Читать книгу Close to the Bone - Jean Shinoda Bolen - Страница 18

When there is a before and an after, when there is an event that marks the moment that brings ordinary life to an end, which is often the case with medical conditions, the shift that occurs has the force of a natural disaster, a personal earthquake that disturbs the ground under us. Before the diagnosis, before the operation, before the accident, before the discovery that there is something wrong, we live in innocence or denial. Then everything changes, and we feel that nothing may ever be the same again.

In this, we may feel like Persephone,¹ the maiden in Greek mythology who was gathering flowers in the meadow when the earth opened up in front of her, and out of the deepest, darkest vent in the earth came Hades, the Lord of the Underworld, in his black chariot drawn by black horses, to abduct her. He pulled Persephone to him, and she screamed in fear as they circled the field, and then horses and chariot carrying Hades and the terrified Persephone plunged back from where they came, and the earth closed over as if nothing had happened.