and the fire of death that weave together the fabric of the universe, dissolving as a creative act and bringing form into being through the process of falling apart. Do you feel it? The force of death and decay dropping leaves and whatever fruit is left off of trees, spinning this half of the world into darkness, is the fertilization of the earth, the nourishment of soil and roots. The underworld commands this season, without which the next one cannot be.
She is the inescapable reality, the heat at the core of the earth, the inferno, the burial mound, the deep sacred cave opening to the underground world of the dead. She is standing on the bridge over the river that separates between the living and the deceased, greeting the souls that she is ready to claim. Is she the end? She is the tomb. But the tomb is the womb, and she is death and fertility intertwined.
Hel was an ancient Norse goddess; queen of the underworld whose generative fire kept the souls of the dead. Yes, the word Hell comes from her womb. She was the Caldera; the Mountain Mother Volcano, with the cauldron womb filled with fire. Warriors, heroes, and even the gods, end up in her embrace. It is said that even Odin, father of the gods, was buried in Hel Mount Barrow. She is the burial uterine shrine, a deep cave within the earth, a temple of death and rebirth.
Do you feel her? She is the force of transformation, the call of reclamation, the fire of regeneration, the invitation to alchemize; to burn the parts that hold us back, that get us stuck, that keep us from growing, that pull us down into despair. In her care we are carried into the underworld, through the sacred cave opening, a doorway into the holy hell. Those words - holy and hel - are etymologically related. How much do you love that? Isn’t it time we make Hell a holy place?
The Poison is the Medicine
As we spin deeper into Autumn, if you pause for a moment and listen, even within all the busy madness of life, you might hear the call to descend, to drop the pieces that don’t belong, to hear the sirens’ song that lures you away from home, away from what’s known, and into the liminal, into where the voices of the ancestors speak wisdom in your ear, into where that which you always thought was problematic, might still be, yet it also holds the key to creativity freedom.
There are inner whispers that may seduce you to follow them into the shadows, where thoughts are haunted with old wounds and patterns that tangle you up in knots. The voice of the shadow can be ever so seductive.
Maybe it’s the familiarity of its tone. You’ve heard it your whole life. Maybe its shapeshifting capacities make you believe it’s an entirely new voice, telling you that this is a new story, and you are a new character. It’s the voice of self deception. It’s the delusion you find so irresistible. Some parts of your ego could, like the Greek Siren, pull you off the boat and into your death. It’s self harm, the addiction, the mess we make of memories in order to complete a picture in our head, and the energies that pull our attention and awareness off the path we worked so hard on carving.
The siren is taking you away from where you’re headed. Might she have something important to sing to you about? Could the depths into which she lures you hold important pieces for you to tend to? Is it possible that by seducing you away from where you’re headed, she offers you something of value - a new way of being, profound insight, freedom from something you never knew you needed to sever your ties from?
The siren has been painted in the shades of volatility, danger, and dissolution. And so was Hell.
Is it always a bad idea to follow the call of the shadow? Is it never necessary to follow the thread of the darkness, to visit with the dangerous old woman in the woods, to go see what the sea witch has in her cauldron?
What would happen if I follow that deep voice that sounds like the most delicious devil, the sexiest siren, the wildest, most alluring desire into the deep, dark waters of the sea of the unconscious, or into the deep fire in the womb cave of Mother Mountain?
I’m not suggesting we act on our dark thoughts, on our primal desires, on our devilish functions, on our weaknesses. I’m thinking we’ve been so trained to get away from our shadow, that it has gotten a hold on us. At least culturally. I mean, look at where we are.
Anything we demonize holds a charge for us. It has power. It might have control over us.
Going into the unconscious with a conscious decision to see more of it, to learn from it, to receive some of the important messages hidden within that which we fear, that which we desire but are ashamed to admit it, that which seems unsafe, is incredibly potent and powerful work. The waters and the flames are doorways into shadow wisdom.
The Threshold of Fire and Shapeshifting Water
The sirens lured sailors into the sea. But they were not mermaids like we tend to think of them today. The sirens in Greek mythology were bird women. They had wings and talons and beautiful women’s faces and breasts. Later on, most likely because the Greek words for “fin” and for “wing” were very similar, the siren and the mermaid merged their identities.
You know who Siren is the daughter of? She is the daughter of a river god. And… you guessed it! One of the Muses. Sources argue which one. Muse gives birth to that which sings the song of seduction and takes us into our depths. Yep!
Hel originates as a dark crone goddess, an eater of the dead, queen of the inferno. She becomes a Triple Goddess, shapeshifting between maiden, mother and crone.
When she is Mother, she is the womb cave we decided to enter today. She IS the Inferno, a word that means “under,” or “below.” An Infernus was also a pit dug in the earth that was used as an oven. The oven IS the mother. Roman ovens and bakeries were associated with temples of the goddess. The priestesses of the temples were called Ladies Of Bread, and they channeled the goddess, worshiped through sexual rites. Their orgies were called Fornacalia, which meant “oven feasts.”
But she doesn’t promise to always be so hot. Sometimes the underworld was thought of as freezing cold instead of fiery hot. She is a Norse goddess, after all. Like the innermost circle of Dante’s Inferno - the lake of ice within which the absolute worst of the worst are punished. She was a cold, dark queen of the shadows.
Hel was a goddess of witches, expressed as the woven together tapestry of life and death and rebirth. She was seen as a woodland nymph. AND Norse mermaids were thought of as her expression. You could feel that Sirens and Hel were tied together in more than one way, right?
There’s Magic at the Edge
Something magical and mythical awaits in the spaces where the shadow lurks. We don’t tend to want to look there, and at the same time, we cannot help but be drawn to it, like moths to the flame. Our denial turns it into desire. Our desire turns it into delusion. We can so easily get lost in it. It’s undeniably irresistible, dangerously destructive, and so salaciously seductive. If we dare to walk the edge with it, we might discover the deepest wisdom, the fiercest power, and the most profound vulnerability that offers us the gift of death and decay, total release, and revolutionary renewal, reintegration, and reconfiguration.
It’s a delicate place. And it’s not for everyone. But anyone who thinks they don’t have a shadow, anyone who thinks they healed their darkness, anyone who thinks that’s even a possibility, needs to do some deep shadow work.
The shadow is scary. But without tending to it we are forever confined in it.
If she stirs in you the desire to go into the deep inner waters of creativity and dissolution, and burn in hell with her fearsome fabulousness, read more about the Shadow Archetype in this essay.
And check out this free contemplative, meditative, thought provoking, forward bend and hip-opener yoga practice to embody and reclaim the shadow archetype.
Prompts:
When she sings and I follow her into the depths _____
Down there in the realms of _____ there’s _____
What I must drop _____
No longer _____
The pit of _____ burns _____
I’m seduced by _____
There’s a _____ and then _____
Turn these prompts into a poem or a painting. What does this evoke for you? Let it guide you into the pit of inspiration, into the deep ocean of the imagination. Let these prompts help you tell the story of your shadow. Write your own siren song, with music and all. Music is how she lures sailors. Let her lure you. Do these prompts turn into a choreography for you? Or a meal? A conversation with a friend? Let it move in you the way that it does.
If you are inspired, please share your creation in the comments of this post. Or make your own substack note or Instagram post and tag me or share with me.
If you’re into this, share it with a friend. They may need this today.
Thanks so much for reading! I deeply appreciate your presence.
Much love,
Hagar