Persephone, the Kore and Queen of the Underworld, as well as Hera, Goddess of Marriage and Demeter, Goddess of Grain, is a vulnerable goddess. These 3 goddesses personify archetypes that represent the traditional roles of women : daughter, wife and mother.
The vulnerable goddesses are the relationship-oriented goddesses, whose identity and well-being depend on having a significant relationship. They express the needs in women for affiliation.
In Greek mythos, the Goddess Persephone was worshipped in 2 ways, as the Kore (which means "young girl" and refers to the Eternal Maiden) and as Queen of the Underworld after her abduction by Hades. She reigns over the dead souls and guides the living who visit the Underworld.
-THE ARCHETYPAL PERSEPHONE- The Kore
The Kore was "the nameless maiden", the eternal adolescent: she represens the young girl who doesn't know "who she is" and is unaware of her desires or strengths. She is uncommitted to a relationship, a work, or an eductional goal.
-THE ARCHETYPAL PERSEPHONE- Mother's daughter
Persephone and her mother Demeter represent a common pattern, in which a daughter is too close to a mother to develop an independant sense of self. An example of this relationship is the stage-manager mother and actress daughter.
-THE ARCHETYPAL PERSEPHONE- "Anima woman"
Persephone's innate receptivity makes her very malleable. If significant people project an image or expectation onto her, she initially doesn't resist. It is her pattern to be chameleonlike, to "try on" whatever others expect of her.
-THE ARCHETYPAL PERSEPHONE- Child-woman
Prior to her abduction, Persephone was a child-woman, unaware of her sexual attractiveness and beauty. However, a Persephonian woman doesn't need to be young or inexperienced to lack a sense of herself as a sensual, sexual woman.
-THE ARCHETYPAL PERSEPHONE- Queen of the Underworld
Although Persephone's first experience with the Underworld was as a kidnap victim, she later became its Queen, the guide for others who visited it. This aspect of the Persephonian archetype develops as a result of experience.
Symbolically, the Underworld can represen deeper layers of the psyche, a place where memories and feelings are buried (the personal unconscious) and where images, patterns, instincts and feelings that are archetypal and shared by humanity are found (the collective unconscious).
Thus, she represents the ability to move back and forth between the real world and the unconscious or archetypal reality of the psyche. She is the archetype responsible for one's familiarity with symbolic language, ritual, madness, visions or ecstatic mystical experience.
-THE ARCHETYPAL PERSEPHONE- Symbol of spring
She is the potential for new growth. Just as spring cyclically follows winter, Persephone is reactivated in women after times of loss or depression. Those women may stay receptive to change and young in spirit all their lives.
-THE PERSEPHONIAN WOMAN- Early years
The typical Persephone is a quiet, unassuming, "good little girl", the kind who is often "dolled up" in pink, frilly dresses. She is usually a well-behaved child, who wants to please, does what she is told and wears what is chosen for her.
She is usually an introverted child, who appears cautious by nature because she prefers to observe first and join in later. She is often a "Mommy's little girl", fixed in a Demeter-Persephone pattern with her mother. This type of mother often treats her daughter like an [...]
[...] extension of herself who contributes or detracts from her own self-esteem. She provides for her daughter what she herself wanted or missed when she was a child, without considering that the daughter might have different needs.
The little Persephone doesn't do much [...]
[...] to contradict her. She doesn't have a close relationship with her father, who may be absent or discouraged by the possessiveness of the Demeter mother. Ideally, she has parents who respect her inward way of knowing what is important to her, and who trust her conclusions.
Ideal parents for a Persephonian daughter would provide her with a variety of experiences, but not push her into them. These are parents who have learned to value the introversion in themselves.
-THE PERSEPHONIAN WOMAN- Adolescence and early adulthood
Her highschool experience is usually a continuation of her early life; her mother shops with her, chooses her clothes and influences her choice of friends, interests and now dates. Typically, a middle or upper class [...]
[...] Persephone attends college because that's what is expected from women of her background - the contemporary equivalent of the meadows where Persephone and her friends played. Education is a pastime for her, not an occupational prerequisite. She struggles to get [...]
[...] assignments done and papers written, because she is easily diverted. Characteristically, she tries several possible academic majors; if she settles on one, she does so often by default or following the path of least resistance rather than by active choice.
-THE PERSEPHONIAN WOMAN- Work
She may stay a "professional student" or she may go to work. She tends to have a series of jobs rather than a profession or career. She does best at jobs that don't require initiative, persistence or supervisory skills; she does very well when [...]
[...] she has a boss she wants to please, who gives her specific assignments that must be done right away. On long assignments, Persephone procrastinates: she acts as if she expected to be rescued for the task or as if she had all the time in the world.
The situation is different if she has matured from Kore to Queen of the Underworld. Then, she is likely to enter a creative, psychological or spiritual field, working as an artist, poet, therapist or psychic. Whatever she does is usually deeply personal and often unorthodox.
-THE PERSEPHONIAN WOMAN- Relationships with women
She is comfortable with other women who are like herself. If she is pretty, she may attract women who don't think of themselves as very feminine, who project their own undeveloped femininity onto her and treat her as a special.
-THE PERSEPHONIAN WOMAN- Relationships with men
3 categories of men are drawn toward Persephonian women:
-Young and inexperienced men as she is: in these "young love" relationships, the young man and woman are exploring, as equals, being with the opposite sex.
-"Tough" men drawn to her innocence and fragility: these men are fascinated by this protected and priviledged girl who is so much their opposite. She, in turn, is captivated by their personal magnetism, sexual aura, and dominating personality.
-Stereotypically patriarchal men: those men are older, more experienced, taller, stronger and smarter than the Persephonian woman. With Persephone, they feel like they can be perceived as powerful & dominant and not have their authority and ideas challenged.
A relationship can be the mean through which she separates from a dominating Demeter: if she moves away from her mother, she may have begun her journey toward becoming a self-determined human being (at the risk of trading a dominating mother for a dominating man).
-THE PERSEPHONIAN WOMAN- Sexuality
If she is still in the Kore phase, she is unconscious of her sexuality, waiting for a man to come along to awaken her. If she is in the Queen phase, however, she may discover that she is a very passionate lover.
-THE PERSEPHONIAN WOMAN- Marriage
Paralleling the myth of Persephone's abduction, marriage is something that often "happens" to her ; she is "abducted" into marriage by a man who persuades her to say yes.
Once married, she may go through stages paralleling the myth [...]
[...] and may become the unwillingly bride caught between her husband and mother. Marriage may also turn out to be a transformative even through with the Kore becomes the married matron, mother or sexual woman as Hera, Demeter or Aphrodite become activated by marriage.
-THE PERSEPHONIAN WOMAN- Children
Although she may have children, she won't feel authentic as a mother unless some Demeter is activated in her. She may stay a daughter who thinks of her own mother as "a real mother" and of herself as merely playing the role.
-THE PERSEPHONIAN WOMAN- Middle years
Although the archetypal Kore remains eternally young, the woman herself grows older. As she loses her youthful bloom, she may become distressed by every facial wrinkle and line.
Realistic barriers now arise that male her aware that dreams she once entertained as possibilities are now beyond reach. A midlife depression results when these realities become obvious to her. Depression will be the turning point of her life: this may mark the beginning [...]
[...] of a lasting depression after which she remains defeated by life, or it will mark the end of a prolonged adolescence and the beginning of maturity.
-THE PERSEPHONIAN WOMAN- Later years
If she has evolved from Kore to Queen, she has the regal presence of a wise elder who knows the mysteries that make life & death meaningful. Or, she may have never recovered from depression and remained captive in her own underworld.
-PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES-
Indecisiveness;
Manipulative character;
Narcissism;
Psychological illness (melancholy, depression, psychosis...)
-WAYS TO GROW-
To grow, a Persephonian woman must learn to both make commitments and live up to them. Meeting deadlines, finishing school, entering marriage, raising a child or staying with a job are all hard tasks for someone like her who wants to play at life.
Growth requires that she struggles against indecisiveness, passivity and inertia.
Besides that, a Persephonian woman can grow in several different directions that are inherent potentials of the archetype (listed down below):
Becoming a passionate, sexual woman;
Once Persephone was Queen of the Underworld, she had a connection with Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty. She may represent the underworld aspect of Aphrodite: she is a more introverted, dormant sexuality. Moreover, her acceptance [...]
[...] of the pomegranate seeds from Hades meant that she would be voluntarily returning to him; by this act, she stopped being the unwilling bride & became his wife instead of the captive. When her perception of men & marriage changes, Persephone may know for the first time [...]
[...] that she is with a man to stay and that she loves him. In this new context of trust and appreciation, she may view her man as Dionysus the evoker of passion rather than Hades the captor.
Uncovering a capacity for ecstatic religious experience;
The archetypal affinity of the goddess Persephone for Hecate and Dionysus may provide a clue to the ecstatic, numinous priestess qualities that some Persephonian women develop.
From that experience, they can become mediums or psychics, guides for mortals who visit the underworld to speak to the shades of the dead. Persephone has a function metaphorically similar to that of mediums who hold seances and allow the spirits to speak through them.
To develop psychic ability, a Persephonian woman must transcend her identification with the Kore to find the Persephone-Hecate element that is unafraid of the uncanny.
Once she has descended into her own depths, explored the deep realms of the archetypal world, she can now [...]
[...] transmit what she has thus learned and become a guide for others. She can become an author or a therapist who can guide people to find symbolic meaning and understanding of what they find into their own depths.
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