“The Eskimo of the Beiring Strait tell of a trickster-hero Raven, how, one day, as he sat drying his clothes on a beach, he observed a whale-cow swimming gravely close to shore. He called: “Next time you come up for air, dear, open your mouth and shut your eyes.” Then he slipped quickly into his raven clothes, pulled on his raven mask, gathered his fire sticks under his arm, and flew out over the water. The whale came up. She did as she had been told. Raven darted through the open Jaws and straight into her gullet. The shocked whale-cow snapped and sounded; Raven stood inside and look around.” Few can re-tell a story like Joseph Campbell in ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’.

The descent into the belly of the Whale, the World Womb is the temple of initiation, of dying and being reborn…I think of it often as we enter the womb of sacred breathwork, or embark on shamanic voyages into the otherworld or sit in a darkened medicine lodge. The attitude of that Raven-hero, prepared with fire sticks and ready to explore…