Persephone (Proserpina)
Persephone's lifecycle followed the seasons. As a child she played in the springtime until Hades kidnapped her (a metaphor for trauma or death). After her mother Demeter rescued her, she spent summers above ground and winters below. Her main role was Queen of the Underworld (or Queen of Faerie) and wife of Hades. She acted as a guide to all who ventured into the underworld. She was also a source of magic: when Aphrodite set a series of "impossible" tasks for Psyche to do, one was to collect a jar of special beauty ointment from Persephone. Persephone was the underground (introverted) counterpart to Aphrodite, and a female counterpart to Dionysus, who also died and was reborn every year. Dionysus's wife Ariadne is another variation of Aphrodite and Persephone.
Modern Persephones are deep, intense, introspective, imaginative, poetic, often mystical or spiritual, sometimes psychic, with high intrapersonal intelligence. They are introverted, unconventional, and unusually sensitive, and are better at seeing people's dark sides than most people are. Persephones are nice in a complicated kind of way, paying attention to who other people are and what they have to say. They genuinely want to know what other people care about. They can be so quiet, receptive and attentive to the "voice" or psyche of others that they become mirrors: people often tend to project what they expect to see onto them instead of seeing them for themselves. Persephones sometimes have an air of purity or innocence about them (think unicorns) even if they've seen a lot of evil. They are also often seen as mysterious by other types. They are often late bloomers. They are usually solitary or very close to only a few soulmates - a husband, or siblings, sometimes other family members. Some Persephones have Dionysuses as soulmates and are more like Ariadne, the wife of Dionysus who lived above ground, than like the deeper Persephone, queen of the underworld and wife of Hades.
Themes
psychologists; mystics; women dragged into the underworld who can learn to live there without being poisoned by it; Queen of Faerie; the gothic heroine; the dark heroine; the dark queen; the fairy godmother; the mystic, shamaness, spiritual guide; the princess and the pea; the innocent or sensitive one; the otherworldly person or spirit; the recluse; the girl genius; the pure one; the virgin
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Ancient symbols
the pomegranate
Modern symbols
the unicorn
the crow
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Examples
- Psychologists: Alice Miller
- Mystics: Joan of Arc*; Teresa of Avila
- Actresses: Ingrid Bergman*; Sandra Bullock; Toni Collette; Hilary Duff; Greta Garbo*; Julia Ormond; Marina Sirtis; Jaclyn Smith; Madeleine Stowe
- Music: Agnetha Fältskog* (the blonde in ABBA); Ella Fitzgerald*; Jenny Lind; Loreena McKennitt
- Writers: Margaret Atwood*; Anne Brontë*; Charlotte Brontë*; Elizabeth Barrett Browning*; George Eliot*; Sylvia Plath*; Christina Rossetti*; Donna Williams*
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Fictional Persephones
Jane Eyre
Hermione Granger in Harry Potter books
Counsellor Troi on Star Trek
Sita and Anasuya in The Ramayana
Melanie in Gone With The Wind
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