Spring, in Greek mythology, is when Persephone was granted six months of the year leave by Zeus from the Underworld to be with her mother Demeter. When Demeter is reunited with her daughter she offers her gifts of warmth and bounty once again to the earth and Spring arrives. Never mind that Persephone was initially kidnapped by Hades as a young maiden, tricked into eating pomegranate seeds to believe she liked her situation, and is only given permission to leave by Zeus (that’s another newsletter), but this time of Persephone’s return to the light after the long dark is marked as a season of renewal and return.

Persephone’s story is remarkable. She is a beloved maiden full of life and hope who is swallowed into the Underworld and tricked into believing it is her home by Hades. Persephone has no real power over her life. Her life’s meaning is defined by what she means to others and is the excuse for much suffering.

How would a young woman find sovereignty in such a position?

I think Persephone is a Queen of Trembling Emergence.

To traverse between the dark and light worlds each year must have instilled a great power within her that she had to apprentice herself to learn. I think of how she may have prepared for the journeys. What did she do before seeing her mother and feeling her love and the warm sun again? What rituals may she have adopted to say farewell to the sweet fragrance of flowers and the dancing light? How did she return to a realm of quiet dark and shadows, forced to be a Queen amongst decay and death?

What did she do in this in-between? When Persephone returns she is changed and the world and people she returns to are not the same anymore either.

How did Persephone find herself? What or who did she orient herself to? 

The preparation for the transition and the in-between places are worth considering as we here in the Northern Hemisphere ready ourselves for longer daylight, warmer temperatures and new blooms. It is a hopeful and fragile time. Spring is a lesson in paying attention, sensing the right conditions, resting and slow release energy, staying with the discomfort, turning towards possibility while letting go of what no longer serves the new.

What or who invites us to change? Makes us tremble? Makes it all worth it? 

Persephone represents the chance to find agency in the emergence. She reminds us that only by descending into the underworld of self can we renew life.

~Criss