THE MYTHS OF SPRING

PERSEPHONE was the Greek goddess queen of the underworld, wife of the god Haides. She was also the goddess of spring growth, who was worshipped alongside her mother Demeter in the Eleusinian Mysteries. This agricultural-based cult promised its initiates passage to a blessed afterlife.

Persephone was titled Kore (the Maiden) as the goddess of spring's bounty. Once upon a time when she was playing in a flowery meadow with her Nymph companions, Kore was seized by Haides and carried off to the underworld as his bride. Her mother Demeter despaired at her dissappearance and searched for her throughout the world accompanied by the goddess Hekate bearing torches. When she learned that Zeus had conspired in her daughter's abduction she was furious, and refused to let the earth’s bounty bear fruit until Persephone was returned. Zeus consented, but because the girl had tasted of the food of Haides - a handful of pomegranate seeds - she was forced to forever spend a part of the year with her husband in the underworld. Her annual return to the earth in spring was marked by the flowering of the meadows and the sudden growth of the new grain. Her return to the underworld in winter, conversely, saw the dying down of plants and the halting of growth.

This myth sparked poetry, cults and nature-based belief systems. 

The Lakota Indians saw the seasons a different way.  The 24 hours of March 20, known as the Vernal Equinox, are divided into equal numbers of light and darkness, and herald the beginning of the Spring season. In the Medicine Wheel of the Native American Lakota tradition, Spring is in the Eastern Quadrant of our life's earthwalk and of every project we undertake. Its animal totem is the Golden Eagle that rises fearlessly into the heavens, high enough to consort with Spirits and Wakan Tonka, the great Sun. Like the Sun itself, its colors include all the shades of gold, and therefore, its symbolic Stones include Citrine, Carnelian, and Topaz. In terms of human life, Spring is the season of birth. It is the season when life and inspiration arise once again from the darkness of hibernation into the light of the sun and earth-reality.

It is easy to love Spring. Throughout the ages, humans have taken a natural delight in participating in Spring's approach and joyously welcoming her arrival. Spring is the season of birth. It is the season when life and inspiration arise once again from the darkness of hibernation into the light of the sun and earth-reality. It is the time to exclaim over the wonder of children...children of every species of life. It is the time to exclaim over childhood itself and new beginnings. It is the time to honor the inspiration that engenders creativity. For inspiration, like breathing, needs faith, before the beginnings of creativity can happen, and creativity is the essence of life becoming itself, in every form, again and again and again.

Spring is the time to throw our windows open and soothe ourselves with sunlight. Create our own rites of spring, complete with strange little annual rituals. Open your heart and let your old fears and doubts get aired out. It’s time for a new beginning. Although that may only mean you clean our your basement, or try something completely new, it is nevertheless a new beginning the moment and day you decide to provoke or create change.

Robert Frost, my favourite poet wrote

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.