Persephone and the Season of Winter

by Rev. Jamie Hinson-Rieger

This is a retelling of a very old story about the season of winter.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a curious young woman named Persephone. Her mother was the goddess Demeter, the goddess of the fields, who made all the good green things grow that the people needed to survive. When Demeter was happy, the land was warm and sunlit and full of color and good things to eat practically burst out of the ground or fell off the vine of their own accord. And the people were happy too. In those days Demeter was almost always happy, because her daughter Persephone was by her side.

One day, because she was a curious young adult, Persephone went off exploring by herself, far away from her mother, and she found the entrance to a cave deep in a section of the woods that she had never explored before. She followed the cave down, down, down, deep into the earth, and there she found the kingdom of the underworld, where the god Hades ruled.

Persephone had heard of the underworld. The people said it was cold and dead, dark and gloomy, a place of pain and sadness. She said to Hades, “Please tell me how to get back to the surface so I can return to my mother and the land of the sun right away.”

Hades said, “What’s your hurry? Why not take a look around?”

Persephone said, “Is this not the land of the dead? Of darkness and gloom?”

And Hades said, “Some find the underworld to be beautiful. We have vast caverns carved out of the ancient earth by the ceaseless flow of water and time, and dark rivers flow under crystalline stalactites past forests of quartz, the corridors rippled with rich seams of coal and iron and copper.

The roots of the living forests run deep into the soil of my domain, which feeds the wisdom of the forests.

Do you hear the music of the underworld? It is the singing of magma, the iron core of the world, vibrating and humming through the rock, tolling the ancient tones of creation.

And that whisk and whisper you hear is bat wing and eyeless spider, centipede and newt, the blind mole and the beetle, so many strange and beautiful neighbors, tireless cultivators of the soil. The citizens of the Overworld plant all manner of seeds down here, and we nurture them.”

And Hades continued, “And the dead do rest in my kingdom, it is true—a worthy and deserved rest. But we do not mourn down here. We remember. This is the land of story and dream, of saga and song. We murmur our memories ceaselessly back to the land of the living in the hope that they will hear us and remember too. At night we send them dreams to stir up the most secret longings of their hearts, and we nurture those too.”

And Persephone said, “You had me at eyeless spiders.”

And so she stayed. And in the great halls of the underworld she caroused with the dwarves and played all manner of games with the goblins and she communed with the roots of ancient oaks and she shaped the shadows cast by starlight on the rivers of the underworld into dreams that she handed over to the night faeries, who breathed them into the hearts of poets and anyone falling in love, as they slept unawares in the world above. And she and Hades were happy. And as can happen, when one is young and happy, Persephone seriously lost track of time. The hours stretched into days, which stretched into weeks and months.

In the world above, Demeter cried for her missing daughter. She searched every forest and field, mountaintop and meadow, becoming frantic with worry. The days stretched on and Demeter’s spirit began to wilt. She was convinced she would never see Persephone again, and in her sadness, she neglected her duties to the earth. And the earth grew cold like the coldness in the pit of her stomach. The land became frozen and barren. And so, the good things the people needed to survive would no longer grow when they were planted. Frantic with worry themselves, the people beseeched the God Zeus to restore order before everything in the land above should die from cold and hunger. It didn’t take Zeus long to understand what had happened.

Zeus sent a message to Persephone down in the underworld: “You must return to the sun-filled land of the surface.” And Persephone’s voicemail said, “This is Persephone, I can’t come to the phone right now, I am knitting a hundred tiny booties for a centipede, and it is a lot. Leave a message at the beep.”

And Zeus said to Hades, “She must return to the surface world.” And Hades said, simply, “I love her.”

Finally, Zeus sent Persephone a dream, in which she saw clearly the pain of her mother and the suffering of the people in the Overworld. Somewhat reluctantly, Persephone put down her knitting, patted the centipede on its head, and Hades showed her the path back above to where her mother was.

“Persephone,” her mother cried with relief. “You scared me to death! You must never leave me again.” Even as she spoke, little green shoots began to emerge from the ground again, and the tips of the trees began to bud as her joy returned.

“Mama,” Persephone said gently. “I can visit, but I cannot stay. It is your job to grow good green things under the sun. But it is my job to grow dreams and memory and rest and longing, and those things grow in the dark. The people need both to survive, even if they don’t know it.”

Her mother reluctantly agreed, proud of her daughter’s independence, and sorry too, because that is the lot of parents. And ever since, Persephone spends part of the year visiting her mother, and part of the year in the underworld with Hades. When she is away, the land becomes cold with Demeter’s sadness, and the people complain and huddle inside for warmth. But that is also the time when they rest and dream. And the wisest of them thank Persephone for the great gifts that the darkness brings, even as they too wait for the return of warmth and light.