Scar and Seam: The Rhythm of Rupture
The Paradox of Rhea
Rhea occupies a precarious position in mythology, embodying both the grandeur of creation and the brutal inevitability of destruction. Her name, derived from the Greek word ῥέω (rhéo), meaning “flow,” reflects the paradox she holds: a force that both nurtures life and carries it toward death. As Meter Theon, the Mother of the Gods, she mediates the boundaries of time itself—a domain shaped by her role as consort to Kronos (Saturn), the Titan of Time and its delineated Limits. In this role, Rhea embodies the violent currents of time’s flow, where birth and death are inseparable forces. To live is to enter the boundaries of time, to move through its rhythms like blood through veins, like water carving stone, like lava spilling from the earth. Her mythology resists stasis, revealing creation and destruction as cyclical and inextricably bound—a rhythm both violent and vital that shapes the cosmos and the body alike.
This mythological current resonates within the patterns of my own life, especially in the ruptures that define personal transformation. Leaving New Orleans, where I had lived for a decade, traipsing through the French Quarter where I had spent my time almost daily since 2018, was not just a geographic shift but a symbolic one—a departure from an identity steeped in the liminal, where every moment felt interwoven with magic. New Orleans is a city where the edges between worlds blur, and time feels like a fluid presence, unbounded and alive. Anything can happen, and the dead are always happy to dance in celebration beside you.
I was in love with her, not just as a place but as a living force—a spirit that held you in her humid embrace, at once tender and unruly. I loved her river, the great, serpentine Mississippi that whispered of violent history and pleasurable secrets, its currents carrying songs of loss and triumph alike. Her music was not confined to stages but spilled into the streets, into your bones, each note a spellbinding call to life, no matter how broken or weary you felt. She had fire in her, a smoldering passion that burned in her people, her traditions, her unyielding refusal to be tamed. In her, I found a mirror for my own soul, a city that thrived in the margins, where survival was an act of defiance and joy was as fierce as grief. I loved her contradictions—her decadence and decay, her light and shadow—and the way she taught me that living is always a dance with death.
Moving to Houston, by contrast, was an immersion into vast materiality, where the expanse of the landscape stretches time into long, deliberate intervals, like the slow turning of a windmill on a distant horizon. Here, time does not blur or rush forward as it did in New Orleans; instead, it pulls, lulls, and lingers, mirroring the endless skies that seem to hold the sun in place for hours before it finally dips below the flat earth. The land itself breathes in a rhythm both ancient and modern, marked by the wildflowers that bloom in bursts of color along highways, their delicate resilience softening the brutal stretch of asphalt that carries the weight of these fine machines.
Texas feels stark in its contrasts, where rolling fields of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush meet the hulking frames of factories, their chimneys etching mechanical sighs into the same sky that cradles the flight of hawks, vultures, bluejays, a myriad of migrating birds. It is a land of juxtaposition—nature and industry locked in an uneasy yet strangely harmonious dance. The land spirits whisper of a quiet, persistent beauty, while the factories pulse with the hum of relentless creation, reminding you that time here is measured not in fleeting moments of magic but in the steady, methodical passage of labor, productivity, and growth.
This duality of Houston—its boundless, untamed landscapes and its concrete fortresses of modernity—creates a space where you feel the weight of time pressing evenly against your skin. It is not fluid or unbounded but precise, shaped by the horizon’s pull and the machinery of progress. Where New Orleans felt like a liminal dream, Houston is a vast, waking reality, its materiality grounding and unyielding, inviting you to feel time not as a fleeting companion but as a patient force stretching infinitely before you.
The transition was more than environmental; it reflected a shift in how I practiced magic and art. In New Orleans, my work often leaned toward performance—a need to be seen and to assert my place within the rhythms of the occult. But in Houston, my creative and magical practices began to mirror Rhea’s mediating force, becoming quieter, more reflexive. I turned inward, weaving together memory, song, and art as a personal ritual—a way of harmonizing the ruptures within my inner world with the vastness of the outer. This shift was not without grief, as it demanded that I let go of an identity I had carefully crafted. Yet, as will learn, Rhea’s mythology reminds us, destruction and creation are cyclical, and in each ending lies the fertile ground for transformation.
Rhea’s mythology resists stasis, revealing creation and destruction as inextricably bound. To navigate these cycles, like Rhea, is to learn how to move through dissonance without being consumed by it. In my own life, this meant embracing the space opened by the rupture, letting the act of creation flow from the very absence it left behind. To understand her role in this more deeply, we can turn to her Orphic Hymn, where she is described with lines like
Kronos’ blessed consort,
you delight in the mountains
and in the horrid shrieks of mortals;
and
You dance to the sound of drums and cymbals,
O frenzy-loving maiden
and
from you come the earth,
and the wide sky above,
and the seas and wind; [1]
Here, she is invoked as “Kronos’ blessed consort,” standing alongside the Titan of Time not as a passive counterpart but as a mediating force that shapes his boundaries into cycles of creation and destruction. The hymn continues: “You delight in the mountains / and in the horrid shrieks of mortals.” Here, Rhea’s duality becomes clear. The mountains, ancient and unmoving, represent stability and endurance, while the mortal shrieks evoke the chaos and rupture of existence. Together, these images embody Rhea’s position as the axis of time’s flow—holding the tension between what endures and what must inevitably break apart.
Further down the hymn will tell us that she dances “to the sound of drums and cymbals,” evoking a dance that is not merely ecstatic but reflexive, a bodily response to the relentless rhythm of time. The drums and cymbals, with their percussive force, mimic the assaults of time—its ruptures, its unyielding drive forward. Rhea’s dance is not an attempt to impose order on these rhythms but a somatic act of navigation. Her movement embodies the instinctive ways the body must respond to time’s violence, finding motion within dissonance to avoid being consumed by it.
Her epithet, “frenzy-loving maiden,” deepens this understanding of her dance as a somatic act of navigation. Frenzy, in this context, is not chaos for its own sake but a heightened state of bodily awareness, a state in which the body instinctively attunes itself to time’s ruptures. Rhea’s dance embodies the tension between destruction and creation, moving with the percussive force of drums and cymbals to meet each rupture with reflexive motion. This rhythm is not harmonious but vital—a continuous negotiation with time that refuses stasis. In her willingness to inhabit this rhythm, Rhea reveals her ontological role as the flow of potential: she lives within time’s violence, allowing its ruptures to unfold as the condition for transformation. Her dance becomes a means of survival, holding the rhythm of destruction and creation together in a motion that refuses to break, ensuring that life continues to emerge from the fractures of time.
Kronos and Rhea together embody the paradox of time: its capacity to destroy and its potential to create. Ontologically, the violence originates with Kronos, the devouring force of time itself. His consuming nature represents the inevitability of boundaries—time as the force that erases, erodes, and ends. The Orphic Hymn calls Rhea his “blessed consort,” yet their relationship is anything but harmonious. While Kronos enacts time’s destructive violence, devouring his own children to forestall his downfall, Rhea mediates and transforms this violence into the conditions for creation. She is not the source of violence but its channel, ensuring that time’s ruptures birth new forms rather than annihilate them entirely.
Rhea’s dance reflects this transformative role, with her movements embodying a reflexive, adaptive response to time’s ruptures. Drums and cymbals echo the unrelenting percussive force of time, and Rhea does not resist this violence but moves within it. Her dance does not impose order on chaos; it holds the ruptures of time, allowing them to unfold without breaking the continuity of existence. Where Kronos’ violence devours, Rhea ensures that life persists within time’s boundaries, transforming destruction into the conditions for creation. Together they embody the paradox of time: its capacity to destroy and its potential to create.
Ontologically, the violence originates with Kronos, the devouring force of time itself. His consuming nature represents the inevitability of boundaries—time as the force that erases, erodes, and ends. Yet to fully grasp the stakes of Rhea’s mediation, we mustmore fully understand this force she seeks to transform: Kronos, the devouring embodiment of time’s violence.
Time as a Devouring Force
To understand what I mean by the violence of time, we must first fully consider Kronos himself—that abstract force which governs existence. Time cannot be seen or touched, yet it exerts an inexorable power, carving the boundaries of reality by erasing what came before. Kronos’ consuming hunger, vividly rendered in myth, embodies this force. His devouring of his children is not an arbitrary act of violence but the very mechanism through which time delineates what is, what was, and what will never be again. Through this erasure, time imposes limits that allow existence to take shape, even as it threatens to consume all within its reach.
In Hesiod’s Theogony, the poet writes:
And Ouranos (Sky) came, bringing on night and longing for love, and he lay about Gaia (Earth) spreading himself full upon her. Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father's members and cast them away to fall behind him. [2]
This moment, where Kronos castrates Ouranos (Sky), is not only a violent act of succession but also the first act of delineation. By severing Sky from Earth, Kronos enacts time’s first boundary, dividing the infinite continuity of primordial existence into discrete realms of being. Time’s role begins here as a force that divides, marking a transition from the boundless to the bounded.
Yet, Kronos’ hunger reveals the peril of this immaterial force. In the Theogony, Hesiod continues:
[His children] Kronos swallowed as each came forth from the womb to his mother's knees with this intent, that no other of the proud sons of Ouranos (Uranus, Heaven) should hold the kingly office amongst the deathless gods ... For he learned from Gaia and starry Ouranos that he was destined to be overcome by his own son, strong though he was, through the contriving of great Zeus. Therefore he kept no blind outlook, but watched and swallowed down his children. [3]
This act of devouring his offspring illustrates time’s capacity not only to delineate but to annihilate. His consuming violence erases the very continuity it seeks to preserve. Time, in its pure immaterial state, does not create—it consumes, defining boundaries by destroying what lies beyond them. Without interruption, Kronos’ hunger ensures that no future can take root, turning his rule into an endless cycle of erasure.
This consuming nature of time is both its power and its peril. Ontologically, Kronos represents the force that clears space for existence by imposing boundaries, yet his unchecked violence threatens to annihilate the very possibility of renewal. Time defines through destruction, and in doing so, it carves existence out of the chaos of potential. Kronos’ rule, then, is not a failure of creation but its very condition: to create a boundary is to destroy continuity, to define is to exclude.
Time, as embodied by Kronos, is an immaterial force that governs all existence through its relentless and unseen delineations. It is not a force that one can grasp or hold, yet its effects are inescapable: time devours, erases, and shapes. Kronos’ role as the personification of time captures this paradox. In myth, his consuming hunger illustrates the abstract yet absolute power of time—its ability to define what exists by eliminating what no longer does. Time does not create; it delineates. Through its erasure, it imposes boundaries, carving the limits that structure reality and give shape to existence.
Transforming Violence
Rhea, however, offers a counterforce, mediating Kronos’ violence and transforming it into continuity. Her actions ground time’s destructive force within the material world, demonstrating how creation arises through rupture. The myth recounts that Rhea gave birth to Zeus under the peak of Mount Thaumasios, where the earth opened to receive her. [4] Here, Gaia—the earth itself—becomes an active participant in creation, offering refuge for the divine and providing a threshold where potential is realized. The earth’s opening is not passive; it signifies how material existence responds to time’s violence, absorbing and transforming it into space for new life. Gaia’s act mirrors the rhythms of the material world, where destruction is never an end but a necessary precondition for creation. In this gesture, the earth embodies an agency that resists total erasure, reshaping the ruptures imposed by time into fertile spaces where life can germinate anew.
This collaboration between Rhea and Gaia reveals a profound entanglement of time and materiality. If Kronos embodies time’s devouring violence, then Rhea and Gaia together demonstrate its transformation within the boundaries of the material realm. Gaia’s opening reflects the fluid, dynamic nature of material existence—ever capable of rupturing and reshaping to make space for creation. In her collaboration with Gaia, Rhea becomes a conduit between material and immaterial forces, allowing the cosmos to withstand Kronos’ hunger while shaping a pathway for succession.Through her, the material world becomes a ceremonial site of becoming, where time’s ruptures are rendered fertile, and the violence of existence is transmuted into the foundation for life.
This interplay between Gaia’s material resilience and Rhea’s mediating presence sets the stage for Zeus’ survival, a moment that disrupts time’s violent linearity and opens the possibility of renewal. This enables the eventual overthrow of Kronos, culminating in the Titanomachy, a cataclysmic war in which the Olympians defeat the Titans and establish their rule. In this moment, time's violence reaches a decisive rupture, as Kronos and the other Titans are cast into Tartaros, their fall marking the end of an era. Yet this act of displacement does not erase the Titans entirely. As the myth is repeatedly recounted, they remain imprisoned, their essence persisting as a latent force within the cosmos. This lingering presence reflects the cyclical nature of existence: even the most violent upheavals leave traces that continue to influence what follows. This enduring presence reflects how even the most destructive ruptures leave echoes that continue to shape the present, intertwining the cyclical and the linear in the fabric of existence.
Building on this, Rhea’s influence extends beyond her immediate collaboration with Gaia, shaping the layered structure of the cosmos itself. Her intervention in the story of Zeus transforms Kronos’ consuming violence not just into continuity but into the very conditions for cosmological succession. In the Theogony, Hesiod recounts how, when Rhea
was about to bear Zeus, the father of gods and men, then she besought her own dear parents, Gaia (Gaea, Earth) and starry Ouranos (Heaven), to devise some plan with her that the birth of her dear child might be concealed, and that retribution might overtake great, crafty Kronos for his own father and also for the children whom he had swallowed down. And they readily heard and obeyed their dear daughter, and told her all that was destined to happen touching Kronos the king and his stout-hearted son. [5]
This pivotal moment shows how Gaia and Rhea’s collaboration is further mediated by Ouranos, revealing a deeper truth about transformation: it is not the result of isolated resistance but of the alignment between material and immaterial forces. Transformation in this context emerges as a delicate balance where each force—material and immaterial—plays an indispensable role. Gaia, embodying the grounding and generative power of the earth, provides the physical refuge for Zeus, creating a tangible space where potential can be preserved and nurtured. Her actions symbolize the responsiveness of material existence, its capacity to adapt and reshape in response to time’s ruptures.
Meanwhile, Ouranos, representing the expansive cosmic order, situates Gaia and Rhea’s actions within the broader framework of the universe, lending a sense of inevitability and design to their efforts. As the embodiment of immaterial structure and cosmic law, Ouranos reminds us that transformation is not a haphazard or arbitrary process; it is guided by forces that transcend the material, weaving time’s violence into the intricate fabric of existence. This alignment between Gaia’s tangible intervention and Ouranos’ abstract oversight highlights how renewal requires both grounded action and a connection to a larger cosmic vision.
Together, these forces reshape time’s ruptures into pathways for renewal, ensuring that Kronos’ consuming hunger gives rise to creation rather than annihilation. Gaia’s act of concealment and Ouranos’ cosmic mediation create a dynamic where destruction, far from being an end, becomes a necessary precondition for continuity and rebirth. Time’s violence, embodied in Kronos’ devouring hunger, is not erased but absorbed and redirected, woven into the cosmos as a generative force.
This interplay underscores a profound ontological truth: transformation is inherently cyclical, requiring destruction to make space for creation. In aligning material and immaterial forces, Gaia, Rhea, and Ouranos collectively transform time’s destructive impulses into a mechanism of renewal, embedding the potential for continuity and succession within the cosmos itself. Through their collaboration, time’s ruptures are no longer threats to existence but catalysts for growth, ensuring that life persists and evolves within the boundaries carved by time. This dynamic reveals how the cosmos is not a static entity but a living interplay of forces, where even the violence of time becomes a creative act, shaping the conditions for existence to unfold.
The Imaginal as a Generative Force
Rhea’s intervention in the story of succession does not merely resist Kronos’ consuming violence; it reimagines the consequences of that violence, transforming it into the foundation for renewal. Kronos swallows each of his children as they are born, severing the continuity of lineage to preserve his singular dominion. This act is more than a performative gesture of physical destruction—it represents the abstraction of “difference”, the mechanism by which time, personified in Kronos, imposes boundaries and shapes existence. Time creates order through erasure, delineating the present by negating the past and foreclosing the future. Imagine a river as it flows: each ripple on its surface marks a distinct moment, separating the water that has already passed downstream from the water yet to come. Yet the river itself is continuous, and the distinctions between its ripples are not inherent but imposed by the act of observation. In this way, time enforces difference, carving “now” out of the fluid continuum of existence, transforming an undivided whole into discrete segments. This act of delineation contains a paradox: it both defines and destroys, separating what is from what was, even as both remain bound within the same flow. By consuming his children, Kronos therefore enforces his own boundaries, ensuring that no rival can emerge to challenge his rule. This act of devouring does not merely preserve the present—it denies the possibility of succession, sacrificing continuity for control.
The abstraction of “difference" is that which imposes separation—to define something by negating its alternatives. Time does this constantly: it separates “what is” from “what was” and “what could be,” carving moments and entities out of the undifferentiated flow of existence. This is a necessary process; without boundaries, there would be no order, no definition, no way to distinguish one thing from another. Yet it is also inherently destructive. By consuming what lies outside its limits, time risks annihilating the potential for renewal. Kronos’ hunger encapsulates this paradox: his force is essential for shaping existence, but unchecked, it threatens to obliterate everything it defines. What is most striking about this process is how time’s violence paradoxically enables form, as its boundaries carve the conditions for existence while simultaneously foreclosing possibilities.
This paradox resonates not only within the mythic cosmos but also within the intimate rhythms of human experience, where the boundaries imposed by time are felt as ruptures in the fabric of life. The separation though difference—the margins between “what is” to “what could be” from “what was”—is not limited to mythic acts of succession; it reverberates in the deeply personal and human experience of grief. For example, last year I lost my most intimate beloved and feltly known lover, and when this occurrence happened, it felt as though time itself had swallowed a part of me. Their absence was not a single event but a continuous delineation, a repeated marking of what no longer was. Each day became a ripple, separating the present moment from the continuity of dreamings that had once defined my life.
Yet, even as the rupture carved through my existence, it bore within it the conditions for transformation. Like Rhea’s concealment of Zeus, I found myself drawn not to resisting the rupture but to reimagining its consequences. Sewing became the inspiration for such a practice—a way of weaving that bridged the absence of a precious piece of my heart with the echo of my lover's lingering, ghostly presence. The day I knew I was in love, they taught me how to use the sewing machine my mother had given me two years before her death. It had sat unused, a relic of intentions left unfulfilled, until my lover’s hands guided mine with tender care and gentle precision.
Seated close, they held me from behind, their arms encircling mine in an intimate embrace as they showed me how to feed the fabric through the machine’s steady hum, pointing out details with quiet attention and honest love. That act of holding has become something I carry with me each time I return to the practice. The motion of sewing—folding, connecting, binding—is imbued with the memory of their embrace, transforming something mechanical into a relational expression. The warmth of their body, the tenderness of their guidance, lingers like an invisible thread, woven into the fabric of every piece I create. Sewing is no longer just an act; it has become a ritual of remembering, a way of preserving the sensation of being held even in my beloved's absence. The rhythm of the machine echoes with their presence, a soft and persistent reminder that even in loss, there is a way to carry forward the trace of love, stitching it into something whole, the heartbeat of the needle creating something new.
Through sewing, the rupture of his absence now has a rhythm. The act of threading and stitching mirrors the recursive nature of grief, where each cycle of reflection reopens the wound even as it gesturs toward healing. This recursion is not linear but layered, much like the mythic cycles of destruction and renewal. Sewing now helps transform grief into a generative force, where each stitch holds not only the pain of what was lost but the possibility of what might emerge.
In this example, it is interesting that, metaphorically speaking, sewing at its core is the act of joining what has been separated. A needle pierces through fabric, pulling thread behind it, creating tension as it binds two edges together. This tension is not static; it is dynamic and continuous, requiring repeated movement—over, under, through—to form a durable seam. Every stitch mirrors the cyclical process of rupture and repair, where the act of mending necessarily revisits the site of the tear. The needle must return to the wound over and over again, not to erase it, but to transform it into something new: a visible scar that holds the fabric together.
As a metaphor for grief, sewing embodies the recursive nature of emotional processing. Grief, like sewing, is not linear; it moves in loops and cycles, revisiting pain as it attempts to reconcile the loss. Each time the thread is pulled taut, the rupture is both acknowledged and mended. The wound does not disappear—its edges remain visible—but it is no longer defined solely by its brokenness. Instead, it becomes a site of transformation, where what was torn apart is reconfigured into something with strength and purpose.
This practice holds itself in conversation with Rhea’s mythic act of concealment, which does not reject the violence of Kronos but reframes it. Just as sewing transforms the tear into a seam that holds tension and possibility, Rhea’s act of hiding Zeus within the earth creates a space where time’s violence is held in suspension. The destruction wrought by Kronos is not denied or undone; instead, it is reoriented, its trajectory altered to allow for the emergence of something new. In both sewing and grief, the act of mending engages directly with the site of rupture, threading together what remains to create a path forward. This rhythmic process, whether with needle and thread or myth and transformation, acknowledges that the act of repair does not erase pain but makes it bearable, creating the conditions for renewal and continuity.
Rhea’s concealment of Zeus is therefore a transformative function within their union, not by means of rejecting Kronos’ force but by reframing it. When she hides Zeus within the earth, she introduces a counterforce to time’s violence—a space where destruction does not mark an end but becomes a threshold for transformation. This act is a refusal to let Kronos’ delineations remain absolute; instead, it suspends them, allowing what was foreclosed to gestate in a liminal space of potential. Within this space, the abstraction of difference remains operative—boundaries are still imposed, distinctions are still defined—but their destructive trajectory is reoriented. What Kronos consumes, Rhea holds in suspension, ensuring that what was foreclosed is not obliterated but reshaped into something new.
The imaginal emerges here as a generative force because concealment, by its very nature, interrupts the finality of destruction. When Rhea hides Zeus, she does not reverse Kronos’ violence, nor does she erase the abstraction of difference that defines time’s rule. Instead, she suspends its consequences, creating a liminal space where what has been consumed can be held, reimagined, and transformed. This act of holding is crucial: it prevents the consumed from being annihilated entirely and instead allows it to exist in a state of potential, a condition where it is neither fully erased nor fully realized. In this suspended state, the imaginal becomes a vessel for possibility, where boundaries soften and the ruptures of time become sites of regeneration.
In this suspended space, transformation becomes a deliberate, almost alchemical act—a process of tension where the rupture is not an ending but a fertile opening. This dynamic reflects my own writing practice, where inner experience and external structures are brought into recursive dialogue. Writing, for me, is not just a tool of expression but a ritualized act of naming, holding, and shaping the affective intensities of my life. In each word, I work to bridge what feels chaotic and elusive inside me within with the tangible structures of language, reason, and philosophy.
This process is not passive—it requires an active willingness to engage both the wound and the thread. Writing becomes a form of suspension, where grief, desire, and transformation are held in a state of becoming. In these moments, I enact what feels like a hieros gamos, a sacred union between pathos and logos, emotion and thought. I allow my writing to move recursively between the ineffable and the structured, creating a dialogue that reshapes my understanding of self and world. Each phrase threads the rupture into a new form, holding the tension of what is raw and unformed while inviting it into clarity.
This recursive weaving mirrors Rhea’s mythic act of concealment by emphasizing the importance of holding rupture in suspension, creating a liminal space where transformation can take root. Concealment, in this context, is not an act of denial or erasure but a deliberate reframing of violence—a refusal to let the rupture remain absolute. Just as Rhea’s concealment of Zeus within the earth creates a threshold for renewal, the act of writing becomes a concealed space where the wound is neither exposed nor ignored but held, nurtured, and worked through.
In holding this tension, the act of writing becomes a ritual of renewal. It does not offer closure or resolution but allows the ruptures of life to remain alive, vibrating with the possibility of becoming. The imaginal, through writing, becomes a space where inner and outer worlds fold into each other, creating the conditions for a kind of ontological creativity—a way of remaking the self in the wake of what has been lost.
In my writing, I willingly revisit the wound, engaging with its pain while containing it within a generative, symbolic framework. This act of containment parallels Rhea’s concealment, where Zeus is hidden within the earth, gestating in a space of potential until the time is right for his emergence. In both my sewing and my writing, concealment serves as a protective mechanism that transforms destruction into a site of possibility, allowing the rupture to become the foundation for creation.
Concealment, then, is not a passive act but an active force, one that transforms the very nature of boundaries. What Kronos imposes as rigid and final, Rhea renders dynamic and fertile. The earth becomes the site of this transformation: a hidden space that mirrors the imaginal itself—a realm where the ruptures of time are not annihilations but openings, thresholds through which creation can flow. The imaginal is generative because it resists the absoluteness of time’s violence, holding what was excluded in a suspended state where it can re-enter the process of becoming.Through Rhea’s act, the rupture is not erased but reframed, becoming a fertile void where new forms can take root. This performance of concealment thereby shows that boundaries, rather than being sites of annihilation, can be reframed as sites of potential, where the force of destruction is turned toward the creation of new forms.
Ghosts, We Hold
Transformation, through this lens, does not negate time’s violence but reveals its latent potential. By mediating time’s ruptures, Rhea ensures that the differences imposed by Kronos—the divisions that define existence—are not simply destructive but also productive. Her concealment reveals a profound ontological truth: that creation arises not in the absence of destruction but within it, through the reconfiguration of what has been consumed. The imaginal, as the space of this reconfiguration, becomes the axis around which destruction and renewal revolve. Through Rhea’s mediation, the hidden, the silenced, and the consumed are given the conditions to return, not as they were, but as something transformed, something new. This is not an act of erasure but one of radical care: a holding that allows the ruptures of time to hum with the potential for life.
In this, I see my own story, stitched into her myth. The grief of leaving New Orleans, of losing a lover, of the various other betrayals that have shattered my sense of trust and community—they are wounds that time does not heal but deepens. The sharpness of absence doesn’t fade but folds inward, widening the hollow spaces in the body, asking me again and again to sit with what has been torn apart. This sitting is a slow, aching ritual: each return to the wound is a return to myself, a reckoning with what I’ve lost and what I might yet become.
And so, I sew. Each time the needle pierces the fabric, it mimics the ache of grief—a necessary wound that threads the past and present into something new. The tension of the thread, the rhythm of the machine, the folding and connecting of edges—it is as though I am teaching myself how to hold my own fractures. My lover’s hands guided mine the first time I pressed the sewing machine’s peddle, their warmth still lingering and holding inspiration in every stitch I make. In the act of sewing, I feel their absence not as emptiness but as presence, as an echo that insists on being carried forward. This is not closure, but continuity: the scar becomes the seam that binds the fabric of my life, making it whole enough to hold.
Perhaps this is what it means to live within the felt embodiment of time’s embrace: to dance, as Rhea does, not despite the chaos but because of it. To trust that within every fracture there is a pulse, a rhythm waiting to be heard. This is the paradox of existence: that our wholeness depends on our ability to be broken. Each rupture is an opening, a liminal space where the boundaries of who we are dissolve and the imaginal whispers of who we might become start to take shape.
As I sit at the edge of what was and my own limitless havability of what still could be, I am learning to trust this fertile darkness—the imaginal space where grief becomes generative, where the fragments of a life can be threaded into patterns I have not yet dreamed. I cannot see what lies ahead, but I can feel the rhythm of becoming, humming softly beneath the chaos. And in that rhythm, I find the courage to continue weaving: not to erase the past, but to hold it tenderly, to transform it, to let it live again. To let it breathe, and breathe, and breathe, and breathe….
[1] Orphic Hymns, trans Athanassakis and Wolkow, 13
[2] https://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanKronos.html
[3] https://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanKronos.html
[4] https://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanisRhea.html
[5] https://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanisRhea.html
