19 lines
1.5 KiB
TeX
19 lines
1.5 KiB
TeX
\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.
|