\section{Persephone Considered}

\lettrine{I}{n} this rhythm of darkness, light, darkness, light --- lies the secret: her time below is what makes fertility possible. 

When Persephone descends, the crops fail and the earth goes dormant. When she returns, they grow. The Underworld journey is not something that happened to her once; it is the structure of her existence. She is forever the one who goes down and comes back up.

Those upon whom Longing has been thrust follow this pattern. They are taken down, often against their will. They spend time in darkness --- in grief, in terror, in exile, in loss. They are transformed by that experience. And they return to the world of light, but not to remain there passively. They return changed, carrying the Underworld with them.

And they do not stay above. Their Longing pulls them back down again and again, into the darkness of their work, their questions, their obsessions. 
Bach returned to his desk. 
Dostoyevsky returned to his page. 
Kepler returned to his calculations. 
Each descent into work is a descent into the Underworld. 
Each ascent is a return to the light. 
And in this perpetual cycling, they are profoundly generative: music, novels, mathematical truths, visions of redemption, ecstatic poetry. 
The Underworld does not diminish them; it is the condition of their generative power.

This is what Longing looks like when it has been awakened. It is not a wound that heals. It is a rhythm that overflows all bounds.
