Rising Rooted

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We were never taught how to fall apart.

Only how to rise. Only how to perform resilience. Only how to keep going when our souls beg us to stop.

But what if the falling—the unravelling, the breaking down—is not a malfunction? What if it’s the beginning of something important?

There is an old story that shows us how.

The Descent

Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, hears the call.

It comes like grief. Like silence. Like a summons from deep within.

She leaves her throne, her titles, her certainty.

She passes through seven gates to visit the underworld—to face her sister, her Shadow: Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead.

At each gate, she must give something up: her crown, her jewels, her power.

Until she stands bare before her sister. Stripped. Human.

And there, she is brought to her knees. She dies.

But death is not the end of this story.

Inanna is mourned. Witnessed. Reclaimed.

And when she rises, it is not with the same garments, not with the same eyes.

She returns different. Not rescued. Not restored. But remade.

Why This Myth Matters Now

We are living in a time of collective descent.

Systems are collapsing. Certainties are dying. The old myths—of dominance, endless growth, heroic conquest—are crumbling under their own weight.

The patriarchy is having an extinction burst. It is loud, it is brutal, and it is terrified. And in the rubble, many of us are feeling lost, flattened, undone.

Depression. Disconnection. Quiet despair.

But what if what you’re experiencing is not personal failure? What if it’s a call into your own underworld—a chance to meet what has been silenced in you? Not to fix it. But to witness it. To descend. And to return changed.

The Descent Is an Archetypal Pattern

In western culture, we’re saturated in the hero’s journey.

Slay the dragon. Save the village. Return victorious.

But Inanna’s path is different.

It doesn’t seek victory. It seeks truth.

This is the heroine’s journey—not just for women, but for anyone who has been taught to suppress their softness, their complexity, their shadow.

It is the descent inward, the stripping away of false layers, the death of the roles we were never meant to play.

In archetypal psychology, this descent is essential. It’s how we come to know the whole self—not just the curated one.

Each phase of the myth mirrors a phase of the soul’s transformation:

• The Gates: The shedding of identities, masks, coping strategies
• Ereshkigal: The shadow, the grief, the rage we’ve buried
• Death: Surrendering to what we cannot control
• Return: Integration, wisdom, a new way of being

This is not a linear path. It’s a spiral.

And it’s one we walk many times.

Depression as Descent

In my work as a therapist and human being, I’ve known descent intimately.

Depression isn’t always a “disorder.” Sometimes, it’s the body calling bullshit on a life that no longer fits. A refusal to keep pretending. A demand to feel.

Too often, the story we’re told is that we are broken. But what if it’s the world that’s sick—and our suffering is a sane response?

What if your symptoms are sacred signals? What if your burnout is a threshold? What if your sadness is the doorway to something honest?

Inanna’s story tells us: The descent is not a failure. It is the rite of passage the world forgot how to hold.

How We Live the Myth

We live it not by memorizing it, but by seeing ourselves inside it.

Inanna is not just a goddess—she is a part of your psyche. So is Ereshkigal. So are the gates.

To work with myth in this way is not to escape your life, but to meet it with new eyes. To find language for what’s unspeakable. To find a map—not one that tells you what to do, but one that says:

You are not lost. You are on the path of many before you.

A Personal Note, and a Pathway

When I read Inanna’s myth, I felt something click into place. As a therapist, as a mother, as a woman who has fallen apart and come back stranger, softer, and wiser… this story felt like home.

So I followed the thread. And I built something from it.

It’s called Threads of Presence: A Mythic Descent to Mindful Living.

It’s a FREE 7-part self-paced journey into body-based mindfulness, slow ritual, and archetypal remembrance. It includes:

• A tactile, 3-minute daily weaving practice
• Lessons inspired by each phase of Inanna’s journey
• A printable workbook (The Book of Threads)
• Teachings and embodied mindfulness practices

I made it for anyone who’s trying to reconnect with their body, their depth, their sense of self—in a world that profits off your disconnection.

You are not alone in your descent. You are not broken for breaking.

You are being remade. With threads, with breath, with all the softness we were told was weakness— you will return.

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If this spoke to something in you, there are a few paths you can follow from here:

Each door leads somewhere different. It is my hope that all of them lead back to you.

<3 Rachel