Persephone and Demeter: A Myth that Speaks to Mothers Today

Introduction and Welcome

Britta: Hello folks, and welcome to transformed by birth, a podcast about the rite of passage of pregnancy, birth and new parenthood. I'm your host. Britta Bushnell, author, mythologist, childbirth educator and an all around deep diver with a side of goofball. I'm so glad you're here. Today's episode is a solo storytelling episode with just me. So grab your comfy beverage of choice. I've got an earl gray lavender latte this morning, or take the podcast and this conversation and this story with you on a walk and connect with me through the story of Persephone and Demeter. Before we begin, we start the way we always do by lighting a candle. If you want to join me, please do or just take a breath as I light mine. Today's candle is in acknowledgement of all that's been taken from us. So today, my friends, today, we are going into storytelling land. And storytelling is something that I love. I love storytelling. I love oral storytelling because we have gotten really kind of used to fixed storytelling, meaning stories that we read, stories that we listen to, from audio books, from watching movies and shows, those are fixed stories. Once they're written down, once they're recorded, they become fixed. But oral storytelling, the ancient act of storytelling, changes. It shifts. The stories shift. The main elements start to have a different resonance, depending on the dance between the teller and the listener. I am going to share a story with you today that is one that has a lot of people know. It's the story of Persephone and Demeter. So many people have heard the story. It comes from Greek mythology, and yet it comes from oral traditions. And as such, there are different versions. There's different elements, in part because there's an element in Greek mythology where Greece wasn't like what we think of today, where it was it's one held contained country. There were many city states, and there was more separation. They weren't all connected through the internet and through being able to listen to a podcast or connect within seconds. It took time, and so stories were different in different islands, different city states, and as people started to interconnect and sail into spaces with one another, stories morphed. It's one of the reasons why you can sometimes hear one story and be like, That's not how I heard it, that's not the way it goes, and yet it can still be the same story. This story, this version, is a little bit of an amalgamation. I mean, we'll see, because this is oral storytelling, so I don't know exactly how this story is going to come out. It's not that I have memorized or written down this story and I'm reading it to you. It's not what's happening, folks. I am, I am off the cuff today. You got me completely unscripted. We're going to see where this story goes. And this story is one that has a lot of archetypal characters and archetypal energies that are bound within it. Now, what do I mean by archetypes? Archetypes is sometimes used to describe pattern like a a pattern that is universal. Now we may not think that there are such things as universal, because we are a planet that has lots of different ways of viewing things. And if we think about like what certain energies like often, I like to think of archetypes as energies, energies that hold meaning and patterns that we see in in across cultures, maybe not every culture, but in a lot of cultures, and we can understand an energy about them. So this story. Is really a story about a mother and a daughter, and so the archetypal energy of Mother is really strongly represented in this story, and Persephone as daughter is another archetypal energy that is well represented throughout this story, but she also represents the archetype of the innocent, sort of imagine the word innocent with a capital I at the front. That energy of this is the beginning. This is a newness. It's an energy of not knowing. It isn't. It is an energy of boy, so so many things I'm thinking innocent of, of Don't tell me that. I don't. I don't want to know that. I want to stay young and youthful and free and innocent. I mean, it really is naive. Is another word that could come in there. But innocent isn't always a negative. There is a gift of the innocent. The innocent archetype has the gift of wide eyed optimism, of joyful youthful energy. These are some of the gifts of the innocent archetype. So this story has a lot of that, that loss of innocence, it has the archetype of abduction. And that can be, just in case you aren't familiar at all with this story, that can be a good thing to know is that this, this has an energy of abduction, and that can be sometimes hard for some people to hear. And yet, many of us are abducted. We're all abducted at some point in our lives by situations. And so we're going to unpack the archetype of abduction. In this story, we're also going to unpack the archetype of grief, the energy of grief and of mourning. There's a whole bunch of yummy, juicy archetypes we're going to be talking about from this story, and it is one that can be really helpful for some folks in the postpartum period as well, to be able to map. Many of you know, I think you know, and that for me, storytelling is a lot about creating maps. It's about creating scaffolding upon which to hang our experience. It's like when we have an experience that is bigger than than is easy for us to understand, having scaffolding, having having a story scaffolding upon which to hang our experience, upon which we can bounce off our experience off of a structure of a story can help us to understand, to bring meaning to an experience that we might otherwise not have been able to to feel and understand and unpack. So story mapping or scaffolding. Building a scaffolding of story can be really helpful. I do this in my childbirth classes as well. Stories and metaphors work as scaffolding to help us understand the journey of becoming a parent. And I use the story of Inanna I talk about Artemis and Apollo, even the labyrinth and stories of all types are often woven into my childbirth classes. I have my online childbirth class now, and those are all woven into my childbirth class. So if you really like storytelling, if you enjoy unpacking an experience or preparing for an experience through understanding a mythical or metaphoric scaffolding upon which to view and understand and help help us gain wisdom from an experience, then my childbirth class is right up your alley. I'm telling you, it's just right for you. So today, we're going to dive into this story. And again, as I said earlier, I don't know exactly how it's going to come out, because this is live storytelling. I'm going to tell it based on connecting with you, and sometimes, when I am connecting with you, the story comes out in a particular way. And I don't know why, but maybe you do. Maybe there's a reason you can feel the story kind. Coming to life in the way that it is because it was meant for your ears.

Pulling Threads: How to Listen to This Story

Britta: Now, one of the things that I'm going to do today as I tell this story is I'm going to pull threads. So imagine I have I'm mixing all my metaphors here today, but imagine that storytelling is like weaving a sweater, and I don't know exactly which thread to pull or which which thread to weave in to help build the sweater that is meant for your body, and so I'm going to be weaving and pulling threads, new threads into it to help you understand and unpack the story. Often, when I work with story with clients in a live, interactive format, I'll tell the story, and then we'll pull threads together afterward and that can be super powerful. And a way that many storytellers like to pull pull threads is after the fact. Today I'm feeling called to pull them as we go. So I'm going to do that. I'm going to pull threads as we go and help see and explore what is in there for us. So I'm going to take a breath, I'm going to take a sip of my tea, and then we will begin.

The Story Begins

Britta: So this is a story. This is a version of Persephone and Demeter. This is a story about a mother and a daughter. Yes, there are other characters. Yes, there's some dudes that show up. And it's really a story about this particular daughter and this particular mother, or you could say it is a story about all daughters and all mothers. Now, our story begins with Persephone in a field, although in many ways she is not yet Persephone. She is Corey, the maiden. She is Corey frolicking in a field. And in some versions of this story, she is frolicking with her nymph friends. In other versions of this story, she is with the Virgin goddesses of Artemis, who you know, if I have an opportunity to bring Artemis into a story, I will, so maybe she's frolicking with Artemis and Athena. She is frolicking in a field. She is springtime personified, youthful, vibrant, alive, flowing, uninhibited, fresh. Many of us feel these energies around this time of the year, the frolicking in the field, the new buds on the trees, the crocuses popping through cold ground. Koray is in this field, frolicking under the springtime sky. She is springtime. She is the freshness. She is optimism and joy and hopefulness. She is in the innocence of her life, the innocence of her youth. Many of us have that energy, walking into birth, walking into parenthood, the feeling of this is beautiful, this is joyful. This is hopeful and fun for what are my cares but to skip in a field with my friends, but Corey drifts away from the others, as we sometimes do, she drifts away from the others and sees a particularly beautiful flower. Now, in some stories, it's a white flower. In others, it's blood red. What color is the flower that beckons you. Corey reaches down to pluck this flower, and she pulls and it does not want to come free. Sometimes we have to pluck and pull her. Order for that which we want. And she pulls, and she tugs, and as she pulls, the flower free. The Earth cracks open. The Earth cracks open, and from the crack in the earth comes a dark chariot with dark horses and holding the reins, driving this particular chariot is the god of the underworld, Hades, and he rides up from the underworld and snatches Corey or perhaps now in his clutches, is when she becomes Persephone goddess of the underworld. She has not chosen this path. She did not choose in this moment to become the queen of the underworld. Just as many of us, when circumstances catch us unaware, we become connected to the underworld. Hades, catches, Persephone, and Persephone screams and wails, and Hades takes the chariot, turns it around and dives it right back into the underworld, down, down, down, and the earth closes back up, and the birds return to their singing. No one has seen what has happened down into the underworld. Hades takes, Persephone down, down, but above ground, Demeter has heard a cry and has been her mother radar. I know I have mother radar that alerts when something worries me about my children, and maybe it is that mother radar that has activated, or maybe she has heard her daughter's cries, but Demeter is aware in a moment that her daughter is gone, and Demeter searches for her daughter, and searches for her daughter, she searches for days and days, she searches and searches. Some stories say she searches for seven days. Others for nine she searches and mourns. Where has her daughter gone, who has seen what has happened? And as she searches, she becomes more and more laden with grief. She is also rageful. She is angry and sad and despondent. She has become completely absolved, absorbed by grief. She wanders aimless, as many of us do when we are taken by grief, when our innocence or our our hopeful outcomes have been snatched from us, the ideas we had about how things should look, how things would go, are robbed from us, abducted, taken. Demeter is mourning, and she goes and finds in her wandering a hut she is now dressed in rags, she mourns and retreats from the world, as many of us do when We are in mourning, when we just can't take any more of what is happening in the world. There is retreat, and she retreats and she mourns and she mourns, and a wise elder. Bilbo sees her, finds her, and says, ah, we can't keep this up right now. She knows that she must bring some life back into Demeter. And so in her wise crone elder wisdom, she knows she must kind of awaken some aspect of Demeter to come back to herself, even if just a little bit. And in her wisdom, she knows that it's not going to be anything super profound that will bring her back to life. And so she she feeds her she she brings her water, and then she brings some absurdity. And Bilbao lifts her skirts up over her head and does a wild and weird dance, dancing, the dance of of her labia, showing off her genitals, and being a bit wild and absurd. And sure enough, that absurdity cracks the grief just the tiniest bit for Demeter, and with that crack,

Demeter's Awakening: Baubo, Hecate, and Helios

Britta: she's able to regain a little energy. And so she begins her journey again, and she comes to a crossroads where Hecate or Hecate, the goddess of the Crossroads is. And Demeter says, what has happened to my daughter? What have you seen? And Hecate? Hecate said, both ways. Says, Ah, I do not know, but Helios the sun god. Helios the sun god has seen everything. Ask Helios, what has happened? Demeter says that is wise. Yes, I will go and find out what has happened. Many of us seek answers to what has happened out of our grief, awoken from it just a little bit. Answers are asked for what has happened I need to know. And Demeter goes to Helios, the one who oversees all in daylight and says, what has happened to my daughter? And Helios. Helio says, Oh, yes, I did see your daughter. She was playing in a field, and she picked a flower. And he starts to tell Demeter the story. And he says, oh, and Hades, god of the underworld, came and took her to the underworld to be his queen. It's kind of cool. I mean, what could a mother want more than for their daughter to be made a queen? But Demeter is furious. Says, what? I do not want my daughter to be made Queen of the underworld. What is this? No. And Helio says, Oh, don't worry. Don't worry, Zeus approved the match. And now, listener, it's important to know that Zeus is persephone's father, and so he thinks he has every right to say who can be his daughter's husband, but Demeter No. Persephone is demeter's daughter. Persephone is a mother's daughter. They have been bound and fused and intertwined together, and so Demeter is like, ah, not on my watch. No, no, no, no, no, no, not my daughter. And now, now she's mad, mad to find that not only did Helio see this and not say anything to her until she sought him out, but her own, the father of her child, who also happens to be to meet her's brother. But we won't get into all of that. It's Greek mythology, after all, has has approved the match, approved the match of Persephone and Hades. And now, with her rage, she goes to Olympus, to Zeus, and says, How dare you? And Zeus says, No, it's a good match. It's a good match. All. All is well. All is well. Dear, dear Demeter, this is fine. It's all good. It's a good match. Our daughter has been made Queen of the underworld. One of the realms has married one of the three big gods, Poseidon, King of the oceans and the seas, Zeus, King of the earth and the heavens, and Hades, King of the Underworld. This is a good match. Sometimes the powers that be tell us that how we are feeling, the rage and grief that we are feeling is irrational, makes no sense, because look at these facts, or look at this perception, it all makes sense. We shouldn't feel the way we are feeling, and yet we still do. We feel the way we feel, and so Demeter. Demeter says, well, Zeus, I am furious, and until you bring my daughter back, I will not do my job. I will let the lands go fallow. I will keep the trees from budding. I will keep the harvest from fruiting. I will keep the grains from popping through the earth and ripening in the summer sun. I as goddess of the harvest. I will not do my job and the fields will go fallow, and with that, she leaves Olympus. She leaves Olympus and wanders the earth. And she dresses herself in rags. She puts herself in the clothes of mourning, the clothes of a beggar. For often, when we are in mourning, we are in the costume of other, of not ourself, even though beneath that costume, Demeter is still divine, even in our grief, we are still divine. And in her beggar's clothes, Demeter heads to the town of Eleusis and sits by the well. Sits by the well. Now the well is often an a symbol of rejuvenation, a symbol of deepening knowledge, a symbol of soul hydration, shall we say? It is also a symbol of the depths. And so Demeter sitting by the well is as if she is sitting there to rejuvenate, to deepen, to nourish her soul when we are grieving, going to the well is an important part of our journey. And as she sits by the well in her costume of grief and begging the children, two princesses of the the city state of Eleusis, see her, and it is as if they recognize the spark of the divine within her. And they see her and they say, Oh, you are just what our mother has been looking for. For the queen of Eleusis, metanera has a new baby, a son after having daughters. And back then that mattered. And so they see, ah, she has been looking for a nursemaid for our baby brother, and you look perfect for that. And so they take Demeter, dressed in rags, to the palace, where they introduce her to their mother, metaneira. Queen of Eleusis and metaneira says, Oh, yes, daughters, you were right. This is exactly who we have been looking for, who I have been looking for. Oh, she is perfect. And so she gives Demeter the role of nursemaid to her beloved baby boy, demophon and Demeter gives herself over to the task of loving this child, of caring for this child. She pours all of her energy into this baby boy. Many of us, in our grief at losing something precious to us, like to give the energy we would have given to that which we wanted, that which we loved and lost, to to a stand in,

Demeter's Protest: The Temple of Grief and the Fallow Earth

Britta: to a different form of energy. Sometimes, this is why birth professionals come into the work of working with birth, because they didn't get the birth that they wanted, and so they want to put that energy into helping others have the birth that they want. And in this caretaking that Demeter does, she's giving and giving and giving. She also has decided she wants to help make this child immortal, and so she feeds him Ambrosia, the food of the gods, the nectar of the gods, feeds him ambrosia and to make him immortal, she puts him in divine fire each night, when the family is asleep, places him in the fire to burn off his human condition, so that underneath the Divinity, underneath his human condition, can come forth. But transformation of this type, the transformation to divinity, takes time, yes and heat and yes ambrosia and so it's a slow process, just as our own transformation is a slow process, little bit by little bit each day, each day that Demeter feeds the ambrosia and places the child in the fire, she is also slowly bringing her divinity back to herself, her knowing of who she is back to life, bit by bit by bit over time, tiny bits and meta Mira finds out, comes in and sees her beloved baby boy in the fire and shrinks, what have you done? What have you done to my child? What are you doing? And in that moment, Demeter really comes back to herself, and she fills the room with divine light and pulls the baby from the fire and says, Ah, you fool. You fool. I was making your child immortal. I I am Demeter. I am Queen of the harvest. I was giving you a gift now. Now you must do something for me. You must build a temple in my honor, for I shall live there. I will no longer be your nursemaid, because Demeter has come back to herself and metaneira and her husband, the king of Eleusis, do as they are bidden they build a temple in demeter's honor. You could say it is a temple to demeter's grief. Perhaps, perhaps we all need temples to our grief. Perhaps temples to our grief. Are, are necessary in the process of grieving? I don't know what, what your temples to your grief, to what you have lost, look like. Maybe, maybe there is, is a temple in a creative pursuit, or art or or poetry, writing, journaling, dancing, moving, screaming, raging. What does your temple to your grief look like? Demeter lives in her temple, and all the while, the land has been going fallow. Quite a bit of time has now passed, and it's starting to get the attention of the other gods. Because here's the thing, the gods don't really care if the human realm goes fallow. They don't need the human realm, except, except it is the humans that make sacrifices and offerings to the gods, and the humans are starving. The humans have have little food, little extra so they are starving, which means they have very little to give to the gods. And that has gotten the gods attention. And so Zeus is like, Oh, I better do something about this. Sometimes it is through protest, through through boycott, that attention is brought to the powers that be, and that is what Demeter has been doing. She has been protesting. She has been boycotting. And now Zeus is like, Uh oh, I gotta do something. And so he sends Hermes down to the underworld, the messenger God, the psycho pump, the one who can traverse between worlds and heads down and says, Hades, I got a message from Zeus, your brother. He says, You got to give Persephone back. And so Persephone, who has been down in the underworld, has been made Queen of the underworld has been made Queen of the dead. Now we know very little about what has happened in the underworld, but we do know that Corey, the goddess of springtime, has become Persephone, Queen of the underworld, Queen of the dead, Queen of the hidden things underneath the Earth. Often times, when we have been pulled by by situation, by experience into the underworld, we learn things, we deepen and so Persephone has changed, but Hermes brings her back up, and Demeter and Zeus are in Olympus, and they say to her, You, you? Zeus says to her, you may go back to your mother now. And her mother says, but you didn't eat anything, did you? And Persephone says, no, no, not really, only a few seeds of the pomegranate. Now take a moment and picture a pomegranate. It is one of the most erotic, juicy, vibrant of fruits, a hard shell on the outside, inside, dripping blood, wet, red seeds, juicy, luscious. It is this fruit that Persephone has ingested, not a lot, just a few seeds from the fruit. And yet, anyone who has eaten of the underworld cannot go back to living full time in the upper world. You could say that all of us who have touched the experience of that knowing of the underworld. Have been abducted against our will by an experience that was not of our choosing. Cannot go back to the innocence entirely of springtime now because Persephone has eaten of the fruit of the underworld, she must live part time in the underworld, just as all of us who have partaken of the fruit of the underworld live part time in its depths, she may now live part time with her mother as the goddess of springtime, as well as part time as Queen of the underworld in the underworld.

The Pomegranate and Living in Both Worlds

Britta: And this can sometimes be thought of as a very odd pairing, the goddess of springtime, hope, joy, innocence, vitality, possibility, new beginnings, and the goddess of the underworld, the depths, the wisdom, darkness, the knowing connection to the dead, the world of the other, where not only the dead live, but also the riches of the Earth, gold, diamonds, so much richness, these feel like two very different parts of self, and they are often we live With multitudes, with parts of ourselves that feel like they make no sense together, especially after we have been abducted by the underworld experience by that which we did not choose. We live with the reality of both worlds and so Persephone lives, just as many of us do, part time with joy and frolicking and part time in the depths and darkness and richness of the underworld. And it's interesting, because throughout Greek mythology, Persephone is known to be part time with her mother as her mother's daughter, and part time as Queen of the underworld. And yet, in the stories where heroes and demigods and Gods visit the underworld, Persephone is always on her throne. She is never not there. And you could say that that's a little bit like what it can feel like moving through life when we have tasted the fruit of the underworld, a part of us stays on that throne always. No matter who visits. There she is. And yet she also is her mother's daughter who exists in the upper world. And now, yes, it is sometimes said that this story is about seasons, for when Demeter is mourning because her daughter is spending time in the underworld, the land goes fallow like winter, And when her daughter is above ground, frolicking with her, everything buds again. And perhaps that is true. There are seasons in our lives, times when when things are fallow and things are sprouting, time when we feel enlivened and above the ground and nurtured and held by the archetypal energy of mother, and times when we are in the depths darkness connected to mortality. Sitting on our Throne. These seasons are part of the cyclical nature of our of our being human, of feeling deeply we are in these seasons over and over again in our lives. That is the place where we're going to leave this story now, and I'm going to just take us into a bit of a deeper exploration for a few minutes, and explore more about these elements of the story that those threads that I started to pull. So when we think about this, I like to think about how connected this story feels to new parenthood, where sometimes we can be frolicking and above ground in our field, feeling so excited about new parenthood, about birth, and feel like we didn't get what we thought we were going to get, But we get an experience that is like an abduction to an underworld, a place we did not want to go. And whether it's the birth journey, labor postpartum, it can feel like we've our innocence has been snatched, has been abducted from us, and we, we wither in the underworld. And there are times if we switch to the story of Demeter, where, where we are on a journey of mourning, mourning the loss of our of our beloved. Whether it is a person or an experience or a hoped for desired moment, that mourning can take us through many different phases, phases of separation, phases of retreat, where we cannot be a part of the world or engage within it, elements where we may not want to eat or drink, we just get lost in it, where we need a wise elder to come and be absurd, and where we must take action and learn and go to the crossroads and speak to the goddess of the crossroads and get guidance to explore what the powers that be have seen and know and to fight back, To use our voice, our powers, whatever they may be to say no, not this, and perhaps to try and put our energy into another being, whatever that might be. Like Demeter does with meta near as baby, to try and turn it immortal, to make it last forever, because everyone who grieves the loss of something precious wishes to make it so that no one else has to experience that, to to put their energy into something that will outlast, that matters, that feels important, and to have A temple built in honor of our grief, our loss. The over culture message of this society is completely counter to that, no, don't build a temple to your grief. What are you talking about? Wrap it up. Make it pretty. Move on. Get over it, when actually, Grief is a normal part of our lives. It matters. It's important build a temple to your grief. Go right ahead. What does that look like? Now? Demeter doesn't live in that temple year round. But she does build that temple to her grief, or she doesn't build it. She has it built. She's a queen, after all, she's a goddess. But building, having a temple built, building a temple in honor of our grief matters. Mm. What does that look like?

Becoming a Psychopomp: The Gift of Traversing Both Worlds

Britta: And then understanding that we also live we become psycho pumps, those entities that can travel between worlds. We become that archetype when we have tasted the fruit of the underworld. We become psycho pumps that can travel and traverse from the upper world down into the underworld. Gosh, I think you know, in many ways, this is the truth of being a parent. If you have brought forth a child to the earth, you become a psycho pump, able to traverse the depths. You know what the underworld feels like. You become awakened to the possibility of great loss, and that awareness, that awakening, can never go away, because a part of yourself lives outside of your body now in the form of your child, and that knowing gives you an awareness that is the Queen of the underworlds, awareness we traverse between the depths, the darkness, the riches, the hardship, the truth of our mortality, that is, what is the underworld and the awareness of skipping And frolicking in the field as the goddess of springtime. This mixed, complex duality that feels like it does not make sense together is a mother's heart.

A Mother's Heart: Letting Go and the Journey of Parenthood

Britta: It is a mother's heart. It's It's that powerful experience of these worlds. It's making me think of of the movie Hamnet and the actress Jessie Buckley, who just won a the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the mother in this story, the wife of of Shakespeare, of William Shakespeare, and the journey that she makes as a mother, grieving that she lives and dances between the depths of the underworld and the joy of creation, of watching the play of the creation of her husband's story. Hamlet, that is, it is, in many ways, a Persephone story, or perhaps also a Demeter story. Talk about a temple being built to your grief. But as a parent, as a mother, our hearts feel these truths, feel connected and we we grieve from the very beginning, the Journey of letting go Demeter and Persephone have been fused. Fused. This their connection is often told through the story of the hymn to Demeter. So it's like It's told through the connection of the mother to the daughter a fused connection, deep, deep, deep. And so maybe it's that Persephone must be abducted in order to create some space for her own journey so that she can become all of what she needs to be as goddess of the underworld, Queen of the underworld, because sometimes, when we are so fused with our own external mother or internal mother, we can't fully be ourselves who. We are meant to be, and so she must be abducted so that she can become her full self. And mothers, parents begin the process of letting go as soon as our child leaves our body. Sometimes, I think that that the journey of parenting is a continual process of letting go, of letting our children go further and further and further away from us, and that process can be a long process of letting go. I now have adult children. My first born is getting married. My bonus daughter is building a family of her own. My youngest has even graduated college and has a job and is living on his own. This is, and has been, a continued process of letting go from the moment of birth. It's a slow and continuous dance of letting our children become their full self. But that doesn't mean that as a mother, as a parent, I don't grieve the journey I do. I celebrate it, of course, and I grieve it can be hard to leave our child for the very first time. Maybe that's in early postpartum. Maybe it's when school begins. It can feel like, Ah, wait a minute. How can this child live outside and away from me and my body? That is a process of letting go and grieving. It is important. I have a number of friends now who are right on the precipice of letting their their children go off to college, and it's I'm watching them and remembering for myself the journey of that letting go. It's not just a letting go of the child, but a letting go of the primacy of parenthood in our lives, the primacy of our child in our lives and the primacy of us in our child's life. And these all deserve mourning, but also to not be consumed by mourning, to let the mourning happen and return to the task of creating the harvest. Demeter can mourn and she can make the fields grow. Both, just as Persephone can be the goddess of springtime and the goddess of the underworld, we hold multitudes. This is our birthright to honor and acknowledge and dance in the fields and sit on our underworld thrones throughout the journey to give birth to our children and also slowly over time, releasing them into their lives, their lives, whatever that looks like. It's a dance. It's a journey. We become those psycho pumps, the traversers of many realms. That is part of who we are, that is part of who you are, and it's a huge part of what the gift of this story is for parents, and not just parents, also folks living on this planet today, and if you are In the United States. Living in the United States today, there has been an abduction of our understanding of things, our innocence, our springtime vibes. We've been taken to the underworld, and have eaten of the fruit, and we cannot go. Go back to not knowing what we know. Sometimes I think about March of 2020, just six years ago, when covid hit, that was an abduction against our will. We did not see that coming. There was springtime energy and then down into the underworld. The whole world was taken down into the underworld. And we hold that understanding inside us to this day. We know such things are possible in a way that as as as people on the earth that hadn't experienced something like that before. We didn't know, or didn't really know, if you know what I mean, we carry the knowledge, and we dance between the place of the underworld in springtime over and over again. It's our job when the depths of the underworld become too much, come up, come up. Dance in the field, pick flowers, listen to the birds, dance in the sunshine. And when the underworld calls and beckons, go sit proudly on your throne. That's our job. That's who we are. We are Persephone, we are Demeter. We are springtime. We are the underworld. We are grief. We are a temple that we build. All of those all of those multitudes exist within us. We are not singular. We are profound and wild and full and big. May you know your bigness from this story or from a pause, a breath, a moment that you take. Thank you. Thank you, listeners for sharing this time with me,

Closing and Episode Outro

Britta: if something shared today impacted supported or moved you, please share this episode with a friend. I produce this podcast myself, and your support makes it possible to show a little love for the podcast and these conversations. Please follow rate and review. If you'd like to continue the conversation, please join me on Instagram at transformed by birth. I look forward to being with you again on the next episode of transformed by birth. Now let's gather what we want to take away from this episode, from this story in an inhale and with our exhale, I'll blow out our candle until next time bye. Friends,