In this episode, we meet our first goddess of the ancient Mesopotamian world and the oldest goddess in recorded history, Queen of the Heavens and of the Earth: Inanna. We hear the myth of her descent into the Underworld, following a voice within to go down into the shadows and meet her dark sister, Ereshkigal...This ancient story is modern medicine in a time of war, upheaval and in preparing ourselves for how we want our new world to look and how we can discover our own resiliency in facing the shadows to excavate our own power.

Inanna's transformation is immense and the lessons she learns you can only truly discover if you too are willing to go to the places you have not yet been to find your own wisdom within.

In the meditation, we journey within to dance in the balance between the dark and the light; the grounding forces of the Earth and the connecting forces of the Cosmos. And then the episode ends with an original song called "Down to the Darkness."

Further Reading & Sources

Books:

Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer (Dianna Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer.)

Enheduanna: The Complete Poems of the World's First Author (Sophus Helle)

Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna. (Betty De Shong Meador)

Website articles:

https://kimberlyhetherington.medium.com/the-descent-of-inanna-heroines-journey-c140e546ad49

https://shinjinim.com/2021/12/20/the-descent-of-inanna-a-template-for-the-heroines-journey/

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/she-measures-heavens-and-outlines-earth (Enheduanna)

Journal Prompts:

1. What about Inanna's story of descent speaks to you in your own life? In what ways might you be being called to descend deeper into yourself and to listen to your own wisdom/intuition more right now?
2. What is the cost of ignoring this call and continuing without changing anything?
3. If you had to pass through seven gates to get rid of things you no longer feel you need (be they material possessions, people, situations, lifestyles, limiting beliefs), what would they be? What is stopping you from letting go of them now?
4. In many ways, Inanna is on her journey to reclaim all the parts of herself that have not been allowed. What would those parts be for you? Take some time to delve in your own shadows to look at what you have hidden away from the world and what is preventing you still from showing up as your true, authentic self...

New episodes released on the last Friday of every month.

Connect with Bronwyn: Website: www.bronwynclaireasha.com

Instagram: @bronwynclaireasha

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bronwynclaireashamusic

In this episode of Journeys with the Goddess, we travel back to the source of all things, connecting with the element of water through the story behind the Well of Wisdom and the creation of the Boyne River.

We start the episode with a retelling of the story of Boann's origins as the Mother of the River Boyne, and then explore her through the history and lore, reflecting on how her story has been co-opted over the centuries to take away women's power.

From there, we move inward, with a purifying and healing guided meditation where we travel back to the source to remember we are always connected to something much bigger than ourselves.

Further Reading & Sources

• The Making of an Irish River Goddess: https://medium.com/queen-s-children/the-making-of-an-irish-river-goddess-603b311b0a63
• Excerpts from the relevant Dindshenchas :https://heelancoo.wordpress.com/tag/boann/
• Save the Boyne campaign: https://www.savetheboyne.org/

Journal Prompts:

1. In what ways have you disconnected with the natural forces of our Earth and how might you find ways to reconnect?
2. How has your voice been silenced by what you were told was forbidden or how society might have conditioned you to be a certain way?
3. What does the "Well of Wisdom" mean to you and how might you better access it in your own life?

The Song:

"The poetry of water, the poetry of sound.

Deep down, braided deep way down in the ground.

Water dancing, surging, merging, tumbling, oh so clear

Spirals, drips and drops and cycles and the changing of years

Whispered secrets, all conspiring, caught in the flow

Voices joining sing together its not so far to go..

To the waters, to the lakes the rapids, down to the sea,

Waterfalls, and lakes and pools and puddles, rivers, and streams,

Waves and movement, always trusting in the ebb and the flow,

Well its not so far to go…

Back to the source.

Ancient messaging down from clear and starry skies

But you don’t even have to look so hard or far or even try

For the source is always quiet and it comes from within

If we all share it, well then why’s it called original sin…?

The well it keeps the wisdom locked up in one place,

Whoe’er controls it, well its only its power that they taste,

But Who shall break it? Who’ll forsake their life for one for all

When Eve ate the apple didn’t she do it for us all?

But Why’d they call it the Fall?..

Water flows and yet look closely, for its always the same

When you look, outside, elsewhere, away, you’ve only got yourself to blame

But in the water are the secrets of all life and death

To Source eternal; now here then gone in one breath...

New episodes released on the last Friday of every month.

Connect with Bronwyn: Website: www.bronwynclaireasha.com

Instagram: @bronwynclaireasha

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bronwynclaireashamusic

In this special Imbolc episode of Journeys with the Goddess, we step into the threshold moments when winter hasn't yet released its grip, but spring is already stirring beneath the soil...

We start the episode with a continuation of the story from our last episode with the Cailleach, and then explore Brigid through the history and lore, reflecting on her as a woman of many callings, representative of many archetypes at once. Patron of poets, healers, and makers, she reminds us that we do not have to choose just one way of being. We are allowed to be many things, in many seasons.

From there, we move inward, with a guided meditation to meet Brigid as protector, guiding us at the threshold through a series of doorways and choices ...and then the episode closes with a gentle song of prayer, drawn from a traditional Scots Gaelic invocation to Brìde.

Further Reading & Sources

• Pagan Portals: Brigid - Morgan Daimler
• Brigid: History, Mystery, and Magick of the Celtic Goddess - Courtney Weber
• Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women’s Lives - Jean Shinoda Bolen (for an accessible introduction of how the Greek goddesses can be explored and connected with the archetypes for better self-understanding).

Journal Prompts:

1. Looking back over your life, which choices feel quietly significant, even if they didn’t seem important at the time? How might those choices have been guiding you toward who you are becoming, rather than who you thought you were meant to be?
2. What would it feel like to trust that you are exactly where you need to be, based on every choice you have made so far? If you allowed yourself to be fully seen from this place, what might awaken or shift for you?
3. What is slowly forming in you right now which is not yet ready to be named, shared, or acted upon but is gently whispering to you? How are you protecting and nurturing this in-between phase, and what kind of care might it most need?
4. This episode explores divine archetypes not as fixed roles, but as living energies that coexist within us. Which archetypes feel most present in you right now, and which might be asking for more space, voice, or integration?

The Song:

The words are taken from a traditional prayer to Brigid in Scots' Gaelic, collected in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. and published by Alexander Carmichael in Carmina Gadelica, 1900.

Words:

Brìde nam Brat, Brìde nan Bruach,

Brìde nan Cleachd, Brìde na Fàisneachd.

Brìde nan Cas-Geal, Brìde na Sìth,

Brìde nan Lamh-Geal, Brìde nan Sprèidh,

Brìde, ban-chomunn. Brìde nan Bruach,

Brìde, ban-chobhair, Brìde, ban-mhìn.

Tha mi fo chomraich Mo Naoimh Moire;

’S i mo chompanach, Brìde ghràdhach.

About the Show: Journeys with the Goddess is a monthly podcast by Bronwyn Claire Asha (singer, storyteller, and sound healer). Each episode follows the turning of the seasons and explores a mythic goddess through story, meditation, and music as an invitation to meet the Divine Feminine as a living force within yourself.

New episodes released on the last Friday of every month.

Connect with Bronwyn: Website: www.bronwynclaireasha.com

Instagram: @bronwynclaireasha

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bronwynclaireashamusic