I am fascinated with Persephone–so much so that I find myself coming back to her again and again in my own writing–whether I intend to or not.

No surprise, then, to wake up this morning and realize that yet again I am writing of her–she has been abducted; she is gone; her mother searches, makes deals for her release. Blah blah blah! Can my mind conjure nothing fresh? And why is this?

It is just what we do, then–see our lives through these themes, these myths and constantly try to recreate them to make order. Myth is the lens through which we see the world, right?

Or as Joseph Campbell said in The Power of Myth:

Everything that’s transitory is but a metaphorical reference. That’s what we all are.

How then to take what you are trying to say and make it live–take it beyond the metaphor and let it be its own thing within it? Is this possible?

Take Carravaggio, for example. Here is what John Berger says in And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos (one of my favorite books. Have you read it? If not, you should):

With Carravagio, however, it was not a question of presenting scenes but of seeing itself. He does not depict the underworld for others: his vision is one that he shares with it.

and:

light and shade, as he imagined and saw them, had a deeply personal meaning, inextricably entwined with his desires and his instinct for survival. And it is by this, not by any art-historical logic, that his art is linked with the underworld.

His chiaroscuro allowed him to banish daylight.

The answer for me is this: it either exists within me as my vision or it doesn’t. I cannot force it. So if Persephone is to be with me again, she must do so on her own. I’ve tried to force her before and she did not stick.

Forgive me. I am making no sense. Sleep is elusive these days (all days) and I think I might just need some coffee.