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The Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey appears as one with the small rocky island on the coast of Normandy, France. With its spires pointing to the heavens, the buildings look as though they are floating on the waters. The islet is inaccessible when the tide closes in, the ocean fortifying the abbey from attack or isolating it for solitude. The journey to the island feels mythic as one crosses water, shuttles ferrying the bustling tourists to the mysterious isle, the winds whipping one’s hair with a story all its own.
Our intrepid guide led us through the quaint medieval village lined with storefronts and delicious delights, but our journey was upwards, climbing over 200 steps towards the spire at the top of the abbey with its golden statue of the archangel Michael, aspiring to reach the heavens he points to.
Passing through the light-filled sanctuary, then the scriptorium where wise words were memorialized in script, and finally through the public meeting rooms where visitors were welcomed, I was filled with awe by the beauty of the gothic structures. The buildings were layered in order of importance, our guide explained, the sanctuary is closest to God, the business of society the furthest. The organization of the buildings seemed to tell a story as well.
Our Lady underneath the earth
On our descent from the abbey, our guide pointed to a small door and stated: “And through this door is Notre-Dame-Sous-Terre–Our Lady Underneath.”
I froze on the steps. Translated as Our Lady underneath the earth, our guide explained that the oratory, or small chapel, remained buried and hidden for years. Built during the eighth century upon what was thought to be an ancient burial site, what remains of the chapel is one of the oldest structures on the island. Throughout the centuries, structures were built on top of Notre-Dame-Sous-Terre. Forgotten to time, the chapel was excavated in the 19th century.
So, at the heart of this 13th-century breathtaking gothic structure is a chapel dedicated to Our Lady underneath the earth–an underworld goddess.
One must know death to understand life
Underworld goddess figures are often feared in mythology. Homer’s Odyssey refers to the Greek underworld goddess, Persephone, as dread Persephone, showing such trepidation. Yet, in the Sumerian myth of the “Descent of Inanna,” the goddess Inanna descends through her own agency, seeking the wisdom found in the underworld. At each of the seven gates of the underworld, Inanna relinquishes her worldly power as goddess of heaven and earth and bows low in the inner sanctum to the goddess of the underworld, Erishkigal, seeking the depths found therein.
In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell finds that in the underworld journey:
“The hero, whether god or goddess, man or woman, the figure in a myth or the dreamer of a dream, discovers and assimilates his opposite (his own unsuspected self) either by swallowing it or by being swallowed. One by one the resistances are broken. He must put aside his pride, his virtue, beauty, and life, and bow or submit to the absolutely intolerable. Then he finds that he and his opposite are not of differing species but one flesh.” (89)
The descent to the underworld deepens the experiences of the hero and is a transformative moment in the journey.
The underworld then appears to be reflective of the psychological experience. Sigmund Freud begins The Interpretation of Dreams with a quote from Virgil’s Aeneid, “Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo,” referencing the idea that if the heavens will not offer help, one will turn to the underworld. The use of this quote seems to illuminate how the underworld is a source of psychological images for Freud. Mythologist Christine Downing highlights how Freud often refers to the underworld as a “privileged metaphor for the unconscious” (Gleanings, 129).
Archetypal psychologist James Hillman echoes Freud's connection between dream imagery and the underworld. Hillman’s book The Dream and the Underworld relates the psychology of dreams to the mythology of the underworld, demonstrating the mythology’s relevance to the field of psychology. In Myth of Analysis, Hillman states that “the Platonic upward movement toward aestheticism is tempered by the beauty of Persephone” (pg. 102). In other words, the driving forces of our daily lives are informed by the knowledge of the depths of human existence. Hillman refers to these depths as “underworld beauty.”
These scholars highlight ways in which myths of the underworld are a source of meaning and significance for enhancing the human experience. Beauty is found in laying down one’s pride, power, and identity in life, to attain the wisdom of the underworld. Somehow, one must know about death to understand life, and therefore these myths are touching on what it means to truly feel alive.
Beauty is found in laying down one’s pride, power, and identity in life, to attain the wisdom of the underworld.
Insight of the underworld
I find it interesting how Notre-Dame-Sous-Terre was hidden for so many years beneath the surface. Like so many goddess figures lost to time.
In Episode 5 of the Power of Myth, “Love and the Goddess,” Bill Moyers introduces the conversation with Campbell by inquiring about the disappearance of goddess figures, stating that “patriarchal authority finally drove the goddess from the pantheon of imagination” (26:58).
Moyers then pointedly asks Campbell, “The Lord’s Prayer begins, ‘Our Father, which art in heaven.’ Could it have begun ‘Our Mother’?” (27:27). “What psychological difference would it have made …?” (33:47).
“Well,” Campbell responds, “it makes a psychological difference in the character of the cultures” (33:56).
The myths we hold dear in our societies inform societal actions. So too Campbell's statement seems to imply that what is lost to time or buried in the underworld affects the upperworld as well.
Later in the episode, Campbell suggests that the goddess returned, “She came back with the virgin in the Roman Catholic tradition … Notre Dame” (37:33). Perhaps Notre-Dame-Sous-Terre, Our Lady of the underworld has something to say about this as well. Campbell asserts that these female figures are surfacing, their presence offering balance, insight, and wisdom to the culture.
Surfacing
What does it mean for female figures who have been lost to time to step into the light? These goddesses, heroines, and leaders who have remained hidden and unseen for so long–do we fear them, like those who fear the Greek goddess Persephone, or do we welcome their wisdom as the Sumerian goddess Inanna seeking Erishkigal?
Can we even begin to remember the time when the church upon the island of Mont-Saint-Michel was dedicated to her, Our Lady Underneath, before the gothic cathedral was built atop her?
Perhaps a starting point for excavating the gifts of the goddess is where the “Love and the Goddess” episode ends. Moyers and Campbell have taken the conversation beyond words. Moyers inquires, “And it begins here?” (56:06) as he points to his body, the internal world that is “the womb of all of our being” (54:22), represented mythically as the goddess. And Campbell knowingly nods, responding, “It begins here” (56:06).
What must it mean then, from the womb of being, to allow what has been repressed, buried, and hidden for so many years to come into the light? What gifts might this goddess from underneath the earth offer?
MythBlast authored by:
Stephanie Zajchowski, PhD is a mythologist and writer based in Texas. She serves as the Director of Operations for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and is a contributing author of Goddesses: A Skeleton Key Study Guide. Stephanie is also a co-founder of the Fates and Graces, hosting webinars and workshops for mythic readers and writers. Her work focuses on the intersection of mythology, religion, and women’s studies. For more information, visit stephaniezajchowski.com
This MythBlast was inspired by The Power of Myth Episode 5, and Goddesses
Latest Podcast
In this episode, Campbell speaks to the relationship of mythology to psychology. He goes through the four functions of myth and emphasizes the fourth function - the psychological. He focuses on why this psychological function is so important in our contemporary world. The lecture was recorded at the Houston Jung Center in 1972. Host Brad Olson introduces the lecture and offers a commentary at the end.
This Week's Highlights
"There was a whole galaxy of mythologies that influenced each other in that period, back and forth, leading to the Christian recovery of the Goddess. . . . with the Christians in the first centuries, she comes back very strongly. There are certain aspects of Catholicism, for instance, where Mary is more important than either the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost. In all of the great cathedrals of Notre Dame, she is the guardian, protecting, mediating Mother. See, the god image as it is in our tradition is a pretty heavy one—he’s a kind of savage deity—and the mother is a protective, intermediary screen. When she’s wiped out in Puritanism, God becomes really a ferocious figure, as you read in some of those Puritan sermons."
-- Joseph Campbell
Myth and Meaning, 53