For the past couple months, I have been actively focused on chthonic work. I started to feel its pull a while ago, even before my NDE, though the pull certainly intensified after that event. It is partly “me” stuff but much more importantly, it is what’s happening at the level of the collective that is pulling some of us into the Underworld. And now that Scorpio season is upon us, I anticipate an acceleration as we cycle towards the Winter Solstice. There are certain teachings that can only be found down/in there… So, down/in we go.

Encouragements and Precautions

Chthonic work is intentionally journeying to the Underworld for the purpose of receiving and honoring its teachings. Other purposes for chthonic journeying are related to certain kinds of spirit work and interacting with the souls of those who have crossed the bar, and there’s probably some not-so-great magical reasons for going digging down there. What I discuss here is engaging in chthonic work as a form of collective shadow work, an integration of shadow teachings into our experience of consensual reality and collective healing.

Although Carl Jung accounted for the connection between individuals and humanity with his concept of the collective unconscious, the way that shadow work tends to practiced these days centers the individual, sometimes extending to the close relationships in an individual’s life. The connections between individual shadow work and the transformational healing work of the collective are an additional layer of work that many people understandably do not have the resources to undertake; it is emotionally, spiritually, imaginally, and at times even physically demanding work. This is why I find it helpful to have some kind of guiding teaching or framework by which to keep our bearings or use as a touchstone. One thread that I hold onto when doing any kind of magical homework that is potentially distressing, disturbing, or heavy is loving mettā. As for my guiding framework, I’ll come back to that shortly.

Another morale boost for doing this kind of magical homework is having other Magicians to talk to about it. Processing shadow work alone can be very difficult, not to mention that people who care about us and with whom we have mutual trust can reveal new teachings with their perspectives. And by its nature, the chthonic links us not just to the collective of this waking, consensual reality but to the collectives of the unseen. Many of us tend to recede from sociality or isolate ourselves when doing certain kinds of intense shadow work, but I kinda think we’re not intended to do chthonic work in isolation.

Chthonic work and shadow work can compliment each other in a number of ways, especially in that travelers can bring chthonic teachings back to the surface for integration in our collective healing. We’re at a crucial point in humanity’s healing timeline, so it’s kinda all hands on deck with this stuff. For those who are feeling called to contribute via Underworld spelunking, I want to offer some encouragement that you’re not alone and we need your courage, hope, and especially magic.

Since chthonic work is the deep, dark contexualization of individual shadow work, it seems imprudent for untrained Magicians to dive into chthonic work without having done any shadow work with(in) our selves, unless expressly called to do. The knowledge and skills we gain through shadow work helps prepare those of us who have not had any formal training as Magicians to journey into the Underworld. I also strongly recommend unbenching your spirit team (and sometimes, you might meet members of your team in the Underworld).

Descent into Darkness

Down Here, intuition is the primary sense capacity for navigating the Unseen. Much of the Underworld is dark, some of it is even completely lightless. Even for those of us who are not afraid of the dark in consensual reality, the darkness of the Underworld is never broken apart by daybreak. The moon appears in some places Down Here, and other parts even have their own sun, yet time moves differently or our perception of it changes it. In those can’t-see-your-hand-before-your-face dark parts where time seems to disappear completely, hearing what we can’t see is triggering on an instinctual level: homo sapiens, like many animals, are hard-wired to fear the dark, an instinct which continues to activate the self-protective aspects of our nervous system.

Instinct has kept us alive yet fuels survival-based cognitive mechanisms that will no longer be central to life in the futures we are bringing into being. That is, the ways of life that will nurture and sustain us in the long-run will be rooted in regulated nervous systems that are able to more deeply engage with spirit, emotion, and the imaginal. This does not mean that instinct will disappear— I should hope not, it’s extremely important— rather, we will bring instinct into balance with intuition and insight. Some teachers hierarchize these sense-perceptions or ways of knowing, putting insight (or inspiration) at the top because it is closest to the divine. I conceptualize them more as Matroyshka dolls, one inside the other; it’s up to you which doll you perceive as instinct (the innermost, the outermost), the point is that I see their functions and expressions as nested and necessarily intertwined. Instinct appears to be most legibly attached to / derived from our physical beings, our bodyminds, probably because sooner or later everyone experiences instinctual knowings, impulses, or reactions in their bodyminds. Instinct still works even when we are in a state of activation and hypervigilance. Its knowings and reactions are not always socially acceptable, yet their purpose is generally to keep us alive and help us meet our survival needs. (On top of that inherited instinctual/amygdala-based reaction to darkness, some of us have personal and/or intergenerational trauma that is triggered by nighttime, darkness, death, or other aspects associated with the Underworld.)

An activated nervous system seems to disrupt the information delivered by intuition and insight. In other words, it’s much easier to open up our intuitive powers and sense the flow of divine insight when our bodymindspirits feel safe and our nervous systems are regulated. We’re being called to heal and hone our instincts as we grow into a more expansive expression of our selves. Cultivating trust in Intuition’s guiding voice will aid us in soothing, healing, and recalibrating our instinctual reactions.

When engaging with the Underworld, the question seems to be, how do we regulate and cultivate inner safety that is not dependent on the presence or absence of light? How do we learn to feel safe in the darkness? Finding our own answers to these questions is an early stage of chthonic work.

Though constantly evolving, my guiding framework is based in large part on the teachings of Gloria Anzaldúa. Her writings on El Mundo Zurdo (the Left-Handed World) offer guidance for navigating what she calls alter-realities (realities between / beyond / below / above / etc. consensus reality) and are thus instructive for engaging with the Underworld. One of her early essays, “La Prieta” (in This Bridge Called My Back), describes El Mundo Zurdo not as a destination, per se, but as “the path of a two-way movement”: “a going deep into the self and an expanding out into the world, a simultaneous recreation of the self and a reconstruction of society.” I believe it is necessary to cultivate a Left-Handed approach to studying with/in the Underworld and that chthonic work, when practiced expansively, is an actualization of this two-way movement, as its aim is the simultaneous transformation of the “self” (the individual shadow) and the external/society (the collective shadow).

As we heal our individual shadows, integrate/release samskaras, and come to compassionately know our selves, we unlock and embrace our other sense capacities. We recalibrate and adjust to this environment, integrating sound, touch, smell, taste. We learn different ways of sensing, some of which may be peculiar to us. Instead of fear, the idea of encountering others now sparks curiosity.

I first began to experience this process in successive stages, often with long pauses or breaks between them for rest and integration. I am just now beginning to glimpse a degree of simultaneity; it is taxing. Like learning to play a new sport for which do not yet have muscle memory, I am easily fatigued. This is layered on top of the physical healing from my NDE earlier this year— a timeline-skip event that propelled me deeper into this path. Though unskilled and untrained, I am learning from my team, new and old writings, and a few trusted friends. And then there is the presence of human others felt though not yet seen; chthonic work is a way of feeling for each other in the darkness. When we make contact, at first there is no form; slowly, we reveal our selves to one another. This is a gradual process of expressing needs and desires, establishing boundaries, honoring each other’s “no,” learning to trust. We move softly, touch gently, hold each other’s hands while our free hands trace unseen walls and extend before us, protecting and still feeling-for.

Softening in the Underworld feels different than softening on the Surface. As we become softer and more gentle, the Underworld begins to feel more like home. We find others like us who can hold what were previously terrifying degrees of emotionality. We go deeper.