Description

Wendy Furman-Adams

(Online Lecture)

Dark Wood to Mystic Rose:

Dante’s Way of the Pilgrim

Friday, May 15, 2026

7:00 – 9:00 pm

Dante’s pilgrimage begins in a moment of crisis: “midway in our life’s journey . . . alone in a dark wood” (Inferno 1.1-3). The only way out is down – into the hell of division and violence – then up the purgatorial mountain of spiritual and psychic renewal. At last the poet is able to soar to the empyrean and gaze at the “supernal face” of universal Love – so radiant that no one who sees it can ever again turn away.

Like Dante, we are living in a period of profound social division and spiritual dislocation. His poem can serve as a map for our own essential journey to “the Light of the intellect, which is love unending” (Paradiso 30. 40) where we can find ourselves anew.

Wendy Furman-Adams, Ph.D., is Emerita Professor of English Literature at Whittier College, where she spent 39 years teaching courses on the Bible, classical and Renaissance literature, medieval literature, Dante, Milton, and the literature of love–all of which have informed her passion for the life of the soul and mind. She has edited two books, published over 40 articles and book chapters, and delivered numerous lectures on the intersections of literature and art with spirituality, gender, eco-consciousness, and self-discovery. Professor Furman-Adams is a long-time member of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA, where she has taught many classic works of devotional and philosophical poetry and art, including Dante’s Commedia. Inspired by Dante’s pilgrimage, she realized a long-standing dream in 2023, when she and her partner walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela–where they too found that the pilgrims journey within is the Way to the stars.