Stephanie Nikolopoulos

Branching out from writing of roses, of the myths and memories and makeup surrounding them, we turn to the Greek vegetation goddess, Persephone, also known as Kore.

The daughter of harvest-goddess Demeter and Zeus, Persephone represents the changing of the seasons.  One day she was out gathering flowers with Athena, goddess of wisdom, and Artemis, goddess of wild animals, when she was abducted by the god of the underworld, Hades.  There, she was tricked into eating the seeds of the pomegranate.  Because she ate four juicy seeds, she was relegated to spending four months of the year in the underworld.  Therefore, she is like vegetation itself, disappearing after the harvest.

In ancient Greek culture, the pomegranate was thought of as the “fruit of the dead.”  In fact, according to Greek Orthodox tradition it was not an apple that Eve ate in the Garden of Eden but rather a pomegranate!  Today, Greek Orthodox believers use pomegranate as an ingredient in koliva, the ritual food prepared for the memorial Divine Liturgy after a death.

Tags: Demeter, Garden of Eden, Greek myth, Greek Orthodox, Hades, koliva, Kore, memorial, myth, Persephone, pomegranate, season, vegetation, Zeus