Springtime & the Re-Emergence of Persephone
Springtime represents many things.
It represents the full return of the light, the planting of and tending to the seeds, and the cultivation of hope.
It also represents the homecoming of Persephone and her re-emergence from the darkness of the Underworld.
Persephone is one of my favorite archetypes to work with, because she is present in so many women and her energy is far stronger than she’s given credit for.
While I go deeper into her story and her function as an archetype in my free Myth of Persephone & Women’s Mental Health Masterclass, today we’re going to focus specifically on her return from the Underworld and how we can use this version of Persephone to help navigate our own re-emergence from the dark, challenging times of our lives.
But first, a little about Persephone…
Persephone is the daughter of the Greek Goddess Demeter.
She was a beautiful young girl who lived a relatively normal and carefree life and spent much of her life in nature (her mother is the Goddess of the Grain after all).
However, her beauty caught the eye of Hades, the God of the Underworld and one day while she was gazing at some flowers in a field, he abducted her without a trace.
Demeter frantically scoured the earth for her daughter, only to be left disappointed.
After quite the quest, she finally learns that Hades abducted her daughter and is essentially told that she should be proud to have such a high-profile son-in-law and to move on.
In her grief and fury, Demeter stops tending to the crops and they begin to dry up and die, signifying the beginning of Fall and Winter.
Zeus, the King of the Gods, becomes concerned that all the mortals will die and arranges for Persephone to be released so that her mother can start to function again.
However, before she leaves the Underworld she eats a pomegranate seed, not knowing this will mean returning to Hades for the half the year for the rest of eternity.
When Persephone emerges from the Underworld, Demeter is relieved to have her daughter home, the crops grow again, and Spring has arrived.
Persephone as an Archetype
According to Jean Shinoda Bolen, women who have Persephone as part of their archetypal structure can have her present in one of three ways:
As either the Kore (Maiden) or the Dark Queen
As a woman who has grown from the Maiden into the Dark Queen
Or she might have both energies present in her throughout her life
Psychologically, it is extremely healthy for us to be in Maiden energy during our childhoods and teenage years.
We’re not meant to be independent, self-sufficient, and wise as children and teens. Those are things we learn and earn.
As an adult though, living out Maiden energy can lead to dependence, naïveté, entitlement, and in its more destructive forms, hopelessness, helplessness, and victimhood.
This is where we start to see a lot of mental illness come to the surface in the form of personality disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance use, etc.
On the other hand, the Dark Queen is a woman who has walked through the fire and come out the other side.
Dark here doesn’t mean bad or evil, it means experienced, learned, wise. The kind of wisdom you can only get from going through something so difficult that you had to claw your way back to the world of the living.
The following lessons are for the women who, like Persephone, are returning from an inner winter, a trauma, a challenge, an upheaval, or a transition.
Let these be a balm for your soul as you pick up the pieces and remember your power…
Lesson #1: The Woman Who Left Isn’t the Same One Who is Coming Home
One of the most psychologically damaging effects of the modern era is the lack of focus on rites of passage and initiations.
When you study ancient cultures and civilizations from the around the world, you see a pattern emerge of rites, ceremonies, and traditions that mark the passage from one season of life (or one archetype) into the next.
There were rites that focused on birth, the transition from childhood to adulthood, the initiation of becoming a parent, spiritual initiations, etc.
Ancient cultures knew and understood the importance of signifying these transitions, these journeys.
They saw challenges, traumas, and dark nights of the soul as initiations, rites of passage, and/or symbolic moments that needed to be treated with reverence, respect, and a great deal of care.
When a woman has gone through a dark night of the soul, one of the most important things for her (and those around her) to recognize is that the woman who left is not the same one who is coming home.
The act of descending into the Underworld necessarily takes something from us. It changes us. It causes us to see life in new ways.
The process of fighting, clawing, and scraping our way through the Underworld and back up to the sunlight causes an irreversible transformation in the psyche of a woman.
It is an initiation, a rite of passage, an alchemical change that signals to her You are now someone new, even if you didn’t ask for it.
And this means that life afterwards isn’t going to be the same as it was before.
What worked for you then likely won’t work for you now.
The way you used to live, the things/people/achievements/measurements you used to worship, the people you used to surround yourself with may all need to change.
The things you prioritized must be re-evaluated in order to support this new iteration of yourself.
Grieve the woman you once were, because she is gone and she’s not coming home.
Remember her, love her, but don’t worship the ashes.
You might not understand who it is you’re becoming just yet, but she can hold this if you’ll let her.
This is what Persephone teaches us in her emergence.
Gone is her naivete, her innocence, her ability to be carefree. She understands the dangers that she once took for granted.
But Persephone hasn’t lost herself; she’s just become someone new. She’s become a woman, a Queen, a stronger, wiser version of herself.
She becomes a guide and a savior to many Greek Heroes, a comforting presence, a woman who isn’t afraid of the dark.
Lesson #2: There is Medicine in the Challenge
The deepest, darkest, most challenging hours of our lives usually take something away and reveal something in turn.
Sometimes, the experience is so painful that it takes years, decades, even a lifetime to understand and come to terms with, and even then, some women never do.
As a therapist, I worked in every level of psychiatric care and I’ve walked with many of those women.
Women who have been through the ringer, women who experienced horrific and unspeakable tragedies, and those who have every right to call themselves a victim and wonder why life has been so cruel.
Some of those women gave up. They allowed the darkness to consume them and they lived their lives as wounded, traumatized maidens unable to care for themselves, their children, or show up in their careers.
But not all of them.
Some had trauma histories that still haunt my dreams, but they still believed in hope, in love, and in moving forward.
The difference between these two groups was almost unequivocally that the latter had some kind of spiritual practice or religious affiliation to anchor into.
It didn’t matter which one it was…what mattered is that they all believed in something more for both themselves and the world.
And it makes sense. Because without a system to make sense of the senseless, we are left without hope and hopelessness is poison to the soul.
Sometimes, certain events are so devastating and soul crushing that we remain angry and despondent for a long period of time. Everyone’s grief process is different.
But no matter what you’ve been through, we all have the same choice when presented with the darkness:
Rise from the ashes or let them consume you.
There is no third option here.
We rise or we become victims. We heal or we stay broken.
We always have a choice in how we see ourselves after a difficult or traumatic event. We decide the meaning, even when it’s hard and painful.
You have the choice to see yourself as stronger because you were forged in the fire or broken as a result of it.
Lesson #3: Don’t Expect Them to Understand What You’ve Been Through
Persephone’s descent into the Underworld caused her to experience many things that those in the mortal realm would never understand.
Because they were forbidden to enter the Underworld until death, both mortals and gods literally couldn’t have an appreciation for what Persephone had endured.
The challenging, dark times of our lives can often feel like this, like trying to describe a terrain to someone who has never visited those lands.
And the truth is that most people won’t get it.
Most people won’t ever fully grasp the depth of the pain you’ve been through, the strength it took for you to rise, or the significance of your homecoming.
Don’t allow this to diminish the experience of your strength.
Don’t be attached to people’s sympathy.
Don’t become dependent on their approval, validation, or recognition.
Don’t try to explain or justify yourself.
Don’t try to force anyone to understand who you are, what you’ve been through, or what you’ve become.
As Persephone moves from the Maiden Archetype into the Queen, she starts to grasp all of these lessons.
She knows that who she is now is not who she once was.
She knows that she can grow from and through the trauma and that what she’s been through doesn’t define her.
And most importantly, she starts to embody the confidence of a woman who knows who she is regardless of what the world thinks.
Hail Persephone, Goddess of the Underworld, reminder of the power we hold within.
If you feel like something has been awakened inside of you and you are ready to explore the Goddess Archetypes that live within you, learn more about the Archetypal Activation Session and how it can help you catalyze deeper healing, joy, and meaning in your life…