Emerging from the Underworld: a book review by Eline Kieft

Her language flows like a gentle river, even though the emotional content is not always easy to read. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a combination of such poetic depth and stark honesty that gives a visceral understanding of abuse and rape, suffocation, fear, and the abomination of being touched without permission, while at the same time ‘holding’ this experience within a larger awareness of growth and healing. Being able to share the wisdom gifts from a place of integrated healing is perhaps the ultimate gift from an underworld journey, and Janet shines as one who has travelled a path of dismemberment and came out more-than-reintegrated.

The book asks how trauma can be faced and healed when the underworld is ‘residing’ in oneself. It is a study in recognising and overcoming fears, as well as a process of learning to listen to and follow one’s inner wisdom. Journeys to the underworld are a common theme in mythology, yet few pay attention to the return, and the integration afterward. 

In her search of healing, Janet turned to Inanna and Persephone as personal guides. She throws a ceremonial pyjama party, inviting them for hot cocoa, chocolate, pomegranate and wine. The goddesses offer practical advice and spiritual insight, but as often when doing this kind of work, there is a reciprocity in the exchange. In inviting them and asking them to tell their story, the goddesses too are seen and witnessed in their suffering. A sister-triad emerges across time and place.

Together, Janet, Persephone and Inanna unravel specific elements of the journey through darkness, like the original reason for finding oneself there, how one survives, how parts of self are lost to the darkness, and one ends up naked. They share what it is like, to be in a place of death where life is just a memory, and how terror dissociates us from the body:

“Inanna understood. “That’s just it,” she said. “You can’t go down all the way to the underworld in the fullness of your body. A body of the Earth realm cannot survive in the crushing darkness where there is no breath. It’s like being buried alive. That’s why I couldn’t stay there with my skin intact.”

They also excavate the experience of return, how everyone needs help to emerge, someone to ‘retrieve’ you, even as a goddess. They discuss how to live with what happened as part of one’s identity, how to dance with guilt, to receive support or blame upon return, to feel judged for what happened, and the healing gift of someone who is outraged on your behalf, whether it is a family member, a landlady or the police.

Janet writes with a sense of humour and levity that adds warmth to her story. She’s on intimate footing with her goddess pals, whom she lovingly calls ‘her Hellies’. They don’t leave it at one pyjama party but meet many times. This work is a testimony to the power of meaningful contemporary ceremonies and a concrete example of a shamanic approach to life. 

Alongside these divine encounters, Janet reflects on her journey as shamanic apprentice and eventually becoming a guide for others. This is the Mystery School that Persephone promised to find for Janet. Janet writes how “the central theme of any Mystery School is to teach people to face their own fears. Usually that involves facing our own mortality.” Shamanic techniques to do that include imagination, role-play, physically braving the cold, going on vision quests, and meeting the spirits. With an enormous sense of humour, Janet describes some hilarious feelings from her vision quest and how on earth she would explain all this to her family…

“Damn it’s dark. I can’t even see my hand in front of my face.Just what did Capt’n mean by “seen spirits?” For that matter, what did he mean by “unseen spirits?” Is that a spider crawling around in my hair? Ouch! What just bit me in the center of my back? What was that he said again about “unseen spirits?” Something is definitely crawling up my pants leg. Unseen spirits? Maybe I heard wrong.”

Remembering my own shamanic apprenticeship, the moments of ‘going beyond what I thought I was capable of’ always brought the biggest sense of empowerment: I thought I couldn’t do that, but I did! That sense of having come through, having come out on the other side, is a mini journey through the underworld. It has enabled me to melt feelings of incapability or insecurity that I experienced in situations afterward, in the knowledge that I can break down any experience in smaller chunks, and literally take it one step at a time. 

Janet describes the eventual process of individuation from her teachers, which on any journey is essential to walk our own path instead of someone else’s. While she acknowledges the numerous, invaluable gems shared by her teachers, she also observes where things seemed out of alignment, or went against her own integrity.  

Practical tips, insights and deep wisdom breathe from each page of the book. For now, I leave you with another exchange with the Hellies, where the three Fates or Norns make an appearance too. Persephone speaks:

“Fate, too, is a word that is not well understood. The future as you see it is part of the dance.”  The Norns agreed, “Yes, all is movement/flow/dance.” Dance. I perked up at that word. “And I am the dancer?” “You are the dancer/performer/originator and you can influence your own dance if you choose/opt/desire.”

Thank you, Janet, for this exquisite pearl. Let’s all recognise our skill of dancers “in the process of becoming.”

* * *

Janet’s note: Thank you Eline for such a careful and depthful reading of my book. I am very grateful for how you wove together so many elements of my story into one blogpost. As some of you know the launch of my book Desperately Seeking Persephone on May 19 was marred due to a printer’s error. In the first week, the books sent out were deeply damaged without formatting, editing and with uncertain content. If you received one of these books you are entitled to a free replacement.

You will know if you have one of the error ridden copies several ways (I am naming only a few) 1) you received your book before May 26th when it was re-issued. 2) There is no Table of Contents, 3) It says “chapter 1” on top of each odd numbered page throughout the whole book. If you have one of these books please contact my publisher at denise@redpenguinweb.com . They will need your mailing address to send you a new copy.

Desperately Seeking Persephone has now been corrected and it is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

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Bio

Eline Kieft danced from a young age, including rigorous classical and contemporary training to become a professional dancer. She then studied anthropology, deepening her fascination with worldwide similarities between indigenous traditions regarding intangible aspects of reality and other ways of knowing, including embodied epistemologies and shamanic techniques. 

She completed her PhD in dance anthropology at Roehampton University, trained in depth with the Scandinavian Centre for Shamanic Studies and the School of Movement Medicine. Eline worked at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University for five years, where she created a Somatics Toolkit for Ethnographers, and pioneered soulful academic pedagogy. Her recent book Dancing in the Muddy Temple: A Moving Spirituality of Land and Body was well received as a unique blend of theory and practice and a medicine for our times. 

She is now a full-time change-maker and facilitates deep transformation through coaching and courses both online and in person. Her approach The Way of the Wild Soul offers a set of embodied, creative, and spiritual tools to re-connect with inner strength and navigate life’s challenges with confidence. 

Website: https://www.elinekieft.com Also on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn