Reclaiming Persephone's Agency

Trigger warning: sexually explicit content.

I’ve never really much liked the myth of Persephone being abducted by Hades and taken to the Underworld. For me, I have always felt that this is a distortion of a truer, more ancient story of maiden initiation into sexual adulthood, from the Age of Taurus, before the patriarchal religions emerged and began to suppress the worship of Goddess and the agency of women. Wouldn’t it be more nourishing to tell our daughters and granddaughters a story of how a maiden made a decision about how to make her own transition into sexuality, supported by a man who valued her highest interests, and how she was completely empowered to make decisions about the consequences? How might that sound?

Leaving the Ordinary

Nothing bores a teenage goddess more than a hot summer of bring lectured by Mama Demeter about the importance of fertilising the soil, supporting an abundant harvest, willing the grain to grow, polishing the cornucopia… You know what teenagers are like. She wanted to be staying out late, smoking the poppy, drinking Eleusinian wine, sleeping late, hanging out in the flower meadows with her friends… you get the picture.

 ‘Persephone! Help me fertilise this soil! Persephone! Come help with the garden! Persephone! Come focus on this grain! It’s not growing big enough fast enough! Persephone! Keep away from those boys! You have work to do!’

But Persephone didn’t want the routine and responsibility of the earth goddess lifestyle. She wanted freedom, fun, to find her own identity and express her individuality. Demeter’s obsession with grain and the harvest were soooooo booooring!!!

 So, one hot evening in late summer, Persephone was breaking her curfew, drinking in an Eleusinian bar, and she got chatting to this guy: dark, mature, mysterious, sexy… you know the sort - the type you really don’t want to take home meet Mama Demeter, but the type who really makes the pomegranate juices flow, if you know what I mean. And Hades, for that was his name, had some cash to splash…. He was pouring libations all over the place and Persephone was so into him. She felt like this was a guy who could really show her how to be a woman - not the boring kind of reliable, routine fecundity of Mama, but… womanhood that was previously hidden to her, but she could feel it stirring in her… in her beating heart, her stiffening nipples and the wetness in her underwear. No man labouring in the fields under the hot sun to feed his family had the dark excitement of this mysterious, male elemental bull creature she was drinking with.

 So when he kissed her, pressing muscular hot lips against hers, snd she felt his breath like the intoxicating steam from the Delphic earth on her neck, and he held out his great, male, powerful hand, inviting her to place her hand in his and to walk through the flower fields with him to see where he lived, that ripe young maiden-ready-to-turn-lover’s only thought was ‘Holy Hell Yes!’. Deep within her solar plexus, she felt no fear, only trust for this being and the potential that he offered her, them. Persephone chose to take that hand.

 Preparation

Hades led her by the hand, dizzy, heart hammering, through the flower meadow, a true Garden of Eden of heady floral scents, which spiralled her higher into floating, Pythian euphoria. Every step through this fragrant field seemed to be drawing her closer to a higher Truth than that of daily toil, daily service. Persephone shed her sandals so that the soles of her feet could connect with the vibrant, pulsing earth below her, feeling with such heightened awareness, the caress of every soft green blade of grass, the awakening of each sharp broken straw shaft, feeling all the contrasts as elements of a beautiful, united, creaturely whole, all speaking to her, calling to her, inviting her to feel more, to experience more, be more fully alive in and as nature.

Every step of the way her hand was held, gently but so strongly by Hades, way-showing, but allowing the pace of the journey to be hers, frequently looking back over his shoulder, with intense, caring observation, guiding her, encouraging her, supporting her, allowing her to experience every step of the journey, but at the same time being held, guided, supported, witnessed.

And then, Persephone found that she had been led to a gateway in rock that rose at the edge of the flower meadow. Hades placed those muscular guardian hands onto Persephone’s shoulders, looked penetratingly into Her eyes, and his deep, gentle, resonant voice, like that of the mountains and rocks themselves, said ‘You are here. You are safe. Are you ready?’

 Persephone was so ready.

 Apotheosis

The doors in the rock swung silently open. Beyond, Persephone could see a long flight of stairs running downwards, lit by torches. Just inside the doorway she could see a lidded jar and a piece of fabric. Hades picked up both, removing the jar lid, offering it to her to see and smell. The jar contained oil, with transporting aromas of both heaven and earth, bitter and sweet, life and death. Hades led her down seven steps, then kissed Persephone  on the forehead, anointing the centre of her brow gently with some of the oil. ‘So you may see in the darkness,’ he said, tying the scarf around her eyes.

 Leading her gently down seven more steps and then steadying her, Hades kissed her throat, touched a little more oil to the locus of his kiss, and then offered a sweet, honey-scented drink to her lips. ‘So that your voice will be sweet and strong, and issue freely from your throat.’

Seven more steps. Persephone felt his lips kiss the centre of her chest, and his hands anoint her with more oil there. ‘So that you may give and receive love freely.’

 Again, seven steps, held and led in darkness, feeling more and more as if she was descending both towards death and birth, towards a tomb and a womb. Hades held her hands, turning her palms upwards in the darkness, kissing and anointing them at their centres. ‘So that you may give and receive pleasure and healing.’ Persephone’s palms felt as if they had been filled with light, and that light filled her heart space, and pulsed down to her womb and vulva. The eroticism of the experience was so intense. She could feel the gush of wetness in her yoni, an almost overwhelming pleasure and yearning.

 Hades took one of her now energised hands, and led her down seven more steps. There he steadied her and gently opened the front of her shift, kissing her now hard nipples, and anointing them with oil. Persephone gasped with the unexpected pleasure. ‘So that you may receive pleasure and flow with nurturing.’

Seven more steps. She felt Hades’s hands open the front of her shift a little more and place a hand on her belly. She felt a kiss and a little oil being gently rubbed there. ‘For agency and sovereignty.’

 Persephone’s legs were trembling with anticipation as she was led down seven steps and then felt her feet walking on a cool, smooth floor. Hands loosed the last of her robe ties, releasing it the floor. She was gratefully guided to sit, and then lie back, on a soft couch in the darkness.  Then skilled, gentle hands parted her knees, and first lips, then a tongue, found her now-so-wet labia, caressing them, stroking them and anointing with oil. Persephone had never experienced such exquisite pleasure. Her head dropped back and she moaned, utterly surrendering herself to the process. ‘So that you may receive me, Beloved.’

And as the cloth dropped from her eyes, Persephone surrendered willingly, joyfully, inevitably to Hades, she discovered a new truth of womanhood: a hitherto hidden, wild, pulsing, exploding, supernova ecstasy of pleasure and holy, so holy, sacred union.

And then, the breathing, pulsating sacred silence and cool well stillness, the primordial, thrumming, blissful darkness, the belly of the Dark Mother, with Hades as guardian.

‘Arise, my Queen’. 

Persephone was called from blissful slumber by these words, and again, always, his extended hand to support and guide.

 Celebration

 Hades placed a crown on Persephone’s head, wrapped her in a coronation robe, and led her to sit beside him on a dais, on twin thrones. Together, they feasted on grapes, figs, pomegranates, licking the juice running down each other’s chins, laughing, kissing. She was the Queen of the Underworld and Hades adored her. But after some time, slowly her awareness shifted to the world above, to the mother who she knew would be worrying and grieving. Persephone knew now what she needed to do. She kissed her beloved goodbye, promising to return, dressed for travel, and climbed the steps back to the gates. They opened for her, their Queen, and she retraced her steps to Demeter’s house.

 Return

Reunited with her Mother, she saw that Demeter had aged while she had been away. She gazed into that wise old face and was welcomed into her loving embrace, Demeter’s tears falling onto her face. She appreciated the simple experience of being embraced by her mother, who stroked her hair and forgave her unconditionally, for the Mother may scold, but she never really condemns.  

As her mother eventually released her embrace, Persephone observed that the land was barren and bare, grieving as her mother had been. Beginning to move through the landscape, she saw that where there had been Winter barrenness, new growth was beginning to spring though the warming earth in her footsteps. Pregnant ewes and cows called to her, sensing the collective shared growth in their wombs.

 Blossoming with fecundity and fullness in her own pomegranate yoni, Persephone now truly understood womanhood. Life was a fully faceted integration of her maiden wildness, the sacredness of union with her Beloved, but also the duty, the routine, the tending care of the Mother, and the wisdom of the Crone, like the many seeds within the whole of the fruit. She knew, in her heart and in her ripening belly, that like herself, this Maiden child had the potential to play in the flower meadow, learn from her mother, be the obedient daughter, but then experience the same summoning to initiation that she had. She too would no longer see the innocent play of the bees and the butterflies, but her attention would instead be called to the heady aroma of the ripe poppies, hear the call of the stag in the woods, be intoxicated by the smell and gaze of the male.

And equally Persephone knew that it was her choice whether to bear this child now. She was sovereign of her body, her yoni, her womb. She and she alone had the power of determination of whether or not to continue the cycle of life. It was her choice, not her obligation.

 And what of her man? Persephone knew he was there beneath her feet, holding the structure of her life and that of the Earth. And she knew so well the route, the sacred pilgrimage across the fragrant meadow, she held a key to that portal in the rock. She was Queen of that Realm also. She smiled to herself, knowing she could visit and be held by her man in sacred reunion whenever she felt the call. And she fully intended to do just that.

Now, in a world where Roe vs. Wade has been repealed by the U.S. Supreme Court, we need to tell our daughters and granddaughters stories that teach them of their own agency over their own bodies, and their rights to have their own voices and to express their own sovereignty. The story could be this one of Persephone, or that of any other sovereign woman, but let’s keep telling them.

“You can be a thousand different women. It's your choice which one you want to be. It's about freedom and sovereignty. You celebrate who you are. You say, 'This is my kingdom.' “ - Salma Hayek