Katabasis: Songs From The Underworld
Click the links scattered throughout to listen & read lyrics. Or Click here for the full playlist
For years, I thought I was writing individual poems.
A dream here. A journal entry there. A phrase scribbled in the margins of a notebook. A melody that arrived unexpectedly in the middle of the night.
Only recently did I realize they belonged to the same story.
In mythology, a katabasis is a descent into the underworld. Odysseus undertakes one. Inanna descends through the seven gates. Orpheus travels below to retrieve Eurydice. In modern psychology, Carl Jung might describe it as a descent into the unconscious as a confrontation with the buried, rejected, wounded, or forgotten parts of the self.
This series emerged from my own descent.
Years ago, while working through PTSD in psychotherapy, I became fascinated with the concept of soul retrieval as a symbolic framework for healing. The idea that trauma can fragment us. That pieces of ourselves become exiled, hidden, buried, or lost. That healing is not merely recovery, but a journey to reclaim what was lost.
The songs that became this series were born from journal entries, dreams, sketches, poems, and reflections written over many years. I did not set out to create a concept album. In fact, I didn’t realize these pieces belonged together until recently.
The catalyst was a Full Moon in Scorpio - the auspicious and cruel day I lost my mother in law to pancreatic cancer. A sneaky, hidden and quick killer - ripped something out of me - a song, my own raw voice and lyrics - Crossroads. I had been crying for days & my grief resolved into a full on sinus and chest infection when I sang into my computer- so please, be kind! I’m a writer, not a singer 😉
The Full Scorpio Moon of death and transformation that took Karen was followed closely by a Blue Moon, a convergence that seemed to pull me back into old notebooks and unfinished work. As I excavated forgotten poems and journals, patterns began to emerge. Images repeated. Themes echoed across years. Different songs appeared to be speaking to one another.
Together, they form a psychological journey toward integration.
The journey begins with instinct.
Before there are words or understanding, there is movement. There is the split self seeking equilibrium, wholeness, and balance.
Rise inhabits that liminal space between fragmentation and coherence. It is raw, instinctive, and untamed. The self has not yet identified what is missing, but it feels the absence. Something inside is pushing toward life.
This is the first stirring of individuation.
The call from the depths.
If Rise is instinct, My Foal is longing.
The speaker descends into darkness searching for a lost part of herself. Floods, mud, storms, bones, and buried memories populate the landscape. The song borrows from the imagery of mythic rescue journeys, but gradually reveals itself to be something more intimate.
The “foal” is not simply another person.
It is a lost self.
A soul fragment.
A wild thing abandoned in the underworld.
The song is driven by urgency and love:
“Come back to me, my foal.”
The search has begun, but the reunion has not yet occurred.
I wrote this one on May 28th. At first, I thought Ace of Diamonds was the conclusion.
Now I think it is the moment of awakening.
The lost figure finally speaks.
The poem at the heart of the song emerged from a realization that transformed how I understood my own experiences:
“I thought I was being broken, but I was wrong.”
Pressure becomes transformation.
Burial becomes gestation.
What appeared to be destruction reveals itself as incubation.
The title is a deliberate nod to the Ace of Swords in tarot. Traditionally associated with the suit of Diamonds this Ace represents the element of Air, thought, language, clarity, truth. The Ace represents the first spark of consciousness. A new idea. A new perspective. A new understanding.
Yet the Ace is not gentle.
The sword cuts both ways.
Clarity can wound as much as it liberates.
The song ends not with triumph but with revelation:
“The seed of clarity cuts both ways, and I am bleeding.”
The self is no longer lost.
But understanding carries a cost.
This song arrived in a dream.
A strange phoenix sat inside my soft bruised honey comb heart. I asked who she was.
She answered:
“You already know. I’m another you.”
Unlike the urgency of My Foal or the revelation of Ace of Diamonds, Juicy Fruit approaches the mystery with curiosity, humor, and wonder.
The encounter is surreal.
Sweet.
Absurd.
Profound.
The underworld drama has largely passed. The lost self is no longer buried. The conversation can finally happen.
Recognition replaces searching.
The answer was never somewhere else.
The answer was always another version of the self.
And then, as dreams often do, the revelation ends abruptly.
The speaker wakes up and walks to the bathroom.
Life continues.
The story does not end with rescue, revelation, or even recognition. The purpose of a katabasis is not to remain in the underworld.
The purpose is to return.
Over the years, I became increasingly interested in Jung’s process of individuation, Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, and the broader monomyth found throughout world mythology. Although I wasn’t consciously trying to write about these ideas, they found their way into the work anyway.
The pattern now seems obvious.
A search.
A descent.
An awakening.
A recognition.
And finally, a return to ordinary life.
Lessons Learned:
What looks like loss may be transformation.
What looks like decay may be gestation.
What looks like separation may ultimately be an opportunity for re-union.
The work of healing is not simply remembering who we are.
It is becoming whole enough to carry water, chop wood, create art, build meaningful lives, and help others find their way through the dark.
The underworld teaches us what we need to know.
Then it asks us to come home.
On that note I Heeded the call
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