Edited to add: MistressoftheMoon sums up way better than I ever could how to use the information in this post to help you in your own journey:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *MistressoftheMoon wrote:Note: I want to state to anyone who reads this, that this is how I perceive my journey in accordance to the myth surrounding Persephone's abduction. I encourage you to go beyond the stories of myths (if possible), and to try to relate to them on a personal (psychological) level.
This is the tale that everyone knows. Persephone, the beautiful daughter of Demeter, is gathering flowers in the meadows, when a hole opens up in the earth and Hades seizes her and kidnaps her to be his bride in the Underworld. Demeter, Goddess of the Grain, is distraught upon finding out her daughter is missing, and no one knows what happened to her. In her rage and grief, Demeter wanders the earth searching for Persephone, and neglects the earth so that nothing grows. As time went on, the people of the world were starving and dying, and the gods could no longer ignore their cries. Zeus, King of the Gods, orders Hades to return Persephone. Demeter’s joy, however, is quickly dimmed when she realizes that clever Hades has tricked Persephone into eating six seeds of a pomegranate during her time in the Underworld. As a result, she is doomed to return to the Underworld six months out of every year to be his queen, while the rest of the time she spends with her mother. When Persephone is gone for six months out of the year, her mother grieves and nothing grows; when she and Demeter are reunited, the world bursts into bloom again, thus giving us the four seasons as we know it.
I want to share a bit about what I know about Persephone, a goddess with whom I connect strongly*. I never thought that I would, because (to be completely candid), I thought her story was kind of boring (sorry, Persephone!). She isn’t even the main character in her own myth. Though the story of how the seasons came to be revolves around her abduction, we mostly see it through the eyes of her mother as she grieves and wanders the earth (and sometimes sets babies on fire). I’m being flippant, but we know much more about what she does when she searches for Persephone than we do about Persephone’s time in the Underworld.
However, I started connecting with Persephone when I learned that she is often considered the patron deity for abuse victims, rape victims, people who suffer from depression, etc. We all go through what I call a “Persephone phase” when we suffer from a loss of power, or go through a dark time, because she has suffered through something similar. She is a dark goddess of a different sort, one who intimately understands what it’s like to suffer pain in a relationship, to be smothered, to be robbed of her innocence, to have her freedom taken away from her, to be powerless in a situation -- she represents the kind of compassion that can only come from experience with the same. She is sometimes referred to as a Vulnerable Goddess or an Injured Goddess [1].
The traditional tale of Persephone is that of abandonment and suffering. Her cries of help went largely unnoticed, and the few witnesses (some versions say Hecate was the only witness, others Helios, God of the Sun) said nothing. When we go through a Persephone phase (whether that’s abuse, sexual assault, depression, grief, trauma, painful breakup, etc.), we too often suffer in silence, because others would prefer to turn a blind eye to suffering than to acknowledge it. In this way, Persephone and those of us experiencing something similar are pushed to the edges of society:
She acts out those “unacceptable” aspects in her environment, which others will not acknowledge--therefore, she activates that which others perceived as dangerous--and this becomes her personal problem. [1]
Journeying to the Underworld
Some people might be somewhat more inclined to embody Persephone more than others, but the fact of the matter is that all of us, at some point in our lives, have a Persephone phase thrust upon us (probably more than once, and usually not of our own choosing). During those dark times, I consider an Underworld Journey to be of paramount importance**. Although it is usually not a pleasant journey, sometimes I find that the fastest way out of a Persephone phase … is down. It may be tempting to deny it, to push the need for the Underworld Journey away and to try to live in the light. But you can’t deny it forever. Our lives are like the moon; sometimes, we go through a dark time and rather than try to postpone it, we need to honor the new moon and the energy it brings into our times. In my opinion, it’s like the difference between getting pushed into the pool and diving into it -- if it needs to get done, it’s better to do it intentionally than let it happen catch you unawares.
What I mean by an Underworld Journey is a really, deep, honest exploration into the self. Historically and mythologically, the Underworld has been associated with many things, including death, emotions, vulnerability, the id, and the unconscious. How we wind up actually doing the Underworld Journey in our day to day lives is quite varied -- I’ve heard of everything from shamanic trance, writing/creating art, journaling, guided meditation, rituals, connecting to Persephone as a deity, or just a lot of quality introspection (the last one’s my favorite). I will share some of these techniques below. Regardless, the Journey to the Underworld is something we will likely be revisiting again and again in our lives. If we can learn to do it productively, to honor this stage in our life instead of ignoring it, we’ll be better off.
The Best and the Worst of Persephone
Sometimes when our lives fall into archetypal patterns, we find ourselves reenacting the myths of the archetypes. Persephone and Hecate explains:
When we find the need to act out Persephone’s myth for whatever reason, we have the potential to act out the very best in Persephone, and the very worst in Persephone. Often, if we resist the Underworld Journey and have to be dragged kicking and screaming into it (figuratively, I hope), we may very well lose our power to control the outcome of the Underworld Journey (remember, in Greek mythology, it is very easy for mortals to get lost in the Underworld and not come back out alive! The Underworld is a tricky place). In doing so, we begin to manifest the worst in Persephone, which can be either:When we resist (or when we, as their vessels, are so warped by our childhood traumas that they get frustrated) they will force themselves through us, like a swollen, raging river being forced through a blocked canal. When this happens not only is their manifestation more literal, it’s more compulsive. It’s also more unconscious; people living out compulsive archetypal myths can’t really understand or even see what it is that they’re doing, and they certainly can’t control themselves. And when we try to resist the gods in order to ease our suffering... or because someone tells us that what we’re doing is wrong... then they'll push through even harder ... Such "acting out" is the result of abuse, whether because our true selves were never validated, or from literal physical and emotional abuse. In abuse our archetypes become rigid and extreme, and we only express their very worst traits.[2]
At her worst, she is prone to falling into madness, never able to escape her circumstances (or keeps attracting the same circumstances over and over). The Goddess Within describes her as the “eternal sacrificial victim”, who can never own her power [3].the archetypal victim - whereby she feels powerless in the midst of her circumstances - or long-sufferer/martyr - “surviving” on sympathy of others -- and, the flip side -- Hecate - the witch & killer - the one who ignored Persephone’s cries -- unconscious, repressed rage which is projected onto others [1]
At her best, Persephone is wiser from her journey to the Underworld. She has become compassionate and has great insight and knowledge of matters of life and death; she can be a healer and a guide. The mature Persephone is “possessive, creative, spiritual, psychic, artistic, unorthodox, deeply personal” [4] In the mundane world, she can excel in the service-oriented professions such as therapist, social worker, teacher, doctor, nurse, psychologist, etc. Persephone also has great psychic and mediumistic abilities; she is uniquely qualified to be a healer of the spirit, a diviner, a wise woman, a sage.
So what is Persephone’s task? It is “to unite the dark and the light sides of the goddess in herself … to return to the Mother [not as] a maiden, but [as] a mature goddess, who now knows sexuality, death, and separation” [3], to relinquish her innocence and her old self to become the Queen of the Underworld. When we embody Persephone, this is our task as well.
Embodying Persephone
I am sure everyone’s experience with the Underworld is different. But in my work with the Persephone archetype, I perceive the Underworld Journey to be fourfold:
1. Braving the Descent
I think the first step is to acknowledge the need to do the Underworld Journey in the first place. We go through a dark time, and we willingly go down. We acknowledge our tumultuous emotions and rather than push them away, we dive into them. Along the way, we find ourselves stripped of everything we hold dear to get to ourselves at our core. You may recognize this from a different tale, the Descent of the Goddess or the Descent of Innana (I particularly enjoyed the guided meditation, “Descend and Return with Inanna” by Mevlannen Beshderen in Starhawk’s The Pagan Book of Living and Dying). I’ll note that it’s still possible to complete an Underworld Journey even if you didn’t go into it intentionally and willingly, so long as you become intentional while you’re there. I would compare it to lucid dreaming - you may not have been able to control what happened before you became lucid, but once you do, you can influence the rest of the dream to have a more positive outcome.
2. Death
Like the Tarot card, Death in our Underworld Journeys doesn’t mean literal, physical death, but the shedding of our identities so that we can be born anew. In Persephone’s myth, she marries Hades, who is Death itself; this marriage “is a figurative death, required by the greater wisdom of the psyche, a sacrifice that is also, as we have seen, an initiation” [3].
3. Returning to the Land of the Living
I think we return from the Underworld in different ways. Some of us climb and claw our way out; some of us get rescued, some of us just ease out of the Persephone phase quite readily once they have gained the knowledge they need. Sometimes it’s taking the power back into our hands and knowing that we have all we need to walk out of the Underworld with our heads held high.
4. Healing the Wound
Persephone’s final task is to bring her newfound wisdom into herself. In my imagination of the original myth, I think Persephone must have stood blinking in the sunlight, feeling like a stranger in the green and growing upper world; it must have taken her at least a little while to recover from her abduction. She is never the same again; she can never be the innocent maiden, not after what she has seen and experienced. But in return she is wise beyond her years, “a mediatrix between life and death” with great power that no one can take from her [3].
I would be remiss if I did not mention the Eleusinian Mysteries when discussing Persephone. In Ancient Greece, the town of Eleusis was famous for their annual ritual honoring Persephone and Demeter. We have very little archaeological evidence of what exactly happened within the ritual, since initiates were sworn to a sacred vow of secrecy that they kept faithfully. But it was well-known that after the ritual, initiates were said never to fear death again so long as they lived. Undoubtedly the ritual was some kind of Underworld Journey, the exact nature of which is unknown.
Honoring Persephone
What are some ways that you can honor Persephone in your life? Here is my small list of suggestions***, which is by no means complete. Please feel free to chime in after this post.
- I have talked extensively about Shadow Work, which is one way to approach the Underworld Journey.
- Working with Persephone as deity and asking her for guidance (I will leave this to the theists on the forum)
- Learning more about other Underworld Journeys (the myth of Inanna, the Descent of the Goddess, etc.)
- Guided meditation (I will recommend again the guided meditation, “Descend and Return with Inanna” by Mevlannen Beshderen in Starhawk’s The Pagan Book of Living and Dying)
- Divination: Literata created a fascinating tarot spread based on the Eleusinian mysteries that I would like to try soon!**** [5] Persephone and Hecate also discusses how Persephone’s energy is particularly strong in the Page of Cups, the Star, and the Death (surprise!) tarot cards.
- Shamanic journeying (again, I will leave this to the experienced shamans rather than try to describe it myself)
Here is another version of the tale, the one I like best. Persephone and Demeter live happily above ground. But one day, as she is picking flowers, she bends close to the earth. “Mother, do you hear that?” she says. “I can hear voices beneath the earth.” “Those are the cries of the lost souls in the Underworld, daughter; they are trapped with no one to guide them, and so they cannot be at peace,” Demeter tells her. Persephone declares that she must go and help them. Her mother protests that she is too young and inexperienced for such a momentous task, but Persephone, with all the daring and adventurousness of youth, descends into the Underworld. Tirelessly, she helps the souls of the deceased to cross into the Underworld and find peace. Her mother, meanwhile, wanders the earth in desolation, and nothing can grow. After some time, Persephone returns to the surface to her mother, and in their joy in reuniting, the world bursts into flowers again. However, Persephone is no longer the innocent and naive maiden she once was; she is now truly the Queen of the Underworld. Every six months of the year, she will spend in the Underworld guiding lost souls, and the rest of the year she spends with her mother so that life will be restored. In this way, she is mistress of the cycle of death and rebirth, both in this life and hereafter.
Sources
[1] Goddess Archetype Persephone
[2] How Archetypes can Heal Us
[3] The Goddess Within, by Jennifer Barker Woolger and Roger J. Woolger
[4] Gods and Goddesses in Everyone
[5] Kore and the Eleusinian Mysteries
Further Reading
Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women’s Lives, by Jean Shinoda
Pagan Book of Living and Dying, by Starhawk and M. Macha Nightmare
Persephone and Hecate - this blog has some pretty thorough explanations of many archetypes, including Persephone.
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*I want to clarify that I still am not a hard polytheist, and I am primarily working with Persephone as a Goddess archetype.
**I don’t actually have any experience with shamanic journeying (I am only talking about it in a metaphorical/archetypal sense); if anyone else does, please feel free to chime in!
***This list is NOT a substitute for professional help from mental health professionals; this is intended to serve as a complement. I’ll also put in a special plug for the Domestic Violence Hotline and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. Please do not underestimate the importance of non-magical resources when you are going through your Underworld Journey.
****If you are interested in getting a reading using this particular spread, PM me -- I would be very interested in helping out!
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Wow … this post really got away from me! Thanks for reading : ) I hope you enjoyed this post; I would be happy to answer questions and hear your thoughts on this subject.
Anything to help others with their personal journeys.
