Gythia

Ereshkigal ruled the Mesopotamian underworld centuries before Hades became widely recognised through Greek mythology. She governed Kur, the land of the dead, where souls existed in darkness, dust, silence, and permanent separation from the living. Her realm carried no glory or redemption. Only inevitability.

Her mythology reaches its most devastating point through the Descent of Inanna. When Inanna enters the underworld, she passes through seven gates where her jewels, clothing, authority, and power are stripped away piece by piece. By the time she stands before Ereshkigal, she is exposed and vulnerable. The journey becomes more than physical descent. It represents ego death, grief initiation, spiritual unraveling, and confrontation with forces beyond human control.

Mesopotamian texts portray Ereshkigal as isolated rather than monstrous. She rules a kingdom nobody enters willingly, separated from the heavens and surrounded by death itself. Some versions describe her erupting in rage and pain during intense suffering, linking feminine power with destruction, transformation, and mourning.

Unlike modern portrayals of darkness made to feel beautiful or seductive, Ereshkigal embodies abandonment, endings, decay, shadow states, and the permanence of loss. Her mythology strips away comforting illusions surrounding death. No bargains. No escape. No return without sacrifice.

In witchcraft and underworld traditions, Ereshkigal is associated with shadow work, ancestral currents, spirit communication, grief rituals, and transformation through collapse. Devotees often describe her energy as brutally confrontational, forcing hidden wounds into awareness.

That is what makes Ereshkigal so feared. She represents the truth every civilisation tried to outrun. Everything eventually descends into the underworld.

If nothing in your path holds you accountable, it is not the old way.

The Bones of the Old Way ~ Part 1
This Is Not a Religion of Salvation

There is no salvation waiting for you in the Norse world. There never was.
One of the most persistent misunderstandings brought into modern Norse paganism is the assumption that people need to be saved, that something is spiritually broken in the human condition and that the purpose of religious practice is to restore what was lost or cleanse what has accumulated. That idea does not come from the sources. It comes from a different tradition entirely, one that has shaped Western thinking so thoroughly that people carry its assumptions into frameworks built on entirely different foundations without noticing they have done so.

The Eddic material does not describe a fallen state. There is no moment in the Norse sources where humanity becomes spiritually corrupted and requires divine restoration. No promise is extended that the Gods will absolve you of what you have done or reset the account of your choices. The Norse world does not begin with guilt. It begins with existence, with relationship, and with responsibility and it does not flinch from what that means.

When you look at the Poetic Edda and particularly at the Hávamál, what you find is not a system of redemption. You find instruction on how to live wisely within consequence. Óðinn does not offer forgiveness. He offers counsel, hard-edged and direct, the accumulated weight of a wisdom tradition that looks at the world as it is and tells you how to move through it without losing what matters.

Hinn er sæll, er sér um getr lof ok líknstafi. A person is fortunate who earns good reputation and the goodwill of others. That is not a statement about belief or inner spiritual condition. It is a statement about what you do and how you are remembered by the people who outlive you. The distinction is not subtle. It is the entire point.

In this worldview, actions do not disappear. They are carried forward through reputation, through the relationships you build or break, through what later generations hold of your name when you are no longer present to defend or explain it. There is no ritual that resets you. There is no prayer that erases what has been done. There is no moment where the account is wiped clean and you are returned to a neutral state from which to begin again. What you do becomes woven into your wyrd/Urðr and Urðr is not a system of mercy. It is a system of unfolding consequence, patient and without exception.

Even the Gods are not outside of this. Óðinn acts, chooses, manipulates and sacrifices and every choice he makes carries forward toward Ragnarǫk. Þórr fights, Baldr dies, Loki is bound and none of it is undone by divine will or cosmic reset. If the Gods themselves cannot escape the weight of their choices then the idea of a human escape from consequence is not simply absent from this tradition. It is structurally impossible within it.

This is why behavior matters in the Norse framework and why it matters in a way that carries more weight than systems built on forgiveness allow. You will not be judged and absolved. You will be known. Your word, your actions and your reputation are not things that happen alongside your life. They are what your life is made of, the only substance that persists when everything else falls away.
That is the foundation. Not comfort. Not promise. Not the relief of a slate wiped clean.

Consequence, reputation and the weight of what you actually do.
That is where we begin.

The Gods offer no erasure and the well of Urðr holds no mercy. What you do becomes what you are, and what you are becomes what endures.
~The Roots of Yggdrasil~

I have only one thing to say as past Member, Steer, Redeswoman, and Steward of The Troth. When I brought up issues that needed attention in the wider Heathen community, I was hamstrung and censured. When my husband defended me, so was he.

The things we wanted to fix have now caused more harm because instead of acting, Heathens deliberate. Instead of removing problems by pruning a branch, we wait until rot taints the heartwood.

5 years have passed since I walked away from the Troth. It was sick then. As an outsider it looks sicker now. I doubt it will recover from this. I personally don’t think it should.

This is a Ragnarok moment for inclusive Heathenry. 5 years ago I said we need to reform our core, and recenter our values. Instead we placate. Well, now we burn. Perhaps this is the culmination of the attacks we saw then. Yet another victory for those who find ways to divide us.

I do not support Diana’s lack of action and unwillingness to address conflicts that need to be addressed. Particularly as Clergy. But this decision will be a blow to what those of us standing against the fascists hoped to achieve. I can see there was no good decision in this. I can feel empathy for the Rede in this. But ultimately, you have done the enemies’ work for them by avoiding for so long the conflict you have judged Diana for. You, too are guilty of those charges today.

May you all get the rewards your actions have earned.