Descent & Rising

The author is a psychotherapist with over a decade of experience supporting women through the process of navigating descent. A powerful guide to the heroine’s journey. The story of Inanna, Queen of Heaven, originated in Ancient Sumeria around 4000 BCE. One of our earliest texts, it was written down in 2200 BCE by the female poet, Enheduanna. When our lives fall apart, we often feel broken, ashamed and deeply alone. What if you knew that, despite the uniqueness of your own experiences, each stage of the process was universal, that it was mapped out in a myth thousands of years old? "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." What if, despite the uniqueness of your own life and experiences, each stage of the process of descent was universal? The journey of Descent & Rising is the core initiation of the feminine – the heroine's journey – one travelled 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... 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 familiarises 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." In this beautifully articulated offering, Carly Mountain takes her place in the lineage of writers honoring the profound significance of the journey of descent as a path of initiation for women. Skillfully and fluidly linking the ancient myth of Inanna with current social, political, ecological and health crises, she includes contemporary women’s stories that illustrate an embodied feminine path of healing and awakening to deeper truth and authentic life. Empowerment through encounter with our deepest wounds and connection to the deep feminine within is an essential task for our troubled times, as we transition towards a re-balancing of feminine and masculine energies in the world. This book serves as an inspiring and timely reminder and a support for all those who find themselves on this path. – Linda Hartley, author of Servants of the Sacred Dream, founder of the Institute for Integrative Bodywork & Movement Therapy