“But the very fact that this process is unconscious gives us the reason why man has thought of everything except the psyche in his attempts to explain myths. He simply didn’t know that the psyche contains all the images that have ever given rise to myths, and that our unconscious is an acting and suffering subject with an inner drama which primitive man rediscovers, by means of analogy, in the processes of nature both great and small.”
Carl Jung (The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious)
Welcome back to my enthusiastic explorations of divine feminine archetypes in all their glory; qualities that when noticed, appreciated, encouraged and understood can improve the quality of life for all.
In part one of this topic I covered the traits, behaviours and energies of the Virgin Goddesses (Artemis, Athena and Hestia), and in this second post I’ll be turning to the Vulnerable Goddesses of Hera, Demeter and Persephone, and the Alchemical Goddess, Aphrodite will follow in part three. I’ll be sharing the material from the brilliant multi-goddess Jean Shinoda Bolen MD, from her amazing book, Goddesses in Everywoman.
Vulnerable Goddesses – Hera, Demeter and Persephone
These three goddesses personify archetypes that represent the traditional roles of wife, mother and daughter. They are the relationship oriented goddesses whose identity and wellbeing depend on having a meaningful/significant relationship.
In the Greek mythologies about Hera, Demeter and Persephone they were raped, abducted, dominated or humiliated by male gods. Each suffered when an attachment was severed or dishonoured. Each experienced powerlessness. Hera with rage and jealousy, Demeter and Persephone with depression.
The Rape of Proserpina by Jean-Francois Heim c. 1651
When these archetypes are dominant the motivational pull will be relationships rather than achievement, autonomy or new experience. The focus of attention is on others, not on an outer goal or inner state. These women are attentive and receptive to others.
Quality of consciousness – Diffuse awareness; like a soft lamplight that casts a warm light across a certain radius. They can tune in to their environment and pick-up other people’s cues. Makes it tricky to focus on their own goals. It can be described as an attitude of acceptance, and an awareness of the unity of all life and readiness for a relationship.
I can remember many a time I was focussed on research, writing or playing my violin, and one of my children would need me or try to get my attention, (there’s nothing quite like a little one’s ability to modify a mother’s behaviour when she is working, or embodied in her Artemis and Athena archetypes on a particular task), but her children want her attention back on them!
This can make it challenging to concentrate on her own work, as the receptive, diffuse state of mind allows a woman to be easily distracted in order to attend to others. The same applies to interruptions from a husband or partner!
Each of the vulnerable goddesses has within her mythology a happy or fulfilled phase, a phase during which she was victimised, suffered and was symptomatic, and a time of restoration or transformation.
Every woman who has ever felt an urge to marry, have children or felt like she was waiting for something to change her life (which probably includes most women) will find herself akin to one of the vulnerable goddesses at some point in her life.
Hera – Goddess of Marriage, Commitment Maker and Wife
I sing of golden-throned Hera whom Rhea bare. Queen of the immortals is she, surpassing all in beauty: she is the sister and the wife of loud-thundering Zeus, —the glorious one whom all the blessed throughout high Olympus reverence and honor even as Zeus who delights in thunder. ~ Homeric Hymn to Hera
Roman Name: Juno
Stately, regal, beautiful Hera was the goddess of marriage. She was the consort of Zeus, the supreme god of the Olympians. Her name is thought to mean ‘great lady’, the feminine form of the Greek word Hero.
Her symbols were the cow, the Milky Way, the lily and the peacock’s iridescent tail feather, ‘eyes’ that symbolised Hera’s watchfulness.
Mythology
In Greek mythology Hera had two contrasting aspects; she was solemnly revered and worshipped in rituals as a powerful goddess of marriage, and was denigrated by Homer as a vindictive, quarrelsome, jealous shrew.
In her mythology when she caught the eye of Zeus, he changed himself into a shivering, pathetic little bird, on which Hera took pity. To warm the chilled creature Hera held it to her breast, at which point Zeus dropped his disguise and morphed back into his powerful male physique and tried to force himself on her.
Hera resisted his amorous efforts until he promised to marry her. Their honeymoon was said to have lasted for 300 years!
Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida by James Barry c. 1773
Unfortunately marriage did not curtail Zeus’s insatiable lust, and there came a time when the honeymoon was over. Given his history, it’s probably no surprise that Zeus reverted to his premarital promiscuous ways (he had had six different consorts and many offspring before he married Hera). Time and time again Zeus could not control his infamous libido and was unfaithful to Hera, evoking extreme jealousy in his betrayed wife.
Hera’s rage was never directed at the philandering Zeus, but rather at ‘the other woman’ (who more often than not had been deceived, seduced and raped by Zeus), as well as at children conceived by Zeus or at innocent bystanders.
Hera was humiliated by Zeus’s many affairs. He dishonoured their marriage, which was sacred to her, and caused her further grief by favouring his children by other women.
To add insult to injury he gave birth to his daughter, Athena, demonstrating that he did not even need his wife for this function.
Hera had several children. In revenge for Zeus birthing Athena, Hera decided to be the sole parent of a son, and conceived Hephaestus, God of the Forge. When he was born with a clubfoot – a defective child, unlike perfect Athena – Hera rejected him and threw him out from Mount Olympus. But Hephaestus eventually got his revenge…
Ares, God of War, was the son of Hera and Zeus, who Zeus held in contempt for losing his head in the heat of battle.
Hera the Archetype
Hera, as the goddess of marriage, evoked polarised emotions; she was revered and reviled, honoured and humiliated. She, more than any other goddess, has markedly positive and negative attributes. The same is true for a Hera archetype, an intensely powerful force for joy or pain in a woman’s personality.
The Hera archetype first and foremost represents a woman’s yearning to be a wife. A woman with a dominant Hera archetype feels fundamentally incomplete without a partner. Her grief at being without a mate can be as deep and wounding an inner experience as being childless is for a woman whose strongest urge is to have a baby.
When in a committed relationship she needs the prestige, respect and honour that marriage brings her and she wants to be recognised as ‘Mrs. Somebody’. When Hera is her dominant archetype, a bride may feel like a goddess on her wedding day.
Bruden (The Bride) by Anders Zorn
The Hera archetype provides the capacity to bond, to be loyal and faithful, to endure and go through difficulties with a partner.
The marriage archetype is also expressed on a mystical level as striving for wholeness through a ‘sacred marriage’. Religious wedding ceremonies that emphasise the sacred nature of marriage are contemporary re-enactments of Hera’s sacred rituals.
The Hera archetype predisposes women to displace blame from her mate – on whom she is emotionally dependent – onto others. Hera women react to pain with rage and activity rather than depression, as is typical of Demeter and Persephone.
Vindictiveness makes a Hera woman feel powerful rather than rejected. The Hera archetype was dramatically portrayed by Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.
Cultivating Hera
When a woman has other strong goddess archetypes such as Artemis or Athena and has been focused on her career and achieving goals, or like Aphrodite having had several relationships, or perhaps she embodies Persephone’s tendency to avoid relationships, and so one way or another marriage has not been a priority until early midlife.
When bonding with a mate is not a strong instinct, it will need to be continuously cultivated. If she loves a man who needs or requires her fidelity, she must make a choice between monogamy or him.
Hera the Woman
A Hera woman takes pleasure in making her husband the centre of her life. Everyone knows that her husband comes first, even before her children.
Detail of Hera from the marriage of Zeus and Hera at Pompeii
Many women who are cast in the mould of Hera have a matronly quality and are perceived by everyone as ‘very much married’. Many other women have Hera as one of several aspects of their personalities.
Parents
Hera’s parents – Rhea and Kronos provide us with a negative and exaggerated picture of patriarchal marriage: the husband is a powerful, dominating man who will not tolerate competition from his children or allow his wife to have any new interests. The wife passively resists by keeping secrets from him and by using deception.
Kronos and Rhea by Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Hera was the only one of her siblings who was raised by two sets of parents. Once freed from her father she was raised in an idyllic situation with two nature deities as foster parents.
Adolescence and young adulthood
The adolescent Hera is most content if she’s in a steady relationship. She will seek to be coupled with a high-status young man and yearn for the emotional security she derives from the relationship.
The ending of a first romantic or serious relationship is usually also the first serious emotional wound for a young Hera woman.
Work
For the Hera woman work is a secondary aspect of life, just as going to college is. Whatever her education, career, profession, or title, when Hera is a strong force in a woman’s psyche, her work is something she does, rather than an important part of who she is.
Other goddesses usually are present in a woman who does well in the work place; however, if Hera is the overriding pattern, she does not feel her work is of major significance. If she does have a career it will not be as important as her true vocation, which is her marriage.
Relationships with Women
A Hera woman doesn’t usually place much importance on friendships with other women and generally does not have a best friend. She prefers being with her husband and doing things with him. If she does have a close and enduring friendship with another woman then other goddesses are responsible.
If she is unmarried then she will focus more on meeting eligible men. A married Hera woman relates to other married women as half of a couple. After marriage she does almost all socialising as part of a couple, and when she does meet with other women it is likely to be related to her husband’s profession or his activities.
Relationships with Men
A contemporary Hera woman places on a husband the archetypal expectation that he will fulfil her.
A Hera woman is attracted to a competent, successful man, depending on her social class and background. Starving artists, sensitive poets and genius scholars are not for her. Hera women are not intrigued by men who suffer for their art or political principles.
Depiction of Hera and Zeus from a section of the Elgin Marbles.
Many men who are highly successful in the world often have, as with Zeus, an appealing, emotionally immature little boy element that can touch Hera when combined with the power she finds so attractive.
The Hera woman considers her wedding day the most significant of her life. A Hera woman’s satisfaction depends on her husband’s devotion to her, on the importance he places on the marriage, and on his appreciation of her as his wife.
If a Hera woman marries a man who turns out to be a philanderer and Casanova (like the mythological Zeus), and if she takes him at his word, then she will be repeatedly wounded.
Many Hera women are handicapped because they have difficulty in assessing the underlying character or realising patterns of behaviour. There may be an element of burying her head in the sand. Regardless of the dissatisfactions of her marriage, a Hera woman is the least likely of all the goddess archetypes to seek a divorce.
Children
A Hera woman usually has children because this function is part of the role of being a wife. She will not have much maternal instinct, however, unless Demeter is also an important archetype. Nor will she enjoy doing things with her children unless Artemis or Athena are also present.
Middle Years
Whether or not her middle years are fulfilling depends on whether the Hera woman is married, and to whom she married. These are the best years for Hera women who are in stable marriages to men who achieve a measure of success and position and appreciate their wives. In contrast an unmarried, divorced or widowed Hera woman is miserable.
If the marriage is in difficulty a Hera woman usually makes things worse by her possessiveness and jealousy. If for the first time in her married life she knows or suspects the importance of another woman, a vindictiveness never before seen may emerge in all its ugliness, further endangering the marriage that is so important to her.
‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ is a saying inspired by Hera!
Later Years
For the Hera woman who went from being Hera the Maiden to Hera the Perfected One, to becoming Hera the Widow is the hardest period of her life. On becoming widowed the Hera woman loses not only her husband but also her role of wife, which provided a sense of meaning and identity. She may feel insignificant.
If she has neglected her children and friends in favour of her husband over the course of her life, this will compound her devastation and loneliness. The quality of a widowed Hera’s life now depends on the presence of other goddesses and on how well she was financially provided for. Some Hera women never recover from the loss of their husbands.
Psychological Difficulties
Hera can be a compelling force as an archetype, so understanding the patterns and particularly the destructive side of Hera helps to avoid the potential difficulties that may arise.
For a woman to live as Hera is the same as identifying with the role of wife. Whether that role will provide meaning and satisfaction or will result in pain and rage depends on the quality of the marriage and on the man’s fidelity.
Once married, a Hera woman often constricts her life and conforms to the role and to her husband’s interests. The influence of any other goddesses may dramatically diminish when a Hera woman marries.
The goddess Hera suffered more than any other goddess, except Demeter (whose suffering was a different kind). But she also persecuted others and was the most destructive of all the goddesses. Hera’s oppressiveness varies from having a judgemental attitude towards others, to behaving in an overtly destructive way.
Hera women judge other women and punish them, by excluding or ostracising them and their children- for not meeting Hera’s standards. Such women are the social arbiters. They are especially inimical to Aphrodite women.
The Medea myth is a metaphor that describes the Hera woman’s capacity to put her commitment to a man ahead of everything else, and her capacity for revenge when she finds that her commitment counts for nothing in his eyes.
Medea before murdering her children – Fresco from house of Castor at Pompeii
In Greek mythology, Medea was the mortal woman who murdered her own children to revenge herself on the man for leaving her. She is a ‘clinical case’ of a woman who was possessed by the destructive aspect of Hera. Medea’s pathology stemmed from the intensity of the Hera instinct and from being thwarted. Note that, true to Hera at her most destructive, Medea did not murder Jason.
Ways to Grow
Understanding her susceptibilities is the first step to grow beyond her. When a woman is under the influence of Hera, she is likely to marry the first respectable man who asks her, or an eligible man she goes out with, without stopping to consider what would be best for her. This I think has probably been less pervasive in the wake of the feminist movement.
She would do well to resist marriage until she knows a good deal about her intended mate’s character. She must ask critical questions of the relationship and give honest answers as this is crucial to her future happiness. She must choose wisely.
A Hera woman must consciously and repeatedly align herself with other goddesses, so that she can expand her interests and grow beyond the role of wife. This will make it easier for her to adapt if the marriage ends for whatever reason.
If a Hera woman can embrace the qualities of her son, Hephaestus, who had a forge inside a volcano (symbolically representative of the possibility that volcanic rage can be contained and transformed into a creative, constructive energy to make armour and works of art), she will be able to transmute destructive, negative energy into a more positive energy.
A spurned and angry Hera can choose to be consumed by her rage, or containing her hostile impulses, and instead channel her anger into work or some other project. Work of any kind, mental or manual, can serve as a means of sublimating rage.
Demeter – Goddess of Grain, Nurturer and Mother
“I am Demeter, the holder of honour. I am the greatest boon and joy for immortals and mortals alike.” (Homeric Hymn to Demeter)
“The holy heaven yearns to wound the earth, and yearning layeth hold on the earth to join in wedlock; the rain, fallen from the amorous heaven, impregnates the earth, and it bringeth forth for mankind the food of flocks and herds and Demeter’s gifts; and from that moist marriage-rite the woods put on their bloom.“
Aeschylus
Roman Name: Ceres
Demeter, Goddess of Grain, presided over bountiful harvests. Hence her Roman name Ceres, to which our word cereal is related.
She was portrayed as beautiful woman with golden hair and dressed in a blue robe. She was worshipped as a mother goddess, specifically as a mother of grain, and mother of the maiden Persephone.
Mythology
Demeter was the fourth royal consort of Zeus (Jupiter), who was also her brother, even before Hera. Persephone was their only child, with whom Demeter was linked in myth and worship.
Ceres begging for Jupiter’s Thunderbolt after the Kidnapping of her Daughter Proserpina by Antoine Francois Callet (1741 – 1823)
The story of the abduction of Persephone centres around Demeter’s reaction to her abduction by her brother Hades, God of the Underworld. This myth became the basis for the Eleusinian Mysteries, the most sacred and important religious rituals of ancient Greece for over two thousand years.
Poor, innocent Persephone was out gathering flowers in the meadow with her companions, and was attracted to an astonishingly beautiful narcissus. As she reached down to pick it, the ground heaved and split open from deep within the earth. In a moment of terror, Hades emerged from the chasm in his gold chariot pulled by black horses, grabbed her, and plunged back into the abyss just as suddenly as he had appeared.
The Abduction of Persephone by Charles de La Fosse c. 1673
Persephone struggled and screamed to Zeus for help, but none came.
Hearing the echoes of her daughter’s cries, Demeter, beside herself, searched for nine days and nine nights for her abducted daughter, over the entire land and sea. She did not stop to eat, sleep or bathe in her frantic search.
On the tenth day she met Hecate, Goddess of the dark moon and of the crossroads, who suggested they go to Helios, a nature deity, who told them that Persephone had been kidnapped by Hades and taken to the underworld to be his unwilling bride. To add insult to injury he told Demeter that Zeus had sanctioned her rape and abduction. She now felt outrage and betrayal as well as grief.
In the depth of her pain Demeter withdrew from Mount Olympus, disguised herself as an old woman and wandered unrecognised through the countryside, finally residing at Elusis. She refused to do any of her goddess duties, and as a consequence nothing could grow and nothing could be born. Famine threatened to destroy the human race, depriving the Olympian gods and goddesses of their offerings and sacrifices.
As the situation worsened Zeus finally took notice. He sent a messenger, and every Olympian deity, but still she refused to function. Demeter made it known that she would not set foot on Mount Olympus until Persephone was returned to her.
Zeus sent Hermes, the Messenger God to Hades, commanding him to bring Persephone back in order ‘that her mother on seeing her with her own eyes would abandon her anger.’
Hermes found a depressed Persephone with Hades, who craftily persuaded her to eat some pomegranate seeds before she returned with Hermes.
The Return of Persephone by Frederic Leighton c. 1891
On her joyous reunion with her mother, Demeter anxiously enquired whether she had eaten anything in the underworld. If she had not, then Persephone would be completely restored to her. But, because she had eaten some pomegranate seeds, she would spend two-thirds of the year with Demeter, and the remainder of the year in the underworld with Hades.
After mother and daughter were reunited Demeter restored fertility and growth to the earth. Hence the four seasons represent the phases of her gifts, with winter representing the time Persephone returned to the underworld.
Demeter the Archetype
Demeter is the maternal archetype. She represents maternal instincts fulfilled through pregnancy or through providing physical, psychological or spiritual nourishment to others.
This powerful archetype can dictate the course of a woman’s life, and can have a significant impact on others in her life. Unfortunately, it predisposes her to depression if her need to nurture is rejected or thwarted.
Demeter mourning for Persephone
Although other goddesses were also mothers (Hera and Aphrodite), her daughter Persephone was Demeter’s most significant relationship. She was also the most nurturing of the goddesses.
A woman with a strong Demeter archetype longs to be a mother, and finds it a fulfilling role. When Demeter is the strongest archetype in a woman’s psyche, being a mother is the most important role and function in her life.
If unconsciously motivated by Demeter, a woman may find herself pregnant by accident. What happens after an unplanned pregnancy depends on how strong the archetype is in a particular woman. Abortion goes against a deep inner imperative in her to have a child, so she is likely to choose to have the baby, even if it alters the entire course of her life.
Demeter’s nurturing instinct is not limited to her biological children, she may also adopt or foster parent. She will continue to express maternal love to whoever needs it, even after her own children are fully grown and have left home.
Feeding others is another satisfaction for a Demeter woman. She finds nursing her own child tremendously satisfying. It gives her pleasure to provide ample meals for the family and guests. If they enjoy her food she basks in the warmth of feeling like a good mother.
Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Synders – Ceres with Pan c. 1615
Sharing their bounty with others is expressing the Mother Nature aspect of Demeter. In her mythology, Demeter was the most generous goddess. She gave humanity agriculture and harvests, helped raise Demophoon and provided the Elusinian Mysteries.
Many famous religious leaders have embodied Demeter, seen as maternal figures giving physical, emotional and spiritual comfort, such as Mother Teresa and Mary Baker Eddy, who founded the Christian Science religion and Helena Blavatsky who was the primary founder of Theosophy.
The ‘empty nest’ syndrome is a potential time of depression for a Demeter woman. If she cannot nurture for any reason she may withdraw, as the goddess did after Persephone was abducted. She grieves, as her life feels devoid of meaning and empty. Even though I have other dominant archetypes I can still certainly resonate with that!
Demeter can also experience her child’s growing autonomy as an emotional loss for herself. She feels less needed and rejected, and as a result may become depressed and angry.
Cultivating Demeter
Without realising it, women are cultivating Demeter and inviting the archetype to become more active when they seriously consider having a child. Women cultivate Demeter by imagining themselves pregnant and having children.
Demeter the Woman
A Demeter woman is first and foremost maternal. In her relationships, she is nurturing and supportive, helpful and giving. A Demeter woman often has an aura of the Earth Mother about her. She is solid and dependable.
She is usually outer-directed, altruistic and loyal to individuals and principles, to the point that others may consider stubborn. She has strong convictions and is difficult to budge when something or someone important to her is involved.
Parents
Demeter’s grandmother was Gaia, the primal Earth Mother from whom all life came, including the Sky God, Uranus, who became her husband. Her mother Rhea was also known as an Earth Goddess, although she is most famous for being the mother of the first generation Olympians.
As goddess of Grain, Demeter continues the lineage of female goddesses concerned with fertility. She also shares suffering with her mother and grandmother in that all of their husbands hurt their children. All three biological fathers displayed a lack of paternal feelings.
Although they were less powerful than their husbands and unable to stop them harming their children they refused to accept abuse, and they persisted until their children were freed. Their strongest bonds were mother-child.
Real life parallels the Demeter myth when maternal women are married to unpaternal men.
If a young Demeter has a father who is affectionate and approving of her, she will grow up feeling his support for her wish to be a good parent herself. She will view men positively and will have positive expectations of a husband. An archetypal susceptibility to become victimised will not be enhanced by her childhood experience.
Adolescence and Young Adulthood
The Demeter archetype gets a boost from hormones, so caution should be exerted upon reaching childbearing age. If other aspects of her life are empty and she is herself little more than a neglected child, a young Demeter who has been coerced into sex and becomes pregnant may welcome the child. Luckily young Demeters are not motivated to have early sexual experience.
Work
The maternal nature of the Demeter woman predisposes her to enter nurturing professions, and she may be drawn to teaching, social work or nursing, or any profession that involves helping people.
Relationships with Women
Demeter women are not competitive with other women for either men or achievements. Any envy or jealousy of other women will concern children. A Demeter woman without children will compare herself unfavourably to women her age who are mothers. Later, when her children are grown, and live far away, she will envy the mother who has frequent contact with her children.
Usually Demeter women have solid friendships with other Demeter women. Many such friendships date back to when they were new mothers together. Many rely more on their women friends than on their husbands for emotional support, as well as tangible help.
Within families, mothers and daughters who are all Demeter women may remain close for generations. These families have a decided matriarchal cast.
Relationships with Men
A Demeter woman attracts men who feel an affinity for maternal women. A true-to-type Demeter woman does not do the choosing.
A Demeter woman’s maternal qualities and her difficulties in saying no make her vulnerable to being used by a sociopath, another type of man often found in relationships with Demeter women.
Of all the men who are attracted to Demeter qualities, the ‘family man’ is the only one who is himself mature and generous. The family man also helps her fulfil herself through bearing children.
Children
A Demeter woman feels a deep need to be a biological mother. She wants to give birth and nurse her own child. She will however, also make an excellent foster mother, adoptive mother or stepmother.
From the standpoint of their impact on their children, however, Demeter women seem to be either superbly able mothers or terrible, all-consuming mothers.
Whether or not a Demeter mother has a positive effect on her children and is well regarded by them depends on whether she was like the goddess Demeter ‘before the abduction’ or ‘after the abduction’. Before the abduction of Persephone, Demeter trusted that all was well (as Persephone played in the meadow) and went about her activities. After the abduction, Demeter was depressed and angry; she left Mount Olympus and ceased to function.
A Demeter mother may feel guilty for any event that has an adverse effect on her child. Until she has some insight into her unrealistic expectations that she should be the perfect mother, she expects herself to be all-knowing and all-powerful, capable of foreseeing events and protecting her child from all pain. I’ve certainly been through the wringer on this front several times!
With the intention of protecting her child, a Demeter woman runs the risk of becoming over controlling.
Another negative mother model for Demeter women is the mother who can’t say no to her children. She sees herself as the selfless, bountiful, providing mother, who gives and gives. (Been there and got THAT T-shirt!).
Over time this behaviour can nourish their selfishness, if she continually gives in to her children’s demands. In her attempts to be an all-providing ‘good mother’, she can become the opposite. We’ve all seen those spoilt children acting up in public where it’s obvious there were little to no boundaries which, if no values are instilled in the childhood years, will result in an entitled adult at the least, and a monster at the worst.
Middle years
As a Demeter woman’s children grow and mature, each step they take toward independence tests her ability to let go of their dependence on her. She may now start to feel the pull of a late life baby. I had my daughters at 37 and 39.
This is a time of potential change as Demeter women who have put their maternal energy into their work or motherhood must consider what is missing in her life and what she might do to fulfil herself.
Later Years
The Demeter women who have learned not to tie people to them or to allow them not to take advantage, and have fostered independence and mutual respect are more likely to find this phase of life very rewarding.
Children, grandchildren, clients, students or patients who span generations may love and respect her. She is like the goddess Demeter at the end of her myth, who gave humankind her gifts and was greatly honoured.
Psychological Difficulties
The goddess Demeter was a major presence. When she stops functioning, life ceased to grow and all the Olympians trooped down to plead with her to restore fertility. Yet she could not prevent the abduction of Persephone or force her immediate return. She was victimised, her pleas were ignored and she suffered emotional anguish. The difficulties faced by Demeter women have similar themes: victimisation, power and control, expression of anger, and depression.
Demeter women, through their giving and generous nature are easily taken advantage of by others. This instinct to nurture can eventually deplete a woman in a helping profession, or as a mother, and lead to burn-out symptoms of fatigue and apathy.
When a woman instinctively says yes to everyone who needs something from her, she will rapidly find herself over committed. She is not an unlimited natural resource, even if other people and the Demeter within her expect her to be so.
Ceres by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli
A Demeter woman must confront the goddess from time to time, and choose when and how and whom to give to. To do so, she must learn to say no – both to a person who needs something from her, and to the goddess within.
Possessive Demeter women grow as they let go of their need to keep other people dependent and tied to their apron strings. In doing this, mutual dependency can get transmuted into mutual appreciation and love.
Ways to Grow
Just as the Demeter woman has difficulties saying no because she identifies with the good, giving mother, so she also resists acknowledging her anger at those she loves. In this way passive-aggressive behaviour can ensue. However, she does know that she is disappointed at not being appreciated and she can admit to feeling depressed. Honesty can allow her to be fully conscious of her negative Demeter patterns.
The best advice for Demeter women is to become her own good mother!
She needs to focus on herself the caretaking concern she so readily feels for others. ‘Do I have enough time and energy?’ is a question she should stop and ask herself. She needs to reassure herself that she needs better treatment.
As an inner experience, the myth of Demeter and Persephone speaks of a capacity to grow through suffering.
Persephone – The Maiden and Queen of the Underworld, Receptive Woman and Mother’s Daughter.
Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be:
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant and free,
She that had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child
Lost in Hell,—Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee:
Say to her, “My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”
Prayer to Persephone by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Roman Name: Proserpina or Cora
Persephone was worshipped in two ways; as the Maiden or the Kore (which means ‘young girl’), and as Queen of the Underworld. The Kore was a slender, beautiful young goddess, associated with symbols of fertility – the pomegranate, grain and corn as well as narcissus, the flower that lured her.
As Queen of the Underworld, Persephone is a mature goddess who reigns over dead souls, guides the living who visit the underworld, and claims for herself what she wants.
Although Persephone was not one of the major twelve Olympians, she was the central figure in the Elusinian Mysteries, the Greeks experience the return or renewal of life after death through Persephone’s annual return from the underworld.
Mythology
Persephone was the only daughter of Demeter and Zeus. She was abducted by hades to be his unwilling bride, before Demeter’s refusal to allow fertility and growth made her father send Hermes to bring her back to the upper world. Having eaten the pomegranate seeds, Persephone was required to spend one third of the year with Hades in the underworld, where she became queen.
Whenever the heroes or heroines of Greek mythology descended to the lower realm, Persephone was there to receive them and be their guide.
Persephone and Hades, Greek Vase
In The Odyssey, the hero Odysseus (Ulysses) journeyed to the underworld where Persephone showed him the souls of the women of legendary fame. In the myth of Psyche and Eros, psyche’s last task was to descend into the underworld with a box for Persephone to fill with beauty ointment for Aphrodite. The last of the twelve tasks of Heracles (Hercules) was to get her permission to borrow Cerberus, the ferocious three-headed guard dog, which she subdued and put on a leash.
Persephone also contended against Aphrodite for the possession of Adonis, the beautiful youth who was loved by both goddesses. Having been hidden in a chest Aphrodite then sent him to Persephone for safe keeping. But on opening the chest Persephone was charmed by his beauty and wanted Adonis for herself, and refused to give him back. Zeus had to resolve the situation by ruling that Adonis spend one-third of the year with Persephone and one-third of the year with Aphrodite, and should be left to himself for the remaining time.
Persephone the Archetype
Unlike Hera and Demeter, who represent archetypal patterns that are linked to strong instinctual feelings, Persephone as a personality pattern does not feel that compelling. If Persephone provides the structure of the personality, it predisposes a woman not to act, but to be acted on by others – to be compliant in action and passive in attitude. Persephone the Maiden also allows a woman to seem eternally youthful.
The goddess Persephone had two aspects, as the Kore and as Queen of the Underworld. This duality is also present as two archetypal patterns. Women can be influenced by one of the two aspects, can grow through one to the other, or can have both Kore and Queen present in their psyches.
Roman wall painting that depicts Pluto abducting Proserpina
The Kore was the ‘nameless maiden’, she represents the young girl who does not know ‘who she is’ and is as yet unaware of her desires and strengths. Most young women go through a phase of being the ‘Kore’ before they marry or decide on a career.
Other women can remain as the maiden for most of their lives. They are uncommitted to a relationship, to work, or to an educational goal, even though they may in fact, be in a relationship, have a job or be in college. Whatever they are doing, it ‘doesn’t seem for real’. Their attitude is that of eternal adolescence; indecisive about who or what they want to be when they ‘grow up’, waiting for something to transform their lives.
Persephone and Demeter represent a common mother-daughter pattern, in which a daughter is too close to a mother to develop an independent sense of herself. The motto for this relationship is ‘mother knows best’.
If you’ve seen the animated film Tangled, it’s obvious that Rapunzel and Mother Gothel fit this pattern. There is even a song Mother Gothel sings, called ‘Mother knows Best‘!
In addition to family dynamics, the culture we live in conditions girls to equate femininity with passive, dependent behaviour. They are encouraged to act like Cinderella waiting for her prince to match the shoe, or Sleeping Beauty waiting to be awakened.
Passivity and dependence are the core (Kore) problems for many women because their environment reinforces the archetype, and this can hinder other aspects of the personality from developing.
In her book The Way of all Women, Jungian analyst M. Esther Harding describes what she refers to as an ‘anima woman’ who is all things to all men, adapting to his wishes and projections. “She is like a many sided crystal which turns automatically without any volition on her part…by this adaptation, first one facet and then another is presented to view and always that facet which best reflects his anima is presented to the gazer.”
A Persephone woman’s innate receptivity makes her very malleable. If significant people project an image or expectation onto her, she initially does not resist. It is her pattern to be chameleon-like, to ‘try-on’ whatever others expect of her. It is this quality that makes her vulnerable to unconsciously conform to what a man wants her to be.
Prior to her abduction, Persephone was a child-woman, unaware of her sexual attractiveness and her beauty. This archetypal combination can be seen in western culture as the girl-next-door who is sexually desirable. In Japan, the ideal woman resembles Persephone. She is quiet, demure, compliant – she learns that she must never say no directly or act in a disagreeable manner. The ideal Japanese woman is expected to graciously remain in the present but in the background, anticipating the needs of men, and outwardly accepting her fate.
Interestingly, the film Mulan, (one of my daughter’s favourites) about a Chinese female warrior shows her early family life as trying to force her into the Persephone mould, but she is fiercely an Artemis who wants to explore, and she has courage to spare.
Persephone’s first experience with the underworld is as a kidnap victim, but she later became queen, acting as a guide for all who visited. As real life parallels the mythology, a woman will become a queen through experience and growth.
Symbolically, the underworld can represent deeper layers of the psyche, a place where memories and feelings have been ‘buried’ (the personal unconscious) and where images, patterns, instincts and feelings that are archetypal and shared by humanity are found (the collective unconscious).
Persephone, the Queen and Guide of the Underworld, represents the ability to move back and forth between the ego based reality of the ‘real’ world and the unconscious or archetypal reality of the psyche.
The writer and poet Sylvia Plath, wrote of her ‘abduction’ into the world of depression and madness in The Bell Jar, and Hannah Green, an ex-psychiatric patient who ’s book I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, covers her time as a 16 year old schizophrenia patient.
Finally, some people know Persephone the Guide without the experience of being a captive Kore. Many therapists have a receptivity to the unconscious without having been held captive there. They intuitively know and are familiar with the ‘underworld realm’.
Persephone the Guide is part of that person’s psyche, the archetype responsible for the sense of familiarity the person feels when she encounters symbolic language, ritual, madness, visions, or ecstatic mystical experience.
Bernini’s exquisite sculpture – The Ecstasy of St. Teresa
In the seasons of a woman’s life, Persephone represents Spring; that time when she was young, uncertain and full of possibilities. It was a time when she waited for someone or something to shape her life, before other archetypes became activated and ushered in a new phase.
Persephone the archetype is akin to youthfulness, vitality, and the potential for new growth.
Cultivating Persephone
The receptivity of the Persephone archetype is the quality many women need to cultivate. This is especially so of focused Athena and Artemis women, who are in the habit of knowing what they want and acting decisively. They do not do well when they encounter a lack of clarity about how and when to act, or an uncertainty about what has the highest priority. For this, they need to cultivate Persephone’s ability to wait for the situation to change, or for their feelings to become clear.
Proserpine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti c. 1874
The ability to be flexible and open that typifies Persephone are attributes that Demeter and Hera woman also need to develop, if they are locked into their expectations (Hera) or their convictions that they know best (Demeter).
Placing a positive value on receptivity is the first step in its cultivation.
A kind, receptive attitude towards oneself is also important, (one devoid of impatience, guilt and self-criticism), especially during what may be considered an unproductive period of her life. Many women learn that ‘fallow’ periods can be healing respites that precede a surge of activity or creativity, only after they have learned to accept them as a phase, and not a sin.
Persephone the Woman
The Persephone woman has a youthful quality. She may actually look a lot younger than her age or may have something ‘girlish’ in her personality. Going first in one direction and then another, depending on ‘how the wind blows’, she springs back when the force lets up, remaining unaffected in some significant way by experience unless she makes a commitment that will change her.
Parents
A Persephone daughter is often a ‘mummy’s girl’ fixed in a Demeter-Persephone pattern with her mother. This type of mother often treats her daughter like an extension of herself who contributes or detracts from her own self-esteem. In this pattern a mother and daughter’s psyches can often overlap. She provides for her daughter what she herself wanted or missed out on when she was a child, without considering that a daughter might have different needs.
A Persephone daughter doesn’t do much to contradict the impression that she wants the same things for herself that her mother wants for her. By nature, she is receptive and compliant and wants to please.
Both Athena and Artemis mothers may help their Persephone daughters to develop the qualities that they value, or they could instill a sense of inadequacy.
Many young Persephone’s do not have close relationships with their fathers, especially if her mother is a Demeter who wanted an exclusive relationship with her daughter.
Ideally, a young Persephone would have parents who respected her inward way of knowing what was important to her, and trusted her conclusions. They would provide her with a variety of experiences, but not push her into them. These are parents who have learned to value introversion in themselves.
Adolescence and young adulthood
If a young Persephone has grown up in a ‘mother knows best’ relationship, her mother shops with her, chooses her clothes, and influences her choice of friends, interests and now dates. Living vicariously through her daughter’s experience, she may devour details of her daughter’s dates and activities, and may expect her daughter to confide in her and share secrets.
However, adolescents need to keep some secrets and have some privacy. At this stage of growth, an overly intrusive parent handicaps the development of a separate identity. By sharing everything, an adolescent daughter allows her mother to colour what should be her own experience. Her mother’s anxieties, opinions and values influence her perceptions.
Education is the contemporary equivalent of the meadows where Persephone and her friends played.
Work
Persephone women do not do best at jobs that do not require initiative, persistence, or supervisory skills. She does very well when she has a boss she wants to please, who gives her specific assignments that need to be completed in the short term. She is likely to procrastinate on longer term projects, expecting to be rescued from the task. Although work is never important to a woman who resembles the Kore, it can be more so if she matures into the Queen of the Underworld.
Persephone the Queen may enter a creative, psychological or spiritual field; perhaps as an artist, therapist, poet, or psychic.
Whatever she does is usually deeply personal and often unorthodox, she works in a highly individual way, commonly without ‘proper’ academic degrees.
Relationships with Women
A young Persephone woman is comfortable with other young women who are like herself. Her closest friend is likely to be a stronger personality. The Persephone evokes maternal responses in peers and older women, who do favours for her and look out for her.
Relationships with Men
With men a Persephone woman is a child-woman, unassertive and youthful in attitude. She fits the pattern of the Kore as the most indistinct and unthreatening of all the goddesses. She is happy to ‘go with the flow’.
Rape of Proserpina by Bernini
Three categories of men are drawn to Persephone women: men who are as young and inexperienced as she is; ‘tough men’ drawn to her innocence and fragility, and men who are uncomfortable with ‘grown-up’ women. The label ‘young love’ fits the first category. The second category pairs Persephone – the archetypal ‘nice girl’ from a good family – with a tough, streetwise man. He is fascinated by this girl who is his opposite, and she, in turn, is captivated by his personal magnetism, sexual aura, and dominating personality. The third stereotypical category involves men who, for various reasons, are uncomfortable with more mature women.
With a Persephone, a man feels he can be perceived as a powerful, dominant man and not have his authority or ideas challenged. He also feels that he can be innocent, inexperienced, or incompetent and not be criticized.
Children
Although a Persephone woman may have children, she won’t feel authentic as a mother unless some Demeter is activated in her.
If both mother and daughter are Persephone’s, they may become much too alike, especially if they live together and become mutually dependent on one another. As the years go by, they may resemble inseparable sisters.
A Persephone mother may also nurture her children’s imagination and capacity to play by sharing these aspects of herself with them. If she herself has grown beyond the Kore aspect, she can guide them toward valuing the inner life as a source of creativity.
Middle Years
Although the archetype of Persephone the Kore remains eternally young, the woman herself grows older. As she loses her youthful bloom, she may become distressed by the effects of aging. Realistic barriers now arise that make her aware that dreams she once entertained as possibilities are now beyond reach. A midlife depression results when these realities become obvious to her.
If she identified with ‘the Maiden’ she may work at denying reality, and try to maintain the illusion of youthfulness.
If she no longer identified with Persephone the Kore at midlife – because she made commitments or had experiences that changed her – she will be spared depression.
Later Years
In the course of her life a Persephone woman has evolved from Kore to Queen, at 65 years of age and older she may have the regal presence of a wise elder who knows the mysteries that make life and death meaningful. She has had mystical or psychic experiences and has tapped a source of spirituality deep within herself that dispels her fears about growing old and dying.
If she matured, made commitments, developed other aspects of herself, and yet retained a connection to Persephone the Kore, a part of her stays eternally young in spirit.
Psychological Difficulties
The goddess Persephone was a carefree daughter until she was abducted and raped by Hades, and was for a time a captive, helpless, powerless and unwilling bride. Although freed through her mother’s efforts, she ate some pomegranate seeds which meant that she would spend some time above ground with her mother, and part of the year in the underworld with Hades. Only later, would she come into her own as Queen and guide of the Underworld.
Each distinctly different phase of the myth has a corresponding real-life parallel. Like the goddess, Persephone women can evolve through these phases and mature in response to what happens to them. But they can also become stuck in one phase.
Unlike Hera and Demeter, who represent strong instincts that often must be resisted in order for a woman to grow, Persephone influences a woman to be passive and compliant. Thus she is easily dominated by others. The most formless and indistinct of the seven goddesses, she is characterised by a lack of direction and lack of drive. Of them all, however, she also has the most possible routes for growth.
The threshold a Persephone woman must cross is a psychological one.
She may have difficulty saying yes to commitments and following through with whatever she has agreed to do, so things like meeting deadlines, finishing school, entering marriage, raising a child, or staying with a job are all hard tasks for someone who wants to play at life.
Growth requires that she struggle against indecisiveness, passivity and inertia, she must make up her mind and stay the course, especially when the choice stops being fun.
If she is stuck in the Kore aspect marriage will be an anathema to her, because she will see it from the archetypal perspective of the Maiden, for whom the model of marriage was an abduction by Hades, the death-bringer.
Deviousness, lying and manipulation are potential character problems for Persephone women. Feeling powerless and dependent on others who are more powerful, they may learn to get what they want indirectly.
A Persephone woman is susceptible to depression when she is dominated and limited by people who keep her bound to them. She may bottle up her anger, turning it inwards and becoming depressed. Like Persephone, when she was first abducted to the underworld, she doesn’t eat and she doesn’t have anything to say. Physically as well as psychologically, the insubstantiality becomes more marked over time. Watching a depressed Persephone is like watching a flower fade.
A Persephone woman can become trapped in her inner ‘fantasy world’ to escape ‘reality’ and could become temporarily psychotic, where she may gain access to a wider range of feeling and deeper states of awareness of herself. But psychotics risk being held captive in the underworld.
Ophelia by John Everett Millais
Some Persephone women (like Ophelia in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet) avoid what is really happening by staying psychotic when reality is too painful. Many others, however, go through the experience with the help of therapy and learn to grow, assert themselves, and become independent.
Ways to Grow
To make a commitment, a Persephone woman must wrestle with the Kore in her. A Persephone can grow in several different directions that are inherent potentials of the archetype, through activation of other goddess archetypes, or by developing her animus.
One of the ways to do this is through becoming a passionate, sexual woman. A sexual initiation that puts a woman in touch with her own sexuality is a potential of the Persephone archetype consistent with mythology. Once Persephone was Queen of the Underworld, she had a connection or a bond with Aphrodite, Goddess of love and beauty. Persephone may represent the underworld aspect of Aphrodite; Persephone is a more introverted sexuality, or a dormant sexuality. In the mythology, Adonis was loved by both Aphrodite and Persephone. And both goddesses shared the pomegranate as a symbol.
The archetypal affinity of the goddess Persephone for Hecate and Dionysus may provide a clue to the ecstatic, numinous priestess qualities that some Persephone women develop.
As the guide for mortals who visited the underworld, Persephone has a function metaphorically similar to that of mediums. The diffuseness of her personality, with its generalised receptivity and lack of focus, also facilitates receiving ESP.
Once a Persephone woman descends into her own depths, explores the deep realm of the archetypal world, and does not fear returning to re-examine the experience, she can mediate between ordinary and non-ordinary reality.
Reach me a gentian, give me a torch
D.H. Lawrence (from Bavarian Gentians)
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness.
even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September
to the sightless realm where darkness was awake upon the dark
and Persephone herself is but a voice
or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
of the arms Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,
among the splendour of torches of darkness, shedding darkness on the
lost bride and groom.
rhap.so.dy in words 