Persephone’s Seeds

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Excerpt

When I was a child, I sat in a boat at the headwater of two rivers careening together. One river made its fast way down a steep slope, singing through deep gorges, bouncing over and around boulders and rocky bottoms. It was lively and deep green with jaunty white wave caps and spoke with a joyous voice. The other river, old and heavily laden with dirt, had crossed flatter used-up lands. It spoke of outrage in measured tones. All it said was edged with melancholy, its voice resonate and deep. It lumbered its brown way into the confluence. I sat in the boat and watched them mate – so unlikely and so passionately. Their songs morphed into one voice – rich, powerful, agile, with clarity enough to force a moan and sigh and flush from every one of us in that boat. The new river took us for a very dangerous ride. Here I am again at a confluence. For the third time, I am life careening into death. For me, death number three is turning out to be the most dangerous ride of all.

What is Persephone's Seeds like?

Fierce, dark, agitated, imaginative, symbolic, psychologically intense, a real scream of consciousness ...

PROLOGUE: At age 36 I wanted to take a bite out of life. I wanted to chew it, eat its heart; be it. Instead, on May fifteenth, I died - and not for the first time. May fifteenth is not my favorite day - hasn’t been for quite a while. Twice before I died on it and my death today makes death number three. This catapults me-dying-on-May-fifteenth from the realm of freaky accident to nasty habit. You would think I'd come to dread the day, but I don't. Death is not all that bad. In fact, I quite like it. It's much better than the part just before death. Let me be abundantly clear as I’m an expert on this subject, dying is not an experience worth repeating. The trouble with being dead twice before … ammmm …is I tend to take death for granted - as odd as that seems. Life, too, I take for granted. I guess somewhere inside me I keep choosing to make life tedious, which is why, against better judgment, I agreed to take a walk in the garden. And that same place inside me, I keep choosing to make death palliative, which is why I died hard for the third time. This story is about choices - Persephone’s seeds - and seasons of the heart. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.