A Descent That Became a Homecoming
I went to Ecuador in search of the underworld.
The first week was a women’s initiation. The second week was solo exploration. I expected intensity, shadow, and deep emotional work, and all of that arrived, but the underworld also surprised me with joy, innocence, and laughter.
It didn’t look like what I thought “healing” would look like. It rarely does.
Crossing the Threshold: Meeting “The Veil Lifter”
On the first day of initiation, we were invited to cross a threshold, a literal and symbolic portal where we were asked to leave old identities behind and step into something new.
My mentors said, “You will know when it is your time.”
Others wept, shook, and collapsed. For a long time, I felt nothing.
Then it came suddenly, a voice repeating:
Veil Lifter. Veil Lifter. Veil Lifter.
Alongside it rose resistance and doubt. It felt too big, too archetypal, too true. A name like that asks something of you. To allow it meant something in me would have to shed. Eventually the voice grew louder than my fear, and tears came.
Without realizing it, I whispered out loud:
“Okay.”
My mentor heard and said simply, “Alright then. Come on.”
I walked through the threshold without looking back.
On the other side there was not only darkness. There was joy, playfulness, innocence, and beauty. Immediately a question arose: Is it really okay to feel this light during something this intense?
That question stayed with me my entire time in Ecuador.
What Does “Veil Lifter” Mean?
It is more somatic than conceptual, a way of moving through the world rather than a title.
If I had to put words around it, for me it means living in deep truth, shedding identities that are no longer authentic, revealing what is real beneath performance, and embodying
authenticity so others feel permission to do the same.
Not through confrontation or force. Through presence, honesty, and essence.
Dreaming the Underworld: Snakes, Swamps, and Laughter
During this experience, my dream world burst open.
I dreamed of dark swamps with unseen creatures, dying and returning, and headless snakes wrapping around me whispering, “Pay attention.”
There was fear, and there was also strange delight. I began to understand something important: The underworld is not here to punish us.
It constricts what is false. It invites shedding. It asks us to let go of what no longer fits.
Throughout all of it, I kept laughing. Not because it was easy, but because being human is profoundly bizarre and miraculous. Grief and giggles sat side by side.
That paradox is healing.
Projections, Perfectionism, and Performing
A large part of my work in Ecuador was meeting the parts of me that had learned to perform.
Growing up, I was a young woman constantly projected upon, my dad is an attorney, and my mom runs a successful hunter-jumper barn. I was the trainer’s kid, always watched, judged, and ranked. I was a straight-A student, composed and capable.
On the inside, I was often performing.
At the same time, horses were my anchor, honest and relational when people felt confusing. They were medicine and pressure simultaneously. I pushed through injuries to keep riding because riding felt like my lifeline.
Eventually I stepped out of competition and into therapy work. I stopped riding in the same way so I could heal my body and my relationship to horses. I wanted a new way of
relating.
Riding the Andes: Fear, Trust, and Aliveness
In Ecuador I found myself on horseback again, this time in the Andes at 13,000 feet, galloping through volcanic landscapes.
The horseman in-charge said, “If it gets sketchy, just jump off.”
There was fear, the clean awake kind, and there was deep trust in the horses carrying me.
My whole body came alive.
I remember thinking: This is it. This is what being alive feels like.
I stayed an extra week to keep riding, not to perform, but to be in relationship.
How This Informs My Therapy Work
Horses as Mirrors of the Psyche
Horses do not respond to masks. They respond to nervous system congruence, authenticity, and embodied presence.
They are both antidote, grounding, attuned, relational, and mirror, reflecting what is unspoken in us, just like the underworld.
This is why equine therapy is powerful for trauma, anxiety and overthinking, perfectionism and people-pleasing, identity transitions, grief and loss, and nervous system dysregulation.
Horses help us meet the parts beneath the persona.
The Underworld as a Therapeutic Landscape
The underworld is not pathology.
It is shadow work, unconscious material surfacing, grief, rage, instinct, and longing, dreams and archetypes, and the body’s wisdom speaking.
Through somatic therapy, nature-based therapy, and equine-assisted work, we can explore these realms safely through slow, nervous-system-aware pacing, resourcing and grounding practices, meaning-making without forcing insight, honoring both darkness and joy, and integrating the experience back into daily life.
We descend not to suffer but to remember.
Closing: An Invitation to Your Own Threshold
I don’t fear the underworld, (well.. outside of a respectful amount of fear) but I do not walk there casually. I move through it as a guest, not its master.
It feels like a place of truth, where we shed what is not ours and uncover who we have always been. Sometimes that happens sitting beside a horse. Sometimes in nature. Sometimes in dreams or ceremony or ordinary moments when life falls apart and reforms itself.
I continue to explore this Veil Lifter archetype, not as an identity to perform, but as a commitment to authenticity.
If you feel called to explore your own thresholds, the parts of you that are shedding or longing for deeper truth, You do not have to walk the underworld alone.
Warmly,
Lexie
