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I’ve begun training as a cremationist, and while it can feel overwhelming at times when faced with all the things I have to learn, I really enjoy it. I like how hands-on it is, and how the steps in the process utilize different skills and actions. Cremation is a deeply spiritual act to me. I physically care for the dead and participate in their transformation, assisting the Fire in releasing their spirits from their physical forms.

I guess it’s seasonally appropriate—it’s the dark time of year, and once again my mood is dark. There’s a gathering undertow pulling me down, until I’m drowning in the fear of drowning. There’s the kind of anxiety that makes staying still an agony and every activity terrifying. Creativity is absent. These words are hard to write.

 Now our lady the Goddess had never loved,

but she would know all mysteries, even the mystery of Death,

so she journeyed to the Underworld.

So begins Wicca's foundational story of the Goddess's Descent into the Underworld.

It's an etiological masterpiece, the tale of the making of the First Witch. But for now, I'd like to linger here with this first sentence. Often it gets glossed over in a rush to get to the good stuff, but that's a shame, really. As a first sentence, it's a brilliant set-up, and my gods: talk about rich characterization.

Now our lady the Goddess had never loved... Well, there's your foreshadowing. You know exactly what's going to happen in this story: she's going to fall in love. That's the central mystery, after all. But look at what else it says about her.

The truly puzzling thing is, there's no dearth of Wiccan artists out there.

That's what makes the absence all the more striking.

The story of the Lady's Descent into the Underworld is, arguably, Wicca's foundational myth.

Where, then, is the art depicting it?

It's a profoundly visual story. One could readily envision sequences of the Descent à la (if you'll pardon the comparison) Catholicism's Stations of the Cross.

Where are they?

The god stands naked at the temple door.

Crowned with antler and autumn leaf, he leads us, also naked, out and down.

Into the Underworld. Into the cave. Into the belly of the Earth.

Darkness of darkness.

He kneels to her. He raises his flame.

It dies.

In darkness, we call out the names of the dead.

In darkness, we sing. Asking for life, we sing.

In darkness, the apple passes, and we eat. Life has a price.

One day the Goddess went away.

The Moon wanes away into darkness. The seed goes down into the soil. Summer descends into Winter.

Each Spring, we too descend. Into the Underworld we go. We seek Her, we find Her, and we bring Her back.

There was a time in history when it seemed that the Goddess had gone away.

So we descended into the Underworld. We sought Her, we found Her, and we brought Her back.