I begin to sing of rich-haired Demeter, awful goddess,
of her and of her daughter lovely Persephone.Hail, goddess!
Keep this city safe, and govern my song.—Hymns To Demeter
Autumnal Equinox, and according to Greek mythology the day Persephone—daughter of Zeus and Demeter—Goddess of Spring, returns to the underworld.
Persephone is also known as Kora, among many other names including Proserpina by the Romans, and through her abduction by Hades and eating pomegranate seeds he offered her, she leaves earth every year for three months. According to legend, eating the food of a captor fates you ever to return.
When this vaunted Goddess of Nature departs, the fields become fallow and the land bleak as we lose vegetation and fertility so resplendent in the vernal and summertime.
Persephone the vegetation goddess and Demeter her mom were the key figures of the fabled and secret Eleusinian Mysteries, earth-worshiping and agrarian rites through which initiates gain afterlife powers.
You can read much more about these two in the magnificent thirteenth Homeric Hymn.
So now on this true holy day, one not made by man, we dedicate to harvests of the land and to inner harvests, to health and haven of home, to honor our ancestors and prepare our gardens for the next cycle.
Farewell Queen Of The Underworld, until we meet again.
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