Spring: Myth or Reality?

Forget everything Game of Thrones taught you...

Spring Is Coming!

Happy Imbolc!!

(Also Happy Groundhog’s Day if that tickles your fancy.)

There are a ton of traditions that surround this fabulous day halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Legends. Tales. I could go on.

But I won’t. I am going to Disneyland. (Hey, there are fairies there. And it’s outdoors. And, true fact, Disneyland is also a botanical garden.)

This is a time of hearth and home. This is a time for spring cleaning. Traditionally, this was the onset of the lambing season. Also, one might look for the blooming of the Blackthorn. Fires and candles will be lit to welcome the return of the sun’s warming power.

Most Gaelic observers (both Pagan and Christian/Catholic) celebrate the day as St. Brigid’s Feast. And while I am part Irish, today I will regale you with the springtime story I have believed most of my life.

It is a belief of the Greek, and of me, that the Goddess Demeter (or Ceres for you Romans), is Mother Earth. She is the Goddess of Harvest, the Goddess of Grain. She is responsible for the fertility of our soil, for the green of the grass and the red of the desert. She is a very powerful Goddess.

She has a daughter called Persephone. She is said to be so beautiful that all the Gods wanted her so Demeter hid her away. Hades, God of the Underworld, wanted her for his wife and took her into the Underworld.

Demeter was distraught and looked for her everywhere. And the Earth plunged into despair. Nothing would grow.

Finally, Hades, plagued by the inhabitants of Earth who were begging for things to grow again, said he would give her back.

But before he did, he tricked Persephone into eating some pomegranate seeds. He knew that once she tasted the fruit of the Underworld she would never be able to leave it forever; she would always have to return.

And so the tale goes:

6 months of each year poor Persephone is bound as Queen of the Underworld. The rest of the time she could return to her mother. And so each fall as Persephone returns to the Underworld, the leaves fall from the trees, plants begin dying out as the Goddess Demeter is left in despair while Her daughter is gone and each spring as She anticipates the return of Persephone the fertility of the Earth returns with her.

Welcome Back Persephone.

Until We Meet Again...