Everywhere we look, the theme appears: wisdom, at least in the West, is obtained through transgression and paid for in suffering. The journey into maturity, whether seen in Odysseus or Aeneas or the joined figures of Persephone and Demeter, must pass through the underworld realms of uncertainty, fear, and death, before the green and peaceful life the hero longs for can be restored-and both world and self are irrevocably changed by that immersion. Deception, too, has its role in each of these stories. Craftiness and trickery are a part of the test-we are tricked into falling, and tricked into wisdom. It is worth pausing to note the word, craftiness: the beauty of art-its craft-is a conjury, a sleight of hand enacted against dullness, inattention, ignorance, and the inner and outer faces of death.

-The Nine Gates- Jane Hirshfield