Gleaning Persephone

and the secret of flowers

In a world of knowledge at our fingertips, it is incredibly important to sleep with questions, to sleep with Stories, to sleep with Mystery.

I did a clown training many years ago with an Italian red nose clown Maestro named Giovanni Fusetti. He used to say,

“Knowledge is FINITE; Stupidity is INFINITE.”

The work of the Red Nose clown is deeply somatic. It is the physical embodiment of getting out of the mind, the head, the crafty tailor figuring stuff out, and into body, into the somatic wisdom of body and at the center of the Divine Fool at the heart.

To be a divine fool is not to be foolish. The fool of course has many expressions. As an archetype, it leads us to beginnings, to adventures, to the edge of cliffs, to the journey of becoming in all its expresions. It is a verb, not a noun. Beginner’s Mind -whether you are 18, 28, or 81, is a living expression the question as a verb. The wise fool is humbled, modest, secure in not knowing. Open to being with questions. Open to sleeping with the questions. Not an expert on this or that theory. Inside of the living nature of wisdom.

Living inside of the verb -at the center of the wild nesting doll of itself —at the center of the wild remembering, a miracle blossoms from out of the seed of the seat of the self, it blooms into the flower of its becoming.

The red nose clown lives inside of the intersection of Life/Death/Life. It lives inside of Joy married to Pain, Celebration married to grief, Comedy married to Tragedy. Inside of this willingness to let go of what it knows, it dives headfirst into the landscape of UNKNOWING, into the landscape of EXPERIENCING.

The mind keeps us separate, cuts us off, gives us something to hold onto. It can figure out incredibly complex puzzles. It can also dissect the world, take apart the miracle of the flower, take apart the living transformation of the caterpillar becoming butterfly.

I’ve been simmering inside of Persephone’s Story for the last month, in preparation of telling her story last Friday. I did something different this time around. I didn’t read her story again. I didn’t research it again. I entered into the unknown with Persephone. I let go of what I knew. I let go of the need to find something new about her. I slept with the spirit of her. I slept with the spirit of the STORY.

It felt incredibly foolish and risky.

The night before telling the story, I expressed my gratitude to the STORY. To Persephone’s SONG. I’d been sleeping with her night after night. Trusting the revelations to unfold in their own timing. Trusting I might not be secure in my knowing, trusting that Mystery cannot be researched, truly. It needs to be slept with. In sleep, we enter the spirit world. In waking, we return. Seasoned, as cycles season us. As sleep seasons us. As sleep dreams its way into our unconscious, as our unconscious breaks the surface, the way flowers break open.

AI will never give us our dreams. An encyclopedia will never teach us fully about the Eleusian Mysteries. The newsfeed will not feed our souls. Sleep does. Holding questions close, does. Entering into a spirit-rich relationship with an ancient story does.

Vassalissa’s doll teaches Vassalissa this mystery wisdom, every time Vassalissa has an insurmountable task to accomplish. Do not fear -go to sleep -mornings are wiser than evenings.

Alice in Wonderland leaves the world as she knows - of logic and thought, of ‘this is the way it is’ and falls down the rabbit hole and into mystery, where the Queen of Hearts ironically shouts, “OFF WITH HER HEAD”. Is it because she understands the mystery —GET OUT OF THE HEAD and INTO THE HEART - that is where true understanding lies.

Image: Kindra Nikole -chrysalis

Rilke wrote in letters to a young poet -

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

Why am I telling you all of this? What does this have to do with truly GLEANING Persephone? I’ll tell you. She lives in the mystery of botany, in the esoteric secrets inside every flower. She lives inside of the mystery of the womb. She lives inside of the mystery of the womb married to the tomb. Of the dark before the seed. Of the seed as it descends. In the compost that churns and renews the soil. Inside of the tiny rootlets as they deepen, inside of the tiny sprout as it grows. Inside of the question stalking, emerging, greening, lengthening, rising.

Image: Unknown

Inside the bud, opening, flowering. Inside the dream of the seed inside ovary, in the verb of pollination, inside flower becoming fruit. Making new seeds. Pregnant with new life. Inside the question of cycles and seasons. And decay. Inside the fall of seed. To the cold hollow earth. Separate from its mother. From whence it came. Into a period of waiting. Perhaps to be eaten and transformed into scat upon earth. Breaking down. Descending into earth receiving rain, receiving sun. Into the cold tomb of earth. Waiting. No longer on the surface, once again below. In the cold, dark.

Sleeping with Persephone brought me to the spring of flowers. The yellowing of rising. The yellowing of Alchemy. The yellowing of pollen, the mysterious verb at the center transforming the question into the gift of its own rising, becoming and crowning.

Found inside the Book of Nature. The book of Life/Death/Life.

Gaia Wonderland —Kirsty Mitchell

Photo: Kirsty Mitchell

Isn’t it wildly foolish? To trust sleep, to trust a letter about questions from the 1800’s. To trust the wisdom of the Divine Fool. To trust Vasillisa’s doll?

There are many ways to unpack a story. Many ways to see a story. Many ways to interpret a story. What if we encountered the Sacred Holy Stories like the Sacred Holy Dreams from the Gods, and instead of putting them through AI or endless research to glean them, we instead Slept with them. We became loyal to their origins. We entered into their original consciousness. How do we do this? Something in the pattern in the mind has to die in order for this wild remembering to be reborn.

The Last Dance of Flowers, Kirsty Mitchell

Persephone has to separate from the Mother.

The seed has to leave the flower in the sky

in order to understand the secrets embedded in the dark.

For Kore/Persephone to flower from the seed of herself, she needs to leave the Goddess of Earth and the Earth Mother and enter into the fertile darkness.

What crazy blossoms and fruits might spring from out of the WOMB/TOMB/WOMB of itself, from the lips of the question, from out of the secret of the mystery embedded in every seed? In every YOU.

Time is Sacred.

So is Sleep.

And the secret of Flowers.

And the Journey.

Of getting out of the head

and Into the Heart

Pass it on.

Sending SO MUCH LOVE

inside the springtime (if you are in the northern hemisphere) as we RISE

and to the autumn (if you are in the southern hemisphere) as you DESCEND

Reach out for an illuminating SOUL ALCHEMY session

weaving archetype cards, numerology and Tarot wisdom.

Readings are currently discounted from $225 to $150 USD

Do not hesitate to ask if you need a further discount!

BOOK HERE, pay later