Flowers in the Underworld
Aug. 29th, 2009 09:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosI bring flowers to Her: my goddess, my mistress, my queen.
She receives me in Her throne room: a vast, subterranean grotto of stone with hard, dusty floors. Her seat is grand but stark, Her robes dark and severe. She combines the beauty of eternity with the grimness of every reminder of mortality, and She very seldom smiles.
My gift catches her off guard. I have never before seen surprise in Her flickering eyes.
The flowers are simple: wildflowers from the meadow I passed through on my way to the dark entrance of the underworld. There are beauties and treasures beyond description in Her realm, but none of the beauties of the Great Above.
I hold out the humble bouquet to Her. The reds and purples and golds and whites are dimmed but not quenched in the shadows. She traces their petals with a careful finger, looks up at me with studied amusement that isn't quite convincing. "Thank you," She says.
I go to my knees before Her. "I wanted to give you something you did not already have, my lady." I do not add that I had considered bringing her silk flowers, ever-blooming, but denying the fragility of life seemed wrong. These will eventually wither and die, but that honors Her place in the cycle.
Of course I do not need to speak; She hears my every thought.
She bends down, caresses my cheek with fingers that carry the faint scent of the flowers, and kisses me on the mouth, tasting of ashes and myrrh.
In the press and mundanity of my daily life it's easy to forget that I love Her, forget Her generosity, Her passion, Her stern guidance. Sometimes I forget that She loves me.
It is good to remember.
She receives me in Her throne room: a vast, subterranean grotto of stone with hard, dusty floors. Her seat is grand but stark, Her robes dark and severe. She combines the beauty of eternity with the grimness of every reminder of mortality, and She very seldom smiles.
My gift catches her off guard. I have never before seen surprise in Her flickering eyes.
The flowers are simple: wildflowers from the meadow I passed through on my way to the dark entrance of the underworld. There are beauties and treasures beyond description in Her realm, but none of the beauties of the Great Above.
I hold out the humble bouquet to Her. The reds and purples and golds and whites are dimmed but not quenched in the shadows. She traces their petals with a careful finger, looks up at me with studied amusement that isn't quite convincing. "Thank you," She says.
I go to my knees before Her. "I wanted to give you something you did not already have, my lady." I do not add that I had considered bringing her silk flowers, ever-blooming, but denying the fragility of life seemed wrong. These will eventually wither and die, but that honors Her place in the cycle.
Of course I do not need to speak; She hears my every thought.
She bends down, caresses my cheek with fingers that carry the faint scent of the flowers, and kisses me on the mouth, tasting of ashes and myrrh.
In the press and mundanity of my daily life it's easy to forget that I love Her, forget Her generosity, Her passion, Her stern guidance. Sometimes I forget that She loves me.
It is good to remember.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 05:00 am (UTC)That was the refrain in my "Persephone" poem in TPH, and it goes back to what Persephone and friends were doing when Hades came up and took her down...
The syncretism in some texts of Kore-Persephone and Ereshkigal, thus, comes to mind in the gift you've made...
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 05:16 am (UTC)It's very easy for me to forget that Ereshkigal started out above ground, as a young woman. I need to explore that aspect of Her more.
Some time ago, Siggy posted a very moving piece called "Frey's Words to Hel" in which he meditated, in part, on her painful girlhood, and being taken to the underworld when she was still very young. When I do think of Ereshkigal, those are the words which come to mind, even more than the Persephone story.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 06:06 am (UTC)