There’s a bit of a warrior queen in me that wants to protect my creative space. If I could make a moat of distance between me and the world I would do it. Barricading myself into a turret room and staying there for as long as it took or until I was thoroughly weary of it.
I also know that no sooner had I closed the door, than I would weep for the loss of my life and I would tear my hair out for loneliness. Because I understand the curse of having all the time in the world and no excuses left to fall back on. But for now I rest in this confusion, leave the door ajar and continue to juggle.
I’ve been reading an ancient myth about Demeter and Persephone. Persephone must taste first the sweet and then the bitter juice of the pomegranate seeds which she could not resist eating in the wintry underworld. The up and down side of every decision. Her deal with Hades was that she would always return to his dark place for a third of each year. For the rest of the time she would be liberated and reunited with her beautiful mother nature, Demeter.
These seeds and the ransoms women pay are on my mind.
Which deal must I make now? Either the one to close the door or the one to return to the light? There is always some price and even though I know that winter always returns, I want to deny it. So how do I get the balance right?
By coincidence (or not) I met a writer on the road and I told her the story. Do you know what she said? “But it’s only for one third of the year that Persephone had to endure the underworld. Is that not a pretty good deal?”
And I laughed, because yes, our lives are a big improvement on enslavement or going down the mines, and this is the same argument I use myself, all the time. I am always grateful. But if women’s own creative soul had never been denied to us, if patriarchy had never dominated the world, if we were permitted to dream, would we be satisfied with any bargain that did not offer us FULL power?
Studying this myth is a rich source for delving into these questions. It is challenging the limitations that always draw me back into the service of others and away from a personal path…….
If you are interested you can read more here Myth of Persephone
Love these sentiments. My blog is named Pomegranate&Seeds for this reason! When I first started it, I had grand ideas of helping us as women of trying to reclaim this Greek Myth as our own. I even had a page devoted to it -I know realize, if I want to do this (eventually) I have to build up readership AND trust. So I lie in wait & have been thinking about republishing the page as a post, but here is what I wrote, however it is definite need of editing and cleaning it and nourishing but I want to share it with you….perhaps future endeavor? who knows….xo:
"Long before the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans threw forth their Pantheon of Gods & Goddess's, there was a small religious sect that worshipped Persephone and her Mother, Demeter. Their tales are much the same of the later ones interpreted by the Greeks and Romans, but the core of her mythos is a powerful one. In the small amount of research I have done, and in the tales I read of her from my childhood, I remember that when Hades, the brother of Zeus and Lord of the Underworld, gazed upon Persephone he had to have her as his own. Knowing that Demeter would never consent to their union, he took advantage of Persephone as she was gathering flowers in a field while her mother Demeter was away. Bursting forth from a small crevice in the Earth, Hades stormed the field and took Persephone for his own, taking her down into the Underworld, to be his bride. Demeter was distraught when she could not find her child and began to look through all the world for her. I remember reading that the grief of Demeter was so deep and vast that that the crops and fields she influenced began to die and whither away. It was a time of darkness and fear for mortals as they began to starve. Zeus finally took pity on the humans and influenced (demanded) his brother Hades to return Persephone to her mother. However, before Hades did this, he tricked Persephone into eating a kernel of a Pomegranate, of which she ate 4 Seeds. If you know the story, you will recall as well that this was her curse and Demeter's bane. Because she ate of the Underworld, Persephone was forced to return there for four months, representing the 4 seeds she ate, every year. During this time, it would be "winter" or the dry season for the humans in Greece.
Let us rewrite this, let us rewrite this myth. I want to reclaim Persephone. I want to re-write her story. I want her story to become our story, the story of us as women. The story of Us and how we relate to food in our life. I want Persephone to go down to the Underworld, eat from the Pomegranate and laugh at Hades as she sets her own self free. A Persephone reclaimed, remade, reborn. Persephone, a goddess, who could walk amongst the dead and be reborn into the world. A remade Persephone who represents the freedom to BE, and to be Unbound by the laws of culture. Unbound by what is seen as right or wrong for a woman to eat or not to eat. Unbound by what is seen as right or wrong for a woman to do or not do. I don't want us, as women, as humans, to have to set apart our hunger, our desire as unnatural, as punishable. I want us to be able to dine with Hades, to go down to the darkest part of ourselves and be able to walk back out ON OUR own terms and in our own way. That is what I mean by reclaiming Persephone. I want us to reclaim her. Reclaim this goddess and harness her as a symbol of our own hungers and desires and dreams. That we do not have to walk in the desert, in the darkness, forever, alone. We instead, walk out and eat as we desire and love ourself as we need and parent ourselves so that we, so that we may leave behind a legacy for our own daughters. A legacy of strength and power and a hunger that is not to be feared or punished."
Powerful!! Yes you came to mind believe it or not and I wondered about the name of your blog. It's great how you rewrote the plot too. Yes we must continue this conversation!!! X
very much so! I think it is not just about food -but about a hunger deeper than food, our spiritual hunger: our hunger deep with in us to be MORE. To be more creative, help find our space and our place in this world, that is of this world and outside of it at the same time. so yes lets continue this conversation! xxoo
O yes for me it's the creative challenges more than anything! Would talk for hours but am on the phone, in bed and should be asleep already. On the road at the crack of dawn!! To be continued. X
safest of travels! xo
If our personal path was ALSO in the service of others….would there be a conflict? Is it actually either/or?
Here I am again, Catherine, quoting from my book! As always, I love your blog post. But the Greek version of the Persephone and Demeter myth has always irritated me, because it's a development which diminishes an earlier concept.
Where the Greeks imagined the mother/daughter story, other cultures retained the more complex/profound idea which appears in the older myth of the Good Goodess. In The House on an Irish Hillside I say " … the people (of Corca Dhuibhne) imagined Danú as a goddess of three aspects; she was the maiden, the mother and the crone, images of the three stages of fertility. The maiden represented springtime. The mother was ripeness and harvest. And the crone was an image of withering, before the darkness of winter and the patient wait for the return of light in spring … so, for the ancient Celts, Danú encompassed and personified both memory and potential." And that story, in which the Good Goddess contains all the elements of what it means to be female, represents the very essence of balance. Darkness and light are interdependent, not mutually exclusive; they belong to an inevitable cycle that demonstrates the powerful, necessary, constant and creative presence of death within life.
By the time Danú was worshiped in Ireland, her marriage as Earth Mother to Lugh, the Celtic Sky Father, seems to have become part of our ancestors' vision of a balanced universe. But the myth of the Good Goddess remained a pre-patriarchal image of the female condition, which not only validated our creativity as individuals but imagines us as the essence of creativity itself. It may even have arisen at a time when lack of balance was weighted in the opposite direction, and men were perceived to have little or no spiritual dimension or creative purpose … but that's a whole other can of worms. The point I'm trying to make here is that in Ireland the Goddess always retained her triple aspect, whereas in Greek mythology her attributes were fragmented, diminishing her power. So, where that particular myth's concerned I'm happy to think globally and source locally.
oh i like this…"think globally and source locally." Leave it to the Irish to do everything as it should be done. what is the name of your book? Did you read my desire to re-write the myth that I left in the comment section above? just curious. I thnk we may onto something here ladies. xo
Brilliant Felicity! Yes I think the Greek version starts the whole cycle of splitting which has conditioned so many women to bargain for their freedom. From then on through Christianity and western culture women have been diminished by this view. The more we can reclaim the earlier version the better!! It also exists in many other "primitive" cultures where women were also seen with the triple aspect you describe, which I LOVE!! Many thanks……again…..
What a beautiful post – your words are just so…lovely.
Nina x
Ah thanks:~))
I love my visits with you as I learn so much. My education in Greek myths is lacking but again I was educated in the US. I tend to think along wanting full power. I am tired of settling for one third in darkness. I believe it is time to shed the enslavement. Too much? Well I think I have earned my strong opinion and will not be dominated. I agree we reclaim Persephone.
Fighting words Donna!! Go for it I think you've earned it too:~)))
Very very nice… Light and colors.