She [Persephone] was filled with a sense of wonder, and she reached out with both hands
to take hold of the pretty plaything. And the earth, full of roads leading every which way, opened up under her.
It happened on the Plain of Nysa. There it was that the Lord who receives many guests made his lunge.
He was riding on a chariot drawn by immortal horses. The son of Kronos. The one known by many names.
He seized her against her will, put her on his golden chariot,
And drove away as she wept. She cried with a piercing voice, calling upon her father [Zeus], the son of Kronos, the highest and the best.
But not one of the immortal ones, or of human mortals, heard her voice. Not even the olive trees which bear their splendid harvest.
Except for the daughter of Persaios, the one who keeps in mind the vigor of nature.
She heard it from her cave. She is Hekatê, with the splendid headband.
–from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter
It happened years ago– the thing whose name you know but despise to say. You have made your peace, you say when the topic cannot be avoided. You are able to speak of the trauma and its aftermath as a journey: a narrative of how you pieced your life back together, how you rediscovered your voice and your sense of power after power was taken from you.
How you moved on.
That was the goal, right? To move forward. To forget, and to leave behind.
Even if you know that part of you never left that darkness in the depths of the earth.
You can still feel it, the shard of your old self that you could not retrieve. It does not forget. It does not remain buried.
Especially when your friend calls you one night, the friend who survived it, too. She knows that she has not been whole since, and she asks you if you can perform a soul retrieval. It is a ritual that you have performed before: returning to a place of trauma, gathering what the soul lost, bringing it back to make the wounded spirit whole. But never for this.
Do you remember the way into the Underworld?
Of course you do.
Do you have the strength to go back to the place where you were broken– bearing torches– bringing light?
Hosted and narrated by:
Chip (JackOfTheLighter)
Completed 04/01/17.
Scenes played: 6
License: Community License
18+
