Persephone's Descent

When Persephone went down into the earth, down into the underworld on the back of Hades’s big, black horse, she was terrified and thrilled. He was easy to hate and love, easy to blame.

But what did she find down there? First strangeness, then sameness that bored her to agony and tears, but then--she took out her glass eyes and bent low, saw the lichen growing on the bare rock, eating slowly away at it, crumbling it to earth without counting the hours by a clock. Down in the unchanging dimness she finally, gradually began to stop looking for the sun or stars to tell her what to do or where to be (or even where she was). She stopped looking for her mother, she settled down inside herself and even the whisperings of minor and more cunning devils fell away to the shadows and she heard them no more than she heard the wind. She found solitude, she found darkness, and one day at the table with Hades, her host and husband, he offered her a pomegranate.

It was roundish and bulging, already cracked open so that its burnished skin seemed illogically dull compared to its fruit.

The seeds were wet but held their moisture to themselves and, unlike in the tender fig, each one was its own little orb; each one sat, pressed snugly into the protective white pith, further armored by the dull red-black sheath. Here was a marriage proposal like none she had ever received, and even though by all standards of the upper world she had already lost herself and her name to Hades, he sat and looked at her across the black table with his black eyes, waiting for her response.

And she saw his eyes were not only black, but dark like the earth around them, veined and flecked with bronze, gold, pewter, copper and many-colored stone. She saw that the hell she had thought herself in was in fact a womb, the house of the Mother. That her captor was in fact her guide and deliverer and the three-headed dog that guarded the gate back to the upper world was not a beast to keep her shut in away from the light but her own three-headed instinct, her own tripartite goddess self who knew this was the time to learn the truth of shadows and no longer be afraid.

So she looked at Hades the way she had learned to look at the lichen and fungus, taking out her glass eyes and using instead her womanly touch to know what to do. He was no longer thrilling or villainous--only steady as the earth, strong as the three-headed dog. He smelled like the deep moss, like the cracks in the stones that ran too deep to fathom.

The pomegranate, cracked in two, glowed, gleamed against all the blackness as if it were the central fire for this kingdom--this subterranean domain of the Earth Mother. Persephone, with her pale arms translucent as mist after so much time below reached out one now-virginal, naked hand and plucked one, two, three, four, five, six seeds, watching Hades steadily, easily as she did. Neither of them changed their expressions, but a depth came to the room, a mixing of cool air from very deep caves with that of the upper channels. Everything felt damp, as if there was a fog. But the air was clear, and so were her thoughts--or rather, her thoughts were silent, watching like the guardian dog.

The pomegranate seeds reflected deep pink off her white fingertips. Quickly, easily, she brought one to her mouth, almost tossing it in.

The flavor burst out tart and dry and sweet--a shock, and without her glassy eyes the air seemed to have called forth glow worms--the room glimmered as with a pulse, but Hades’s eyes remained as two still, deep rock pools, reflecting almost nothing.

In went the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth. Each one stung her mouth with a release--of sadness, agony, fear, terror and forgotten names. Each one brought to mind an aspect of her upper world life and, it seemed, erased the bitterness that had stained it until she felt refreshed, until her mouth and cheeks were vital red.

The rock walls hummed around her. The basalt, the lime and sandstone, the magma, the slate and silt and gravel all reverberated within her body, breathing with her or she with them.

She felt her hips shift, widening slightly, she felt her breasts relax from their high perch and settle like sphinxes with utter confidence in the knowledge of their riddles. Her shoulders also dropped, in fact every part of her descended and deepened; within she widened as a subterranean river widening the crevasse in a deep rock.

She knew her own mossy places, her own earthy smells, her own delicate undersides like the crinoline frills of mushrooms; in short, she knew her own weight and gravity, her own interconnected life-giving strata, her own perfect decay and renewal--she knew her Self.

Persephone popped the last of the six jewel-red seeds onto her tongue, and then with her mind and her heart and every mossy, craggy underworld part of her reclaimed self, she knew Hades.

Though Demeter wept to know her daughter had eaten of that vivid truth-teller and was no longer free to remain in the world of sun and harvest all year long, Persephone did not mourn. She had mourned already, long before the fruit; she had tasted that bitterness and known that hunger, and she had planted seeds of her own finding within herself.

She passes now, each equinox between the upper- and underworlds, taking nothing with her from either, standing unafraid while the three-headed dog sniffs every part of her. She has nothing to fear; she carries nothing more in the crossing than her own true self.

-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux

Swearwords, Ouija Boards & Other Lessons From Grandma

I was in elementary school--maybe only second grade, when Grandma stopped me in the hallway at her house and explained that “you can say ‘blue smoke’ or ‘purple cow,’ but only God is holy.” I was confused because saying those apparently sinful phrases had felt so satisfying. “Holy smoke!” I exclaimed with great enthusiasm. My classmates all smiled when they said them. No one else looked like they felt bad or guilty. I twas a hard idea to reconcile, but of course, I stopped saying it. Grandma hadn’t threatened eternal damnation or even a spanking or a mouthful of soap, but her somber, certain tone must’ve brought to mind the sad-eyed painting of blonde-haired Jesus, and I never wanted to disappoint anyone.

Grandma was also the one who banished, with just a few words, the coveted ouija board. My sisters and I had all wanted one--everyone had one back then--and our atheist-agnostic neighbors (the ones who let us stay up just a little bit later than bedtime and allowed candy and pop) gave it to us for Christmas. Josie, Abbey and I had summoned up a dozen spirits there on the sunny floor of the playroom in our pajamas before Grandma found out. “That’s a tool of the devil,” she said, again not menacingly, not trying to scare us--just telling us the matter-of-fact truth about life (and the afterlife). I think she told us to burn it, but we hid it under the couch.

Though we kept it, every time thereafter, fingertips on the little plastic triangle, I’d feel my hands moving of their own accord and wonder if she was right. The risk of really communing with the devil took some of the fun out of it.

There was another time when I played, “Sand, Cement and Water” in her presence that ended with a fake demonic possession, praying and wailing to God and me once again left feeling confused about how something that had been so fun (and that I was so good at) could be bad.

(We were all in a station wagon coming back from our A.W.A.K.E. multi-generational theatre performance. I told the “Sand, Cement and Water” tale to a boy about my age, eleven or so. This was of the same era as “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board.” I told the story of how the boy was knocked unconscious, only to awake to feel a circle of skin and bone being cut out of his forehead. His captors then proceeded to fill him up with sand, cement and water, sand, cement and water, until he was as solid as a rock and couldn’t move. I had discovered my skill at this at summer camp, embellishing the gruesome tale and using a hypnotic rhythm as the sand, cement and water filled his body, layer by layer. If it was done right, and I was one of the best, the subject would be unable to move for at least twenty seconds after the story was completed.

So, I did this to a rather obnoxious boy while we drove through the darkness, massaging his temples and ignoring my Grandma’s comment about demons and evil spirits. Everything went as planned, but the boy got mad that it had worked on him and begin to thrash around, muttering gibberish and rolling his eyes back in his head. The other family in the car was a religious home-schooling mother and son who immediately began to pray, then weep and beg Jesus to call the demon out of him. The other girl started crying, too, even as I insisted he was faking it. When he finally quit it, I smacked him and started to cry myself. I think I only did “Sand, Cement and Water” once or twice after that, but as with the “holy smoke” and the ouija board, I never enjoyed myself again.

The last time I swore in earshot of my grandma--the only time--I was in traffic and suddenly afraid I was about to crash into the car in front of me. “Holy shit!” I cried with my cell phone pressed against my cheek. I immediately tried to backtrack, explaining to her what the situation was. In that same, simple way she countered my “I hardly ever swear,” with “you shouldn’t swear at all.”

But this was a few years after a life threatening accident and recovery that gave her the mantra, “it’s not my job to judge people--God judges people. It’s my job to love them.” I was older now. I had more wayward cousins who did worse than say “holy shit,” so I didn’t feel so bad.

Except, I sort of did. But this time it was clear to me that it was because I agreed with her. I shouldn’t say holy anything. Even if I don’t believe all the same religious creeds as she does, even though I keep this to myself so she won’t worry about the state of my soul or our reunion (or lack thereof) in Heaven, i do believe that the Holy exists, and just like I wouldn’t stomp on flowers or throw a painting in the mud, I shouldn’t smear shit on whatever this Holiness is, not even if I’m about to be in a fender bender.

Do I really worry that playing with an ouija board or saying ‘sand, cement and water’ are invitations to the devil? I don’t know. I didn’t do either of them with bad or harmful intent. But that uncertainty is what made me stop, and what has stopped me since. Grandma may be old and outdated, but she may also be right.

So I just say “Jeez Louise!” I let “shit” stand alone. And when I make my art, I try to tell not stories of how we die, but of how we live.

Emilia's Storm

Her gray, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead as she looked out across the lake. The lake was gray, too, a high wall of clouds cutting over it but not yet blocking out the low-angling sun.

We had come up for the weekend and everything had been a little off. It was looking like rain the whole way here, but when I asked her if she wanted to turn around, spend the weekend in my apartment in the city, she just shook her head.

She hadn’t been back since--and I was interrupted from my brooding thoughts about whether or not she even knew I was with her by a roll of thunder. It made me jump and for the first time since we had made our plans, I saw her relax, as if she had been coming back here for this, as if she had been waiting all morning for it.

“Jesus!” I said. “That surprised me.” I swished my drink around so the ice cubes clinked against the glass. “Where did that come from?”

“From that,” she said simply, pointing into the heart of the clouds that were growing darker. The wind picked up suddenly, tossing the tops of the feathery white pines on the other side of the lake, slapping the water from gray to white and then rushing at us as if to blow us off the dock.

“Jesus Christ!” I said, slapping a hand to my hat. “Emilia, I’m going in.” She didn’t respond--just hugged her knees and stared out as if she were waiting for what would come next.

“Emilia--” but I knew that posture, that look. I sighed very slightly and then cursed again as the lime toppled off the edge of my glass and into the lake below. “If there’s a tornado I’m coming to get you. Don’t make me carry you in...please.” I could hardly tell if she had even heard me, so intense was her gaze--like a cat I once knew who would get that same look sitting at the edge of a field for hours, waiting for the mouse to think it was safe and reappear.

She sat out there as the rain came down--I watched all of it from the picture window up in the old cabin on the hill, jumping back from the glass whenever the lighting flashed. The water beat against the house and I decided to go get her, but the intensity, almost anger of it drove me back inside.

“Christalmighty, it’s her lake--she can do what she wants!” I kept on muttering arguments with myself as I poured more gin and tonic water into my glass.

I peeled off my now-wet shirt and went back to the window. The tv showed the heart of the storm poised over us. I could hardly see her when I looked out again--the sky was a [wash] of wind and rain, and the sun was long gone.

When the lightning flashed again I saw her caught as if by a flashbulb of her former life. She was standing spread-eagled on the edge of the dock--arms out and head tilted back. When the flash came again I saw that her mouth was open wide, eyes screwed shut, as if swallowing the storm or screaming.

I paced the decades-old carpet and flipped through the handful of channels until at last the hail drove her back in. She burst in through the door as it pelted down like a broken pearl necklace. I held out my arm to pull her in, but she stood there in the doorway looking wild and triumphant with the storm hurling its stones at her back. Her hair was plastered to her head, her clothes stuck to her body, but the flatness was gone from her eyes, as if she had swallowed the lightning, and Emilia, as I had known her long ago, was back.

........................................

Italicized first line come from "The Great Gatsby." I learned this trick at a writing group--to open a book and pick a sentence as a starting point or inspiration.

27 January 2011