The Menstruality Podcast - 80. Cyclical Wisdom for Life’s Greatest Challenges (Carly Mountain)

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

The menstrual cycle is encoded with wisdom that can support us through life’s greatest challenges. Learning to read and receive this wisdom is a lifelong process - and in today’s conversation with psychotherapist and author, Carly Mountain, we explore what one of our oldest goddess myths can teach us about embodying cyclical wisdom as we face all that life throws our way. Carly has worked in a cycle-inspired way for many years as a women’s initiatory guide. She has channelled her learnings into her new book Decent and Rising, which explores the ancient goddess myth of Innana and her descent into the underworld as a framework for how to manage grief, loss, illness and other dark night’s of the soul. In today’s conversations we look at each part of the myth through the lens of the inner seasons of the menstrual cycle, and how each cycle phase makes us more resilient, strong and wise, including:How the tenderising of the pre-menstruum helps us to contact the deeper, body knowings that live below our day-to-day consciousness.The physical and metaphorical shedding of menstruation - the death part of the death and rebirth - is exactly what makes way for the new shoots - the potential of inner spring.As we rise with the new momentum of inner spring, we rise rooted, deepened by the underworld of the menstruation process. ---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolCarly Mountain: @carly_mountain - https://www.instagram.com/carly_mountain

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, welcome back to the Menstruality Podcast. Thank you for being here. One of the reasons I love the menstrual cycle so much is because it's encoded with wisdom that can support us through life's greatest challenges. And learning to receive this wisdom,

to read this wisdom is a lifelong process. And in today's conversation with psychotherapist and author Carly Mountain, we explore what one of our oldest goddess myths can teach us about embodying cyclical wisdom as we face all that life throws our way. Carly's worked in a cycle-inspired way as a therapist for many years, and she's channeled her learnings into her new book, which explores the ancient goddess myth of Inanna and her descent into the underworld as a framework for how to manage grief, loss, illness and other dark nights of the soul. And in today's conversation we look at each part of the myth through the lens of cycle awareness, through the

lens of the inner seasons, looking at how each phase can make us more resilient, more strong and more wise. so welcome to our podcast Carly it's really wonderful to be sitting with you here but at least across the screen from each other and I'm really looking forward to this conversation because it's pulling together so many things that I really really love in my deep self it's goddess mythology ancient goddess mythology these stories that we've been telling each other across the ages the menstrual cycle which is obviously my passion and the depths that we can touch through life's initiations and how they make us bigger and better and fuller you know like transmuting the crap of life into gold is yeah I'm just I'm so excited to speak with you about this and yeah thank you for being here yeah likewise um thank you so much for having me it's really

lovely to share this space with you and since you've been such a part of the book and this journey it feels extra special to be with you at this particular time so speaking of your new brilliant book descent and rising it focuses on this ancient myth of the goddess inana and her descent into the underworld and how that can be a powerful resource for us as we go through our own initiations like the grief of losing a loved one or sexual trauma or illness or in my case because I you interviewed me for the book infertility so could we start with you oh I've forgotten our cycle check-in could we start by hearing where you're at in your cycle? Yeah so I'm day five today so yeah I'm moving towards the end of winter and towards spring and it's been quite a busy winter this week it was one

of those weird things where lots of things that I'd scheduled in for last week had to be moved into this week and I thought I'm always interested when that happens I think what is going on because sometimes when I'm holding a course I'll schedule it to not be when I'm bleeding but then my bleed will come on the course and I always think when that happens and it happens a lot actually when I'm working with the anonymous it has happened a lot and I always think wow we need the energy of the bleed in the space when you're in the energy of the bleed and you're doing something big what helps you to kind of stay grounded and with the energy that you want to bring when perhaps you want to be squirreled away

or cocooned away yeah it can be a really difficult dance I think, when I don't want to be dancing. So food actually really helps. There's something about that digestion process, that bringing the earth into me through food and really making sure I'm nourishing myself, but also slowing down and allowing it to be part of what's going on rather than trying to skate over it that happens I always try to listen to use the words from the myth to the great below to kind of allow that blood wisdom to be part of me in the space and the way that I'm sitting and being in the space so that it can be a support to me and whoever it is that I'm sitting with. Yeah, sometimes that can be a challenge,

but actually it has been a huge support to this work and continues to be. So I try to trust. Yes. I hear you. I feel the same. I feel like when I bleed and say I have to do an an interview and I'm really I mean as much as my life allows me to these days but I'm really deep with the the bleed process I notice that that yeah flavors what I'm doing with softness and tenderness and openness and permeability and yeah a willingness to just yeah just to yield into whatever's happening and what I noticed that I need to take care of myself after more than I might do in in a spring or in a summer or in an autumn I need to really block out some time to integrate regroup and fill my tank again because I think it can take quite a lot from me to do that in that place. I agree I make a practice now of whenever I hold space that the day after I finish that

there's a completely blank day there for me to digest. Oh good. I'm on day 25 so that's probably why I forgot to do the cycle check-in because my psyche gets pretty scattered at this time and yeah I'm holding a lot of different different pieces in my mind and I can feel that they're all it's like a snow globe that's a flurry and at the same time it's I feel like it's a very brilliant place to be in for this conversation because I can touch in this place my own times of descent in my life and how they've broken me open and I'm in that tender place myself so it's a good I'm in touch with it so it's a good place to come at this conversation from yeah but let's get into this myth I would love you love it if you could can you walk us into

the story of it so that we can be inside it together through this conversation yeah I would love to so Inanna is an ancient goddess and she emerged in ancient Sumeria ancient Sumeria which is now modern day Iraq and that's sometimes referred to as the cradle of humanity which I love and she is unique as a goddess because many of our goddesses were dragged to the underworld to be initiated such as Persephone and that seems to be the myth that people are more familiar with and she's said to be a later evolution of Inanna. Inanna chooses to go to the underworld because she wants to be with her sister Ereshkigal and so she is in agency she is a woman who has power contact with her own sexuality. She, yeah, she has a maturity already. She's not really a maiden. And she's not fresh in that way. And so she chooses to descend and

Ereshkigal is infuriated by this. She is like, how dare, how dare she come down here and think she can just come to the underworld? And so she says, if she's going to come, she must come naked and bowed low. And so Inanna enters the gates of the underworld and she goes down through seven gates with the gatekeeper and she is stripped naked through those gates and at each gate the gatekeeper says as he removes you know her crown and her beads and her finally her robes at each gate she says what is this it's like what are you I'm the queen you can't take you can't take that kind of attitude it's a surprise to her he just replies the ways of the underworld are perfect they may not be questioned and it's this unequivocal response of these are the natural laws here and we cannot flout them

and so she surrenders to that and she goes through these seven gates and um you know we can think of this stripping of as as a removing of our identities a removing of the ways that the world that we believe the world sees us the the way that we tell the world who we are and the world has told us who we are in a sense both both directions I think so she gets through the seventh gate and she comes face to face with Ereshkigal but Ereshkigal is not up for a loving sisterly reunion and all of her rage comes up and she stakes Inanna and hangs her on the wall and leaves her there as a corpse to rot basically and the great thing about Inanna as you've already mentioned is that before she descends she she calls in the witness. She calls in Ninshaba, the beholder.

And so when Inanna doesn't reemerge, Ninshaba starts to get increasingly worried. She bangs the drum in the assembly places. And eventually when that's not working, she goes to seek help. And she goes to seek help from the sky gods. And the sky gods will not help. Their attitude is Inanna should not have gone to the underworld she's made a bed she needs to lie in it it's this rejection of you know the sky gods don't want to tarry with the great below they would rather stay up high on their thrones where they are comfortable and um she realizes she's knocking on the door of the wrong gods

and i think that happens to so many of us in our lives knocking on the door of the wrong gods but ninjaba will not be dissuaded so she goes to enki who is um a sky god who is also a gardener a soulful sky god and has been initiated into his own dark feminine and he gets the dirt out from underneath his fingernails and creates these two little creatures a cougar and a galator and he says to them go to the underworld slip in like flies and go and be with Ereshkigal, the queen of the underworld. She will be making birthing sounds. And he just basically says, be with her, empathize with her. And they do. They fly down into the underworld. And sure enough, there is Ereshkigal. And by this time she's going, oh, my belly, oh, my heart, oh, my back. And all they do is go, oh, your belly, oh, your heart, oh, your back. They moan with her. And that empathy, she suddenly goes,

who are you? Who are you? Like, who is it? She's had no empathy. She's been in exile. She's been in the cavernous space of the underworld alone, outcast. And she says, can I give you a gift? And they say, we only want the corpse of Inanna. So she gives them the gift of food and the gift of water. And then that allows the flow of Inanna to begin to rise. And I'd love to go to the second part of the story, but it feels like that's a really nice place to pause because there's already so much here, I think, in terms of the descent, in terms of our wombs and our embodiment and being in our embodied underworld that has juice for this conversation somehow. So much, so much. I would love to look at this also through the lens of the menstrual cycle at

the same time, like how is the cycle each month taking us through this natural descent when we were imagining setting intentions for this conversation you said that you wanted to honor the natural mythology that we are and that this is encoded in our blood and yeah look into how so how does our cycle embody this descent let's look at the descent first let's look at inner autumn or the shift from inner summer ovulation sort of peak moment of energy into inner autumn the pre-monstrum where this dissolving and this dissolution can happen and there was something that I wanted to ask you about here which is you said that in many other underworld myths like Persephone they're dragged down into the underworld but here

Inanna makes a choice she goes down willingly and there's something about that that reminds me of menstrual cycle awareness yes that like I don't particularly want to go into the inner autumn when I'm at the height of my energy and in the summer you know but I know that there is gold for me there if I allow the process of the pre-menstruum to work me which isn't to belittle the people who experience PMDD and very severe PMS they are terribly terribly debilitating and there is the potential of gold in this breaking down that can happen for us in the premenstruum yeah and I think that's one of the reasons why I love this myth, because it's not glamorizing the pains that we experience. And, you know, sometimes our menstrual cycle brings pain and discomfort with it and what have you.

But like you say, when we choose to turn towards what it brings, then we can build relationship with it and um i feel that choice to turn towards what's inside of us is so key inside of this and then we have to surrender it's that paradoxical thing isn't it we choose to go and then she has to surrender so it's choice and surrender together. Yes. And I really love in Alexander and Shani's book, Wild Power, the via positiva and the via negativa that really spoke to me. And in Descent and Rising, my book, I refer to those inside of the book and I refer to them as the Inanna and Ereshkigal parts of the cycle. So the via positiva being the Inanna, the upper world parts of the cycle, the spring and summer. And as we descend, we move into Ereshkigal, the via negativa, the going down in our energy system. And I really love that way of bringing the wisdom of wild power

and Red School's model into relationship with this mythology because it just feels so resonant and it really feels to me like our menstrual cycle is a microcosm of this underworld journey that can teach us how to ride those waves and support us to when we're in the bigger life descents that are happening. That's really interesting because I always think of it as the myth of Inanna and there's a kind of heroic story there it's this myth of this amazing woman who goes into the underworld and I forget Ereshkigal who is the absolute other half of the myth and it's the part that our world has shunned and patriarchy shuns

and I shun within myself dark difficult depths that I don't want to touch I would rather be feeling happy and bright and positive yeah yeah and isn't it so tempting to do that I mean for good reason right for good reason like there is something very attractive about the Inanna part and the Ereshkigal part is not always what we where we want to be and yet like you said there is gold there and when we don't listen our body really does demand that we listen you know there's a demanding energy about eresh kagal as well which actually i think has medicine for us in the sense of you know sometimes we're not demanding enough about what we need and how we need to be held and we don't listen to the demands of our body sometimes enough

and I really love again the teaching inside of wild power of ordaining the cycle and doing a turnaround on that narrative of actually my period is a pain to actually wow hang on my period can be a container for me that gives me permission to draw in and rest and listen to the wisdom emerging from inside me. Yeah. And the premenstruum is actually preparing us to be able to receive that wisdom. Because like Inanna, she can't descend into the underworld unless she takes off her armor her breastplate all of the symbols of her identity they need to be removed just like I feel right now in this premenstrual place I I feel a nakedness and a vulnerability and a permeability that is uncomfortable and Inanna is a brilliant guide here because she willingly goes with the natural laws of the underworld so I can either choose to armor up right now and put on a mask

and be something which you know so many of us do and we need to do in this world often or I can stay in this unarmored slightly confusing slightly bewildering place and trust that there is beauty here as well there's beauty and power here as well yeah so Inanna descends through the via negativa through the gates of the underworld through the inner autumn the premenstrum we're speaking on so many levels here and then she meets her sister in the underworld and her sister's angry and Ereshkigal kills Inanna and this moment has always really resonated with the void before the bleed for me which can be a really dangerous time as in we can touch places

and ourselves that that are incredibly painful and what does the myth teach us about how to navigate these times whether it's the void of the cycle or the deep dark places that life's initiations take us well you know as you were just speaking before when you said you know her rage comes up and she kills an honor you know I what I see and what I see what I hear and what I feel in myself and what I hear a lot in with the women that I work with in my therapy practice is the anger that can come up in that autumn sort of transitioning to winter place and often the judgments that we hold about that oh I'm being really overreactive oh I'm being really irrational oh I'm losing it oh I, Z. And actually when we sit together inside

of that, what is often uncovered is actually something that hasn't been heard through the month in the noise of spring and summer and the busyness of spring and summer is able to come through and is actually like the fire of autumn. that fire is going here and see and feel me and I really feel like this is embodied in Ereshkigal's rage it's like the part of us that flares up to be known and heard so that we can be better advocates for ourselves because I I think that our rage has been shamed and disowned a lot in our culture particularly for females and so I think that the boundaries that can come and the learning about where, because boundaries, I think we only, I think we gain deeper understanding of boundaries as we're relating to life and others. I don't know that they're ever a fixed entity.

And I talk in the book about how we have a tendency to fetishize our boundaries. Oh, I know where that boundary is now. And I'm not so sure that that can ever fully be the case I mean we may get to know each other our boundaries better as we go but actually new situations come up that might meet us in a different part of our cycle and the boundary may have to shift so when you're saying about the armor coming off, I love that. And I really feel that. And then it allows something else to be felt that's been underneath. And I think the myth really points to that. It's that, you know, the myth starts with Inanna opened her ears to the

great below. The first invitation here is to begin to listen to the great below, to listen to the dark parts of ourselves, the earth, our collective story, what other stories we aren't telling, what other things we're not saying, what other things we're not saying? What are the things we're not paying attention to? And so though going to the underworld can be and meeting those dark parts can be challenging, I also feel like it's so essential that we listen. And I think this is the teaching at the core of the myth is, or one of the core teachings of this myth is that deep, deep listening. Not necessarily to, you know, immediately action anything over the evening. I mean, that's the death part, right? It's the being with what we are hearing and just being without the pressure to do or change or fix. It's the

being with, and I feel like, you know, this is where the myth is embodied. I feel like we are walking mythologies and our body has stories to tell us that it's important that we hear and the earth has stories to tell us, but they don that we hear and the earth has stories to tell us but they don't always speak in the language that we're speaking right now and I think that the myth what the myth is trying to do is teaching us to remember and relearn the the other languages of story that are going on the embodied the embodied natural stories that may have been covered up in the upper world by you know the popular narratives and the brightnesses the constant seeking the light certain things can only be heard in the dark yes i'm loving what you're saying. Certain things can only be seen and heard and known in the dark.

I'm thinking now of what happens when Inanna is dead and Ereshkigal is hurting and Ninshuba knows that Inanna isn't coming back and goes to find help. And where she goes is to the sky gods this is one of the favorite parts of the myth for me because I recognize it so much in myself you know I think we're speaking about all of these different aspects of the of this myth as aspects of ourself so I know that when I'm in the descent and in the pain, I whiz up to my head to try and find a concept that will help make sense of, as you so beautifully named, these mythical languages and ways of seeing and knowing and experiencing things that cannot be made sense

of and shouldn't be made sense of necessarily there's there is a different language but I go to my head to ideas and theories to try and understand and it doesn't work it doesn't make me feel better it doesn't ease the pain it just adds confusion and complexity and um And I think it's the internalized patriarchy. Yeah. I think that the patriarchal narratives that we've digested, that's how we've been encouraged to understand the world, isn't it? Through our minds. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I do feel it's fallen out of balance with the natural laws and the deeper knowing that lives below that, that tends to be undervalued.

And of course, this is the deeper knowledge that I feel and have found in my own life is held inside my blood wisdom. And for so long, I say in the book, it was like buried treasure on an island called me. Because I didn't know to listen to it. And for so long, I say in the book, it was like buried treasure on an island called me. Because I didn't know to listen to it. I hadn't, I had forgotten. Nobody had pointed to it. Culture wasn't pointing to it. They was, you know, all the adverts were just telling me to go out and roll a blade when I was on my period.

So hilarious, isn't it? And nobody said, go to the underworld and just be see what you find there and there's a beautiful poem if you are up for it always it's called the second music now I understand that there are two melodies playing, one beneath the other. One easy to hear, the other lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard, yet always present. When all other things seem lively and real, this one fades, yet the notes of it touch as softly as fingertips, as lightly as the names laid over each child at birth. I want to stay in that second music without striving or cover.

If the truth of our lives is what it is playing, the telling is so soft that this mortal time, this irrevocable change becomes beautiful. I stop and stop again to hear the second music. I hear birds, train, the children in the yard. All this is in it and will be gone. I set my ear to it as I would to a heart. It's by Annie Lightheart, the second music. And I feel like that's what we're listening to in our bleed and in the myth. Like, what's the second music?

Carly has mentioned Alexandra and Sharni's book a couple of times in our conversation today. And if you're going through something in your life at the moment that is really challenging you and you want to learn how your menstrual cycle can support you through it, a good next step might be reading Wild Power, Discover the Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power. It's available wherever books are sold. Okay, let's get back to the conversation with Carly. In the myth and equally in the deep quiet of the bleed, when Inanna is down in the underworld and Ninshuba finds Enki who sends, what's the name of the two characters again?

Hugara and the Galateur. I just love these guys made from dirt from underneath fingernails which is where all the goodness of life comes from really and they come down and it's the empathy that they bring to a Rashka girl it's our capacity to be with our own pain or to call in support to help us be with our own pain so let's look at that there's so much to pull apart there where do you want to start to play empathy i think this is about empathy and both the empathy that we offer to ourselves and the empathy that we really need at times from others but empathy like these dark parts want our empathy they don't want to be exiled and pushed away by us they want to not be alone anymore and what I love about the myth is that when Ereshkigal is empathized with that's when birthing of both new awareness and new life happens not by constantly forcing summer and

staying in the upper world the new life comes out of the death part of the cycle. And this is just so what is embodied in the menstrual cycle for me, that shedding, allowing the death to happen, the death of a potential life to happen, and then the spaciousness for the new shoots to come up in the spring. And that's, you know, maybe that is what, I don't know if you want to add anything about this part of the cycle, but it feels like we're naturally then leaning

towards the via positiva again. How closely they're linked, right? They're just a whisper, a breath, a heartbeat away from each other. Life and death transition of the cycle yeah well I'm just going to hold us in the via negativa a little bit longer because it's my favorite place to play but just because and I'm really with you that life and death seem so far apart when in truth they're they're absolutely yeah they're a breath away from each other and that is one of

the great learnings I received from my biggest initiatory time which was over these four years of infertility that we spoke about in the book and coming back to the empathy piece I'm thinking of one night which was probably three years in so I was very very low with this and or maybe it was two years in because I was actually at the menstruality leadership program so this was 2018 or 2019 in with Alexandra and Shani and I was bleeding and I desperately desperately desperately wanted to be pregnant and I couldn't sleep it was midnight it was dark and I went outside it's like I needed to be with the darkness because it was so dark inside me I just needed to be in this inky blackness and then I would feel less alone but I

called my mum because I was in a I was in a life or death moment I was so desperate and she was wonderfully blessedly is a lifeline for me so I called her and I just wailed I just wailed I was with these huge trees in the dark and I just said mum what if this never happens what if I can never be a mother and she really enkeyed me she she just she didn't quite say, oh, your heart, oh, your liver. But she did say, I hear you. I know, love, this is so hard. I know, love, this is so hard. And she was with me.

And I had many more of those moments after. And I feel like each one I had of really letting, and it's not even letting, it just took me. It wasn't, it's where surrender just becomes a thing that happens rather than a thing you do yeah yeah so in honor she goes okay well I have to take off all of my robes and um objects because it's the natural law you know the natural the natural law of the initiation just took me and and emptied me out and every time it did it showed me that there is life after death there is life after death there is life after death and everything keeps changing and it's that beautiful medicine of

actual togetherness not the like oh you just need to go on holiday and relax kind of crap that people used to say to me which is absolute sky god I'll call it sky god bullshit just to name it for what it is but it's people are trying to be kind and loving but they're not in touch with the depths in that moment they're hovering around on the surface so it was in that moment my mum's capacity to be with me in the depth in my howl that allowed some transformation to happen I'm just so moved by you sharing that story because it really takes me to that place where we can't Lucy Lucy Pierce who I also interviewed for the book

describes it really beautifully when she says you can't go up you can't go down you can't go left you can't go right and she said that's what I think of when I think of Inanna and I called it being pincer gripped by fate it's like you can't move oh i've got shivers yeah yeah and so many women i spoke to described just curling up in a ball at that point it's like we go fetal and in that way you know i'm a breath worker as well and often in the breath work process when people are about to move into the birthing movement they will go fetal in the process there's some inherent embodied wisdom that takes us into these archetypal postures in the body that knows that we're gestating that we are and we're dying it's so

paradoxical we are really dying and we're still alive we're still breathing and something is actually dying and it's it's it's real which is why the cycle is so helpful for us because something in us is dying to be reborn every single cycle month we've got this opportunity to yield to this process I guess just before we move into the inner spring I'd love to speak to Ninshuba this witness presence yeah I guess the importance of having the capacity to see the big picture, having allies that can help us in these dark times. Could you speak to that, Carly? I will actually, yeah. And I want to say I'm so moved by what you share about how your mum could do that for you, was your beholder in that moment and how you knew to reach for her you knew to reach for the dark and

you knew to reach for a ninjaba and grief wants company I guess that's what's coming in and again when we knock on the door of the wrong sky gods for that you see this for me it's interesting as a therapist because I work when we go into the death part we meet not only the grief we're currently experiencing and the death we're currently experiencing but it can also lead us to touch the deaths and griefs of previous times as well and the collective griefs that are happening as well. And I really feel that when we are not beheld in those moments, something gets exiled like Ereshkigal. And what can be so powerful, either in sacred circles or in a therapy space,

which for me is a sacred space as well, is that the griefs can actually physically be felt again. We can reincarnate the feelings that weren't beheld back then, whenever back then was, if we didn't have a ninjaba. And they can be held now because it's not like those griefs go away. They just get pressed down into the underworld. And often in our bodies, that actually means they're held in our wombs where they're, you know, as far away from the sky Godhead as they can get. But this is the important, I think what ninshabur really speaks to is the containment, the container inside of the nakedness. It's not a good idea to get naked without a container.

The butterfly will not transform if it doesn't have a mum to ring in those moments and don't have the wisdom that you knew, that knew you needed to be in the dark as a holding space rather than go fully into the dark and where that might take us. So Ninshaba is a container, an ally, a beholder, and yes, that can be an internal one, but I also think the external containers are so important and the recognition that we can tend to these places in ourselves, either when they old griefs are tended to, that's when, just like with Ereshkigal, that new energy, the waters of life can flow again.

I'm really thinking of cycle awareness as the container for us right now because like ninshuba the cycle awareness the daily checking in how am i doing how do i feel how am i energetically how am i physically it's like a drum beat a heartbeat that keeps us plugged into the second sorry i keep forgetting this second music The second music. It's our gateway back into the second music every day. Yeah, it's containing us so that we can stay in touch, so that we can find the empathy when it's needed. And especially during the bleed, I do feel like there's this quiet healing process that can go on. It's not conscious necessarily.

It's happening through the body languages that you were speaking about earlier and it's my awareness of the the whole cycle process that facilitates my body clever body doing that healing all all by itself in many ways yeah what's coming in for me as you're speaking is is how the menstrual cycle is the mythopoetic map inside of our blood being body yeah say more about that myths aren't an idea they carry these archetypal energies and the archetypes that are held inside of the menstrual cycle are part of that they are part of us they are you know I always think where do these mythic stories emerge from they emerge from inside of us they emerge from these energies shifting shifting a creative energy to make sense of but not in that sky god way like myth is the language

of that deeper knowing for me yes it's speak just like poetry is just like song can be just like art can be yeah these deeper languages these second musics and so to recognize the myth or poetry of our own body just feels to me so rich and there's a fecundity in it isn't there there's this like a lifefulness it's so affirming yes I'm really with you in that affirmation because what I'm sensing as you're talking is okay so we're never alone then in these moments because people have been telling these stories since people were able to communicate with each other because we've been going through these same initiatory movements through illness, through death, through grief for eons. So yeah, just as the, the myths are alive in the cycles of our

bodies, the myths have been alive throughout the whole of humanity. And it's, I guess when I look for the gold of my infertility, it really is it. I'm still making sense of it because then I wonderfully, blessedly went and had a baby and then went into the wonderful tumult of being a new parent. So I'm still integrating it, but it's, it wove me into life. It made me real. It made me, I could no longer be dancing with the sky gods in concepts and ideas. I'm down in the earth with everybody. And there's a humility and an embodied togetherness that hasn't left me. That is a real treasure.

And I can empathize from a real place of ground in me now. And I'm glad for that and this is hopefully where we rise from like what you're expressing um rise rooted as the Rilke poem says you know as we rise into the ascent I think it's so important that we we keep putting our roots deeper just like a tree it has to keep growing down so it can support its growth up it is it is that we are that we are that so let's speak about the rising tell us what happens what happens next so what like she's on the hook so she she has the food and the water sprinkled on her and she rises but it's never that simple is it the the the laws of the underworld say that you cannot leave and so she has to send someone to if Inanna is

going to rise she has to send someone in her place and Ereshkigal sends these gala demons to flank Inanna as she emerges and they will not go until a sacrifice is made. And I feel like this is when Inanna starts to learn that we can't have everything. Something is going to have to be sacrificed. And so as she's emerging from the underworld, the first person she sees is Ninshabur, who is wearing this soiled sackcloth. She's been grieving. She's unwashed unwashed unkempt she's kind of completely ravaged by the grief she's been in and so when the gala demons go to take her she says no you cannot take nin shiba she is my loyal witness i will never sacrifice her so she knows that she can't afford to lose the witness and if we lose the witness on the inner or outer, we'll probably abort the journey and descend again. So that's incredibly wise. There's a piece there that I think is key. feet and again she says no I will not sacrifice my sons then she arrives in Uruk and under the

apple tree there is her husband dressed in his splendid clothes on her throne and he hasn't grieved her or even seemingly noticed that she's been gone and for this reason Inanna knows that he is the one that must be sacrificed and so she makes that sacrifice and yet it's not that simple he is evasive that that part of our inner masculine and the masculine on the outside doesn't want to be initiated, doesn't want to go to the underworld, doesn't want to come down off that throne. So he turns into a snake and he slithers away into hiding and the Gala demons then pursue him and so entails this chase.

And he runs away and he goes to his sister Geshtanana and Linda Hartley quite his sister Geshtanana and Linda Hartley quite beautifully compares Geshtanana as like a bodhisattva kind of character who are enlightened beings that stay on earth to be compassion and to love those who are suffering and Geshtanana appeals to Ananna and appeals to her love and says please don't sacrifice him you know can't you feel for his plight and this allows Inanna to not make the sacrifice out of the energy of vengeance make it out of her shadow self it allows her to again come into empathy and compassion and understand that the masculine part of her needs

needs to be initiated but not exiled because if we leave that inner masculine that inner consciousness that that manifests that way that will abort the journey too we need to make relationship with this part and so Inanna from this compassionate wisdom says okay Dumuzi will go for half the year then Gesht Inanna will go for the other half of the year so the masculine and feminine share it they both have to descend not just once but multiple times and yes some of our descents and risings are huge and we probably don't go through too many of those in a lifetime but we go through the concentric cycles of descent and rising many times and you know talking about menstruality of course we go through it uh when we menstruate monthly on some level um i feel and this is a conversation we're having

isn't it so the compassion helps us to complete the cycle and helps us to descend as many times as we need to descend and to take care of ourselves inside of that and and to be with others inside of their suffering as well. Which seemingly is when I asked women that I interviewed in the book, you know, what's the gift you came away with? Nearly every single one said, you know, the ability to be, and I remember you articulating this really beautifully when we spoke, the ability to be with myself and others in pain and not try to fix it not put the breastplate on not try to you know make okay what is not okay but to just be together inside it to be in relationship with it and each other um and I feel like there's huge medicine inside of that for us absolutely huge I'm really back with the via positiva and via negativa again now because I'm

seeing how the um descent of Inanna's husband and and Gesht Inanna really shows how or it's a great embodiment of just like the via negativa and positiva of how change is always happening so there are moments of descent and then the rising comes and it happens each day through the sun rising and then setting and then going into night and it happens through each menstrual cycle and I know that this is one of the great teachings of cycle awareness for me as well as something that's anchored in me from the infertility and from you know chronic illness and other initiations I've had is life keeps changing and impermanence is real and it's not an idea on a concept anymore it's a real embodied knowing which shows up say when I feel crap on a given day I can say to myself and I and I believe it okay this is temporary even in the depths of my day

25 funk that I was in this morning I remembered okay this will shift this will shift this is a moment this is a moment right now which is really priceless when we're really in the shit it really is it really is um because it can be so so all-encompassing that we feel like it's forever don't we at time and there is always change there's always the rising and then we go into inner spring and back into inner summer is there are there any final pieces you'd like to bring in around the rising I think I would really like to speak to how we change these narratives that have split us off from erish kagal or split us off from our wisdom split us off from that inner map that's so treasured because i think this is where menstrual cycle wisdom and this myth are so empowering for us in that change is here right now.

Change is possible right now inside of our body. It's not something we have to go to the sky gods, the outer sky gods. I mean, I know that things need to change on the outside, but there are certain things that we are empowered to be with here and now, today, in this moment. And I had a lovely conversation with Jane Hardwick Collins last night about rites of passage. And she said so clearly in that conversation, you know, the narrative of menstrual shame can change in a generation. It can change now. We don't have to wait. It's happening.

And I'm thinking of my daughters because they are, you know, in the spring of their lives and coming towards womanhood. And their whole understanding and relationship with menstruality is already different and I remember one day they came home because they encountered the stories of the culture um I mean we talked about the menstrual cycle from them being very young and so by the time they got to it at school that teaching at school they were already versed in a different narrative one day my daughter came home to me and she just looked a bit like oh a bit in a funk and I said what's wrong and she said mum we had this chat about periods today and she said all they seem to talk about was fear you know you don't need to be

afraid of this and you don't need to be afraid of that. But all they were talking about was fear. And she said, I'm not afraid. And she said, but should I be? It makes me want to cry a little bit because it was so good that she asked that question. And it gave me the opportunity to say, isn't it a shame that the magic is not what's emphasized in our cultural narratives and we had a whole chat about the magic and that you know the reason fear has come in is because we haven't had these teachings we don't have these deeper

understandings we don't have these mythic stories woven into our culture so not here in the west um not in mainstream culture but how when we do the change can happen it can be yeah and that can mean that we can move into spring and summer in more fullness when we're supported by autumn and winter when erish and inanna are in relationship with each other both are healed both are both benefit both we come towards a wholeness we're no longer split in two. We're no longer having to exile. Such a valuable, natural aspect of ourselves. Can you tell us about your book and how our listeners can connect with you and your work? Yes, I would love to. So Descent and Rising is out on the 24th of March and you will be able to get it then from wherever you get your books from it's published by Womancraft Publishing which are a wonderful

independent publisher and so you can order it directly from them which would be to support an independent publisher or you can order it from elsewhere. And I am also holding a online retreat, which is seven conversations with women who were having these intimate conversations about the heroine's journey, pulling out themes of how these journeys show up in our personal lives and our collective lives. And yeah, really entering this conversation to hopefully begin to change these narratives

and create a new one, create new possibilities. So that's happening between the 4th and the 11th of April. And it will finish on the 11th of April with a live call, which I'm calling Invoking Inanna. So that will be because these things don't happen in our heads. They happen in the body as we've been talking about and exploring. And so that will be a live call with me where we will move with an embodied process so that whatever has been stirred inside of us through the conversations in the seven days before can be felt, beheld, I will be banging the drum for whoever it is that comes to that final call. And that will be followed in May by a online course that explores this myth in an embodied way

that I would love women to come to and sign up for. So you can find out about all of that stuff on my website, carlymountain.com. And the online retreat in April is absolutely free. So don't let money hold you back. Please do come along. It would be great to have people join in with the energy of this and join in with the conversation. Thank you Carly, what a wonderful conversation this has been, I feel so revitalized from it, I'm ready to go into my descent that's coming, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me and thank you for all the work that you and Red School are doing, it's just so valuable and I'm so grateful for it. Thank you so much for tuning in today. It was great to be with you. If you're loving this podcast and you'd like to support us, the best way to do that is to leave a review at Apple Podcasts.

It really helps the podcast to reach more people. So thank you so much for that and I'll be with you next week so until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm