The Long Journey Home Re-Visioning the Myth of Demeter and Persephone for Our Time

by DOWNING, CHRISTINE

• ISBN13: 9781570626852
• ISBN10: 1570626855
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Shambhala

Summary

The story of the mother-and-daughter goddesses Demeter and Persephone has seized the imagination of people in every age, from ancient times to the present. Considered today by many to be the archetypal myth for women, it touches on timeless themes in every life, such as the male-female relationship, love between women, initiations into puberty and old age, the mother-daughter bond, death, and ecological renewal. Christine Downing has combined essays, prose, poetry, and even performance art with her own insightful commentary to shed new light on the myth's ancient meanings and to offer new insights in its implications for contemporary men and women.

Author Biography

Christine Downing, Ph.D., is the author of numerous books, including The Goddess, Psyche's Sisters, Myths and Mysteries of Same-Sex Love, and Mirrors of the Self.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
The Ancient Sources
The Greek Literary Tradition	p. 9
The Homeric "Hymn to Demeter"	p. 26
The Rape of Proserpine	p. 39
Art and Ritual	p. 49
Precursors of Contemporary Perspectives
Mythography and Depth Psychology	p. 59
The Woman's Experience of Herself and the Eleusinian Mysteries	p. 72
Women's Re-visionings	p. 77
Demeter	p. 84
Persephone	p. 88
Contemporary Women's Retellings
A Richly Filled Cornucopia	p. 101
In Search of a Prepatriachal Version	p. 103
The Myth of Demeter and Persephone	p. 109
The Mother-Daughter Bond	p. 114
Three Poems	p. 119
The Crux	p. 123
Learning from My Mother Dying	p. 125
Love among Women	p. 136
The Return to the Mother	p. 140
Rape and Patriarchal Violation	p. 146
Demeter, Persephone, and the Pedagogy of Archetypal Empowerment	p. 149
The Two Goddesses	p. 155
Puberty Rites	p. 161
The Rape of Persephone	p. 166
Cycles of Becoming	p. 173
Midlife Passage	p. 186
Mother and Daughter Mysteries	p. 190
The Rape of Demeter/Persephone and Neurosis	p. 197
Demeter's Folly: Experiencing Loss in Middle Life	p. 206
Persephone in Hades	p. 219
Hekate, Rhea, and Baubo: Perspectives on Menopause	p. 233
Glimpses of a Postpatriarchal World	p. 243
Sightings of Maternal Rage and Paternal Love in the Homeric "Hymn to Demeter"	p. 248
Hades Speaks	p. 254
Concern for the Earth	p. 260
An Ecofeminist Perspective on the Demeter-Persephone Myth	p. 262
A New Telling of the Myth	p. 271
Long Journey Home	p. 273
About the Contributors	p. 291
Further Reading	p. 295
Credits	p. 299
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