Drawing Down

This past Halloween, I got together with friends to participate in a Samhain ritual.  It was to be a decent into the underworld to confront parts of yourself and your past, a time to reflect, then a guidance back up to the world of the living.  I have not been one of the key players in a ritual before, just a participant.  This particular ritual was involving deities I hadn't worked with either.

I won't go into the exact details of the ritual but the basis of it was that you had to go through 3 portals while heading into the underworld before you spoke with the goddess.  You were then escorted to an area to reflect on what you were told and you had to wait until you were guided to a spot where you could make your return to the land of the living.  Part of this process for those who were leading the ritual was to "become"  the deity that they were given.  This is known as "drawing down" which is when you are inviting the spirit of the deity into your physical body and to occupy it for a certain amount of time.  Many people could consider this a possession of some kind, but I've never thought of it that way.  To me, a possession  is an invasion, an occupation of your body without your permission.  With a drawing down, you are entering into a partnership with that deity.  And the partnership is different with every person and every deity.  None are alike.

With me, I was inhibited by an individual that I came to call "the handmaiden of the goddess".  I never knew her name but she was an important individual in the scheme of things.  She guided the souls to the meditation place and retrieved them in order for them to return to the land of the living.  In my experience, she was a gentle aspect, not forcing my consciousness away.  I was allowed to remain, to be a silent witness to everything.  Aspects of it now are rather fuzzy since a mortal should not be completely privy to everything a goddess says & does, but I do rememeber her being a gentle, yet firm personality who was very polite when she spoke, especially when she was speaking to her mistress.

After it was all said and done, I welcomed the experience.  It left me rather tired but yet I felt that I had gained wisdom, not only about myself but about the nature of the universe.