the mythological story of making lemonade, when life gives you lemons
In my attempt to describe the various romantic relationships in mythology, which have their place in the Roman Pantheon, today I describe the story of Proserpina and Pluto (and Ceres! always a mother-in-law! sounds like reality, isn’t it?).
In astrology we use asteroids named after the Roman gods, because the astrology we use today in the Western world is what we inherit from the Romans, and their symbolism is relevant in interpretation.
Not all romantic stories are happily ever after stories, neither in the myth or in reality; in fact, most often in real life, we tend to experience more ‘settled’ emotions, not the fiery attraction of Venus and Mars, all day every day for seven decades or so.
In this article, there is Proserpina and Pluto, in a story with her mother, the goddess Ceres (I’ve detailed in a previous article what Ceres means in astrology).
Pluto (Hades in Greek myth) is well known, brother of Jupiter (Zeus) and Neptune (Poseidon for Greek mythology), son of Saturn (Cronos). Proserpina (Persephone in Greek mythology) was a young girl, daughter of Ceres (Demetra in Greek mythology); while playing with her girlfriends, she was seen by Pluto, which became infatuated with her. And guess what he just did immediately? He kidnapped young Proserpina and took her in his kingdom, in the underworld.
Her mother Ceres, goddess of the seasons and protector of agriculture for the Romans, couldn’t find her daughter anywhere on the face of the Earth, and she was deeply grieving. As a result, the seasons din’t change, the crops didn’t grow, there was a perpetual winter and people were praying to Jupiter, so that he could ask Ceres to bring back spring and allow grains to grow again.
She found that her daughter was taken by Pluto and went to Jupiter, the ruler of all gods (and father to her daughter Proserpina), to ask for justice — which for her, meant getting her girl back.
The solution Jupiter found was to allow Ceres to take her daughter to live with her mother for half of the year, and the other half — she would spend with her now husband — Pluto.
This family dynamic has a vast symbolism in astrology, and I developed it separately, as with all the relevant members of Jupiter’s family. Looking at astronomical bodies, maybe you remember Pluto was demoted in 2006 to dwarf planet status and Ceres is the closest dwarf planet in the inner solar system. Proserpina is represented by Asteroid 26 and we use the three of them in astrology.
Specifically to the love story in this myth, we have a young girl, taken -without consent — by a very powerful, older man.
There are plenty of stories in mythology where young girls are seduced by these male archetypal figures (often gods, not mere mortals) and then are abandoned, sometimes abandoned and having to raise children in the wilderness, or sentenced to death by their families, or falling victim to wife-goddesses’ envy.
But young Proserpina is not one of them. She found in Pluto her partner, became his official wife, and returned to the underworld, for part of the year, while the other part (half of the year in some accounts, two thirds in others), she spend with her mother, on the Earth. Moreover, as a wife of Pluto, she got involved in becoming a judge of those that passed over.
This triangle: Pluto — Proserpina — Ceres is relevant for describing situations of power plays between male and female elements of authority, where the women manage to obtain their share, and not remain obedient to males’ whims. Also, Proserpina has a story of becoming a queen of the underworld and a goddess with the same powers as her mother, after her not so idyllic introduction to female life.
The accounts from ancient times (Homeric poems mostly, but also The Library of History by Diodorus Siculus), don’t mention she was ever in love with Pluto, rather that she made peace with what had happened to her, and then made the most of her life. In today’s life, we call that “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade”.
And no, not all real-life relationships are full of lustful sparks, for every day of our lives. It’s fine if that is what you would like to experience, and there are many psychologists and psychiatrists who have shown, through thousands of examples, that these don’t last a lifetime. Dr Helen Fisher is one of them, and Dr. Cheryl Fraser is another. A more classical read, Dr. Theodor Reik.
Too often I see people around me looking for ‘love’, as in lust-attraction for life, yet my view is that it’s ok if not everybody experiences that, it’s ok to want it, it’s ok to get over it, it doesn’t have to last. You don’t HAVE TO search for it in your astrological chart (typically the Mars-Venus bond) and in your future because that’s the only type of ‘love’ that really stuck in our heads (because of so many Hollywood movies, I’d say.)
I will continue with other famous astrological archetypal couples, that tell other stories of love and life, which you can identify in your natal chart and in transits.
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