Every good story has a rite of passage. A dark night of the soul. Uncharted waters. The descent into the Underworld. The fall. The path that disappears into the woods. Persephone knows all about it. So does Eve. Isis. Princess Leia. Atreyu. Durga. Frodo. Rapunzel. And Aphrodite, but she’ll never tell.

If you’ve stumbled into a good one, there’s often a guide. A trickster. An old woman. A star. A raven. A ragged dog. A swarm of bees.

Everybody knows you have to follow that staircase down. Everybody feels the tension rise, but no one says, “Go back! The story will just have to end without apples this time.” We all know the only way to Grandmother’s house is through the woods.

But we got fancy. We learned to bypass the woods. We flew over the oceans. We got the app. We poured concrete over the passage to the Otherworld. We ordered delivery. We learned how to explain the reason behind the raven, the star, the dog. Slowly, the treasure map of deep purpose and wild transformation faded in the fluorescent lights of modernity, and nobody could figure out how to make a new one with a 3-D printer.

Some of us looked back, waaaay back, and decided they knew better then. We felt we were born into the wrong time. Some of us looked way forward and decided we’ll have the technology by then. We felt we were born into the wrong time. Sisters I love look at me and say, when will our wombs swell and children come? Men I love look at me and say, we can’t bring children into this world. Not now. Look at it.

Look at it.

Look at it.

The bees are dying. Look at it. Yes, my loves. And they are also birthing. The seas are dying. Look at it. Yes, my loves. And the whales still sing. The ice is melting. Yes, my loves, and it breaks me. Humanity is breaking. Yes, my loves. And the people still sing.

Down we go. The long dark night upon us. The trail lost. Too far in to turn back now. The footprints you were following whisked away by a fierce wind.

 The only way to the house of the elder is through the woods, and by God, when you get there, it may be empty. It may be forgotten. You might have to become it. You humanity, might have to follow Persephone right down into the place where you meet the Minotaur.

Look at it.

Grief. Rage. Joy.

Look at it.

The terror.

This old myth is retelling itself on the grandest stage. It is certainly FULL of guides: that last pod of Orcas in the Salish sea. The record loss of hives each winter. The coyotes in Central Park. We’ve had so many clues.

How long does a rite of passage last anyway? Now the work becomes that ancient art of seeing in the dark. Ask Luke Skywalker how he did it. Find the pieces of ourselves forsaken. Ask Isis how she did it. Reclaim the knowledge imprinted in our twisting helixes. Ask Eve how she did it. Defeat the Nothing. Ask Bastian how he imagined it. Be here, born for this moment, birthing into another. Ask the Earth how she does it.