Proserpine / Persephone

Please note that this post has been rewritten since it was first published as I recently discovered that much of the text and some of the images were missing. How that happened, I have no idea.

Originally written at the end of July 2024, this is a kind of companion piece to a previous post published a few years back called ‘Proserpine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti’. You can find it by scrolling through to near the end of this blog or by clicking on one of the links below.

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30th July 2024. Things never seem to work out as planned. I had meant to publish this before Venus moved from her recent transit behind the Sun which ended back on July 11th. The ancients would have said that she had gone to the Underworld.

In the earlier post about the painting of Proserpine, I refer to some terracotta figures dedicated to her and to her mother Ceres/Demeter which are in the collection of the British Museum here in London. At that time, back in 2020, we were in lockdown and the museum was closed. Subsequent visits after it reopened were concerning other projects, but more recently over the past few months I’ve returned twice and have been able to photograph some of them. Proserpine, as you will know, is the Roman equivalent of the Greek Goddess Persephone and her mother is Ceres who the Greeks call Demeter. Which names do I use? Rossetti uses the Roman version but I feel that she is more widely recognised as Persephone.

I feel that I should honour Rossetti’s choice of name, Proserpine, since he is of Italian descent and his father was from Vasto in Southern Italy, the area which along with Sicily was known as Magna Graecia. It was populated by the Greeks from around 800BC until the Romans took over in around 200BC and where the cult of Proserpine /Persephone flourished. Perhaps it is best to refer to her as both Proserpine and Persephone and to  her mother as Ceres and Demeter, except in the photo captions.

In the post ‘Proserpine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti’, I mention the Goddess’ association with the changing of the seasons. I also outline more about aspects of the myth which most of you will be familiar with. Just briefly, she is, I think, most famously known for being abducted by the god Pluto/Hades, and taken to be his Queen in the Underworld.  Grief stricken over the loss of her daughter, her mother forbids anything to grow on Earth. Eventually it is agreed that she may leave Hades, but she is tricked into eating six seeds of the pomegranate, the forbidden fruit of the dead, which condemns her to remaining for six months of the year in the Underworld and for the other six she may leave and live on the Earth (the amount varies according to which version you read).

Her descent coincides with late autumn time as we are heading into winter when mother nature sleeps, preparing herself for new growth and transformation in the spring when the Goddess emerges from below and walks once more on Earth. This transformative process is an aspect of the Eleusinian Mysteries, one of the secret religious rites of Ancient Greece which flourished in Magna Graecia. These initiations held each year centred on the cult of Proserpine/Persephone and her mother Ceres/Demeter. This description of the Mysteries only skims the surface of what they were all about, of course.

I noted when I eventually visited the BM in order to take photographs, that both visits coincided with full moons filling the sky. This was strange, as at such times when the energy is so high, it is rare for me to be found in a busy location surrounded by many people. Especially not a tourist location in central London. However, when on the 24th February (2024) I was on my way to a private book event in Bloomsbury which was cancelled at the last minute, I suddenly had the urge to visit the museum, no matter how crowded it would be. Later, it occurred to me that the full moon was in the sign of Virgo and that Proserpine/Persephone and her mother Ceres/ Demeter are associated with that constellation. The second time was on the 24th April (2024) when there was a full moon in Scorpio which is ruled by Pluto/Hades, the ruler of the Underworld who abducted the Goddess. These dates and full moons associated with them connected with the Proserpine/Persephone story and I don’t feel that such synchronicities can be ignored. I pause for a few moments and think of Inanna, the Ancient Mesopotamian Goddess also known as Ishtar, who like Proserpine, also descends into the Underworld.

The Virgo full moon made me think of the Hermit card in tarot. I’ve been working with that card quite a bit over the past few months. The Hermit, ruled by the sign of Virgo, nearly always depicts an elderly wise man standing high on a mountain holding a lantern, showing us the way to a more enlightened state of being. Despite their connection to the sign of Virgo, the card rarely shows a reference to Proserpine/Persephone or her mother Ceres/Demeter. Surely Proserpine/Persephone is the Hermit, I thought, although in tarot, she is mostly associated with the High Priestess and sometimes the Empress.  Being the Hermit requires a foot in both worlds after all – as I personally understand it at least – which is what this Goddess has. That journey into the unknown, of transformation, death and rebirth, mirrors the themes of the Hermit card. We go inward to deal with our shadow selves, down into the Underworld, in order to emerge hopefully in a more healed state. In his own description of the painting Proserpine, Rossetti talks of the ivy being a symbol of clinging memory and places her contemplating the light shining in from the upper world.

One Hermit tarot card which includes a nod to the Goddess is from the Thoth deck. Here we see the Hermit, but also sheafs of wheat, one of the attributes of both Proserpine/Persephone and her mother. Also present is Cerberus, the three headed dog who guards the entrance to Hades. I’m sure that there will be reference to her in other decks and tarot systems which have been produced over the years and are perhaps no longer in print but it is the extraordinary Hermit painted by Lady Frieda Harris of which I’m thinking here. I’ll attach an image at the end of this post of the original work.

Below are two illustrations from the Sicily and Culture catalogue (an exhibition at the BM back in 2016 which is amongst the best I’ve ever seen) showing the triple goddesses, thought to be Proserpine/Persephone, Ceres/Demeter and most likely Hecate, who is said to have helped Ceres in the search for her daughter after she was abducted. Hecate herself of course is often depicted as the triple Goddess.

I thought that I would add a few additional thoughts here about the collection in which many of these images are held. There are many votives in collections scattered across the world, of course, but the British Museum is the one closest to home for me and I’m well aware of the fact that antiquities held within the walls of the BM are the subject of much needed discussion and debate.

I agree that many of these artefacts should indeed be returned to their places of origin and that in many cases the objects themselves are crying out for that return to happen. Personally, when I enter the museum, I do not  look around and think of how we have ownership over these precious items, but I do bow to and give thanks to the civilisations from which we learn so much. There are collections all over the world holding items which have been taken and yes, most likely should be returned to their places of origin. However, that requires a complete rethink of how we look after these finds, so that we continue to honour and learn from them and balance is restored.