Tolkien's stories have given me hope, direction and support during this years-long curse-breaking process. The Lord of the Rings novels especially.
These books have been my actual guides through this process. The Ring and the plight of the Ring-bearers showed up early on when I was fighting this possession/curse.
Right now I'm in the last stages of a terrifying, years-long Underworld journey into the personal and collective shadow. This descent into the Underworld started more than a decade ago, and when I say Underworld I mean it. Not "a bad time" or a "string of bad luck". I mean the Underworld. The Tala Chakras. The spheres of the Qliphoth.
The place where black magic governs your reality and curses are real. The place where demons stalk you and are not JUST your inner demons, but actual demons. The place where everything is upside down, where the values and morals of the surface world not only stop making sense, but are revealed for the rotten lies they really are.
The place where the Balrog dragged Gandalf. The place where the Ring dragged Frodo.
Here, there is no question of "mastery" or "skill". That is not what is called for down here. As I said in this post, there is no occult mastery or privilege of any kind that will let you conquer this darkness. (Why was a humble little hobbit the one to carry the Ring to Mordor, instead of any of the glittering immortals with their ancient wisdom, magic and many skills?)
Love does not conquer. What's called for down here is painful humility and surrender. The Underworld awakening defies any easy answers that the surface world demands in order to feel stable. People have an urge to victim-blame and judge the unfortunate ones who are taken apart and destroyed by this Underworld initiation process, as if it'll make them feel safer. The world makes sense if the broken ones did something wrong that made them get brutalized and destroyed, after all.
Most of the people I lit candles for in this post were highly skilled magical practitioners. They were also deeply devoted to their respective spiritual paths and tried hard to live ethical lives. They did everything "right". They were still dragged to the place where the Ring almost fully consumed Gollum, leaving only a few bright sparks of Smeagol's innocent light left inside, and they needed radical compassion and non-judgment.
Just like Smeagol needed radical compassion and non-judgment, not Sam Gamgee's ableist shit.
Just like how, for all of Frodo's iron will and good heart, and the purity in his willingness to repeatedly offer the Ring to others, the quest eventually weakens him, harms him, starves him and breaks him so much that the Ring finally overpowers him at Mount Doom.
It is humbling when we realize that all our past virtue, all our efforts, all our good intentions, all our skill and mastery, mean very little when confronted with the Ring. What's happening down here in the Underworld is totally beyond our control or understanding. You must choose surrender and love again and again here, like second by second or minute by minute, or you will die. And that is the truth.
For years after I began fighting my way out of this trance-like curse, I started to see people in my waking life - especially the rich assholes of my former social circle - as Nazgul. Sometimes they'd look like Gollum or a Nazgul/Ringwraith on the inside, even if they were shiny, perfectly attractive people on the outside. It was creepy.
Most of my family, right down to all of my cousins, show up as Ringwraiths.
When my Twin Flame began sinking into the vibration of Gollum, his higher self would show up and comfort me with the face of Tom Bombadil - he over whom the Ring has no power at all.
When I wanted to judge my Twin for appearing like Gollum on the inside, I remembered Gandalf's response to Frodo's judgment.
Whenever I re-read (or re-watch) the scene where Galadriel is tempted by Frodo's offer of the Ring, and is relieved when she passes the test, I get emotional. That is my favorite Galadriel moment.
When Frodo gets stabbed with a Morgul blade, I know exactly what that feels like, and I know why Frodo's wound never fully heals.
When Hekate wants to give me hope, She fiddles with my playlist and puts on "Into The West" from the movies. (And in Greek myth, what lies in the West? The Fortunate Isles or Isles of the Blessed, and Hera's Orchard or the Garden of the Hesperides. The latter is a matriarchal paradise that the Bible later turned into the Garden of Eden. The good dragon Ladon became the evil serpent. The golden apples of immortality, freely gifted by Mother Gaia, were turned into an apple of sinful temptation.)
From what I've seen of Gollum and Frodo, of myself and my Twin, and of everyone who has floundered and sometimes died on this path, I have been shaken to my core and learned that only radical compassion wins. Radical compassion for yourself and radical surrender.
Because the Ring and its master want you to fucking die as a sacrifice. I mean that very literally.
You either choose compassion on this path or you die. It is horrifying, but it's true and I think it's important to say this.