Everything has a price. In the hegemony, this is a mantra that reinforces what we call our independence, something we are taught to accept as an axiom for the basis of Reason. Rational thinkers, therefore, understand that in every human interaction there occurs a transaction, and in that transaction there are considerations of value, cost, risk, desire. The consequence is simple: If something passes from your hands into mine without a consideration of these things, it is not a gift; it is a maneuver. Charity too becomes a bartering of favors; love an exchange of vows only for as long as they are valuable to the barterers.

Stepping into the kingdom of the Underworld, Persephone is likewise fearful, but you should not pity her. If you are like Persephone you are like a daughter of the freest goddess, unbound by any commitments except a commitment to yourself. Into your cupped palm the god of the Underworld has placed three pomegranate seeds, and the rule is that if you taste of the Underworld you must remain its guest, you may never return to the surface, you may never again be careless and free. Thus it is so that a gift becomes a manacle, and a daughter of the freest goddess must decide whether she should exchange her freedom, which is valuable, to become a queen of the Underworld, which is risky.

The myth of Persephone is not a myth of freedom: the myth of Persephone is a myth of compromise. For even though she lives among the shades of the dead for part of the year, Persephone emerges to renew the seasons, a daughter of the fall and the summer and the spring.