spring equinox

Paris is beginning to spring. Eight more days to make it official, of course, but this morning has that brightness that makes the miracle of tulips and jonquils seem inevitable. There is nothing like watching the seasons turn over each other to make you feel at home in your newly adopted city.

It makes me think of Persephone – that goddess of spring, of returns, of reunions. Persephone, whose kidnapping by Hades (the god of the underworld) caused her mother, Demeter (the goddess of the earth and its harvests), to grieve so desperately that the earth slid into the quiet of winter. Not knowing where her daughter was being held hostage, Demeter journeyed the earth, searching for her everywhere with Hecate (the goddess of the crossroads). The earth waited in its winter. In response to the people’s hunger and cold, Zeus forced Hades to release Persephone. But before handing her over to Hermes (the god of boundaries and the travelers who cross them) who had come to guide her back to earth, Hades tricked her into eating four pomegranate seeds. Hades had stipulated that Persephone would be released only if she had not eaten anything during her ordeal. The four seeds she did eat obligated her to return to the underworld for four months of each year. When Persephone finally did return to earth, spring marked the end of Demeter’s grieving.

Persephone’s story – with its attendant explanations of the cyclical nature of love and grief – sounds a resonance with the potential for transformations with which spring seduces us each year.