Persephone & Her Medicine of Winter

The Kore, the Queen, Our Lady of the Underworld…

A woman with many names and an identity more complex than what appears on the surface.

If you haven’t yet become acquainted with her, I strongly suggest watching The Myth of Persephone & Women’s Mental Health Masterclass before diving into this post. This will give you a better understanding of her mythology and how she functions as a Goddess and archetype.

Persephone is a figure that many women will be able to relate to, even if they don’t know it.

Her abduction into the Underworld and subsequent command to return following her consumption of the pomegranate seeds provides us with such deep medicine during Winter, if only we are willing to look.

One of the things I find myself most frustrated by is how as a culture we have lost the wisdom of the old ways and then we pathologize the symptoms of this loss.

We are so quick and so eager to turn everything into a disorder, to give it a name and a therapy and a pill and to encourage people to consider themselves broken and sick any time life is hard or they don’t feel good.

Hot take? Perhaps. But I stand by it.

In Ancient Times, it was understood and accepted that our lives go in seasons.

Ancient people did not push against Winter; they worked with it.

This was in part a survival mechanism (if you were depressed, lethargic, and not able to take necessary action, you simply wouldn’t survive winter) and in part because the feminine principle was still understood.

The masculine way of thinking, of linear trajectories, of straight lines toward success was not the predominant way of thinking. There was still a sense of respect and reverence for feminine energy and how it guides us to live our lives.

As Winter represents the time when Persephone was in the Underworld, we have two choices:

• Let Winter become something to fear that takes over our bodies, minds, and spirits

• Or accept that this a phase of life with deep medicine if we’re willing to engage with it

Winter has many lessons, but Persephone’s descent provides some of the deepest. Are you ready for it?

Persephone’s time in the Underworld asks us to do some of the deepest shadow work we are called to do.

She asks us to turn inward and examine the parts of ourselves that we are accustomed to turning away from.

These are the parts that hurt too much. The parts we’d rather not look at. The parts that hold the qualities we don’t want to admit we possess (jealousy, vindictiveness, anger, bitterness).

The shadow is where we relegate all of our shame, embarrassment, and feelings of deep inadequacy.

It’s the part of ourselves that comes out at the least opportune moment if we haven’t yet befriended it.

Winter asks us to acknowledge that as much as we are divine beings, we are also humans with many flaws and foibles. It does no good to present to the world a flawless picture of yourself without acknowledging what is really there.

This is the time to look at what you’d rather turn away from, for what we shun in Winter will inevitably sprout in Spring.

Winter is also the time of deep rest and stillness.

For those who have a good relationship with rest, this isn’t much of a problem.

But if you’re like most women, you’ve been conditioned to believe that your worth comes from how much you can produce and achieve.

Although we experience internal Winters once a month during the time of our menstrual cycle, we’ve been taught to just push through it, living our lives the masculine way and keeping the same routine and energy day in and day out.

And while there might be times where living that way can be exhilarating and serve us really well, it’s not how we were designed to live all the time.

Winter is the time during which nature detoxifies herself and sets herself up for a new season of life…

The shedding of the old leaves and needles makes room for the new and some plants need to planted before Winter, because it is Winter herself who activates the bulbs.

As the cold starts to set in, plants pump out out their remaining water into the roots and the sap then acts as antifreeze.

Snow protects the soil beneath it by protecting layers underneath from becoming completely frozen and retaining the moisture in the soil.

Winter is the time that calls us to get still, listen to our bodies and our souls, and take exquisite care of ourselves so that we can enter the next phase of our life more rejuvenated, refreshed, and truly aligned.

If you struggle with giving yourself permission to rest and rejuvenate in this way, you are going to be more predisposed to struggling with anxiety and depression during Winter.

The self-care activities we do during this time are what protect us from seasonal affective dis-order and allow us to befriend one of the most important seasons of the year.

And finally, Winter is the time when Persephone asks, “Who will you be when you emerge from the darkness?”

It’s an incredibly difficult thing to hold the energy of this question when you are going through a difficult time.

The crises, the hardships, grief, loss, and the traumas of our lives tend to consume us body, mind, and soul.

But to live a Sacred Feminine life means being willing to sit with the deeper questions like these when it is most inconvenient.

Persephone descended into the Underworld for the first time as an innocent maiden. She was the Kore, the Maiden, helpless and uncertain.

Yet she emerged from the darkness a Queen.

One thing you should know: Not everyone will choose to see life this way.

It is far more challenging to hold yourself to the standard of a Queen than it is to assume the energy of a victim, because the Queen takes responsibility for who she is and what she’s become, regardless of what has transpired.

The victim feels entitled and disregards the concept of responsibility, because the world now owes her for what was done to her.

In whatever way you yourself have been tested by fire, in whatever way you’ve descended into the Underworld, it is your choice how you emerge.

Persephone doesn’t gloss over the trauma she experienced; she alchemized it to become something far more powerful than what she was before it happened.

Winter reminds us that we too get to decide what we will take from the literal & metaphorical Winters of our lives, what we will discard, what we will transform, and who will be on the other side.