This BlissDance journey is based upon mythological Persephone’s journey: from carefree girl under the loving care of her mother, Demeter, to abducted maiden dragged down into the underworld against her will to be the bride of Hades, the king of death. One minute her life is carefree and protected, the next everything’s turned upside down, she tastes violence and danger for the first time, and is dropped into hell. In the world above, Demeter plunges the world into a similar darkness, and turns everything into winter (as above, so below).

Persephone remains in the underworld until Demeter negotiates a compromise with Zeus, who allows Persephone to return to the overworld. But because she ate of the seeds of the pomegranate fruit, she is bound to the underworld forever, and so must return every 6 months of every year. Upon her re-emergence, Spring and Summer return to earth, and life is renewed in abundant celebration.

Interestingly, it’s said Persephone learned to appreciate the underworld, as well as to love Hades, her captor-husband, which is such an archetypical journey – a key right of passage we must all undertake. There’s the time of our youthful innocence, and then an initiation into adulthood, where our childhood dies. And there are so many symbolic births and deaths within one incarnation – in fact, every in breath is a rebirth, and every out breath a death.

When we face and master our fear of the unknown, when we gently loosen our hold on our ego identity, when we can find the courage to face darkness, chaos and change, and we can mature into sovereign beings. And taking our evolution even further, we can find pleasure in pain, and gain in loss…