The story of a young and naive girl’s descent into learning from the underworld is present in many cultures.
In Sumeria it is the story of Innana’s descent into the underworld to her sister Ershekigal, in Egypt the goddess Anubis, in Norse mythology Hel, The Brother Grimm, as well as the internationally acclaimed author and cantadora (guardian of ancient stories) Clarissa Pincola Estes, summed up the youthful journey in a story of The Armless Maiden who is transformed in seven stages of initiation.
In the first part of the story, the miller makes a deal with the devil and unconsciously exchanges his daughter for the wealth the devil offers him. It’s a metaphor for those moments in our lives when we give up our authentic expression because we prefer to replace it with something that seemingly shines, glitters, and looks more alluring and more precious.
Then the devil really shows up in a few years and because the young woman is immaculate and truly innocent, he can’t take her. So she asks the miller to cut off her hands. The girl cries and symbolically cleans her hands. And because she is immaculate, pure, and innocent again, the devil cannot take her again. In this part of the story, we witness another initiation, a mental dismemberment.
When a girl is devalued and left without hands, her inner destruction and disintegration of old values actually begins. Embarrassed, she leaves home. From the familiar, the domestic and the pleasant to the unknown, the unpleasant and the dangerous.
The third initiation begins with wandering in the dusty road, the lonely forest and the muddy cave. Here she meets her inner lone wolf that symbolizes her exile, her first independent steps towards learning about her own mystical nature and buried unconscious contents.
How about you, will you retire without arms and hide to the abandoned corners of your psyche, where you will be taken care of till the death or do you come to dance and embody your wounds and transform them into your strengths?
Sandra Anais, Archetypes in Motion
@photocredit: Anja D.Sesek