Demeter’s Story

Yesterday I released my retelling of Demeter’s Story to those who are participating in my online course Bloom by Moon. It’s a beautiful story that engages with the themes of mothering, grief, loss and the cyclic nature of things. It engages with issues of what it means to nurture another being, the empty-nest syndrome and the danger of over-investing our sense of self in our relationships with our children.

However, it is not solely relevant for women who have birthed and raised children – I take a much broader view of the relevance of the mother goddess than that. As I stated in a post I shared over at Roots of She called Stirring the Cauldron, ‘whether or not you choose to consciously acknowledge and express this part of yourself, you are a mother – you hold within you that creative cauldron. You are an intrinsically creative being, and you can decide to allow the archetype of the mother to play throughout your life in whichever way you choose.’

The mother is one who engages in the creative act and who nurtures and tends her creations towards independence. So, if you have felt that the mother goddess was not a figure you could identify with, I would like you to broaden your interpretation of this beautiful archetype and to reconsider her relevance.

Here is the opening to Demeter’s Story…

Time used to be simpler. Apollo ruled the hours, the minutes, the seconds and the sun held full dominion, burning white hot against the pale blue sky. And then his sister Artemis would take her turn as the moon rose in all her silver loveliness.

There was day-time and there was night-time. One after the other after the other, stretching back throughout time. The same cycle for aeons, with never any need for change. This is the way things were, and even I believed that it was the way things would always be.

I certainly had no inclination that I would be the one to change it.

I am Demeter. In this part of the world I am known as the goddess of the grain. But the truth is I am so much more than that. I am the bountiful goddess of the harvest, the abundant essence that dwells in the hearts of all living things and whispers, “Grow, grow!” It is because of me that apples swell, tomatoes redden and olives ripen.

I am the creative force that fills the seed with the divine spark and then plants it deep in the black fertile soil, that tends to it and calls it up through the surface – tender seedlings striving for the sun. Onward! Upward! They stretch their stems out and spread their leaves far and, before long, flower and fruit, offering their produce to the world.
While all these expressions of the divine spark were precious and beautiful to me, there was one who was most precious, most beautiful. Kore. My daughter was everything to me. She made my world a more beautiful place. Her innocence, her purity, her soft, luminous presence lit up the land and the world was better for it.

And yes, perhaps I was a little over-protective. We lived in a valley, our very own paradise, and for years Kore never left this place, our home. And I was happy that she stayed put. I always knew where she was. I always knew she was safe. For a long time we lived in a perpetual bliss… except no bliss is truly perpetual.

To read the rest of the story and to gain instant access to this current lunar cycle moon e-guide, you can purchase access either to the individual moon course material, or you can subscribe to receive this and subsequent month’s moon material. On the full moon I will be releasing the guided goddess visualization that accompanies Demeter’s Story and on the 3rd quarter moon I’ll be adding a creative exercise. I would so love it if I were sharing all this delicious content with you, dear reader.

You can find out all about Bloom by Moon, read testimonials and purchase access on my Sanctuary page, but if you have any questions whatsoever, please do get in touch!