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Jan. 15th, 2006 01:45 amThe inestimable ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
neowiccan reposted one of her heartrending pieces on the myth of Kore (Persephone, for those of you who hit Greek Myths for three weeks in middle school) and got me to thinking about the leap of empathy.
I've heard a lot of people say that, for any given experience, "you don't know what it's like until it happens to you."
Bull. Yep, that's right. Bull.
Demeter's daughter was stolen from her, carried away to the underworld, never to be seen again.
Can you understand the depths of her grief only if you, too, have lost a little girl of your own? Does it have to be a little girl who was kidnapped? Is it the same if she's a toddler, or a young teenager, bursting with imminent womanhood? Do you not have a clue if your daughter died of cancer, or a car accident, or if she was stillborn?
Or do you have the same heartwrenching sorrow if your son dies? Is it different if you carried the child under your heart, or if you adopted, or if you fathered the child, or only accepted responsibility when they were born? Do two parents of the same child grieve in the same way, or feel the loss the same?
Or can we rather say that they're all different, and the only way to FULLY understand what it's like to lose your daughter Kore-- is to BE Demeter? That in reaching for the depth of grief, in reading and hearing and envisioning the myth, you... bring Her into closer presence?
There are a few extraBiblical Christian myths referring to what happened after Jesus was laid in the tomb until His resurrection; one of my favorites has always been the Harrowing of Hell. In this tale, Jesus visited Hell and redeemed all those virtuous people who lived and died before He came, so that when a Christian is welcomed to Heaven, they will have a chance to meet the Biblical prophets and other such people.
So tonight, I'm thinking of parallels between the two stories, and wondering-- why is it that I don't know any tales of what Mary did for those three days? Shouldn't there be some? It makes me feel a bit lonely for her, that we don't seem to grieve with her as perhaps we ought.
neowiccan reposted one of her heartrending pieces on the myth of Kore (Persephone, for those of you who hit Greek Myths for three weeks in middle school) and got me to thinking about the leap of empathy.I've heard a lot of people say that, for any given experience, "you don't know what it's like until it happens to you."
Bull. Yep, that's right. Bull.
Demeter's daughter was stolen from her, carried away to the underworld, never to be seen again.
Can you understand the depths of her grief only if you, too, have lost a little girl of your own? Does it have to be a little girl who was kidnapped? Is it the same if she's a toddler, or a young teenager, bursting with imminent womanhood? Do you not have a clue if your daughter died of cancer, or a car accident, or if she was stillborn?
Or do you have the same heartwrenching sorrow if your son dies? Is it different if you carried the child under your heart, or if you adopted, or if you fathered the child, or only accepted responsibility when they were born? Do two parents of the same child grieve in the same way, or feel the loss the same?
Or can we rather say that they're all different, and the only way to FULLY understand what it's like to lose your daughter Kore-- is to BE Demeter? That in reaching for the depth of grief, in reading and hearing and envisioning the myth, you... bring Her into closer presence?
There are a few extraBiblical Christian myths referring to what happened after Jesus was laid in the tomb until His resurrection; one of my favorites has always been the Harrowing of Hell. In this tale, Jesus visited Hell and redeemed all those virtuous people who lived and died before He came, so that when a Christian is welcomed to Heaven, they will have a chance to meet the Biblical prophets and other such people.
So tonight, I'm thinking of parallels between the two stories, and wondering-- why is it that I don't know any tales of what Mary did for those three days? Shouldn't there be some? It makes me feel a bit lonely for her, that we don't seem to grieve with her as perhaps we ought.
