Persephone, the queen of the underworld, appears with other names and faces in cultures around the globe. The ancient Greek version of her is not more significant than the others, except for that it's the one I read repeatedly as a child. Embedded within the rich symbolism of her descent: the transformation from maiden to queen, innocence to wisdom, the cycle of seasons, exploration of the depths with allies as tether to the sunny fields above. Kora is another name for the maiden Persephone, which has correlation to the womb.

In Ancient Greece khora is an architectural term which also seems to have womb like connotations. It refers to a territory outside the city proper. Later it evolves into the philosophical idea of a receptacle, a space or formless interval between which forms are received from the intelligible realm, and then shaped into the transitory forms of the sensible realm. You see the womb correlation? It goes on to have significance in architectural theory as a radical otherness that provides a place for being, Khora rests between realms through which everything passes but nothing remains. Could Khora be the etymological root to corridor, the journeyed space between a departure and a destination?

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And then there's the d-o-r , d'or - "of gold", a nod to the alchemical process of turning lead into gold, and to the Japanese art and philosophy of Kintsugi (golden joinery) .