I used to have demons, In my room at night - The Lover Speaks.
When I was young, the emotions inside me felt too big to be contained. That’s one of the things that drew me to mythology.
I didn’t see the world as I do now. I was both brave and damaged; I felt terrified and limitless. Just after university, I played Medea in an adaptation of Euripides’ play. I bared my breasts for the play’s poster, looking suitably vengeful. And, even though I’m painfully shy about my body, at the end of the show, I stood stark naked, silhouetted in the semi-darkness as the sorceress who transgresses and transcends. I was tapping into feelings of rejection and despair from having my heart broken by a fellow student two years earlier. I’d played the Fool to his King Lear. And yes, I really did feel the fool when it was over.
Everything was so vast and unbearable and confusing.
When you’re brought up in a religious family the world has a distinct flavour to it. Your perception is different. Religion opens up other realms, the possibilities of unseen, invisible worlds existing.
My parents, both born Jewish, had both become Evangelical Christians. They brought me up to believe the Bible was the truth. I was baptised by the Holy Ghost; spoke in tongues; thought Jesus’ blood could protect me; believed there really were demons in my room at night.
Yes, evil spirits were everywhere, but angels could keep us safe.
I was taught that God punished and Jesus could forgive. I was told that I was possessed and so I was exorcised. I was told that rock music was evil and most classical music good. And literature, well, literature was dangerous and to be avoided. That was a step too far; the point at which, as a teenager, I turned my back on God. If God wanted me to give up books, then I would simply have to give up God.
Once I broke with religion, I couldn’t break free of those feelings that it was all too much. An over-welling of emotions. I developed a tendency to seek out drama in life. Rejected the nice men, sought out the losers and heart-breakers. Was adrift in the world, my compass askew.
I looked for signs and meaning in the everyday. Something, anything to give me guidance. Tarot, astrology, playing cards scattered across the road. A scrap of paper with a poem written on it.
Depression played its part. There were two distinct periods when I felt I'd descended to Hades and then very, very slowly managed to crawl back up and out into the dim light. One of those times I was already a mother, albeit a fragile one. Tentatively, at first, but always tenderly, I've done my best to try to guide another little soul through this world.
The myths comforted me in a personal way through much of this. Medea’s excesses could englobe my pain. Philoctetes abandonment helped me feel less alienated. Orpheus accompanied me out of hell. The Cumaean Sybil made me face my demons. Ariadne allowed me to nurse a broken heart and then find new love. Demeter showed me how vast a mother's love could be.
With time and help we slowly slough off some of our pain, stitch up our messy bits, discard some of the baggage. We call our demons out of the dark, ask them into our kitchen. Decide they aren’t so bad and give them a cuppa.
We look down into Hades and conclude that, after all, it isn't our kind of place.
And slowly as we change, the myths begin to feel different too.
We realise they're not just mirrors to our own grief or that of our family, but mirrors to all of humanity.
Now they comfort us as we stand and face, not our own madness, but a general madness that has spilled and is still spilling across the world. The wars, killings, injustices, poverty and unregulated technology. The myths tell us that this has happened before and it will happen again. We live, we die and in between we are broken, we suffer, we grow. Sometimes it's unbearable and the myths remind us of that too. They are so vast and epic they contain all of our woes. They can help us face this bloody, stupid, glorious, wonderful and heartbreaking world.
I get real consolation from the myths. I hope you do too.
"He who has seen present things has seen all, both everything that has taken place from all eternity and everything that will be for time without end. For all things are of one kin and of one form."
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6 (tr. George Long)
Painting by Fusili. A 1790-91 version of The Nightmare.