Descent & Rising

Women's Stories & the Embodiment of the Inanna Myth

De: Carly Mountain

Narrado por: Carly Mountain

“The heroine is one who has remembered, reclaimed and reconnected with her unfettered red thread. She has been initiated into the spirit of the depths by her dark sister, and walks with newfound, embodied authority into the upperworld.”

When our lives fall apart, we often feel broken, ashamed, and deeply alone. But what if you knew, as you experienced this descent, that it was mapped out in a myth thousands of years old? What if, despite the uniqueness of your own life and experiences, each stage of the process was universal? The journey of descent and rising is the core initiation of the feminine—the heroine’s journey—one traveled by billions of women before you.

Descent & Rising explores real stories of women’s descents into the underworld of the psyche–journeys of dissolution, grief and breakdown precipitated by trauma, fertility issues, loss of loved ones, mental health struggles, FGM, sexual abuse, birthing experiences, illness, war, burnout and more.

This is territory that Carly Mountain, psychotherapist and women’s initiatory guide, knows intimately, and guides us through with exquisite care and insight, using the ancient Sumerian myth of the goddess Inanna as a blueprint. She maps not only the descent but the rising and familiarizes us with a process of female psycho-spiritual growth overlooked in patriarchal culture.

“The heroine’s journey is an erotic, mystical initiation that revivifies our place in the shape of things...the fodder of our descents provides the compost from which the richest fruits of our lives can grow. If only we can turn towards our pain and let it work in us.”

©2023 Carly Mountain (P)2023 Carly Mountain

Life-changing

Beautiful combination of memoir and knowledge about how the patriarchy has kept us small along with many useful suggestions for creating change.

Everything!

Must read for any and all women or those identifying as such. Crucial especially for the second half of life!

This book should be read by every woman identifying individual in a patriarchal society

The amount of times I teared up reading this, I cannot count. The themes of this book go much beyond shadow work. To the traumatized woman, this will make much more sense. To the woman who thinks she has little trauma, it will be difficult to hear the pain but necessary. This book is not meant to hold your hand as you barely open your eyes to the dark depths of what women have endured for thousands of years. It rips off any bandaid or rose-colored glasses about the world, and forces you to reckon with the reality of what is and has been happening to hundreds of thousands of women throughout history to today. The constant references to my favorite book, Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkóla Estes, says so much about the energy and purpose of this story. Clarissa’s stories are perfectly aligned with the myth of Inanna, Persephone, the dark underworld women often have to go through just to live and be accepted. Carly so eloquently describes countless other stories and quotes to form a deep-rooted understanding of the work beyond the shadow. This is not just a personal guide, it’s a collective consciousness de&re-programming for the mother wound, the witch wound, and the cry of Mother Earth. It is a reawakening to all that has been lost by the toxic masculinity, and the shift from matriarchal society long ago to patriarchal. It is a homecoming for your spirit. If your spirit has no idea what this means, be prepared to learn true compassion for what you’ve been lucky enough not to fully experience. The more women can open their eyes and hearts to the horrors other women go through and have gone through for centuries, the closer we can get back to healing a deeply broken world.

Relevant and richly symbolic

This book is accessible, relatable and deeply moving. I will return to Carly’s teachings as I move through my own cycles of growth. I am thankful for Womencraft publishing and also thankful for the masterful weaving of so many inspiring contributor stories. Truly a gift!

a must!!!

Every woman needs this book in their library. This is such an essential story and breakdown of the journey we take, the descent, and then the rise, time & time again.