**Disclaimer: this blog explores the idea of motherhood, however, it does not condone or excuse any form of child neglect or abuse.**
Persephone’s story is so entwined with her mother, that it felt pertinent to include the mother’s voice in this healing and put them in conversation. What follows is a conversation between mother and daughter.
Shadows
Daughter: As a child, I relished in your light; the warmth that it brought me, the safeness. Perhaps I relied on you to guide me too much, for now, I have let your light shroud me in shadows.
Mother: My heart aches to think you have ever felt for one moment that you were in my shadow. When you were a small child I felt it was my job to keep you safe! Protect you from harm. From anyone or anything that could possibly do you any harm.
Daughter: But now that I have left our safe meadow on journey of my own, I realize that I have never stepped outside of your protection–I do not know where to go only this listless feeling of being stuck. What if all I can ever be is your daughter?
Being the daughter of such a sovereign woman creates a difficult-to-navigate path through adulthood. As a child, I imagine Persephone felt protected as if her mother’s power could weather any storm and she would never come to harm. However, we all know that she ends up in the Underworld without her mother for the first time in her life. We can only imagine how frightening and disorienting this must have been for her.
I think that is where some of my own mother wounding has come in. As I grew into my womanhood I found myself disoriented and lost. This was a new territory for me, away from the meadow of childhood. I looked to my mother for direction, but she was off tending to her domain, as I was expected to attend to mine. I was terrified which then grew to anger and resentment; festering into a need to protect myself and hide all the vulnerable pieces since no one was going to do that for me anymore. When it all crumbled around me I looked for someone to blame. Unfairly, I turned it towards my mother; why had she never prepared me for the Underworld? Where was she to tell me where to go and to direct my newfound power?
When I write I always like to allude to my personal life, but never delving into intimate details and I will never do that–those stories I keep for myself. However, this cycle of motherhood is not a unique experience. As we grow into our womanhood there is a friction between our childhood identity and our adult identity. When that friction sparks, we can get burned. In that hurt, we may look to those who have protected us and be angry when they did not intervene.
If we can take that anger and try to turn it to discovery I believe we can navigate into our power with more ease. We daughters must ask ourselves who were our mothers before, when they were daughters? What wounds do our mothers have that they never healed? Our mother’s scars inform how they then guide us. My mother used her scars to remind herself of the dangers in this world and attempted to shield me. Just as Demeter knew of the evils of Olympus and its deities, my mother chose to keep me protected in her meadow.
Instead of blaming her for this, I am trying to see her as a woman with her own power who did what she thought was best, and in turn, seeing myself as my own queen. I can take control of my domain and rule it how I see fit, but I will always be grateful to my mother for the meadow she provided.
If you want a refresher of Demeter and Persephone’s story please check out this PBS clip.
The Affliction of Being Female 