Perséfone: Mito e Arquétipo / Persephone: Myth and Archetype

PERSEPHONE: BRIEFLY THE GREEK MYTH

There is no way to dissociate Persephone’s myth from her mother’s Demeter. Persephone is the daughter of Zeus (god of the skys) with his sister Demeter (the goddess of agriculture and the seasons) and was raised on Mount Olympus home of the divine nobility.

If you want to read more about Demeter click here.

The gods: Hermes, Ares, Dionysus and Apollo, all courted her. Demeter rejected all her gifts and hid her daughter away from the company of the gods. When the signs of her great beauty and femininity began to shine in her adolescence she caught the attention of the god Hades who asked her to marry him. Zeus warned his brother that Demeter did not want any god to come near his daughter. Hades, impatiently, emerged from the earth and abducted her while she collected flowers with the nymphs and her sisters Athena and Artemis (there are some versions that say that Zeus “took a hard look” to Persephone’s help requests to her father when she was being abducted). Hades took her to his domain (the underworld or the underworld) married her and made her his queen.

Very saddened by Persephone’s absence Demeter did not return to Olympus and the population began to suffer from the scarcity of food since the goddess was no longer exercising her function to promote the fertility of the land. So Zeus had to intervene. Demeter after much searching finally discovered through Hecate (who accompanied Persephone in her descent into the underworld) and Helius (Sun God who sees it all) that the young goddess had been taken to the world of the dead.

At Zeus’ request Hermes went to get Persephone from the kingdom of Hades. However, since Persephone had eaten something (four pomegranate seeds) in the realm of the dead she could not completely return to the world of the living. Thus an agreement was made: she would spend two thirds of the year with her mother and the rest with Hades. This myth justifies the annual harvest cycle.

The story of Persephone’s abduction was part of the initiation rites in the mysteries of Eleusis initiation rites for the cult of the goddesses Demeter and Persephone which were celebrated in Eleusis in ancient Greece.

Women (and men) identified with this archetype to the extreme usually have a reduced power of action. They are of little action, easily led by others, they do not know what they want or where they are going.

Persephone also represents the women (or men) who does everything to please the mother: they are good girls, obedient, modest, passive and dependent. The partners who choose them are inexperienced, rascals and the type who are not comfortable with empowered and mature women. Marriage can free them from their mother’s yoke or leave them in a conflict between mother and husband, repeating the myth.

They are the type that end up giving in to everything to adapt to the other’s desires; they seem to have no personality of their own. They are of the woman-child type combining strong power of attractiveness and ingenuity. Because they do not want to create friction and arouse discomfort and anger in others they end up becoming liars and manipulators.

However, when identified with the aspect of the Queen of the Underworld – her true power – they will be extremely competent, especially in the psychological and spiritual field, as they know how to tune in to the world of the unconscious.

Health Problems

Persephone women tend to suffer from depression especially near middle age. As they do not accept aging the loss of youthfulness nor the harsh reality that they will have to abandon some long cherished dreams. They are also depressed for not expressing anger which when repressed turns into depression. But her depression is one that is characterized by strong isolation from the world around her turning to the inner world. However, they can move towards psychosis because they are so far from reality.

Persephone’s Challenges

They must learn to make commitments and live in accordance with them. They also must fight against indecision, passivity and inertia. As well as learn to respond with genuine sexuality giving themselves over to their feelings and emotions in a confident manner.

Persephone, in mythology, has been kidnapped and that is why people who have this very strong archetype have the impression that everything in their lives happens out of nowhere and they have no control over events. They are always feeling kidnapped by other people or kidnapped from themselves with enormous potential to become victims of all situations in their life.

The descent to the underworld

Before the Greek patriarchy there was a matriarchal society in which the Triple Goddess or Holy Trinity of the Goddess (which was transformed by the Catholic Church into Male: Father, Son and Holy Spirit) was the Mother, the Daughter and the Witch. And in this society all women went thorugh a initiation rite by going down to the world of the dead (when the girl was menstruating for the first time). In our Western patriarchal society we not only lose touch with these feminine rites, but we also do not value the archetypes that put us in touch with our unconscious. We live in a world of Zeus and “divine” (according to Catholic parameters that overvalue the sacred in the image of heaven and divine purity) which values ​​rationality and the conscious, therefore all the rites that connect us to the world of the dead (underworld ) are denied by our society.

Persephone’s Denial

The Persephone person who lives in denial and does not want to face the encounter with death is usually the archetype of the person who does not want to grow old and is always wearing flowery things, kind of “girly”, childish, because she is always the “mommy’s little girl” “who did not complete the whole rite of passage of the myth of Persephone and Demeter and just want to live in the world of the conscious.

Power in Persephone

Persephone’s true word is power: power that she refuses to admit and power that she never ceases to give to others, always projecting on women more successful than herself, supposedly “magical” because they have reached that point. Usually the Persephone person is very idealizing and never realizes things focusing always on things that go wrong (always becoming the victim of the situation). She becomes the one who heals everyone but never herself for fear of making the crossing and going to the world of the dead.

The Persephones that do not complete the rite of descent into the underworld

There are three types of Persephone that do not complete the rite of descent into the underworld and therefore live their lives in denial to the dark side of themselves: Persephone, eternal maiden (woman who always longs for a spirit to come to her aid and free her from her inner confusion); Persephone, the more than loving Mother (woman who becomes the spiritual mother of every injured soul in the neighborhood and yet continues to feel invaded because she cannot say no); Persephone, the damsel in distress (a woman who is very angry and does not accept her descent because she thinks it is unfair that this is happening to her. She lives on the edge of the abyss and holds on to it with a little finger).

If the Persephone person wants to avoid living in this denial she needs to offer all the pain, anger and hurt to forces that are beyond her; learn to live with the witch and murderer who lives inside her, as these figures are essential elements of the mature goddess of the night.

The Persephone woman (or man) who makes the passage and who was not afraid to make the descent has the potential to become the Queen of the Underworld: one who takes care of the descent of others and who has great ability to access the subconscious and the collective unconscious.

Many women/men are afraid to make their descent because going down to the underworld is a journey in to finding things that are hidden in our unconscious (personal and collective) and that can be great trauma, pain and/or fear. We often don’t want to look at this. However, only the genuine encounter with Hades causing the death of all Ego and of all connection with innocence can put an end to the victim’s displaced pride once and for all. Persephone has to be brave and not fear death and madness in order to make the crossing and then return to the world of the living. And living in that “between-worlds”.

The Persephone woman/man who integrates these two worlds is the archetype of the Wise Elder she becomes a witch and she is able to laugh at human follies. Many women (or men) who become Queens of the Underworld are great therapists and / or spiritual counselors as they have the ability to lead people through the realm of the unconscious (also linked to the spiritual plane, for those who believe).

To avoid having to repeat always the same thing in every post I recommmend reading this post about the context of my research and in what moment I am at.

References (in Portuguese):

BOLEN, Jean Shinoda. Goddesses in Everywoman. https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perséfone https://carlalindolfo.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/os-arquetipos-das-deusas-e-o-feminino/ https://ipth.com.br/arquetipos-do-sagrado-feminino/ http://www.aartedeamadurecer.com.br/o-feminino-e-seus-arquetipos/ Live: Maria Fernanda de Barros Batalha: https://www.facebook.com/mariafernanda.batalha/videos/2856887857699682?locale=pt_BR