You are in the hospital, intubated after your 5th attempt, and I still have yet share this truth with you. I hope it helps you know yourself and find peace. You are a mythic woman, and you need to know your strength.
When young men become enraged at the culture, at the cruel people, at the hypocrisy of it all, at being misunderstood, they tend to turn this rage outward. We know this. We see it on the news. But when young women have this same experience, they tend to turn it on themselves.
Maybe this is what happened to you?
It has happened to me.
We are raised to never feel fury or rage. But depression is a culturally-sanctioned alternative we are permitted. Depression is pervasive for this reason. It almost feels like a badge of honor in some odd way: we care so much, we’d kill ourselves to protect others from our pain. We’d take ourselves away, rather be furious. We want to feel okay, so we treat ourselves with a pill, or with many pills.
We may feel embarrassed by our ‘weakness,’ but it’s more likely that we are pissed beyond measure, and so strong in our anger, we can do damage. What I want for you to know is that maybe your anger is appropriate. Typically, as women, we do not want to harm. But sometimes the tornado of pain makes us forget that we are not meant to harm ourselves either. We have work to do here, and we need to be alive to do it.
No dead soul can smile at a child, or pick up a pencil, or wash a window, but you still can. Thank God.
The Furies are important, in myths, and in life. They are portrayed as twisted and ugly, but they are balancing things that have happened that are not right. And the Furies, along with the Providence of Persephone* can help you understand what’s going on, in the Underworld, a place you now know. These myths have helped me.
Persephone is the cycle between darkness and light.
The myth* goes: after being targeted by Zeus and Hades in an unholy conspiracy, the beautiful young Persephone is abducted to the Underworld to become the god Hades’ wife. Her mother Demeter – the goddess of the harvest – is so heartbroken, the first winter begins and life on earth goes dormant and dies. Demeter’s pain makes the world a barren place of grief, sadness, and death, while Persephone’s experience also includes rape. Persephone is underground and her mother can’t help. It is horrible for everyone.
But here’s the thing, the thing rarely said: Persephone, in a moment of self-determination, chooses the fate she’s been handed. And in this power, Persephone brokers a deal to spend only half each year in the underground – as an equal, willing companion of Hades, with the other half of year above on earth.
Does she like this arrangement? Does it even matter if we like our fate?
Persephone can – and does – go toe to toe with the God of the Underworld, and she becomes a powerful force in that kingdom, trusted and revered by Hades. Persephone brings balance.
Because of her annual ascents, spring and summer occur, so harvests happen, which make her the paramount force in the cycle of nature too. How do we know Persephone goes “back” to Hades willingly? She eats pomegranate seeds (much like Eve). How do we know she brokers her own freedom? She understands she is absolutely needed in the underworld, and on Earth, and she takes care of business in both places.
What’s notable in her story, is that Persephone winds up on equal footing with the gods who tried to steal her. She may even have a leg up on them, because she’s looking out for everyone, and holds the power of feeding the planet too.
Abducted, yes. Victim, no.
Persephone becomes one of the most powerful Goddesses, not because of her birthright as a daughter of nature, but because she re-makes herself in the dark place of death. She goes there willingly, which ushers in fall, and protects us all through the winter. Her decision to have a life ‘down there’ brings a more bountiful harvest ‘up here.’ Without the dark there is no light, without the descent, there is no ascent. Without Persephone, Hades would be an uncontrollable asshole, and this would be very bad for everyone.
Depression is our underworld.
When we aren’t permitted to go deep, to broker big things in the mysterious places, we are more like Furies, tormented, tormenting and confused. Yet we are also Persephone, choosing our fate, able to handle the hard times, and emerging intact with gifts to bear. And we are also both – deep in the place of mystery, doing the work that can’t be spoken, with a rage at all who have done wrong. But please remember: you are not the one who’s done wrong.
Furies are defined as retribution, but if you notice, only toward those who mess with natural order. Here’s the thing: the Furies are not evil. They just “are.” Ordinary too. And they are alive in us. And it is okay.
In other times and other places, women were expected to go deep, and their mysterious ways were not only accepted, but revered and ritualized. Our culture does not value this, we are expected to be happy, productive, ‘topside’ all the time. But not understanding your true nature is a surefire way to make the Furies go crazy. Just please remember Persephone is their queen.
You are still asleep, and your soul is deep and brokering things that can’t be spoken.
You are making your individual arrangement with underworld. We all make them. You can, and will, emerge. And we will all celebrate. But I know, what you may not yet know, that you are strong and you carry gifts for the rest of us. At other times in your life, you may need to go back to do the important work that needs to happen. This can be unpleasant, but it is important. And you are strong enough for this. I know you.
When you come up, I’ll be here celebrating your return. Yet now that you are dark, I will hold the knowledge that you are fine, making your own way, the way you must, to go forward with power and strength.
I trust you and I love you, and I’m nearby.
Elizabeth
*Persephone myth as first told to me when I was in high school, by Caroline Casey.
Furies are pissed. There’s too much to do.
