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There’s a haunting line in Homer’s Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson. It’s describing people on the other side of the world “who live between the sunset and the dawn.”
In one sense this refers to geography and the day. It’s also something more. Half the people sleep while the other half are awake, but we’re connected and the dark place is mythical.
Light, dark, day and night also occur seasonally. Hades abducts Persephone and her return from the Underworld is the beginning of spring. What is it like, living underground, yearning for light, colour, and air? Like you’re trapped in a bad dream.
Hades is apparently a good husband but Persephone is overpowered and voiceless. What does she want?
Demeter, her mother, is distraught. Zeus intervenes in their favour but Hades has a plan. Persephone eats pomegranate seeds which tie her to the Underworld meaning she must return in winter, so the land above becomes barren.
I’ve added more to the story. That’s the Greek god Hypnos, ruler of sleep, beside the waters of the Styx.
Then consider migratory birds. Crossing the world in pursuit of a warmer and lighter place using star, land, and magnetic navigation. Mary Oliver describes this as the pursuit of home with movement not rest.
Thinking about it like this, as the Greeks did, the world is a place of symbols, energies, and vibrating life.
The photograph is Bowfell in the Lake District. The red light was natural, which you don’t notice too much when you’re walking but is pictorially stunning.
Another year, I camped the other side of Bowfell, photographing the Scafells, highest in England, on an icy winter morning.
The music is Monteverdi’s madrigal Zefiro torna, oh di soavi accenti. Zephyr is named after Zephyrus, one of the Anemoi, Greek gods of the wind and the west wind of spring:
Return O Zephyr and with gentle motion make pleasant the air and scatter the grasses in waves.