[Stephen Gerringer]

Kristina,

Thank you for that rich and generous response to my questions! I so appreciate the work you are doing out in the “real world,” helping others make those connections with the rhythms and cycles of nature.

Your essay in particular rings true for me when you connect the death-and-rebirth sojourn in the Underworld with the enforced solitude so many hundreds of millions of us have experienced during Covid lockdowns:

One of the purposes of myth (whether the myth be of self-narrative or of the collective) is to help us to truly feel our lives. And for those who have experienced lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic with consequent, extended lengths of time in solitude–or felt a sense of internal emptiness or vacuum of soul–the invitation has been extended to more deeply sense into ourselves, while also feeling into the entire beingness of the planet, and indeed, of the cosmos.”

Clearly, myth does have relevance today – as do your words on what this moment offers:

The underworld is the most fertile ground for our metamorphosis. Acting as an alchemical vessel, times of solitude and inner desolation invite us to explore what it is that must change in us and take another form. So much depends on our capacity to relinquish harmful and obsolete patterns and behaviors, for we know that every attempt to deal with challenges in outmoded ways will, ultimately, fail us.

Without engaging ritually with this realm, the psyche remains flat and one-dimensional.”

So true.

For those who might not know how to ritually to engage with this realm, or where to begin, could you expand on this – perhaps suggest some ideas, maybe some practices or tools that would help?