Читать книгу Close to the Bone - Jean Shinoda Bolen - Страница 19

One moment, Persephone had nothing more on her mind than which beautiful flower to pick; the sky was blue, the sun was warm, and all was well. The next moment, she was in the underworld and nothing was the same as before. Her innocence and security were violated; she was helpless and at the mercy of forces beyond her previous knowledge. This myth applies to everyone. Persephone is the innocent part of men and women, youngsters and elders, who encounter Hades as the perpetrator of incest, rape, mugging, betrayal, of any unexpected and unforeseen act that shocks us into an awareness of our emotional or physical vulnerability. Hades is also the symbolic event that exposes us to a specific awareness of good and evil. Before Hades, we feel protected; after Hades we know that we are not. Once a laboratory test comes back positive or a biopsy reveals cancer, through whatever means we learn of a life-threatening illness, the effect is the same: Persephone—the assumption of youth and health, the assumption of safety and immunity from disease and death—has been violated and taken into the underworld.

For many of us, poetic metaphor expresses our feelings and is a means through which we communicate our perceptions and understand the meaning of an experience. Illness as a descent of the soul into the underworld is a metaphor that brings to the intuitive mind and knowing heart a depth of understanding that cannot be grasped consciously otherwise. It is also in the language of the soul.