I went to a grief and loss group today with a good friend who lost her husband about a year and a half ago. In the group there were people who have lost children, friends, lovers and a man who was losing his health. as we talked about the experience of the dark night of the soul of the soul, images came to me such as watching the sun on the horizon at dusk transform from the deep enveloping darkness to a little line of glowing light. on the horizon. And also I imagined being deep within the dark earth of a cave and then seeing the light from above coming in through jagged edges to illuminating an entry.
These images evoked the process and concept of dismemberment. dismemberment is a ritualize indigenous and other peoples throughout history have enacted. In the myth of Inanna, she goes down to the underworld to try to save her sister. There she murdered, she essentially dies to her own ego nature and is eventually reborn and able to return to the world above, to the light.
there’s a similar story of Osiris the great Egyptian god- king who is killed and taken apart by his envious brother. The pieces of his body are scattered and buried all around the land. Isis, his partner, the great physician Queen goddess must go all around the land to find and unearth the bits of him and put him back together again. She makes love to him to revive him.
Dismemberment occurs in the darkest times of the unknown, of sorrow and death. It is a guide to finding what is most precious, for through dismemberment and great trials we find the jewel within ourselves, our soul and love, the sacred. Taking away all hubris ego is humbled. So, we are able to reunite with a greater wisdom and the great one soul. We find ourselves enlarged, trans-personal and re-
.
