Loss of Community and the Underworld Journey

Abstract

Making meaning after a loss of community is instrumental to transforming grief and is assisted by the metaphorical underworld journey. Participants who were negatively impacted following a crisis and subsequent loss were allowed to express underlying sadness and to make meaning from their experience. The Research Problem was: How might learning the mythic journey to the underworld assist the grieving process following a sudden loss of community? The hypothesis was: Meeting the fullness of community loss through the metaphor of the underworld journey may provide the grieving person with a deeper sense of meaning. Relational Cultural Theory is used for its emphasis on connection, empathy, and community.

The literature reviews the biology and psychology of connection and loss, grief and meaning-making, the importance of community and the impacts of disasters, and the archetypal underworld as a guiding framework. However, the literature is insufficient regarding the effects of community separation on individuals.

Imaginal Inquiry was the research methodology used to evoke uncomfortable affects through sharing, breathwork, art making, journaling, and dreamwork. Participants’ viewpoints were included in interpreting conclusions.

The underworld myth provided a framework for 12 participants to access grief and make meaning. The group met five times for 15 hours, and five learnings emerged. The first is that self-criticism can generate feelings of being stuck in an underworld. The second is that although severing community attachments can create feelings of being lost and profound loneliness, it may also clarify one’s core self and values. Thirdly, the underworld myth opens the possibility of embracing inequity as a condition of existence. Fourth, the myth promotes acceptance of cycles of loss as natural. Lastly, visiting the underworld leaves a mark, and the journeyer may need to sacrifice something to return.

This study illustrates the potency of using myth to access often-overlooked grief. Group work provided an avenue to make meaning from the loss and move forward. This research responds to the increase in natural disasters and changing economic and social pressures inducing such losses due to relocation.