With the myth of Persephone there are a few variations on the traditional abduction tale. Here is another version I like:
Demeter was the Goddess of green plants, wild and tame, and her daughter Persephone was as beautiful and powerful as her mother. Persephone glided between furrows of corn and combed the cherry branches with her fingers and the humans loved her quiet strength and kindness. She alone would speak to them and they replied with eyes cast down for she was as bright as the sun. One day she approached a group of humans crying and clutching each other as they knelt beside a fallen comrade. Persephone asked why they were so sad and they replied, “Our brother has gone to Underworld where it is dark and cold and we will never see him again. We are sad to lose him, and also sad for him, because he will be alone.”
Persephone felt compassion for these humans. Their lives were so difficult and fragile and they had nothing but darkness and cold to look forward to when their short lives ended. Persephone decided that she would go, and search for the Underworld, and she would take her light and warmth to the dead who lived there. So she left the green fields of her mother’s land and walked to the edge of the world. There she found a cave and a tunnel and she descended deep into the earth.
Above, Demeter searched for her beloved daughter, calling her name across a silent and empty sky. As her panic grew, the grass withered, the trees dropped their leaves and all the living and green plants cowered brown in fear. Demeter’s heart was broken, her grief overwhelmed her. For months she searched and found no sign of Persephone. The humans began to starve, but she did not listen to their cries.
Seven months passed and Demeter sat on a stone in a field of dirt and ice. Then she heard something far away. A murmur. A whisper. At her feet a tiny green shoot curled around her ankle. She stomped on it. Who would disrespect her pain! She raised her arm to destroy but there was another green tendril and another and the whisper came closer and finally the wind rushed to ears and said, “Persephone returns, Persephone returns.” There in the distance came the glow, the dawn, the bright beautiful daughter running to meet her. Demeter ran to Persephone and they embraced and everywhere their feet touched the ground, crocuses bloomed and the world sprang to life.
Persephone told her mother where she had been and why she had left without an explanation. She knew Demeter would never have let her go. Persephone told her mother that she would return to the world of the dead for seven months out of every year to comfort them and tend to their needs. The other months she would help her mother care for the living.
Demeter could not stop her daughter from returning to the Underworld. She could not tell Persephone where or how to use her power. But she could not deny her own grief. To this day, when her beloved daughter is not beside her, Demeter mourns. And the world mourns with her. Then on the first day of spring, when the crocuses bloom and the wind sings, ‘Persephone returns, Persephone returns,” Demeter is happy again, and the world is reborn.
