Demeter, Persephone, and the Feel of Fall

Where I live, autumn hasn’t quite rolled in yet – it’s still hot and humid and gross, but the minute September 1st popped onto the calendar, people started acting like it was fall. For me personally, I don’t really start thinking about fall until around my birthday, which is at the end of this month. It’s usually starting to cool down at night by then, there’s a slight crispness to the mornings, and even if the sun is out and the sky is blue, there’s a feeling in the air that everything is about to change.

I’ve always loved the story of Persephone and her mother, Demeter, because their story explains the changing of the seasonal cycles, and it’s completely relatable when it comes to the feel of the approaching autumn.

Demeter was a goddess of grain and of the harvest in ancient Greece. Her daughter, Persephone, caught the eye of Hades, god of the underworld. When Hades abducted Persephone and took her back to the underworld, Demeter’s grief caused the crops on earth to die and go dormant. By the time she finally recovered her daughter, Persephone had eaten six pomegranate seeds, and so was doomed to spend six months of the year in the underworld.

These six months are the time when the earth dies, beginning at the time of the autumn equinox. Each year, Demeter mourns the loss of her daughter for six months. At Ostara, the greening of the earth begins once more, and life begins anew.

Cyndi Brannen, over at Patheos, writes:

“[Persephone’s] other major role in antiquity was that of a Goddess of Agriculture. Her return from the Under World each spring rendered the land fertile. The importance of honoring Persephone so there would be a bountiful harvest was paramount for those growing crops. In this role, Persephone shows us her power of adaptation by changing the very seasons themselves. To be more accurate, it was her mother, Demeter who was in control of the seasons. However, the world would have remained in winter were it not for Persephone’s annual return.”

In some interpretations of the story, Persephone is not held in the underworld against her will. Instead, she chooses to stay there for six months each year so that she can bring a little bit of brightness and light to the souls doomed to spend eternity with Hades.

Want to add a little bit of pomegranate action into your seasonal celebrations for the fall equinox? Make up a batch of this pomegranate sorbet.*

Ingredients

* This recipe originally published on my About Paganism page in Sept. 2008