The term catharsis means a purging or purification of the self. I would also define this term as a transformation as a result of that purging. In a real sense a catharsis is a revelation. The person experiencing it has a new awareness of self and feels better for that awareness. And within Storm's books this catharsis occurs frequently to unsuspecting characters in need of a fresh perspective.

The Wraeththu series is a prime example of this act of catharsis. The act of inception is a catharsis, as the humanity of the person is replaced with the existence of a new state of being: Wraeththu. Each of the main characters undergoes a journey where they are purified of a previous existing condition.

Pellaz is stripped of his life and then reborn, all of this orchestrated by Thiede, and when he comes back he is different than from what he was before, able to do more and raised to a new level of castehood as a result of his death.

For Swift, his catharsis isn't as dramatic, but nonetheless in making the journey to the Gelaming army, he is trapped at one point in Gebaddon and forced to face his own failings, particularly the death of one of his closest friends Gahrazel, which Swift caused by telling his father of his friend's desire to escape. Only after Swift has faced what he has done is purged and consequently changed by the Gelaming so that he can take over the Varrs.

Cal's experience of catharsis is a long one, involving him going through a series of experiences, each of those experiences changing him and purging him of a past that he had refused to face.

Finally both Flick and Ulaume have their cathartic experiences, one through his experiences with the Dehara, and the other through his experiences with Pellaz's immediate family. Both characters are purged of previous experiences and in being purged end up living very different lives than how they would have lived.

But these kinds of experiences aren't limited to just the Wraeththu. The Grigori trilogy is another example of where characters go through a catharsis and emerge purified and in one case completely different. Daniel, the seer, goes from being a human to being a Grigori. He does this through a ritual in which he literally sheds his skin like a snake, becoming a different being altogether. But even for other characters a catharsis occurs that allows those characters to move on from what they were. Shemyaza goes through multiple cathartic experiences, first shedding his identity as Peverel Othmann in the first book and then at the end of the final book sacrificing his life, and although he does come out of the experience alive, he is nonetheless changed from what he was.

Another example comes from Calenture: "Despite the arguments he'd conducted with himself over the past few days, Ays could not shake the conviction, the faith, that there was something waiting for him: a concatenation of events, significant experiences. All it would take for him to begin the process was to leave the flying city." The process of catharsis is a process that needs change, needs a willingness to travel. Why do we travel? If we stay in the same place we stagnate with little difference occurring, slowly losing perspective.

By why does any of this matter? For me, in noting the cathartic experiences in my own life and paralleling them to Storm's characters, I found renewed appreciation for the initiatory experiences we all undergo in life. Not always are these experiences as overt as some of the ones mentioned above, yet nonetheless we are all at one time or another initiated into a cathartic experience where we face ourselves and hopefully come out of the experience as a better person. Storm taps into this energy and represents it well within her books. And that representation allows us to find some comfort in the knowledge that the catharsis that any of us undergo are experiences that other people also have, if not exactly the same experience.

But what Storm is really tapping into is the magick of catharsis and the importance of it. Her writing reflects our need for catharsis, for the purging and purification, the change and revelation that we need to continue on as we live life. Her writing reminds us of the necessity of it, even as it also reminds how sacred it is. Within us all lies the potential to change, but often to cause that change we must go through the catharsis that strips the scales off our eyes and allows us to perceive our own lives and the changes we need.