Beautiful Persephone was the daughter of Demeter – goddess of earth and the bountiful harvest. She was the radiant young maiden of spring and summer whose steps grow fresh grass on the earth. Persephone’s radiant beauty, draw the eye of Hades, god of the underworld, and one day he desired her so, that he rose from the underworld with a black carriage harnessed to black horses and kidnapped the surprised girl.
Miserable Persephone sat huddled in grief in the palace of Hades, longing for her mother. She knew that she mustn’t eat or drink any of what was offered to her, for whoever eats from the foods of the underworld is not allowed to rise back to life on earth.
Her mother, goddess Demeter, came down of the Olympus looking for her daughter, and because of her great sorrow she withheld her blessings from the earth, and the earth was covered with ice until no sign of life remained.
Goddess Demeter had no choice but to send Hermes, messenger of the gods who was the only one allowed to pass from the world of the died to the world of the livings without harm.
Hermes went on the mission to save Persephone, but when he finally arrived to Hades’s palace it was the moment Persephone was offered a juicy pomegranate, Persephone feeling confused and helpless reached out her hand and eat 4 red seeds.
Hermes negotiated with Hades in the name of Demeter, though he knew it was a lost cause, since Persephone ate from the foods of the underworld. Finally they have reached a compromise. Hades agreed to let Persephone go on the condition that from now and forever she would have to go back to the underworld 4 months each year – a month for each pomegranate seed she ate.
Ever since, 4 months a year the maiden of spring and summer doesn’t walk the earth, the fruit and blossom are turned to the world of the died, and in this time of year her mother sheds her tears of sorrow neglecting the earth.
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The ancient world is a multi- dimensional world. Things we define today as belief were for the people of the ancient world inseparable of their everyday lives. Everything had a meaning and power; everything was created out of another thing. The world was a complex matrix in which the hidden is greater than the visible.
The earlier ages are times of close connection between men and earth. Understanding the power of nature is crucial for survival. The influence of the tides, the rain and drought can all influence life and death. Constant inspection and observations are held over the change of seasons and the different possible causes affecting the rains and the yield. This accurate observation leads to understanding of cyclicality of nature. Trying to “put logic” into factors that are beyond the control of men bring forth theories that explain and predicts beforehand natural events.
Many modern researchers describe the mythology as a primitive attempt to understand factors that men couldn’t understand, factors that today are understood through science and biology. But if we look for emotion, psychological and spiritual depth, we can find it through these mythologies, if we only dare to look through ancient eyes.
A simple observation in the world, an observation which is not intellectual will reveal to us the miracle of its creation. The complexity of the entire living beings, the cyclicality of nature, the illness and health, the stars in the sky, the flow of rivers to the sea – all of these are so admirable if we only allow ourselves to see it.
This old search is renewed from time to time in different spiritual religious streams. What we call today “new-age”. The search for the origins of the creation of the world doesn’t derive only from the need to understand better our surrounding, but also from the need to understand ourselves better. Understanding the creation has no significant value if it can’t assist us in understanding processes that are happening in the world right now, processes that are happening within us, our surrounding and the way it affect us, and our nature. The search for the creation of the world is the search for our own creation. Understanding the laws by which the universe operates, will help us to understand better the laws by which we operate. Understanding the cyclicality of nature could help us to understand better our own nature. So we shell try to look at the world through the eyes of cultures that are closer to nature, cultures that, not like us, nature for them is very influential. The influence of the tides, the rain and drought can all influence life and death, and so the starts are the ones who navigate the way home.
To allow the gods to sit among us is to understand that we are not alone in the universe. In each and every moment the position of the stars in the sky, influence us – a formation of natural factors that effect our life in direct and non-direct way. Psychologically speaking in each moment there is a relationship between thinking, feeling, doing etc. the ancient Greeks and Egyptians would say that in every moment there is a relationship between goddess of love, god of war, god of communication etc. an astrological explanation would be that the stars are the factors that influence us in our everyday life.
We are not alone in the world. The hidden world is much greater than the visible world, and it affects it. Each day is under the influence of a certain god, a star, a vibration or an angel.
A true understanding of the movement of the stars in the sky, a true understanding of the powers that operate in the universe every given moment, would help us map these powers, and understand why certain actions succeed in one day and fail in another day, and thus to choose the most appropriate action in the given moment in accordance with the given potential and situation.
Many cultures talks about the emergence of gold and silver colors out of the infinite light followed by the emergence of black and white colors. The next stage of the evolution of the worlds and creation is the stage of splitting into 7: 7 colors, 7 worlds, 7 planets and so forth… God, in its journey to know and experiencing different facets of it, turned into 7 different energetic vibrations. In one vibration he experience infinite love, another vibration is thinking and so forth. The split into 7 allowed divinity to experience through 7 different glasses: glasses of emotion, glasses of thought, glasses of action and so on. According to spiritual theories each color has a specific nature and meaning. Each planet has a different essence or quality. For instance Venus is the essence of love whereas Mars is the essence of action. Now divinity is not one being only, there is some kind of delegation of powers, and indeed in the Kabala the process of splitting is called delegation of worlds.
The 7 planets in the sky are in constant movement. It means that every moment they are in different relationship with each other, like a finger print – each moment is one of a kind and will never repeat itself. The angles that are created between the planets represent the connection between the different vibrations. Thus are created relationship between thought, action love etc. Astrological map is a picture of the sky in a given moment, in other words it is the relationship between the planets in that specific moment. The position of the stars, which changes every second preserve itself by the person who was born in each specific moment. Each moment in time become deeper by the life of the person who was born in that moment. According to the astrological approach, man is a meeting point between stars. Apart of the moment a person was born, a moment that will affect the course of this person’s life, each and every moment the position of the stars in the sky affects all of us.
The different mythologies explain the laws of the universe by understanding the different factors that influence our world. The mythologies not only looked for the beginning of things, but also after some kind of cyclicality, and the conception was that time is cyclic. Like a spiral that repeats itself, thus the world repeats itself over and over through time, like the seasons, like the zodiac – turning round and round.