Hel, sometimes called Hela, is the queen of the underworld and of the dead in Norse Mythology. She rules over the world Hel or Helheim.

I will not get into the ins and outs of the Norse mythology surrounding why she became queen of the underworld here. Instead I want to talk about her being depicted as half flesh coloured and beautiful and half blue and corpse like. I believe the latter represents her shadow self, which she has fully integrated and embraced and is partially embodying.

The shadow is the subconscious and unconscious part of us. It houses desires that we are ashamed of and the repressed parts of us that we or the world around us deem unacceptable. It’s also the realm of a lot of untapped potential. The origin of the word Hel means ‘concealed place, the underworld’. She encourages us to look at and love our shadow self, to be whole, to bring the shadow to light.

In my native language Swedish, which derives from Old Norse language, ‘hel’ means ‘whole’ and ‘hela’ means ‘to heal’. Although Hel’s name is said to derive from a different source, I don’t believe there are any coincidences.

One of my teachers, Lorie Ladd, recently said that ‘the only way through this ascension process on Earth is into the shadow within yourself.’ This resonated with me a lot and Hel, or other Dark Goddesses, can help you with this, if you let her.

Photography by my dad of myself as Hel