Persephone.
The myth of Persephone tells of a lost girl whose story belongs to all times and to all cultures. In each of her many stories she is tricked, or washed away, or dragged into the darkness of the earth. The only constant is her sacrifice and her ability to make a home out of her fate.
Many myths have an obscure origin, but The Persephone myth appears to be one of the easier kinds of myth to unravel as it is so clearly a kind of pre-science explanation for the changing seasons. But to assume that this is all the story is about would be to mistake one thread for the whole rope.
Many myths contain fragments of history retold as story, the edges of folk tales and legends blurring into older dreams and memories until they become something more; tales of kings sons left to die on mountain tops rescued by kind hearted shepherds and latter inadvertently bringing death and despair to a kingdom, the fleet of ships unable to sail to Troy until king Agamemnon sacrifices his own daughter.
It is almost impossible to unravel fact from fiction in these narratives, especially when locations such as Arthur Evan’s Knossos are excavated suddenly becoming theater sets for the latest interpretation of a myth. And so it seems wrong to pin a myth down to a time or place.
The concrete of Knossos no longer fit’s the needs of this generation and begins to crumble.
Whilst the stones of Stonehenge avoid final interpretation and so continue to fire the imagination of hundreds of visitors a day.
Ultimately myth is a primal thing, older than the stories it inhabits.Myth cannot be limited by the names of the characters or the locations in the story. A myth is a living thing, the metaphorical DNA of the myth remains the same whilst the outer form alone changes, until it is frozen in print or a final interpretation.
Something happened!
A scene of innocence, sacrosanct, inviolable.The stems of the picked flowers ooze summer sweet green sap, veriditas.
But time within in the Dark house has changed the girl, she cannot remain in her mother's house, cannot return to her old life. When Demeter finds her daughter, the seeds are within Persephone, she has eaten the food of the dead.
Her childhood, her innocence is gone.
The image is of a young and innocent girl overwhelmed by dark forces. Persephone becomes the eternal victim, forever abused by Pluto the incestuous uncle.
She is also the Queen of the dead
Justice
Life and death.
The ripples flow...
Rings of meaning
Rings connecting and growing...
Link the past to the future as the reflections upon the smooth water warp and shatter.
The outer mother connecting to the mother-of-the-past.
The mother who left her daughter at the mercy of 'the abusing uncle'.
The mother who didn't hear and wouldn't listen.
The memories of the child trapped in the Dark house flow across the face of the lost mother until all images are joined in a circle of sorrow, as cold and distant and empty as the moon.
Many myths have an obscure origin, but The Persephone myth appears to be one of the easier kinds of myth to unravel as it is so clearly a kind of pre-science explanation for the changing seasons. But to assume that this is all the story is about would be to mistake one thread for the whole rope.
Many myths contain fragments of history retold as story, the edges of folk tales and legends blurring into older dreams and memories until they become something more; tales of kings sons left to die on mountain tops rescued by kind hearted shepherds and latter inadvertently bringing death and despair to a kingdom, the fleet of ships unable to sail to Troy until king Agamemnon sacrifices his own daughter.
It is almost impossible to unravel fact from fiction in these narratives, especially when locations such as Arthur Evan’s Knossos are excavated suddenly becoming theater sets for the latest interpretation of a myth. And so it seems wrong to pin a myth down to a time or place.
The concrete of Knossos no longer fit’s the needs of this generation and begins to crumble.
Whilst the stones of Stonehenge avoid final interpretation and so continue to fire the imagination of hundreds of visitors a day.
Ultimately myth is a primal thing, older than the stories it inhabits.Myth cannot be limited by the names of the characters or the locations in the story. A myth is a living thing, the metaphorical DNA of the myth remains the same whilst the outer form alone changes, until it is frozen in print or a final interpretation.
Something happened!
She is entranced by the sheer number of flowers stretching out around her in every direction.
In the distance are her friends, their voices blown away by the breeze and down to the lake.
They are on the plain of Eanna, under a cloudless sky.
Here the ground shifts imperceptibly.
Here there is a glimmer of darkness.
Here the child should be safe under the wide blue sky.
Beneath the surface lies the fault line of subduction; a promise or a threat?
A force capable of dragging the living into death.
The force is deep and incoherent, there are no words strong enough to mediate its will; its meaning is encoded in mindless lines of gravity, in lava rippling tides of heat.
Under the sun, along the quivering horizon, shock waves fracture the solidity of the earth.
The ground heaves and shifts
And the child is gone.
For those left behind, this vanishing is all.
There is nothing but the need to search.
For the girl there is confusion and dismay as she rides a razor-edge of fear.
She is being held tightly.
She is in a chariot, the horses shine with a blue-black sheen, the plutonic glaze of oil and bitumen.
She feels resentment and excitement for she rides with the tall dark stranger her trusted uncle, and the earth receives them.
Under the ground, the elements of dismay and treachery combine with her longing for another world, a desire to taste eternity.
This story isn't as simple as it appears.
A stone drops into a pool, the ripples roll slowly out and out as the stone descends.
The lost girl is taken down to her uncles’ house- and her mother searches, even holding the earth itself to ransom, until the girl is found.But time within in the Dark house has changed the girl, she cannot remain in her mother's house, cannot return to her old life. When Demeter finds her daughter, the seeds are within Persephone, she has eaten the food of the dead.
Her childhood, her innocence is gone.
The image is of a young and innocent girl overwhelmed by dark forces. Persephone becomes the eternal victim, forever abused by Pluto the incestuous uncle.
She is also the Queen of the dead
Justice
Life and death.
The ripples flow...
Rings of meaning
Rings connecting and growing...
Link the past to the future as the reflections upon the smooth water warp and shatter.
The outer mother connecting to the mother-of-the-past.
The mother who left her daughter at the mercy of 'the abusing uncle'.
The mother who didn't hear and wouldn't listen.
The memories of the child trapped in the Dark house flow across the face of the lost mother until all images are joined in a circle of sorrow, as cold and distant and empty as the moon.
