The name for this month, February, is derived from the Latin verb februare, meaning “purification.” In cultures across the West and the Near East, there have been rituals to celebrate this threshold time – when winter is not yet finished, but there are stirrings and intimations of the impending return of light. This time has been celebrated as Imbolc, Candlemas or the return of Persephone, to name just a few.

Each of these ancient cultures understood that the light that is soon to return from its time in the underworld is both similar, and very different, from the light that disappeared at the end of autumn. It is a gentle light – young and tentative, a first blush… In the words of the Irish poet, John O’Donohue, this returning light has a “hospitality for the shadows.”

Where in our lives have we been in the underworld? In the land of shadows? And how do we need to purify, to prepare - to receive some of these parts back into the light of consciousness? What thoughts, ideas, projects have been incubating, germinating – maybe even fermenting – disintegrating and then being constituted anew – within us? And how does that moment of reconstitution – of transmutation – feel in our bodies?

This month, we will delve into this mystery of the underworld journey and the gifts it has in store for the willing journeyer. Innana, the Sumerian Goddess of the Earth and Heavens, will be our guide, as she journeys into the underworld to visit her “dark sister” Ereshkigal, and returns transformed from the experience. Our focus this month will be on the rituals around the preparation for this return.