EDITORS John Blair, Un ivers ity of Geneva Karin Blair, United Nations, Geneva • Harry M. Bu ck, Wilso n College Rebecca Nisley, Silver Spring, Md. EDITORIAL Joyce L. Morrison ASSOCIATE ASSOCIATE Beatrice Bruteau, Ph ilosophers' Exchange EDITORS Paul Cadrin, Un iversite Laval Carol Christ, San Diego State Un ivers ity Cornel ia Dimm itt, Georgetown University Linda Fish er, Harvard Un ivers ity Dan iel Goleman, Psychology Today • Rita Gross, Un ivers ity of Wisconsin-Eau Claire John Lindberg, Sh ippensburg State Co llege Linda Patricia, Kean College June Singer, Jungian Analyst, Ch icago CONSULTING Cynthia Allen, Florida State Un ivers ity EDITORS Martha Ashton, Udipi, India JoAnne Bauer, Hartford Seminary Foundation Su kumari Bhattacharji, Jadavpur Un iversity, Calcutta Barbara Blair, Fordham University Caro lyn Demaree, American Un iversity Richard and Florence Fa lk , Princeton University Naomi Goldenberg, Un iversity of Ot tawa • Josephine Harris, Wilson College Jean Houston, Foundation for Mind Research Thomas A Kapacinskas, Not re Da me Un iversity Susan Nichols, Dickinson Co llege Richard Rubenstein, Florida Stat e University PHOTOGRAPHY Veron ica Pera lta CONSULTANT CONSULTANT Raymond A. Ball inger DESIGNER •

ANI MA, An Experiential Journal, is published by Conococheague Associates, Inc., adjacent to the Campus of Wilson College, 1053 Wilson Avenue, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17201 . Entire contents copyright © by Conococheague Associates, Inc., 1977. All rights reserved. Published semi-annually in celebration of the Spring and Fall Equinoxes. Address all correspond­ ence, including changes of address, to Harry M. Buck, 1053 Wilson Avenue, Chambersburg PA 17201 . Subscription price $7.50 annually, single copies $4.00. Unsolicited materials welcomed, but publisher assumes no responsibility for them. Return postage must be enclosed with unsolicited items. All contents are subject to editorial changes. ANIMA reserves the right to make its own independent judgment as to the acceptability of all copy, including advertising copy and illustrations. Authors and/or advertisers assume liability for all content and for any clai ms arising therefrom against the publisher. Indexed in Index to Religious Periodical Literature. pCIICphonc

• PERSEPHONE, daughter of • CHRISTINE DOWNING is Zeus and Demeter, abducted Chairperson of Religious and carried to the under­ Studies at San Diego State world by Hades, is the heroine University and a member of of a story replete with many the core faculty of the Cal­ archetypal symbols. In a ifornia School of Professional search for self-identity, many Psychology. Most of her modern persons have found teaching and writing is in new meanings in this myth depth psychology, mythol­ and have identified with var­ ogy, and modern European ious portions of it. ANIMA is literature. happy to present two unusual experiences with the figure of Persephone.

• DR. HAROLD M. HAMMOND is in the private practice of psycho-therapy at 1109 Spring Street, Suite 604, Silver Spring, Maryland 2091 0.

Persephone, by John Rood (1952-53), standing sculpture on the Campus of Wellesley College Photo by Paul Buck

ANIMA FOU R/1 21 I want to use the story of my rela­ tion to the myth of Persephone to · Persephone In Hades communicate the sense of how one Christine Downing learns about myth from myth - from the discovery of what it means to live a myth rather than from scholarly played the central role nor always the seemed so important "once upon a study. This essay has, therefore, a classical myths of Greek antiquity. time." And sometimes it happens very personal aspect since it has American Indian legends and Grimm's that a god or goddess, a hero or a seemed important to include some fairy tales and some of the books I heroine, with whom one has never reference to my own dreams and fan­ read and reread as a child and early felt any particular connection sud­ tasies and to events in my life -nev- adolescent have impressed me just denly asserts his or her claims upon 0 ertheless it seeks to communicate as deeply. For a bright and tomboyish us. I had a very vivid experience of that the recognition of the archetypal young girl the acknowledgment of that in relation to Aphrodite two years and universal dimensions of one's ex­ of some synonymy with Athena was ago when I had just recently come to periences frees one from a purely per- inescapable. Even when very young I California to live. I was walking at the sonal relation to them. I also hope to recognized myself in the stepmother edge of the sea on the deserted beach show that one can celebrate the myth­ who peers anxiously into her looking­ near my new home with the waves ic patterning without losing an appre­ glass as well as in Snow White, knew lapping over my seaweed entangled ciation of the concrete and unique that I was more like the spoiled and feet. Standing still for a few moments, c. moments that constitute one's exist­ idle, the irredeemably selfish second I had a sudden flash of Botticelli's ence. This, I believe, is what Freud daughter in "Mother Holle" than like "Birth of Venus" and what it is to be meant by "transference" - to know her admirably selfless sister. As an reborn - not as a child but as a grown U that one is Sigmund Freud and Oedi- oldest child, I felt myself more Hansel woman - and understood more clear­ ...... pus, that I am Chris and Persephone, than Gretel. Later, but still long before ly and gratefully than I had without ~ and that either description alone is college, I knew I was the Joseph K that image some of the feelings of insufficient. This sense that an old whose early morning arrest propels "newness" and yet "maturity" that .. story is being newly lived is also what him into a strange world of undefined were so strangely combined in my lies at the heart of any mythopoesis, accusation and ineluctable guilt and consciousness at that time. any creative mythmaking. the Ivan Karamazov who is over­ Sometimes, too, it has been anoth­ Because I will be speaking here in whelmed by the nihilist conclusions er who has recognized that for him I U such detail of my relation to a particu- of his own relentless reasoning. I incarnate a mythic figure and thus lar mythologem, it seems important longed for the kind of education Hans first suggested an identification I lat­ to begin by saying that this one myth Castorp received on the magic moun­ er come to admit as integral to my has never been the only one for me. tain. own self-understanding. I can remem­ Q. As far back as I can remember there The power some of these figures ber, for example, being told that I was have been several mythic patterns hold tor me has deepened through another's Ariadne, that I had held the with which I have felt myself to be the years; others (like Jo of Little thread which gave him the courage to closely identified. Nor have these al­ Women) I have long ago left behind, dare the exploration of his own inner ways been myths in which a female though I can still recognize why she labyrinth. But because I knew that

ANIMA FOU R/1 22 Ariadne later is left on Naxos, I resist­ dite and Abraham and there are many how all the elements in the story are ed seeing myself in this role. It was others. Nevertheless, Persephone a necessary part of it, belong togeth­ only gradually and reluctantly that I has a special place. For from her I er, so that now I see that the myth is came to appreciate that all of Ariad­ have learned a different relation to the mythos, the plot, the action, not ne's story is indeed connected to my myth than all these other identifica­ the figure abstracted from it. Perseph­ own. It took a long while for me to tions and all my familiarity with many one is the one about whom this story understand that if Ariadne helps The­ mythological traditions and with much with all its ramifications is told. And seus as she does, she must be left of the scholarly writing about myth­ in ways that I am still discovering her behind - for his sake and her own. ology had taught me. From my life­ story is my story - through knowing He must overcome his anima depend­ long involvement with this particular that has no immediate or practical ence and she must overcome her de­ myth I have discovered how the ap­ significance. I value very highly James pendence on playing the anima role. prehension of a mythic pattern teach­ Hillman's reminder, "Myths do not Only then will she become some one es one that there may be symbolical­ tell us how. They simply give the in­ able to relate to a man who has his ly meaningful connections between visible background which starts us own soul connection, like the Diony­ events which otherwise might seem imagining, questioning, going deep­ sos who comes to Ariadne after her isolated moments or stages, and er."2 desertion. shows one the inner bond between "Always," as far back as I can re­ It seems to me also that some of what one does and what apparently member, I have been Persephone. these mythical prototypes one feels happens to one. Perhaps because I am spring's child, one is; others serve as models. I am Often, in ways that continue to sur­ born on the first day of spring, and not Abraham and will not be; never­ prise, I have found that there are cor­ Persephone is the goddess of spring. theless the risking faith he shows in relates in hitherto unnoticed parts of I have a mother who loves myths and his readiness to leave behind the the Persephone myth to the apparent fairy tales and loves to tell them, a known familiar world (and later to give fragments or the apparent accidents mother whose own children and now up the well-loved son who was the of my life - and then I am less sure grandchildren, too, have outgrown only sign that all those years of wan­ those personal experiences are ad­ having such stories told to them and dering had any point to them) seems ventitious after all. so who tells them instead to the chil­ to say something to me about my life I have come to understand, also, dren of strangers in parks and librar­ that I cannot honestly evade. I too the difference between relating to a ies. So perhaps it was from her that I have been called to separations and myth and relating to a mythological first learned I was Persephone. I do sunderings, to goings-on that would figure. It has seemed vitally important not know. I cannot remember a time mean deeply regretted leavings­ to have gotten past identifying only when it was not so. behind. I have mostly been like Kafka's with one character in the myth, Per­ Yet in many ways it seemed that it Abraham, too involved with getting sephone, and with one part of the was only because of having been born ready to go or not wholly sure that the story, Persephone's forced abduction on a particular day that I happened to 1 call is truly directed to me. Neverthe­ by Hades. Yet this transformation be this maiden among the many other less, the biblical Abraham stands was not something that I deliberately possibilities. I felt almost as closely forth as exemplar. aimed at. There was rather a gradual identified with many others of the So there is Jo and there is Aphro- and seemingly inevitable discovery of maiden goddesses: with Athena for

ANIMA FOUR/ 1 23 her practical wisdom and the ease of handsome chief of our people calls Eleusinian mysteries. It is the relation her converse with men, with Artemis me to dance with him and thus signal­ to Demeter which makes Persephone for her shyness and chosen seclu­ izes his choice of me as his bride. different from those other maidens, u sion. I felt a personal relation, too, to Through this choice, through his rec­ those other anima figures, whose other maidens who like Persephone ognition of me, I become aware of mothers are an insignificant and often are carried off or abandoned and then myself and through the warmth of his wholly disregarded part of their lives. rescued: to Ariadne as I have already love and its sensitivity I become more (Indeed, it is an important part of the c noted and to Psyche, who must strug­ and more someone worthy of it, traditions associated with Athene gle so long to attain reunion with someone able to receive and in time that she has no mother but sprang Eros. (I am struck at how closely to return. Then there is a drought and forth from Zeus's split-open head; and these stories are interwoven with Per­ our people must go elsewhere in according to Hesiod, Aphrodite too is 0 sephone's in a way that suggests that search of water but I am left behind motherless, born in the foam that in some sense these figures are all alone, with the unborn son, their fu­ gathers about the severed genitals of aspects of one another. Theseus who ture leader, in my womb, as a token of Uranus.) .1: had carried Ariadne off tries much lat- their hope to return. I have become But Persephone is the maiden who er to snatch Persephone away from one who can wait alone and in peace has a mother and indeed, as its title, Hades. Ariadne, as the Cretan Mis­ for the birth of this son who now rep­ "The Hymn to Demeter," indicates, tress of the Labyrinth, is like Perseph­ resents the whole future of my peo­ our most important source for the one a goddess of the realm of the ple. When I had the dream I was in­ Persephone myth is one that views it e. dead. Psyche's last task is her jour­ deed a young woman of the tribe, from Demeter's perspective. That per­ ney to Hades to obtain Persephone's hardly conscious of myself as more spective was one I began to under­ beauty box. Having acquired psychic than just one of them. Hardly con­ stand sometime during the years beauty she is now herself. (Perhaps scious, too, of Persephone as more when I was literally becoming a moth­ ...... Psyche is that aspect of Persephone· than just one of the many maiden er myself. I experienced then what it " ~ that cannot stay in the underworld, goddesses, though I did feel an iden­ is to lose one's dearly loved maiden .._ the human soul that knows it isn't the tification with the rhythms of her life: daughter as I had done in losing my .,._ goddess.) That Persephone is at first the summers of ripeness and the win­ own maidenhood - not just or pri­ simply one among many maidens ters of separation and loss, and the marily in losing my biological virginity with no clear differentiation from the always unexpected (though always but in losing that in-one-selfness others is represented in the ancient dreamt-of) rescue by the messenger which Esther Harding has helped us U hymn by having her at the beginning god. But there were many parts of the to recognize as the essence of virgin­ playing in the meadow in the com­ myth which seemed less relevant, ity.3 There was part of me that pany of her maiden companions. That like the parts of a dream which one is mourned the introspective self­ scene recalls vividly to me a dream I not yet prepared to understand. enclosure that had characterized the c. had some twenty years ago: In this Then in my early twenties I began earlier years, as another part of me re­ dream I am one among a group of to discover my relation to Demeter, joiced in motherhood, an existence young women of the tribe, hardly con­ Persephone's mother, and to appre­ given over to relationships, to giving scious of myself as more than just hend why this myth is the basis for birth and to nurturing. one of them, until the young and the " cult of the two goddesses," the Were it not for my dreams, I might

ANIMA FOUR/1 24 not know how deeply being mother any mother. There are many in­ child - and how intent she is on this enters into my way of being in the carnations of the great mother who time raising a child who would world. But the dreams reveal the cen­ gives and devours - and most of escape death and the fates. This trality of mother/child imagery in my them represent the mother as the hope, too, has to be surrendered. way of perceiving even situations hero-son relates to her. But De­ Carl Kerenyi has understood well which have little to do with biological meter exemplifies the mother's own what it means to enter into the figure relationships. The most oft-recurring experiencing of motherhood and of Demeter: it "means to be pursued, dream motif in my adult life is that I suggests how much of motherhood to be robbed, raped, to fail to under­ have a child, a beautiful baby daugh­ is loss. Demeter, as this myth stand, to rage and grieve, but then to ter that lives in a room in my house shows her to us, is the grieving get everything back and be born that I rarely go to. Yet whenever I mother. She experiences the loss of again."4 The hymn to Demeter is her want to see her she is bubbling, alive, the other, the loss of her child, as the hymn, as the open part of the Eleusin­ and happy and has a way of smiling loss of self (which as Freud taught us ian rites seem to have been devoted at me while I am attending to her that is what deep mourning feels like). All to her. As long as the focus is on the shows she knows as well as I that it is of us who are mothers know the truth mother/daughter aspect of the Per­ really she who is taking care of me. of this, how intimately the cutting sephone mythologem, the mother But once I had a very bad dream, a fear of loss, the searing pain of loss, does have the more important role. scary dream. I went into that room to are interwoven with our mothering. And as long as the focus is here, the see my lovely datfghter and the crib To have to give our child up - to Persephone mythologem is particu­ as I approached it seemed to be emp­ death, to another, to madness, to sim­ larly meaningful to women. The Thes­ ty. But in the furthest corner was a ply going his own way- is more than amorphia was a woman's ritual which shriveled and shrunken little thing, we can bear and yet we must. The ex­ took the shape of an imitation of De­ about the size of a thumb. With fear travagance of Demeter's grief is meter's grief. Solace and encourage­ and trembling and utter gentleness I something I can well understand. I ment were provided by this represen­ picked it up and bathed it in luke­ feel in it her suspicion that in some tation of the basic emotions of warm water and prayed with an inten­ way the loss is due to her own ne­ woman's life as divine. sity I had never before experienced, glect (wholly irrespective of whether Demeter's story ends in a reunion awake or in dreams, that the child that is objectively so or not). Though with her daughter, a reunion beauti· might live. Here the dream broke off. my own expressions of mourning are fully described in the hymn: "Their It was years before I saw that beauti­ muted and muffled in comparison hearts had relief from their griefs ful smiling baby again - and when with hers, I am deeply caught up in while each took and gave back joy­ she does appear, as now occasionally how entirely she allows herself to be ousness." Kerenyi's reading of this she does, it is always cause for won­ taken over by her anger and sorrow, reunion rings true to me. It shows that der. For she awakens in me as noth· how ready she is to let everything else the two, mother and maiden, are one. ing else does a trust in my own ca­ fall apart and simply be grief. But I am (This is suggested in the mythological pacity to grow, to feel wonder, to ex­ struck, too, by how Demeter in the traditions about Persephone and De­ perience metamorphosis. course of her disconsolate wandering meter by "doubling" - Demeter, too, But just as Persephone is not just ends up mothering again after all, is raped; Persephone, too, becomes a any maiden, so Demeter is not just serving as nurse to another woman's mother.) Motherhood and maiden-

ANIMA FOU R/ 1 25 hood are two phases of a woman's there will ever be a time when that underworld as she had it over earth life, endlessly repeating: the maiden mother-longing will be entirely as­ and heaven - and becuse she was U becomes mother, the mother gives suaged. I am the abandoned child in jealous of Proserpina's/Persephone's birth to the maiden, who becomes my dream as well as the neglecting seeming determination to remain a mother, who .... To recognize one's and grieving mother. virgin. Ovid also has Proserpina eat participation in this ongoing pattern I felt I knew all too well what it is to of the pomegranate out of her own C is to be given access to a kind of im- be pulled into the underworld. I relat­ careless innocence rather than at Plu­ mortality, an immortality very differ­ ed this to times of depression and to's deceitful urging). At this level the ent from the hero's self-perpetuation. separation, times when I felt I had lost myth seems to capture the ambiva­ It seems also to mean that being my ego independence, times when I lence of the maiden's relation to sex­ 0 mother doesn't have to mean not felt taken over by something outside uality as I myself remember it - she being maiden, after all. One can be myself. During such times I wanted reaches out and is taken, the lover is experienced and innocent, turned only and desperately to "get back" - deeply familiar and a stranger, she is toward others and in-one-self. Deme- and knew only a messenger from the still the person she was (Demeter's ter and Persephone are distinguished gods could make that happen, that I daughter) and so changed that she in the myth and rite, but preci!>ely in could not bring it about myself. Being will never be the same again. The order to insist on their unity. They are back meant health and innocence, Abyssinian woman whom Kerenyi the two goddesses who share one wholeness and happiness. quotes at the beginning of his essay c. cult. Of the two, Demeter is the more I could understand Persephone's on the Kore tradition said this simply accessible, the more human and kind- abduction in another sense as well, and truly: "The day when a woman ly, more concerned with the practical as initiation into sexual experience enjoys her first love cuts her in two. U needs of human life. (She is goddess (and beyond that into motherhood). She becomes another woman on that ...... of the grain, not an earth-goddess as The sexual symbolism is obvious - day. The man is the same after his ~ su~h.) Nothing connected with Deme- the radiantly awesome flower which first love as he was before. The wom­ -._ ter IS secret. Persephone reaches out to pluck is an is from the day of her first love ~ But there is another part to the clearly a phallus; the red-juice-drip­ another .... (A woman) must always myth which we have thus far neglect- ping, seed-filled pomegranate clearly be as her nature is. She must always ed: Persephone's experience in suggests the womb. The Oedipal ele­ be maiden and always be mother. Be­ Hades and her relation to its dark god. ment is also apparent - Hades, who fore every love she is a maiden, after For a long while when I attended to is sometimes spoken of as the chtho­ every love she is a mother."5 this part of the story I did so from the nic Zeus, is here brother to Zeus and Thus for a long while, Hades meant perspective of the upper world, un­ has Zeus's paternal permission to the away-from-myself times, includ­ " derstood it as Demeter does, as does seize Persephone. (Ovid who often re­ ing but not restricted to moments of that part of Persephone that longs to tells these myths in less subtle ways sexual ec-stasy. The rape represented c. return. I knew that her joy in the reun- than do more ancient texts says that sexual initiation understood in a way ion was as great as Demeter's, for I Venus/Aphrodite induced Cupid/Eros that made the male's role almost in­ know how deep in me is the longing to inflame Pluto/Hades with love be­ cidental: he gave me to myself. He to be mothered - and do not expect cause she wanted control over the brought me into touch with my own

ANIMA FOUR/1 26 passion, as my own first welcomed hidden ineffable goddess, related to parents of Dionysos). The queen of and resisted lover had done. things beyond, not even to be named the underworld is not the great moth· It has only been much more recent­ except as Thea. She is, as Freud er. She is not the source of literal, ly that I have come to see that the re­ called her, the silent goddess of physical life. lation to Hades is just as central a part death. For a long while I understood Per­ of who Persephone is as is her rela­ I have had an entirely different rela­ sephone as the innocent victim of tion to Demeter. In the National Mu­ tionship to this long familiar myth Hades' rape just as Freud allowed his seum at Athens there is an important since I have begun to see Perseph­ early patients to convince him they relief which depicts two scenes: in one in Hades as its center. When had all been infantile victims of pa­ one Demeter and Persephone are one begins there, sees that the whole rental seduction. I laid all the blame seated at a banquet, in the other Per­ story is told about one who is known for Persephone's being in Hades on sephone is seated with Hades. The first and foremost as goddess of the the apparent abductor - and saw it two parts of the story are equally im­ underworld, one understands very dif­ as a bad experience, saw it as mean­ portant and belong together. This is ferently what it means to say that she ing bad experiences, from which one further confirmed by there being a is also goddess of spring and renew­ could of course learn and which one temple dedicated to Hades at Eleusis. al. (It's like looking at the cycle of would of course eventually get over. Only as we understand Hades' role in death/creation/preservation as illu­ But then I began to see Hades as the myth and what it means that Per­ mined by the spirit of Shiva rather meaning not "bad" but "deep" -and sephone stays with him as goddess than Vishnu - to start with death, to know how much in me, although of the underworld can we appreciate with the underworld, as a given is to mostly not quite consciously, yearned how the Eleusinian cult could be­ see life in an entirely different way.) for the depths that Hades represents. come the most important mystery in To be Persephone, to be this god­ I also see now why being taken to late-classical and Hellenistic times dess, Persephone must be raped - those depths is always an abduction. for men as well as women. It becomes and the rape is necessary not only as For we - or, at least, I - never feel evident then why Persephone is the the prelude to the reunion with Deme­ quite whole enough, quite coura­ focus of the secret part of the cult ter. That reunion is part of the public geous enough, quite mature enough as Demeter is the focus of its exoteric happenings - it is not the secret. to go there on our own. We (I) are al­ side - and why it is that the secret Persephone gives herself to Hades, ways still virginal before the really cult, the mystery, is the one that mat­ she becomes his consort. All the transformative (killing) experiences. ters in the Hellenistic period as De­ stories that are told about her (other I have come to regard Hades' meter's cult may have dominated in than Demeter's hymn) refer to her in realm, the underworld, the depths, as an earlier agricultural period. In the this role. There are no myths which the realm of souls rather than of egos, later period, Demeter is important not tell of someone arriving in Hades and the realm where experience is per­ so much because of her relation to finding her absent. As goddess of the ceived symbolically. The Greek Hades the grain but because she is the first underworld she is always there. It is not terrible and horrifying, full of initiate, the first to understand what seems important that she does not punishments and tortures but simply has happened to her daughter. Per­ bear Hades any children (though in Beyond Life. Hades is not only the sephone is regarded as the secret, some traditions she and Zeus are the god of the underworld but the god of

ANIMA FOU R/1 27 ·-

wealth, hidden wealth. I now see that the more I allowed myself to fall, that is not spent trying desperately to Hades himself very differently than I the less it felt like that. I discovered get out also leads to the discovery of had previously. Earlier I had wel­ that I had never really believed that the power and beauty of the dark comed Hermes as the guide out of the there is a center at the center. And moments in our life, the real con­ underworld, now I have come to wel­ that there is. It wasn't at all a case of fusions and desolations. Fear is so come Hades as the guide into it. I feel overcoming my fear, of overcoming different when I don't have to fear " I understand now how Persephone my fragmentation or my hurts - but fear but can simply fear - and in­ c moves from defense against Hades precisely a discovery that such over­ completeness and hurt are also dif­ to love for him. Again Hillman helps coming is beside the point. The fear, ferent when I see them not as some­ me say it, "Life becomes relieved of the pain, the incompleteness, the thing to get beyond but as something having to be a vast defensive arrange­ woundedness, the dying were there. to live. I think again of the beauty box 0 ment against psychic realities."6 They were my pain and my fear and that Psyche had to obtain from Per­ This changed understanding of my fragmentation, but I had come to sephone - clearly the beauty it pro­ Hades came not from meditating on a kind of objective relation to them. vides is very different from any .I: the myth but from a personal exper- The fear was no longer fearsome; I Aphrodite might have the power to ience which I only afterward saw as could just let it be rather than trying bestow. connected to the Persephone mythol­ to run away from it. I saw then that As I try to consider again the whole ogem. A few years ago, I found myself wholeness did not mean not being in mythologem and what I have thus far participating in a visionary experi- parts, that health did not mean not discovered in it and through it, I real­ c. ence in which I felt myself being hurting. During that night I was ize how important it is that Perseph­ pulled to my own dissolution. I felt brought to relinquish my negative one does and does not return from myself being pulled toward death or view of illness, suffering, and mourn­ Hades. Though from the point of view to a state that was indistinguishably ing. I no longer saw these as things of the cult Persephone is always death or madness and I felt very pow­ to get over, to put behind or deny. I there, she does not belong only with " erfully my fear of that - and particu- now see that night as a night spent in Hades but also with Demeter, not larly my fear of my fear. I discovered Hades. only in the underworld but also here .. that night how afraid I was and have The secret of the Eleusinian rites on earth. And I understand too that I always been of being anxious, fearful, seems to be that they gave a happy am and am not Persephone. Even to­ weak, helpless. But somehow I let arrival in this realm: "Thrice happy are day it is the maiden Persephone with myself fear and I let myself go mad those of mortals, who having seen whom I identify; the goddess of the and I let myself die - because I real- these rules depart for Hades; for to underworld is still a deep mystery to ized that not to let myself die would them alone is it granted to have found me. I am pulled to the underworld and 7 " be a much worse death. I felt, and I life there; to the rest all there is evil." return. She remains. think this is part of what provoked the The Eleusinian initiation provides an The Goddess who rules in Hades c. fear, that this dying that I felt was entrance now (not just after death) to represents the mystery of the un­ happening to me was a kind of unend- this realm where the perspective is in known, its fearfulness, and its lifegiv­ ing fall into nothingness, nothing­ a sense post mortem transpersonal ingness. I experienced that very vivid­ ness, nothingness. But I discovered and imaginal. But time spent in Hades ly in a fantasy in which I found myself

ANIMA FOUR/1 28 walking in the desert, unclear as to how I had gotten there but knowing I had come in search of HER. I walked for a long while through trackless 1. For those readers not familiar 5. Kerenyi, p. 101 . sands, seeming to know the way I with the classical traditions concerning 6. Hillman, p. 208. needed to go. I found myself ap­ Persephone, I recommend as the best 7. Sophocles, quoted in George E. proaching some cliffs. I climbed introduction, the Homeric " Hymn to De­ meter" in the Loeb Library version. Mylonas, Eleusis: The Eleusinian Mys­ them, and deep within the cliffs, I teries, (Princeton: Princeton University (Hugh G. Evelyn-White, trans!. , The Press, 197 4), p. 284. found a cave. In the middle of that Homeric Hymns and Homerica, Cam­ cave was a little fountain of water. It bridge: Harvard University Press, 1974), was very dark in the cave and I laid pp. 288-324. myself down in preparation for sleep 2. James Hillman, Revisioning Psy­ knowing that the only way to see HER chology, (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), p. 158. was to fall asleep and open myself to 3. ct. Esther Harding, Woman 's the vision that might then come. I felt Mysteries (New York: Bantam Books, This paper was presented at " Spring­ myself falling asleep and then in my 1973). time IV, " the 1976 conference of Friends sleep making my way down into the 4. Kerenyi, " Kore " in C. G. Jung and of JungiSan Diego, May 1, and at the an­ rock under the cave through the chan­ C. Kerenyi, Essays on a Science of nual meeting of the Society for Values in nel made by that stream which creat­ Mythology, (Princeton: Princeton Univer­ Higher Education, South Bend, August 17, 1976. ed the fountain. I made my way very sity Press, 1969), p. 128. far underground into a very dark place and sat down there in that under­ ground space and knew that SHE was • • • present. But I also knew that I couldnt see HER. She was present, but as an unshaped presence. That was as far as the fantasy took me. George Mylonas in his fine book on Eleusis testifies to his amazement that for 2000 years the secret of Per­ sephone's cult, of the Eleusinian mysteries, has been kept secret. This seems inevitable to me. For it is the mystery about mystery . .. .

ANIMA FOU R/1 29 This paper is an attempt to apply an ancient Greek myth to the life of a · Persephone modern woman undergoing intensive Dr. Harold M. Hammond psychotherapy. including "Persephone's Sketchbook" The myth is that of Persephone, - caught between her old life with her mother and her new life with her c husband. The patient in psychother­ apy is a 28-year-old American woman caught in the same trap- struggling is arrested at a particular stage. Using As a young maid, Persephone lived for identity and a true life of her own. the Oedipal myth as a working model, in the Garden of Perpetual Springtime 0 The method of applying an old myth Freud developed his technique of with her guardian maidens and her to contemporary life is similar to psychoanalysis, which let a patient powerful mother. Hades, the dark that of Sigmund Freud, who applied go back in time to this point of arrest­ monarch of the underworld, was the .1: the myth of Oedipus to the struggles ed development, relive the old con­ most eligible bachelor on Mount of growing-up in little boys. The boy flict, and work it through to a more Olympus until he fell in love with acts out a drama similar to that of successful conclusion. Persephone. Knowing that the Oedipus in the sense that he be­ Freud's Oedipus model is inade­ haughty Ceres would never give her comes attached to his mother, wants quate for the construction of a psy­ daughter in marriage, Hades called c. her all to himself, and is opposed to chology of woman. Any single model on his brother, Zeus, for help. Zeus the father's claims on the mother. would be inadequate. The Greeks suggested that Hades lure the maiden How the child works out his Oedipus knew this and peopled Mount Olym­ away from her mother with a trap. conflict, says Freud, determines the pus with many female deities - An especially beautiful flower was subsequent course of the rest of his Ceres, Aphrodite, Athena, Artemis, planted in the garden and when Per­ " life. and many others. The myths are not sephone reached down to pick the If the parents' marriage is strong universal in the sense that they apply flower, the earth opened beneath her .. enough and they are mature enough, to everyone, but there are different feet to form a large chasm. Out of the they can help the boy through his types of myths just as there are dif­ chasm rode Hades on his chariot, crisis where he will, in effect, "give ferent types of women. On the streets driven by the dark horses from the up" his claims to mother at around of any city you will find the brave land of the dead. He snatched Per­ the age of six, and "join the enemy" warrior Athena, the love goddess sephone into his arms and roared - by identifying with his father. In re­ Aphrodite, or - you may find Per­ back into the bowels of the earth, the turn, during this period (ages six sephone. chasm closing behind him, leaving no through twelve), the father will teach trace. c. the boy to become a man, so that he The Flower Trap Ceres, returning home, could not can take care of himself, get a woman In the Greek myth, Persephone was find her daughter and began a long, of his own, and found his own family. the daughter of Ceres, the goddess of mournful journey to look for her. Often, however, the boy is unable fertility, and the wife of Hades, the Finally, she was told what happened. to do this, and his emotional growth lord of the underworld. She put a curse on the earth for be-

ANIMA FOUR/1 30 traying her, and the earth became bar­ Ceres would like to keep her ren and dead. With the earth produc­ daughter by her side, but once Per­ Persephone and Me: Thoughts of ing no food, the mortals began to die sephone tasted the seed of the pome­ from starvation, so the mighty Zeus the Modem Persephone granate, she was destined to return. intervened. He ordered Hades to re­ What is the point of all this? How does (I was raised in a house of women, by a turn the maiden to her mother, so that it help? Is it just an interesting analogy, or mother who hated men, an aunt, and her Ceres would remove the curse and does it do any good? lover, and yet I still had a curiosity and the earth would bloom again. There is a point - there is no point. attraction to men. This must be because I Hades knew that he must obey It helps - it does not help. It does me once had the love of a man, my father. Zeus, the king of the gods, so he pre­ good- it does no good. Before he left, he must have loved me pared to send Persephone away. Be­ I am in the middle of my struggle - very much, and I am sure I loved him. I fore she left, though, he had her eat my pilgrimage. Perspective for evaluation guess that was my pomegranate seed, just one seed from the fruit of a pome­ is limited. Right now I am not in a posi­ and that little seed keeps me from giving granate tree, knowing that just one tion to look back and say with great au­ up men and living altogether in a world of taste of this fruit from his world would thority, "Oh yes, knowing this has helped women.) cause the woman to be bound to him me here, here, and here. " In thinking about her experience, and someday return. I can draw some parallels: Persephone says, When I can see my The struggle between Hades and Ceres withdrew the rain and vegetation. story reflected back by Persephone's Ceres was deadlocked. The power The people and animals starved. Spring story, I gain some objectivity on what's and strategy of each was great. Final­ and new life returned only with the return going on with me. ly Zeus arranged a compromise. If of Persephone. I have had the feeling Sometimes I laugh with recognition - Ceres would put aside her anger and all my life that I have the power, that only sometimes I cry! remove the curse from the earth, her I could bring happiness and joy, for a What a trip! What a strange power to be daughter would return to her for half brief time, when I visited my own family. living a life that has similarities to an an­ the year, in the spring and summer Zeus, the father and ruler of the cient Greek myth. The myth comes down months. But in the autumn, Perseph­ gods, allowed Persephone to be ab­ through the centuries unchanged - the one would return to Hades where she ducted by Hades. (There was seduction goddess locked into the repetition of her would be the queen of the under­ and sex play between me and my father story. world during the winter months. on the night before he left the marriage.) When I'm at my best, I like to think So each spring Persephone returns After much pleading, Zeus struck a I'm not locked into repeating my story to the earth, bringing warmth and "Solomon's bargain" between the over and over. Sometimes, a lot of times, I sunshine, growing things, and new mother and the husband. Each would do. My omnipotence has been short; life. Each autumn, she returns to the get her half time, thus cutting her in circuited. Now, when I find myself think­ underworld, leaving behind her un­ two in terms of her feelings and com­ ing: "My husband, child, family, friend, co­ happy mother and the dying earth. mitments. (I am a dutiful daughter, grand­ worker needs me to provide health, happi­ daughter, niece, friend, worker, wife, and ness, and well-being . . . " I say to myself mother. My energy is consumed by being in the middle of that frantic thought: faithful to all these. Nothing is left for "Hey Persephone! Climb down off that me.) myth of being responsible for human-

ANIMA FOU R/1 31 kind's springtime!" It's getting easier for tween earth and hell. Her time is pre· One must take responsibility for me to believe that. arranged by a higher power. one's life and for the consequences At one point in dealing with my sexual­ A bite of pomegranate ties her to the of one's behavior. Persephone's strat­ ity, I was agonizing over what sort of sex­ gods of death. What draws her back to egy also enables her to avoid her mar­ ual being I was. For me, it was an either/or mother? Nothing except mother's temper riage, and the partial commitment - case. I found it helpful to deal with my tantrum that squeezes off life on earth. she has made to being a wife and a early relationship and love for my father woman. Thus she avoids both the c (which I'd hidden away), as similar to Per­ pain and the pleasure of adult life. sephone tasting the pomegranate and Persephone: She avoids both the fear and the ex­ wanting to go back to Hades. For some A Psychological View citement of being free, of being an au­ reason, this was a helpful comparison. I As her therapist, I have walked tonomous human being who knows 0 had received love from my father. It be­ quite a few miles with the modern what she wants in life and fights for came apparent I could love women and Persephone on her journey toward it. She avoids the grief and sense of men. I want to love both. womanhood. Perhaps an analytic look loss that goes with giving up infantile .1: Recently a woman in my therapy group at her can shed some light on others fantasies of power - that she has the put a twist on the myth that applies to me. like her, both men and women, who power to give or withhold happiness. To state it in word pictures: "When I'm find themselves trapped somewhere A Poor Thing But Mine Own on earth's surface with Ceres, I long between an old and a new life. If Persephone gave up her fantas­ Q. for Hades. When I'm back with Hades, Persephone As Pawn ies, she would feel diminished. The all I can think about is returning to Persephone does not seem to be a real world, at first, is pale and drab Ceres and the earth's surface." real, distinct individual. She does not beside the world of fantasy. So, if she My personal curse is to be dissatisfied seem to exist as an autonomous per­ lost her illusion, she would, in a with the choices I make for myself. It is son with her own likes and dislikes, sense, become "smaller'' - but ...... hard for me to live in the here and now. desires, and conflicts. She seems a " real." To her, it would feel like "a poor " ~ I'm worrying or planning about something mere pawn in the power struggle be­ thing, but mine own." The fact is that in the future. tween her mother and her husband. she becomes an accomplished ac­ .. I'm in the middle of this one. Knowing The mother has feel ings. She grieves tress capable of playing many roles about it hasn't brought much, if any relief, for the lost daughter, becomes vin­ but, offstage, has no identity of her just recognition. dictive, curses the earth, uses her own. This is the reason why Perseph­ Ceres and Hades really could have sur· power to get what she wants. one, and persons like her, often have vived and gone on living without the com· Hades is also real - existential. difficulty during leisure time, such as - panionship of Persephone. What a trip He lusts for the woman and goes af­ weekends and vacations. These are they put on her: ter her. He is shrewd and uses what the times when the underlying bad "I need her in hell - I need beauty, power he has to get his woman and feelings about herself and the way Q. passion, sex. " keep her. she is living her life come to the sur­ "/ need her on earth with me - youth, Both Ceres and Hades are active face. She may feel panic, she may be­ new life, springtime, companionship." and aggressive. They know what they come depressed. But she may Persephone never says a thing. Zeus want and fight for it. Persephone is choose for a partner a man who can decrees an equal division of her time be· merely a pawn in their story. play the same game - a man of many

ANIMA FOUR/ 1 32 RHHHHr\ faces - and if the two of them stay with her mother, she talks about how mother/husband, she would be hap­ busy enough, the game can last a life­ bad her husband is; when she is with py. Nothing is ever her fault. She can time. her husband, she talks about her de­ thus set up conflicts between hus­ Persephone As Victim manding, domineering mother. When band and mother, or between any­ Persephone is always passive, al­ she is with mother, she misses her body, while she hides out of sight. ways helpless, always the victim. She husband, and when she is with her She avoids conflicts and maneuvers never acts, she is always acted upon. husband, she misses her mother. out of range of anybody's anger. She She is an arch appeaser. When she is As she sees it, if it weren't for her does not know how to fight for herself

ANIMA FOUR/1 33 openly. Like a man without a country, resolves her own internal conflicts. one will take care of me and tell me Persephone is a woman with no iden­ She never chooses between loyalty how to live my life," and " I need tity, no clear emotional home, no rela­ to mother or to husband; between re­ someone to blame when things go u tionship in which she feels safe and lating to men and to women; and be­ wrong." nourished. She takes her cues from tween remaining a dependent child or Persephone treats both her mother her environment and seems to be­ becoming an autonomous adult, free and her husband like parents, like au­ come whatever is expected of her. to choose, free to make decisions, thority figures, setting up mother­ c She is an actress playing many roles. free to make commitments. ch ild-father triangle situations. In Persephone uses the strategy of Persephone's myth is that once fact, she married a man who would the person who is too small, too weak, upon a time, she was eternally happy play a complimentary role. Through too helpless, too outnumbered to in the Garden of Perpetual Springtime, the use of her infantile strategies, she 0 fight for herself. She is a sneak, a but now she is constantly dissatisfied avoids growing up emotionally. Grow­ manipulator who plays off people with both lives because she is always ing up means one has to give up against each other, just as a child in transition and never comes home having parents. Only children have .I: plays off mother against father. She to one. If she did, that would mean parents. But if one gives up having may let them fight it out, rather than making a choice, and making a choice parents, one must face the scary po­ take charge of her own life and fight means giving up one, losing the other. sition of being alone. for herself. She could stop the action She could solve the conflict at any at any point by taking a stand and time by taking a stand, but this she re­ Conclusion c. making a commitment, but she fails fuses to do. I have held to view some of the to do so. Perpetual Childhood struggle, pain, and triumph of a cou­ Persephone's Oissatisfadion She feels she has to live up to the rageous woman. The paper is one­ U Persephone actually has hostile expectations of others and takes her sided in that time has been distorted ...... feelings towards her mother and hus- cues from them - reading, anticipat­ for the purpose of presentation. Per­ ~ band. She feels inadequate, so she ing, second-guessing what kind of re­ sephone is at once the woman in the needs someone to take care of her, sponses they're expecting from her. myth and the woman in the flesh. .. and she hates them for taking care of She may even read facial expressions Also, she appears in the paper at her her. Dependency and hostility go to­ and physical gestures as omens of worst, as tJ"Iough there were a mo­ gether. She sees them as monsters approval or disapproval. She puts her ment in time when she was most who must be manipulated, else they self-esteem into the hands of the deeply caught up in living out the life U may turn their anger against her and other person. How she feels about of the archetype. Such a moment kill her. What keeps her stuck is her herself depends on how they feel would have been before she under­ feeling that she is too weak, too about her. And she is as aware of all took psychotherapy. The myth scared, to incompetent to make it in the little cues of approval and disap­ worked most strongly in her when it c. the world alone, so she stays with proval as a performer is of applause was at its most unconscious level. As monsters for security and prostitutes - or the lack of it. The key to this she worked in therapy, her conscious­ herself. behavior is that she needs to main­ ness expanded, her awareness in­ She lives a life of feigned and par­ tain her infantile fantasies of the creased, and her insight developed. tial commitment to both. She never world. "Someone is in charge, some- The more conscious she became, the

ANIMA FOUR/1 34 PERSEPHONE'S SKETCHBOOK

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IT HA5 BEEN MlNE ALONE.. For.. rwe:.NT'( YEARS r(s IH E.. TH t N 6 :r: Do Br=.ST: less power Persephone had over her. ture!", but if you met the woman in The fact that she could write about person, you would likely think, "Wow, herself, as she did for this paper, what a beautiful and powerful per­ shows a depth of insight which is re­ son." This article is written as she markable and not available to most emerges with much triumph and persons. When you name the demon, some failure from her struggles with it has less power over you. herself. She has incorporated into her I can bear witness to the fact that being some of the strength of the the woman written about in this paper mother-figure, Ceres, and some of the has radically and dramatically altered self-assertiveness of Hades. She has her life since we met. This is not en­ given up her mother attachment and tirely due to work with Persephone, made her primary commitment to her since the archetype is simply one of husband, which has left her free to be many techniques used in the course an adult, and not a child. of treatment. But this woman has Many questions will be left unan­ taken charge of her life, resolved swered in this paper: Is the woman's basic issues around her personal and behavior learned or is it innate? Why sexual identity, and become a suc· does she act like Persephone? Is it cessful human being - wife, mother, because the myth incorporates uni­ worker, and friend. versal principles of behavior, or does She is still plagued with occasional Persephone "live on," as it were, in bouts of depression, inner conflict, the racial memory or collective un­ and low self-esteem, but they are few­ conscious? Why does Persephone er and farther between. Some residue seem to fit this woman and not oth­ of the neurosis always seems to re· ers? Persephone and I simply present main. a piece of fascinating experience As you read this article, you may which we lived together. have thought, "Oh, what a poor crea· •

•

ANIMA FOU R/1 39 TALKING TO MYSELF AT27 Pamela Alexander

I agree. The house plant plagiarizes the field of wild flowers, imitation is inevitable. My mother at 27 was probably looking at her Pittosporumjaponica and talking to herself. She married late; I was born when she was 41. It's never too late to put the self together with parts of other people, to become a piece of the world they likewise possess. "My daughter is two; she's learning to talk; I teach her every word she knows." The world can continue to exist only by repeating itself. In Magritte's Plagiarism, made in 1960 or about twelve years and nine months after myself, a field of flowering bushes grows inside the silhouette of a potted plant, species unknown but a late bloomer no doubt. We late bloomers tend to be self-effacing. • I have sisters. I have teachers who are also women. I grow up as in a convent. The japonica has white flowers, waxy, well protected. Two mirrors hang on opposite walls of the small attic room. In one, I see my pigtails and blue corduroy dress in alternating front and back views 12 or 21 times • depending on what year it is and how well I've learned to count. The line of little girls curves out of sight, but I'm sure it's endless, like numbers.

ANIMA FOUR/1 40 It was an arrangement Tantalus could have traded for his pears and pool with no other gain than a change of scenery. Putting one eye in the proper position to see myself multiplied ad infinitum meant my head got in the way (I have since • found this to be the main reason infinity remains undisturbed). Trying to get my head out of the way without moving my eye was an occupation which gave me numerous headaches and glasses before I was five. Older philosophers have gotten worse results from similar exercises. There are other mirrors. I will fill the ungainly silhouette • of my mother's mother, the one who showed me I would never grow up to be a little old lady, that I will become a large one instead. My future still curves like the arc of eighteen little girls and exhibits the same perversity: leaned into, it disappears. But now I know it is concealing something more interesting than repetition. It ends. One thing the mothers and sisters and teachers were careful not to mention but which grandmothers boldly engaged in as if it didn't matter what anybody said, was dying, the empty mirror just out of sight, the silhouette in which someone else appears, someone half-familiar- a girl running through a weedy field, a woman watering a house plant and muttering - someone almost the same.

• PAMELA ALEXANDER, A.B. (Bates) has published in Atlantic Monthly, Poetry Magazine, and various anthologies. She spent two years as a writer in residence at the Fine Arts Workshop in Provincetown, Massachusetts. ANIMA FOUR/ 1 41 ,