image: Wikimedia commons (link).
The earth stands poised at one of its two solstice stations now -- reaching the exact moment of northern solstice (when the sun's direct rays reach their northernmost point for the year) at 0513 Eastern time 21 June for North America, which is 0213 Pacific time 21 June, in just over three hours from now as this post is published.
From this point, the sun's arcing path will turn once more back towards the south, and hours of daylight for the Northern Hemisphere will begin to grow shorter and shorter again as the sun's path gets lower and lower towards the southern horizon (although for the Southern Hemisphere the sun's path southwards will cause it to get higher and higher above the northern horizon, as days grow longer and longer).
While the myth of the goddess Persephone, who descended into the Underworld, does not specifically mention the solstices, because the solstices divide the year in two -- and because the ancient myths tell us that the goddess spends part of the year in the land of the dead with the god of death, and the other part of the year with her mother the goddess of crops and harvests -- it is perhaps appropriate to recall it here.
The amount of time that Persephone spends in each of the two realms differs according to various ancient sources, but the Roman poet Ovid declares in his Metamorphoses that she evenly divides the year between them:
But poised between his sorrowing sister and brother,
great Jove divided the year into two equal portions,
so now in two realms the shared goddess holds sway,
and as many months spent with her mother are spent with her husband.
Metamorphoses, Book V
Charles Martin, trans.
The abduction of Persephone, whom the Romans call Proserpine or Proserpina, is described by Ovid as taking place beside a beautiful pool:
Near Henna's walls stands a deep pool of water, called Pergus:
not even the river Cayster, flowing serenely,
hears more songs from its swans; this pool is completely surrounded
by a ring of tall trees, whose foliage, just like an awning,
keeps out the sun and preserves the water's refreshing coolness;
the moist ground is covered with flowers of Tyrian purple;
here it is springtime forever. And here Proserpina
was playfully picking its white lilies and violets . . .
It was as she gathered flowers that the god of the Underworld saw the goddess and swooped in with his terrible chariot to take her down with him. Ovid describes the god plunging downward through the earth, into the acid caverns of the world below:
Her abductor rushed off in his chariot, urging his horses,
calling each one by its name and flicking the somber,
rust-colored reins over their backs as they galloped
through the deep lakes and the sulpherous pools of Palike
that boil up through the ruptured earth
And it is there that, according to the ancient sources, the goddess tasted of the fruit of the Underworld, thus condemning her to have to spend part of each year in the realm of the dead. In every case, Persephone is described as having eaten some of the seeds of a pomegranate fruit, although how many seeds varies widely among the different ancient poets. Ovid has her tasting seven seeds:
. . . Ceres was sure she would get back her daughter,
though the Fates were not, for the girl had already placated
her hunger while guilelessly roaming death's formal gardens,
where, from a low-hanging branch, she had plucked without thinking
a pomegranate, and peeling its pale bark off, devoured
seven of its seeds . . .
This pattern is one of the saddest in all of ancient myth, and one with parallels in cultures around the world, including in the Americas -- where the food of the Underworld which is tasted is in some versions a strawberry. Other parallel myths in which a goddess descends to the realm of death are found in cultures as widely separated as ancient Japan and ancient Mesopotamia.
Conventional interpretations always confidently inform us that these myths originated as an explanation for the changing seasons of the year, but there is more going on here as evidenced by the overwhelming abundance of sheer anguish of the story, and by the fact that the loss of Persephone and the need to search diligently for her was central to the sacred Eleusinian Mysteries which took place each year in the hills outside of Athens until those rites were finally shut down by order of the literalist Christian emperor Theodosius.
This sad story of the abduction of Persephone and her imprisonment in the Underworld is one of absolutely vital importance, going far beyond any supposed need to explain the interplay of summer and winter each year -- as are its numerous parallel myths from other cultures around the earth.
As we reach this point of turning and change, it is worthy of our contemplation, and our tears.
