The Language of Winter

The Language of Winter

"We have all of us eaten the pomegranate seed
of language, and we are its Persephone in the
ways of structuring our experiences of ourselves
and the world."
   ___ John Moariarty, "Turtle Was Gone a Long Time"


   John Moriarty refers here to the Greek myth of Persephone, who went into the Underworld with the god Hades. When sought by her mother, Demeter, she was licensed by the gods to return to the Middle World again, as long as she had eaten anything while in the Underworld. But Persephone had partaken of six pomegranate seeds, and so it was judged that she could return to earth for only half of the year. During those six months that she remains in the Underworld, we have winter. Similarly, the ways in which we think and speak, the concepts that we use to frame experience, give their own limited seasonal coloration to our culture. Meaning is submerged in the very words w speak. We have little sophistication of expression in the West to speak about deeper, mythic states, which is probably why we have such a correspondingly rich folk-story tradition, which speaks of nothing else.
    The revolt against the language of winter is everywhere around as people attempt to explain their own subtle experiences. This revolt often expresses itself in extreme ways - as an unhealthy stretching out toward the bizarre, the unexplained, and the alien, when all the time the common but subtle experiences of life are so ordinary. When we begin to use the wisdom of the pomegranate seeds of language with the insight of those who have experienced the deep riches of the Underworld, we will be liberated Persephones, able to bring beautiful spring to our bare acres of expression.

"Recall a subtle experience of your own. Write it down or speak it onto tape in a way that captures the mood and experience."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]