The Forgiveness of Persephone

The Orphic Journey Beyond Duality

If I look back at the past, and my experiences, life has not been easy. Though that life itself is long gone. A narrative of my life that itself faded into nothingness, as much as the identity of Robin, or really any sense of “I” has faded into the same void. This is not a state of being that people can truly understand. As it is really beyond words, and any language or linear egoic thinking itself. For me there is no such thing as past or future anymore. Just the present. I can remember the past, yet no narrative about it can be constructed about it. As such it is just me remembering what is called the “past” in the present, as it is really just memory.

If I think about how I got to this point, and this state of being itself. Well, a big part of it is tied to my life itself. It had been bombarded with loss and much trauma as well. Something which I ended up healing myself on my own. To work through all the internalised narratives and process all the emotions that I as Dionysian child had internalised throughout childhood.

The thing is that I have been there at the very beginning. The creation of the cosmos itself. I am Yemo in that sense, as much as anyone else is them too. We are all Zagreus, the little infant Dionysus that got dismembered by the Titans. His death created the social order, and lead to the dismemberment of the primordial self. So the child of the Sovereignty Goddess or Persephone. Where externalisation, societal narratives and trying to conform to narratives about oneself or the social group becomes the person, and their inner child trying to find acceptance, within what is seen as society.

The Great Crime of the Titans

This itself is the great crime to be paid. The absolution of Dionysus, the victim of the Titanic crime, is needed for obtaining the forgiveness of the god’s mother, the queen of the underworld. It is this dismemberment that has to be “paid” for, in the Orphic mysteries to obtain liberation and the forgiveness of Persephone. And as the mother of Dionysus, Persephone is the mother of mortals, who, according to the Orphic myth, descend from the Titans who had devoured her son. She is my mother, as much as she is the mother of everyone. Persephone is in that sense also Lucia Nyktelios, the primordial feminine and goddess of compassion beyond duality.

As much as all the masculine deities from Phanes, Ouranos, Kronos, Zeus, Dionysus (Bacchus and Dionysus Nyktelios) are all the same god. As they represent as much the state of the Self and the whole individual as much as the relationship between ego and the unconscious. Where all the goddesses from Nyx, Gaia, Rhea, Persephone, Ariadne and back to Nyx are also all of them the same goddess. The sender of the serpent, the queen of the unconscious. Now for women, this might be different, Zeus instead is present in his Chthonic form as Hades. As Chthonic Zeus is Hades, as much as Zagreus is as well. They instead being the lords of the unconscious, with their most sacred queens representing consciousness, yet also the Self. This being the case when it comes to understanding this from the Orphic and Neo-Platonic perspective that sees this as stages of development of the psyche (soul).

So in that way I am, and everyone is in the beginning infant Zagreus, also known as Phanes or Eros, that is dismembered, as much as Yemo is. When we are a child we get into the world as this Dionysian child, which the Kronian ego sees as chaos, and it tries to impose order onto it. Through this act, it actually dismembers infant Zagreus, as emotions and wholeness are cast off, where he becomes the lord of the underworld, cast into the realm of the shadow. To reside with his mother Persephone. In this way every generation perpetuates this same Titanic crime. As the very act of imposing order onto something the ego simply does not understand is actually Logos, it creates fragmentation and thus suffering. In this way every person becomes like Zagreus in a state of fragmentation and suffering, which is kept at bay through externalisation, rigid order, structure and rules. It is exactly this fragmentation itself that creates the need for rules in the first place, as it is this fragmented state itself that creates what it labels as chaos and evil. This is the original wounding of the human psyche that is perpetuated over and over. As the state of ego consciousness as divorced from the unconscious in a rigid manner as in this fragmented and unconscious manner itself stems from an original trauma. From which all other trauma’s are created.

Yet instead of guiding others towards healing and facing this suffering infant within, religion imposes order onto it, as it fears this suffering infant. It made it into the serpent, the devil and the source of what the ego wants to avoid. Not seeing how this crime of dismembering this infant Zagreus, is not separate from crucifixion. It is as if with every child that is born we nail it to a cross, as if it is evil and a thief. Whilst it is holy, pure and innocent. This itself is the one thing that Jesus came to rectify, and why he talked so much about compassion, and was a healer. Jesus's sacrifice was not for nothing, as his life did show the way, what the ego symbolically has to undergo. To face that fragmented inner child within, and undergo this experience of abandonment and fragmentation again. To feel through all this pain, to become whole again. Yet the thing is that all of this starts with what I said regarding childhood itself. If we can stop doing this to children, then there is no need for more suffering to arise from that. Sure people might break their bones, or die and there is always something. Yet at least not all this unneeded fragmentation that only adds suffering to it. As long as we treat this as chaos and something to control and impose order onto, and to just regulate and repress to death, it will just perpetuate the separation that people want to get away from and be liberated from.

The Forgiveness of the Goddess

The liberation happens through the symbolic death of the person. Which frees one from the misdeed committed by the Titans. The ritual probably included the ingestion of milk, and the initiate becoming like an unweaned child. Also being symbolised by the Milky Way. It was said about the Goddess, that she painted the heavens with the milk from her breasts. Milk for them was symbolic of the food of the newborn, and the souls that are reborn to celestial life. In that sense the price to be paid for this rebirth, to obtain the forgiveness of Persephone, is to face the victim-child, and the pain and emotions that it holds. This itself is the price, yet also the process through which the crime of the Titans is undone, leading to a rebirth, the person being reborn like a nursling kid.

This state of being akin to a child is also something that is part of it, as it means to go back to these early states of being to nurture and process the trauma and pain of this dismemberment. This itself puts one back towards earlier stages of development to really fulfil these deep unmet needs from early life, and the general shallowness of existence that leaves an emotional void of unmet needs. Which is what creates this need for external validation, consumerism and all these things that are going on. Dionysus is both the liberator and the dismembered child, which is the victim-child. This also ties into the scapegoat complex, and the scapegoat and redeemer roles. It is within the victim-child itself that the key to liberation lies. Where we are no longer trapped in either the burden carrying scapegoat or the redeemer.

With this “I” am in a state of being where I have “paid” the price. All these months of depression, and quite many more months of emotional processing to be once more accepted by Persephone, and really for me now Nyx. A state of being beyond duality, beyond categorisations and separation from the world. Where I once more belong to the world, nature, and universe itself. Like Dionysus Nyktelios dwelling in the night. Where the sun of the ego has set completely. It is in this state that a new light rises, where like after Ragnarök, Baldr rises again out of Hel. Not as ego consciousness, yet as a new light of being. A new state where the ways of strife and suffering are over.