Rhymes With Camera: Persephone, personified?
I will always wonder—as I know others do—whether Persephone is more than just a flower girl with a boyfriend in the mines.
Persephone, personified?
I have smart friends from whom I learn things all the time. They indirectly remind me of what I don’t know, of my creative blind spots—one being the world of mythology.
I mean, I learned Western mythology basics in school, even a lot of Native American mythos. In college, I had an amazing Shakespeare professor who took us on mythology deep dives that I’m forever grateful for.
But then, regrettably, I let the subject drop.
That said, I recently dipped into folklore* to write my novelette, Trust Fall.
This longform piece, couched in an experimental contemporary fairytale, borrows from the story map of an obscure Italian folk tale, The Flea, about a king who becomes so obsessed with a flea that he neglects his own family to a tragic end.
Ah. Broken families.
I know something about this.
As I revised Trust Fall, I thought about Shakespeare’s generous use of mythos to characterize the broken families and failed kingdoms in some of his plays. For instance:
· In The Tempest, three spirits appear as representations of mythological characters symbolizing marriage and childbirth: Juno, Iris, and Ceres.
· There are so many allusions to myths about power and loss in Hamlet! Neptune and Hyperion, Niobe and Hercules, Mars and Mercury, Damon and Jove.
· One of my favorites, King Lear, illustrates his daughters’ need for divine assistance in answering a riddle. They borrow guidance from both Christian worship and the invocations of Greek and Roman gods: it’s these spiritual choices that impact their fates.
· The feminine fury and wrath in MacBeth employs Clytemnestra, the Furies, Medusa, Medea, and Orestes—all Greek or Roman mythos references.
Ultimately, I wanted to capture maybe just a smidge of that mythopoeic feel in Trust Fall. But that’s a lot of investment of time and brain space. I open up a copy of Bullfinch’s Mythology and am buried in names (much like reading the Bible). Without context for each of these, my mind swirls and nothing sticks.
Well, not nothing.
Persephone’s my girl.
She’s already shown up in my poems,
keeps knocking on the door of my novel,
asking to be let in.
Who is Persephone?
I’m happy to indulge you, as I don’t need to look this one up.
Persephone is the beautiful daughter of Demeter, goddess of the harvest, and Zeus, who runs Mt. Olympus.
The god of the Underworld, Hades, falls in love with Persephone while watching her pick flowers.
He asks Demeter to marry Persephone, but the goddess, known to be overprotective, says no.
Behind Demeter’s back, Hades brokers a deal with Zeus that allows him to take Persephone by force to his subterranean palace anyway.
Demeter searches high and low for her lost daughter, but finally learns of her abduction from the goddess of wilderness and childbirth, Hecate.
In raging protest, Demeter holds the harvests hostage to starve out the mortals, who then cannot pay tribute to the gods.
This upsets the balance of the world, leading to dead earth and failed crops, with animals and communities lost to famine.
When word of this unfortunate worldwide tragedy reaches Zeus up on Mt. Olympus, he’s forced to capitulate to Demeter’s demands.
The crafty god, Hades, however, tempts Persephone with seeds of pomegranate, which magically anchor her to the Underworld.
Also, with her compassionate soul, Persephone comes to appreciate the Underworld and acknowledges value in reigning over it.
Ultimately, Persephone and Demeter broker a deal with Zeus and Hades that allows her to serve as Hades’ wife, Queen of the Dead, but which also provides Persephone safe passage between the upper and lower worlds to assist her mother in feeding the mortals.
This creation myth essentially explains the life, death, and rebirth motif of the seasons.
It’s said that Persephone comes above-ground in spring and summer to help her mother to grow flowers and fruit, but in fall and winter, she returns to her throne alongside Hades where she tends to the needs of the damned.
As with so many myths, Persephone’s archetypal journey is subject to multiple interpretations.
Darker versions draw her as a victim of sexual assault, whereas YA-styled versions take out any nod to relations between her and Hades.
Some versions think of Persephone—with the help of her badass mother, Demeter—as an early rendering of the feminist power of choice. These are the stories I gravitate toward.
I’m reminded, in some ways, of reading The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman—a novella about a woman privately “kept” in an attic because she’s thought to be “hysterical.”
There are some folks (me included) who intuit that this isn’t a story about madness but of what the patriarchy will do when troublemaking, uppity women dare to call out injustice.
(Like, say, Joan of Arc? Ah, but that’s a different story.)
Persephone, Personified
So I’ll return to the story of Persephone this summer as an intellectual pursuit, more curious than ever how her adventure might take on more feminist leanings.
In the meantime, I realized randomly the other day that, given what I understand of the Queen of the Damned, we share a few things in common. For instance, Persephone—
· loves flowers, the earth and trees, as well as the crystals growing underground
· attunes to the seasons naturally
· is betrayed by her father (read Trust Fall to find out how this tracks)
· learns gardening from her mother
· has compassion for suffering souls
· isn’t afraid of the Underworld once she’s accustomed to its shadows
My idea of the Underworld isn’t a tangible place, but a metaphor for the part of me who once dealt with postpartum depression and premenstrual dysphoric disorder, who still deals with seasonal depression
· rules both the Under- and Overworlds
I’m not royalty, but I’m known to resurrect dead plants, go on ghost adventures, and I treasure and collect rocks of all kinds
Thankfully, other aspects of her life don’t match my lived experience. I’ve never been abducted, forced into an arranged marriage, or suffered the legendary awfulness that Persephone did (including sexual assault and other traumas, all depending upon who’s telling the tale).
Persephone may also be the girl of my dreams
I have extremely vivid, sensical dreams with fully formed story arcs, dialog, plot, and the like.
Perhaps most amazing to me are the dreamscapes I visit every night, places I hover over as if looking down upon a map, or locales I can only access through muddy trails or portals that open up into the earth.
And there’s this woman in my dreams… always pointing at some object or whispering something to me or sometimes just smiling and waving. And she’s there, a lot.
Even last night! In my dream, I helped a woman give birth by exposing her to fire in the basement of a hospital. Afterward, the happy new mother departed with her baby down the maternity ward hall—actually a trail heading back into the woods—and I was acknowledged or given accolades for this successfuly act of midwifery by a woman overseeing the whole experiment.
With a nod to magical realism
Those of you who know me from my days at Margin know how much duality factors into stories told through a magical realist approach.
In fact, magical realism may most perfectly convey the dualism of the magic and the mundane of Persephone’s life, herself grounded in both the sunny topside and the subterranean darkness.
As a gardener, I relate.
I’m pulled not only to the sun,
but to the soil, the unseen.
So I’m inspired as I head out to my yard and raised beds, to pull up roots of weeds that seem to run all the way to the center of the earth sometimes, or to dig into tilth and uncover shiny minerals or wriggling worms or blind salamanders or dormant bees or seeds newly sprung…
…there’s so much underneath the soil line that’s
amazingly alive if you aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty.
She’s on my mind, Persephone, with each waxing moon, each new blossom where there wasn’t one before, each new blade of crocosmia, each buried tulip bulb that sends out test stems in the late fall when the weather stays warm into November.
I will always wonder—as I know others do—whether Persephone
is more than just a flower girl with a boyfriend in the mines.
It’s tantalizing to imagine she’s an early feminist working with her feminist mother to give women agency in the face of the patriarchy.
A girl can dream, right?
*No, folklore and mythology aren’t the same. But they’re interconnected. Folklore describes stories and values passed down through generations, whereas mythology is a type of folklore that typically represents origin stories.
Preorders now open!
Aqueduct Press decided to open up e-book preorders 3 weeks early for Cul de Sac Stories!
Learn more about Cul de Sac Stories here. Also, check out the book trailer!
The print edition retails for $12, but you can preorder the e-book edition now for $5.95. It will automagically appear in your device on July 15, 2024! Check out the details here!
*****REGISTRATION DEADLINE EXTENDED TO JUNE 9*****
Come join Cascade Writers Workshop for a long weekend of critiquing, community building, pitching, learning, and more! Workshop date is July 12-14, 2024 in Bremerton, WA (with one virtual track featuring top editor Claire Eddy).
We still have open spots, so registration was extended as late as feasible so folks can still sign up and get adequate time for critiques. DON’T DELAY! Learn more about this great workshop now in its 10th year! [link]
June 1: BTRS episode 6 drops, featuring my story “Hellmark” [link]
June 9: Julene Tripp Weaver, in conversation with Priscilla Long, with readings from John Burgess, Stephen Jackson, Clare Johnson. [link]
June 22: “Look Up” premieres! [link]
June 28-30: Chuckanut Writers Conference [link]
July 12-14: Cascade Writers July workshop [link]
July 14-20: Port Townsend Writers Conference, Jennifer Givhan workshop track [link]
July 15: Official launch for Cul de Sac Stories in Amazon [preorder!]
July 18: Launch party for Cul de Sac Stories at Port Townsend Writers Conference, 3:30pm in the South Gallery #305 on the Centrum/Fort Worden campus [link]
Check out my detailed calendar
“Who was your first literary inspiration, the one author
who inspired you to be an author?”
[Answer: Ask Me Anything for June]
LINK LOVE
Events & Appearances (previous)
Beneath the Rain Shadows podcast
Podcast appearances:
DRIPPING CREATIVITY with Chris Corvan [link]
MCR Media
“Look Up” poetry film update—May 16, 2024: “First laurels for a brand-new filmmaker”
In case you missed it! Cul de Sac Stories book trailer [link]
May 15, 2024—“Diagnosis Anniversary: Where I was then, where I am now.” [link]
PNW GALLERY
May 10 Aurora over Kitsap County
I was able to capture different views of the aurora borealis on my way home from Seattle on May 10; I started with the early signs on the Bainbridge Island ferry at around 10:30pm, shot more pictures at the Suquamish waterfront on the way home at around 10:45pm, popped by the Kington waterfront at 11-ish, and finished up at The Highlands, where I live in Kingston. The show lasted until about 12:45am.
GARDEN TO TABLE
Mushroom and Kale Breakfast Bites
This is inspired by one of the few edible things I’ll buy from Starbucks (I try to avoid the baked goods in general): their kale egg bites. They’re low in calories but high in protein and are fantastic for a quick breakfast.
I’ve grown lacinato kale in the past, and it did quite well, almost too well! This year, I’m trying out baby kale (yes, it is a dwarf cultivar) and am enjoying some early success. These tender greens are great to add to dinner salads or stir into brothy soups as well.
Click here to reach your new dedicated recipe page.
There’s more coming down the pike that y’all don’t even know about yet, and I have lots of work before I get there, but stick with me… I think you’re gonna love what I’ve got brewing through 2024 and into 2025!
Happy June!
Tamara
I love the idea of you being led through the forest and midwifing creativity.
The Yellow Wallpaper! I have read CPG's biography and she was such an early feminist that I think she's been forgotten for being so.
IDK if you are a Tarot person, but this lovely essay reminded me of my Tarot teacher Carolyn Cushing at Soul Path Sanctuary (https://soulpathsanctuary.com/), who takes Persephone as a guide for tending the flow of communication between the living and the dead.