So the historical story we know of Persephone,
One told many times,
Is that she is the daughter of Demeter and Zeus,
A beautiful young woman,
Free and kind.
And Hades,
The god of the underworld,
Falls in love with her.
And so Zeus and Hades,
These two male gods,
Barter a deal by which Hades is allowed to take Persephone as his wife.
And so Hades kidnaps her while she's out walking,
Join the flowers on a beautiful day,
Drags her into the underworld and holds her captive.
As a result,
Demeter,
The wife of Zeus,
Falls into a deep grief,
A withdrawal.
And within that deep grief and withdrawal,
She withdraws life from the planet as we know it.
That's the story of our wintering.
Hades,
Witnessing this deep grief and withdrawal of Demeter,
Strikes yet another deal with Hades to allow Persephone to return with the understanding that she must return to the underworld every year.
And so Hades allows Persephone to ascend back to the living.
And her mother,
In her delight,
Adorns the earth yet again with flowers,
New life,
Green,
Abundance,
As a celebration of Persephone's return.
Let's pause again,
Turn our attention toward awareness that is alert,
But comfortable and relaxed.
Notice how changing the narrative,
The context of this story,
Gives us a very different perspective.
And with that,
Perhaps opportunity within our own narratives.
Persephone is the beautiful daughter of Demeter and Zeus.
She is a curious young woman.
She is courageous.
She is adventurous.
She has long heard about the power,
Even the darkness,
Of the underworld ruled by Hades.
And as she grows older,
She becomes bolder and more curious.
And as she comes of age,
She makes the decision to turn toward this said darkness,
To push through her fear of it.
And by choice,
She begins to descend into the underworld.
And as she does,
She recognizes there's an opportunity here to begin to shed the pieces of herself that she feels no longer serve her.
Each turn of the spiral as she descends,
She lets go of something else.
She surrenders.
She allows herself to drop deeper into the darkness and the shadows.
Lightened from her release and her letting go,
She arrives in the underworld with some calm and steady,
Her courage intact.
She yet again leans into her fear,
Turns toward the shadows of the underworld in a way to not resist,
But to allow this too to be part of her experience,
Recognizing that this too shapes who she is.
And so she allows herself to stay,
To face her faults or her failures,
To sit with her imperfections,
Her less desirable feelings.
And as she sits with those shadows,
She begins to realize that these are,
In fact,
A part of her nature.
They are certainly things that she has perceived as imperfections,
But they are the whole of who she is.
In that space,
She turns toward these parts of herself with love and kindness and care,
A care that allows her to hold her own suffering,
That allows her to discover the capacity of her heart to treat herself with compassion,
To see her faults with care.
And she rests there just long enough to absorb something new about herself,
To realize a new strength.
She doesn't stay there for too long,
But with this newfound strength,
She allows herself to begin to ascend back to the world.
And as she ascends,
She brings with her that insight and that wisdom that she gained in that place of darkness,
Which is,
In essence,
That deep place of rebirth,
That quiet darkness where she was able to tune in.
And that wisdom and insight that she gains serves her in this ascension back to the world to reclaim new parts of herself,
Parts of herself that she knows serves her well,
Parts of herself not yet fully discovered.
And as she emerges from the underworld,
She brings with her this vibrance and this light and this life.
And she is met by the eyes of her mother,
Who knows exactly who she is.
Who knows exactly her journey.
Who turns a gaze back to her with that knowing of that deep self,
That authentic self.
She reaches a hand,
She pulls her daughter up and embrace.
And the joining of those forces explodes into celebration.
Flowers and colors and light and sun.
A rebirth.
A new start.
A time to begin again.
