The Goddess Series- Persephone

Persephone is such a great tale.  In fact, one of the greatest rituals I have ever attended was a Rite of Persephone, hosted at Samhain.  The ritual was simple, yet powerful.  We were regaled with the story of Persephone and were each given 6 pomegranate seeds to eat.  The most memorable thing about Persephone is that she is the goddess of spring time.  She is considered to be a great beauty as the daughter of Zeus and Demeter.  Today being the first day of Spring I am reminded of her beauty and her maidens touch of flowers and rebirth.   But that is only half of her story.

One day while Persephone was frolicking in a field of flowers, she was captured by Hades, Lord of the Underworld, and taken to be his bride.  She hated it and wanted to return to her mother and her perpetual spring time.   She went from playing in flowers to being forced to a land of weeping dead.   

We have all been there.  Life is going great and we are happy and merrily going along, and then something happens and takes us for a surprise and changes everything.  It is never a happy time for us, but it surely teaches us a lesson.  It is not only a part of life, but a part of being a mother.

Persephone wanted to return to her land of spring time, as did her mother want her back.  She refused to eat and started to become ugly.  Her hair darkened and became dingy, her features became dirty and she saddened missing her once bountiful life.  This part of the tale always reminds me of the times in winter when I seek inside myself and enter a hibernation stage.  I become less active in my practices and the community and if I try to go against this nature of mine I struggle with that need to be inside myself.  I relate this process I go through to Persephone's journey to the underworld.  I take the time to look inside myself and grow as an individual and rediscover the darker side of myself.

Persephone was only allowed to come back from the underworld if she had not eaten any of the foods of the underworld.  However she had!  She had refused to eat in her depression but was tempted to eat 6 pomegranate seeds.  Heart broken Demeter went to Zeus for help.  Zeus was able to make a deal with Hades that Persephone would have to return each year for 1 month for each seed she ate. Persephone was able to bring spring back each year until her return to the Underworld.

When spring time comes each year, I am able to be alive again and share the beauty of the world with my family and friends and companions.  Once spring hits I am aching to get out in nature and enjoy the world to its fullest.  Ever since this warm spell has hit and the flowers have started blooming I have been NEEDING to get outside every day just to sit in the sun and enjoy the new bounty.  I hope that everyone has a blessed Ostara and spring time.

Why I hate Rush...

Today's news in regards to Rush Limbaugh has hit me so hard.  I have to release this into the world and get it out of me because holding onto negativity is never good for anyone.  This is something that has needed to come out of me for years.  As many of you know Rush Limbaugh has been spewing hatred for years, this week being the most caustic and dramatic after he called Sandra Fluke a slut and fueled the war on women.  I have been sitting by my computer just watching updates almost in tears the entire time.  "Why?" you might be asking yourself.   Rush Limbaugh has been poisoning my father for years.

There is only one thing in this world that my father loves and values more than Rush is money.  He has no value for family, love, god or anything else.  My father cheated on my mother and said he did it because she bounced a check.  He let me starve and suffer through college, while sitting there with nearly a million dollars in the bank.  And to be clear, I am not out for a paycheck.   I paid for my own books, loans and living expenses going to school full time and working full time.  The only help he gave me was to help me get a car so I could drive to work and school, and gave me a portion of my rent money so I was not out on the street.  The help which I had to turn down when he said if I didn't vote for George W. Bush in 2000 he would stop helping me.  Or the time he offered me a brand new car and a town house if I didn't marry my husband.  He also has more money than any of my sons's grandparents and family.  He does not give my son a gift at all for any holiday or birthday and simply sends him a card and a $2 bill.  The rest of his grandparents spoil him and give him all they possibly can.   He said my husband was an idiot because he did not work 2 jobs.  He brags about walking around with $1000 bucks in his pocket so that if a person disagrees with him he can pull it out and flaunt it and say "Money talks and Bullshit Walks".  He was known as being one of the biggest jerks in my home town.  He owned a business and treated his employees like dirt and would fire them on the spot for stupid petty bull shit.  Needless to say, my father has earned his own spot in the Ass Hole Hall of Fame.

My Father and his behavior is directly tied to Rush Limbaugh and his hate spewing bile, my father is the epitome of Rush's Mindless Drones.  He will sit around and say the exact thing Rush says at family dinner.  When I was still on speaking terms with him, he would call me at 6 am to start telling me about how bad liberals were for the country.  The worst part, my father is so entwined to Rush that he literally thinks that behavior is okay.  He has sat there and torn apart my friends and loved ones to their face like he was some high fluting radio host.  He told my college roommate to her face that she was wasting her time going to college because they would never hire fat people and she would die anyway at a young age.  He has sat in my Mother in Laws home and called us bad parents and talked bad about both of us because we didn't make as much money as him.  He has told my husband to his face that he was stupid because he didn't agree with Rush.  He values Rush more than any of us, to him Rush will always be right and we will always be wrong.  Rush and my father are welcome to their opinions, but I do not have to take this abuse from my either, and those opinions directly target MY gender.

I am a WOMAN and I am PISSED off.  How dare you Dad, how dare you Rush, and how dare all the rest of you antiquated chauvinistic pigs.  Myself, my mother, my sister, my cousins, my aunts and all women in this nation deserve the rights to our health.  We birthed you, we have come from you and we have pleased you, but most of all without us you have no love.  You can call us sluts, degrade us to prostitutes and suggest we put asprin in our thighs and coat hangers in our uteri all you want.  You actually think you are going to get that Viagra your insurance has to cover and be able to use it? Go ahead because as long as you have the rights to get your minuscule penises in the air we will demand the rights to our equal health.  Birth control is used for other diseases, more than you can say for your Viagra.  Its time to own up and be real men, you know those men who stand by their women and treat them like the goddesses they are.  And you are fully entitled to your opinion on the matter, but understand I will never agree.