Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings.   This week’s Femme Fatale Friday is going to be focused on Persephone in her aspect as the Goddess of Spring.   We have been in Spring officially for a little over a week, while it is still cooler temperatures than many would like, the signs of Spring are clearly making themselves known.    The plants and flowers are beginning to break through the ground, the birds are singing, and the trees are slowly growing their first leaves.    In one way of speaking, Persephone has certainly returned from her time in the Underworld!

As I have been discussing a lot in my recent posts, the Spring season is ruled by the Maiden energy and the Lover energy.   Persephone in the beginning of her myth, when she is not even called Persephone, but instead referred to as Kore, is the most obvious archetypal Maiden.   In fact, Kore even translates to simply mean Maiden!   When Persephone is first shown in her myth, she is the devoted daughter of Demeter Goddess of the Harvest, and embodying the energy of the Springtime fertility in her innocent maidenhood.   It is when she is sweetly picking flowers in a field with her Nymph Handmaidens that the ground opens up and Hades burst forth from the Underworld to take Kore as his bride with the permission of her father Zeus, after which she became known as Persephone!

Interestingly, Persephone can be seen to embody both the Maiden and Lover energies of the Springtime after her marriage to Hades.    Obviously, after Demeter finally managed to get Zeus to beseech Hades to return Persephone there was a catch.    Persephone had eaten some pomegranate seeds while in the Underworld, and if you ate the food of the Underworld you became part of the Underworld yourself, meaning that Persephone would forever be tied to Hades and his Underworldly Kingdom.   This is how the agreement that Persephone would spend half the year in the Underworld and half with her mother came to be struck.    Now, how does that relate to Persephone embodying both Maiden and Lover energies?    The answer is, that as her marriage to Hades continued to flourish over the seasons spent with him, she gained respect and a true partnership with her husband.   She went from being merely the innocent Maiden to a true Queen and in some variants of myth even a mother herself, although I will not go into her motherhood in this post.   In her role as Queen to Hades, she is also a Lover in the sense of a Goddess embracing her sexuality.    So, I think we can see her return to the world in the Springtime as being equal parts innocent Maiden and sultry Lover, for she has gained complexity during her marriage! 

I hope you have enjoyed this short look at Persephone’s Springtime Goddess aspect.    What is your favorite part of Persephone’s mythology?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! 

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is Persephone in her Spring aspect.   I found the image on https://www.pinterest.com/pin/31666003606295607/.

Tarot Note: I have a page offering tarot and oracle readings for those interested in these services!    I am very happy to be offering these readings to my treasured readers at White Rose of Avalon!  Link to page: https://whiteroseofavalon.life/tarot-and-oracle-readings/

Further Reading

• Mythology by Edith Hamilton
• Goddesses in Everywoman by Jean Shinoda Bolen
• Persephone Rising by Carol S. Pearson
• Persephone’s Pathway by Jennifer Heather
• Persephone Unveiled by Charles Stein