The Call to Go Down and In
“If a person wishes to be sure of the road on which they tread, they must close their eyes and walk in the dark.”
—St. John of the Cross
This Friday brings the Autumn Equinox here in the northern hemisphere. A day where the light and dark are equally balanced for one brief moment, and then we tip over the edge and fall into the dark half of the year.
How are you noticing the shift in the season in your part of the world?
Can you feel that the same force which calls the leaves to fall is pulling you closer to the heartbeat of earth?
In Greek mythology, the Autumn Equinox is the day that Persephone, goddess of spring, returns to the underworld.
Her descent brings the change in the season. Demeter, her mother, goddess of the grain and harvest, mourns the separation from her beloved daughter Persephone. And so the earth becomes dark and barren.
In the Greek version of the text, Persephone is abducted into the underworld by Hades and tricked into being forever wedded to such a place.
I like to imagine the story differently, however…
What if Persephone wasn’t a passive victim to the selfish schemes of male deities, but rather a goddess in her own right with choice, desire, and agency? What if Persephone, on the cusp of her womanhood, willingly chose to be initiated into the underworld? What if she was ready to leave her role as her mother’s daughter and step into her sovereignty as Queen of the Underworld?
After all, it is Persephone’s longing that leads the way.
It is her desire to pluck the hundred-flowered narcissus that opens a portal into the underworld.
And it is her hunger for the juicy red seeds of the sweet pomegranate that seals her destiny.
Persephone hungers after flower and food.
She takes what she wants.
And she is changed.*
Whether or not she goes down of her own accord, Persephone descends into the underworld.
The underworld is a place of wild encounter and profound transformation.
It is a metaphor for the depths of our unconscious. The dark well that holds all the terrifying fears and alluring desires, all the gifts, graces and griefs that we haven’t yet been ready or willing to face.
It is a place of confrontation with both the divine and the demonic aspects of self. All that we have been taught that we are not allowed to think, feel, be, or want, gets buried down in these depths.
The underworld is also a metaphor for the seat of soul. It is where we meet the deepest essence of who we are. Where we find “the truth at the center of the image we were born with,” to use the words of poet David Whyte.
It is the place where our inner wisdom burns, our instincts growl and purr, and the song of our soul waits to be released.
Journeying into this place is an act of encounter. It is an initiation into a wiser, fuller, more complex expression of ourselves. Storyteller Michael Meade reminds us that “wisdom involves a necessary descent into the depths of life, for that alone can produce ‘lived knowledge’ and a unified vision.”The descent into soul will leave us changed. And Persephone’s story gives us hope that change is good.
For Persephone to come into her own knowing, she can’t stay on the surface of things. She must enter the deep below.
Through her journey, she is initiated into her power and sovereignty–no longer a young daughter obedient to her mother, she learns to attune to a larger field of wisdom, and takes her place as Queen of the Underworld and as Goddess of Spring.
Sometimes, like in the Greek version of Persephone, we are plunged unwillingly into descent by loss, illness or tragedy. And sometimes our own soul beckons us, and we have the choice to descend willingly. Either way, the invitation awaits us–will we learn to see in the dark?
Persephone’s story reminds us that the underworld is also a place of returning and renewal.
The reality is that there are no blossoms without the dark and decay, the rot and rank, the worms and fungi. Like it or not, these are requisite ingredients of a healthy and fertile soil.
It is in the underworld that the seeds of a future spring are cradled in the dark.
Only through her descent into autumn can Persephone return as goddess of spring. The new life she brings to the earth emerges from her time in the depths.
As the fire of the sun begins to dim, autumn pulls us back down into the embrace of earth, back down to our own roots, and back down to the seat of our own inner wisdom. Like Persephone, this time of year invites us into the descent. To leave the bright and busy bustle of our ordinary upper-world lives, and spend some time listening to the quiet depths of our own experience.
Can you hear the autumn winds whispering of the great below?
Will you heed the call?
And can you trust that all that you lay to rest will become the fertile seed bed for a future spring?
*All things which the patriarchy does not value in women, which is why I suspect this Greek version of the story is yet another means to scare women away from our own power of desire and agency.
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Hello, dear one. I’m Stephanie.
As a Soul Companion, educator, and sacred space holder, I am passionate about deepening our connection to the earth, our bodies, and the divine mystery that dances in all that is.
Let’s journey together into the sacred wild!
