Persephone, Goddess and queen, is an archetype that shows us our capacity to grow, heal, and transform. She is here to lovingly guide you back home to your resilience, your voice, and your ability to experience true liberated joy and pleasure.

Persephone is most well known for her abduction myth that ultimately led to her becoming queen of the underworld. In the beginning of her myth, Persephone was known as kore, which symbolized her role as maiden and daughter of the Goddess Demeter. She was fiercely protected by her mother. She had no worries. She had no fears. Persephone innocently and playfully spent her days running through the fields picking flowers.

One day, when she was on her usual walk in the fields, a vibrant and beautiful Narcissus flower caught her attention. As she bent down to pick it, the god of the underworld Hades erupted through the Earth’s surface on his chariot and abducted Persephone into the underworld.

The sun, the warmth, the beauty of Earth that was so precious to Persephone were all gone. All that surrounded her was darkness and the sound of grieving souls echoing through the underworld. This underworld journey and even Hades himself can symbolize the spiritual crisis termed the dark night of the soul, when we feel deep loneliness and a profound sense of disconnection from vitality, purpose, creativity, sensuality, and joy. This initiation into the underworld can be intensely painful and frightening and it is a core part of the human experience. Trauma, grief, life changes, infertility, aging, loss of identity… these are all events that jolt us from our sense of safety and stability and bring us eye to eye with our shadow, our fears, and ultimately to deep wholeness, resilience, and meaning.

In the depths of Persephone’s underworld journey, she ate six pomegranate seeds, a decision that would forever tether her to the underworld six months a year. The pomegranate seeds show us that trauma, grief, loss; they all change us. We often want to just go back to the way that things were before the dark night of the soul. When life felt carefree. When we felt innocent. When sex didn’t come with so much baggage. When relationships felt safe. When we felt like we belonged in this world.

In searching to go back, however, we are left feeling fragmented. Life and identity are split in the before and the after. Persephone bridges this gap. She shows us that we can heal and flourish, not just despite hardships, but through facing and integrating these painful experiences. Through honoring all the parts of ourselves, we can find wholeness, healing, and new levels of embodiment, joy, and pleasure. 

Persephone was eventually emerged from the underworld transformed. She was both Goddess of the spring and queen of the underworld. She discovered that, even in the darkness, she was never alone. Her mother Demeter fought tirelessly for her to return and was aided by other divine beings including the Goddess Hekate in finding her daughter. Demeter and Persephone’s relationship as mother and daughter was transformed and carried the balance of deep connection and healthy individuation. Their bond and Persephone’s descent and ascent to and from the underworld represented the seasons and showed our inherent connection to the Earth, cycles, and change.

Persephone became a deeply compassionate and powerful queen. She reclaimed her joy, her pleasure, and her playfulness, and also discovered her power, her voice, and her capacity to help others and guide them through their own journeys. Her sacred energy holds us through all the ups and downs; through deep pleasure and deep pain; and through all the intensity and meaning that this human experience carries.