10/27/2026
What can a 2,000-year-old funeral banner tell us about how life begins, changes, and ends?
In The Ascent to Heaven: Reading the Cosmos Through the Mawangdui Funeral Banner, Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallée explores the banner’s imagery alongside Chinese classical texts from the same period.
Across three evenings, we’ll consider the banner as a visual expression of ancient Chinese understandings of the cosmos, life, death, and the relationship between Heaven and Earth.
Session 1 · November 3
Explore the banner’s symbols and mythic animals, and how they express ideas about the cosmos and the emergence of life through Yin and Yang.
*With Father Claude Larre, she coauthored The Banner for a Chinese Lady Going to Paradise, a book devoted to the banner at the heart of this first session.
Session 2 · November 10
Examine the relationship between Heaven and Earth, and how living beings appear, develop, and dissolve when the forces sustaining life separate.
Session 3 · November 17
Consider death and the ascent to Heaven, including the Hun’s movement toward Heaven and the Po’s return to Earth, with classical texts that illuminate the banner’s meaning.
November 3, 10 & 17 · 7–9 p.m. EST
Virtual event · Link sent on the day of the course
6 CEUs total
NCBAHM: pending approval for synchronous and asynchronous PE-CW
California: approved for asynchronous Cat 1 only
Students of Elisabeth Rochat
Registration details are available through Daoist Traditions.
Visit our website at www.daoisttraditions.edu/ceu [link in bio]
Planning to take both of Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallée’s upcoming courses? Register for The Ascent to Heaven in November and Living Between Heaven & Earth in January together and receive $25 off.
