Bonus OST: You Can Always Go Downtown

A death mix for Hallow-anniversary. 🥀

If you had asked me a year ago (to the date) where I thought this newsletter would lead me, “The Underworld” would not be my first guess. Second, or third guess, maybe; what keeps me forever fast-walking is the decidedly feminine fear that death’s on my heels. And on the flipside, I’ve always needed a space to delve into my morbid curiosities. Still, when I descend to Camden Town and that awning bearing Cerberus’s shadow greets me, I’m hit with the delicious surreality of my situation.

Welcome home, Persephone. And Happy Danny Elfman Season once more.

The ancient Greeks explained Autumn as the goddess Persephone’s return to Hades, when she ceases to be Kore, Goddess of Spring, and rises as Dread Queen, Goddess of the Dead. “Hades” in many pop myth adaptions is typically some alluring Goth Zaddy leading her to sexy dark waters. Which I dig, but having seen every “Rape of Persephone” statue across Europe, I can’t always buy into the rebrand. This came to mind at a pub called (naturally) The Swan while chatting with a lively longterm ex-pat. “So, what brings you to London,” she asked. “A boy?” 

Now let’s be fair, part of my original newsletter thesis was, “Woops! I’ve been misled by the delusions of eccentric men for half my life, time to course correct!” Let’s be fairer, following my bleeding heart led me to realms both horrific and wondrous: backstage at a Pavement concert in Barcelona, sobbing on a bar bathroom floor in Hollywood. Jim Morrison’s place in Paris and disassociating in drag clubs in Manchester. Rooftops at sunset, canals surrounded by my fellow swans. Romantic dinners in an art deco hotel, waking up the next day to snow drifting soundlessly on the tomb stones outside. McDonalds.

But now I’m lured by my “studies” and aforementioned morbid curiosities. New York City was the only thing that grabbed me and made me set up real roots. But as I ache for the nebulous “more” that women crave during their multiple comings-of-age, London’s seducing me with fertile soil grow my passions. So no, no, no…

Hades is a place, not a person.

I can safely say my “more” includes the three…four Cs: Castles, Cathedrals, Cafes and Cemeteries. These are among Daniella’s priorities too, which is why we stroll through Highgate, decrypting the feminine grotesque through fairy tales and paying our respects to Karl Marx’s Big Fucking Head. The terrain is bursting with foliage in transformation, the trees above and the flowers bedding the dead below.

The Greeks also explain Autumn as Demeter grieving her daughter’s descent. When Persephone was first taken, the goddess of harvest and agriculture froze over the Earth, and Zeus was like “Oh, we can’t have that.” But because Persephone ate six pomegranate seeds [shrug] Demeter and Hades drafted a contract to share her half the year. Yadda yadda yadda it’s a virginity metaphor, emblematic for the troubling girlhood journey of going from someone’s daughter to someone’s wife. But she’s a slave to her roles, bouncing between both duties in perpetuity. Thanks, I hate it. 🖤

I think this is why so many women get past maidenhood, find that neither half-life as “daughter” or “wife” fits them anymore, and develop a Persephone Complex. Because being bound to others doesn’t nurture an identity, and duality has hard limits. I despise the the TikTok discourse about being a “high value” woman still involves juggling some extreme bullshit binary: madonna/whore, Disney princess/femme fatale, white swan/black swan. And my light feminine embraces my dark feminine chokes my light feminine…

Bouncing between extremes is untrue to the human experience and simply just exhausting. When I play with the dizzying logistics of being abroad for a year or two, I’m comforted by the possibility of staying on a six month visa, and then alternating with six months of travel or time back with my parents in the States. “But then I’m just doing the Persephone thing,” I sigh.

“Yes, then you’re just living out your own mythology,” Daniella says

But I’ve told this story before. You are never either/or, you are both. This is why I feel most at home in the polarity of Taurus and Scorpio, the liminal spaces, when the weather allows you to walk through graves and gardens with ease.

Grey feminine forever.

But I do buy into the idea that you need an Underworld to reach the true dimensions of yourself, a descent for a rebirth. It’s just that Hades is a place, not a person, and if it is a person, it’s the Dread Queen inside. That’s who leads you to your true home, no one else.

That said, Daniella did offer me a pomegranate, not a metaphor. 🙃 Like literally it was on her desk at the haunted ex-nunnery and I asked, “Is that a pomegranate?” to which she replied, “Yeah, you can have it.” Since then it’s kept me company in my Basement Baby Flat, one of the first things I’ll see besides the leaves brightening to yellow, the ivy bleeding red.

Funny thing: the other day I took a trip to the Chelsea Physic Garden, and dove into Treadwell’s book on plant magic. I read how pomegranates are for “luck underground” (like a basement?) and that carrying a piece of pomegranate for protection is particularly effective if you have a connection to the Underworld. That way, Persephone “will recognise you as one of her own.”

As if that’s even necessary. When you have an Underworld within you, Persephone finds you everywhere.

💀🥀💀

Anyway, today is Cinderella Undercover’s one year anniversary! Thank you for coming on the journey and watching me evolve. ❤️ Next week I’ll have more exclusive (for premium subscribers) and nonexclusive Samhain content, and then I’m taking the following two weeks to recover. But for now, I made you this Underworld playlist to soundtrack your Halloween weekend. It’s about:

Garden flat/basement flat (just a matter of perspective), losing your virginity to Electric Wizard, Electric Wizard coming on at the metal bar, jaunts at Highgate, Keats & Yeats on your side, The Treadwell’s Book of Plant Magic, split-open figs, Villianelle’s kill in The Underground, the somewhat illegal black tulips, “I would’ve been a great Hammer Horror girl,” latex shops, Last Night in Soho, playing with the most beautiful black dog, ghosts that won’t pay rent, Dirty Violetta, the 8th house, getting the latest on Glenn, calls from mother, calls from others, putting people on call waiting when you’re writing, Camden, pomegranate earrings everywhere, dead souls, becoming your own mythology, Danny Elfman Season once more, the Dread Queen and The Underworld.

And as always,

I Remain,

The One & Only,

Mary Grace