Origin: Ancient Greece.
Commonly associated with: agriculture, the seasons, nature, the harvest, fertile soil, the tides, devotional motherly love.
Sacred place: Eleusis in Attika, Greece—home of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the most sacred of all Ancient Greek mysteries that focused on the cult of Demeter.
Symbols: Cornucopia, wheat, barley, corn, torch, sickle, bread, grain, poppies, sunflowers, winged snakes, turtle doves.
Patroness of: mothers, farmers, millers, bakers and nurses.
Roman equivalent: Ceres.
Demeter, the middle daughter of Cronus and Rhea, was the Ancient Greek goddess of grain, harvest and agriculture, and one of the original Twelve Olympians. She was known as the Giver of Food and Grain, or ‘She of the Grain’, and the Great Mother. Because she presided over the vital cycles of plants and seasons, she was also the goddess of sacred law. The Ancient Greeks also referred to her as Tesmophoros, or ‘The Bringer of Laws’, and organized a women-only festival called Tesmophoria to celebrate her as such.
Demeter was the one who taught mankind the art of agriculture, and how to preserve and prepare corn and grain. In fact, the word “cereal” comes from Ceres, the Roman equivalent of Demeter.
The story of Demeter and Persephone is one of the most significant myths of ancient Greece. When Demeter's daughter Kore (which means “maiden”) was abducted by Hades, the king of the Underworld, Demeter's grief was so great that the earth became barren. Her sadness caused the crops to die and a great famine took over the world.
Zeus, the king of the gods, persuaded Hades to return Kore to her mother, to bring life back to earth. Hades agreed but tricked Kore into eating pomegranate seeds from the Underworld and, if one ate anything in the land of the dead, one had to remain there. As she had only eaten some seeds, however, it was agreed she would spend half the year with Hades in the Underworld and half with her mother on earth. Kore thus emerged as Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld.
This myth explained the origin of the seasons, which were a reflection of Demeter's emotional states: when Persephone emerged and was with her mother on earth for half of the year, Demeter rejoiced and caused the world to be fruitful, which corresponds with the abundant months of spring and summer. When Persephone went back to the Underworld, Demeter's grief caused the plants to wither and die, which became the winter months of the year when the earth is infertile, until Persephone returned again.
More importantly, the myth reflected the concept of transformation and the cyclical nature of life. One's existence did not end with death because there was no death, there was only change from one state of being to another. Demeter’s story offered something which other myths did not: a vision of eternal life and triumph over death.
One of the most important festivals observed by the Greeks were the Eleusinian Mysteries, which were celebrated in honor of Demeter and Persephone. The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiations held every year in Eleusis, a town in Attica, where the Mysteries were first introduced by the goddess herself. They were the longest-running secret religious rites of ancient Greece, celebrated for over a thousand years, from 1500 BC to the 4th century AD.
The Mysteries were a symbolic reading of the myth of Demeter and Persephone. They re-enacted the abduction of Persephone by Hades, in a cycle with three phases: the descent (loss), the search, and the ascent, with the main theme being the ascent of Persephone and the reunion with her mother.
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The ceremonies and beliefs were kept secret. Participants were forbidden from speaking about the ritual upon punishment of death. The mystery cult invited all people, accepting slaves, women and men, regardless of financial standing and background. Initiates gathered yearly to walk the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis—a journey of thousands of miles—calling for Kore and re-enacting Demeter's search for her daughter. When they arrived to Eleusis, they would rest by the well Demeter sat by while searching for Kore. The initiates would fast, then drink a barley and mint drink called Kykeon. Scholars believe this drink contained a psychedelic derived from Ergot, a fungus that grows on rye, cultivated by the keepers of the Mysteries. After drinking the Kykeon, the participants entered the Telesterion, an underground theatre, where the secret ritual took place. Most likely, it was a symbolic re-enactment of the death and rebirth of Persephone, which the initiates watched and, perhaps, took some part in.
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Whatever happened in the Telesterion, those who entered in would come out the next morning radically changed. The rituals provided initiates with a vision of the afterlife so powerful that it changed the way they saw the world, and their understanding of life and death. Participants were freed from a fear of death through the recognition that they were immortal souls temporarily in mortal bodies.
In the same way that Persephone went down to the land of the dead and returned to that of the living every year, so would every human being die only to live again on another plane of existence, or in another body. It was said that you went to Eleusis as a human being and walked away a god, through the ceremonial experience of death and rebirth.
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Virtually every important thinker and writer in antiquity was an initiate of the Mysteries, including Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero and Sophocles. Cicero called Eleusis “the most exceptional and divine thing Athens ever produced. Nothing is higher than these mysteries...they have not only shown us how to live joyfully but they have taught us how to die with a better hope”. Plato described the experience as “seeing brilliant beauty, a blessed sight and spectacle”.
Author Waverly Fitzgerald sums up the experience beautifully, writing, “It was said of those who were initiated at Eleusis that they no longer feared death and it seems that this myth confirms the cyclical view of life central to pagan spirituality: that death is part of the cycle of life and is always followed by rebirth”. Every ancient testimonial reflects this same understanding and each has the same tone of enlightened liberation from the fear of death.*
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The rituals were closed down by the Christian Emperor Theodosius in 392 CE as he saw the ancient rites as inspiring resistance to Christianity. As Christianity gained more power, pagan rituals were systematically stamped out. The former sites of these rituals were abandoned, destroyed, or turned into churches throughout the 4th and 5th centuries CE.
The temple of Demeter and every sacred site in Eleusis was sacked by the Christians, leaving only ruins where once the people of the ancient world gathered to experience the truths of life, death, and the promise of rebirth.
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Demeter and her story carry such beautiful and timeless wisdom, that can inspire us in different aspects of our lives.
Demeter teaches us about the miraculous power of unconditional, devotional motherly love. Her love was so strong, it could destroy the world and bring it back to life. She invites us to surrender to this boundless love that exists in all of us. She invites us to protect and nurture what we love most. What can we love with such ferocious passion? What parts of our lives—and ourselves—can we nurture and mother with such devotional commitment?
Demeter invites us to embrace our grief wholeheartedly. She teaches us to honor the divinity of our grief, to befriend it, to relate to it, and allow the pain of grief to be our teacher. She invites us to not shy away from the vulnerability of feeling so deeply.
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Demeter invites us to connect with the Earth, to nurture and tend to it, to listen to it and understand its language and rhythms. She invites us to align with the sacred laws of nature. She invites us to thank the Earth for its unlimited abundance, for holding us and providing for us so generously. She invites us to relate to the Earth with reverence and unlimited gratitude.
Demeter asks us to learn from Nature and embrace the cyclical rhythms of life itself. She invites us to embrace change and honor the different seasons of our own lives. She teaches us to honor death as a natural part of life, and trust that it is always followed by rebirth.
She invites us to learn the art of cultivation; both literally—by tending to the land and learning how to grow and harvest food, and also inwardly—by sewing seeds in our inner world, tending to them, and harvesting their fruits with gratitude. She invites us to practice patience with all things, to stop rushing and pushing, and trust the rewards of our efforts will come in divine timing.
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Here, you will find simple earth-based and nature-oriented practices, prompts and rituals that will help you embody the energy and qualities of Demeter.
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“People often ask me what one thing I would recommend to restore relationship between land and people. My answer is almost always, “Plant a garden.” It’s good for the health of the earth and it’s good for the health of people. A garden is a nursery for nurturing connection, the soil for cultivation of practical reverence. And its power goes far beyond the garden gate—once you develop a relationship with a little patch of earth, it becomes a seed itself. Something essential happens in a vegetable garden. It’s a place where if you can’t say “I love you” out loud, you can say it in seeds. And the land will reciprocate, in beans.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer says: “I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.”
Practice by Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
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To saunter is to walk slowly with reverence for the Earth, to muse and be in reverie in nature. In earlier times, and still in a few places in the world, people have listened to the unconscious via oracles, divination, and the voices of nature. Birds, trees, and even stones have been perceived as valuable sources for the whisperings of the divine. Modern people have a bias that only the human mind and its thoughts have validity, but we too yearn to be touched by something beyond the confines of the “I”.
The origin of the phrase “to saunter” is good medicine for modern people caught in the too-muchness of life. In the middle ages, people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply ‘A la Sainte Terre’,—‘To the Holy Land’. And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers—those who walk on the earth with reverence for its holiness. Perhaps there was an intuition even in those early times that we would need a way of walking with reverence to recall us from hurried lives.
Go for a walk in nature and receive the blessings of an ancient tree, listen for a message in the song of a bird, take counsel with a resilient stream. Allow yourself to reconnect to the creative matrix that supports all life.
Spiritual practice by Jerry M. Ruhl, Robert A. Johnson in Contentment
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“When we look deeply at a flower, we can see that it is made entirely of non-flower elements, like sunshine, rain, soil, compost, air, and time. If we continue to look deeply, we will also notice that the flower is on her way to becoming compost. If we don’t notice this, we will be shocked when the flower begins to decompose. When we look deeply at the compost, we see that it is also on its way to becoming flowers, and we realize that flowers and compost “inter-are.” They need each other. A good organic gardener does not discriminate against compost, because he knows how to transform it into marigolds, roses, and many other kinds of flowers.
When we look deeply into ourselves, we see both flowers and garbage. Each of us has anger, hatred, depression, racial discrimination, and many other kinds of garbage in us, but there is no need for us to be afraid. In the way that a gardener knows how to transform compost into flowers, we can learn the art of transforming anger, depression, and racial discrimination into love and understanding. This is the work of meditation.”
Practice by Thich Nhat Hanh
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This practice can be either done as a simply visualization meditation, or accompanied by a real physical practice of planting seeds in the soil. You can listen to the guided meditation here.
Imagine yourself in a magnificent garden. See the colors, the plants, the pathways. What does this garden look like? You have stepped into the garden of your soul. Walk around and see what else is alive in your garden. Are there dark places or weeds? As you walk in your garden, find an empty plot of soil. The soil is rich and prepared to grow new life. It is the very creativity of life itself. Look into your hand and see a seed. This is a seed of health. Give a blessing to the seed and plant it into the ground, so it may grow in your life. Look again in your hand and see there is another seed. This is a seed of relationship. Give a blessing to this seed and plant it into the ground, so it may grow in your life.
Look again into your hand and see there is yet another seed. This is a seed of dreams and purpose. Plant it with love and care, so it may grow in your life. Walk away from the soil. As you look back, see the plot of soil where you planted the seed. Do you see anything growing? Guard well this garden of your mind and soul. It is your garden of Eden wherein may grow your fondest desires and hopes, blossoming into fulfillment, or if you permit, the weeds of fear and doubt will consume the beauty of hope. Watch carefully then this garden of your soul. Plant there seeds of happiness, joy and peace and good will. It may be necessary to cultivate your garden from time to time, to uproot the weeds and plant new seeds, new ideas, broader visions and deeper realizations of life. Watch your garden carefully, guard it patiently, waiting for a new harvest, for you shall reap what you have sown. Plant love and kindness in your garden. Go often into your garden, sitting under the tree of life in quiet communion. You will find fresh inspiration.
Practice by by Mile Hi Church on Insight Timer
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Ground and center. Take a deep breath. Feel your bones, your skeleton, the solidity of your body. Be aware of your flesh, of all that can be touched and felt. Feel the pull of gravity, your own weight, your attraction to the earth that is the body of the Goddess. You are a natural feature, a moving mountain. Merge with all that comes from the Earth: grass, trees, grains, fruit, flowers, animals, metals, precious stones. Return to dust, to compost, to mud.
Meditation from The Spiral Dance, by Starhawk
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Listen to Demeter’s Song by Starhawk below. From Let It Begin Now: Music from the Spiral Dance
Lyrics: “I am the wealthy one
I am the wealthy one
All that I have I give to you
Blossom and bud
The leaf and the promise of fruit to come
The corn and the wheat
The grass and the earth beneath your feet
Rhythm and form
The lover’s smile and the workers arm
Your blood and your bread
Pleasure and sorrow, birth and death
The change that frees
The heart that cries and the hand that heals
The eye that sees truth
The power to destroy and to renew.”
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Ground and center, and visualize a round full moon. She is the mother, the power of fruition and of all aspects of creativity. She nourishes what the New Moon has begun. See her open arms, her full breasts, her womb burgeoning with life. Feel your own power to nurture, to give, to make manifest what is possible. She is the sensual woman; her pleasure in union is the moving force that sustains all life. Feel the power and generative life-force in your own pleasure. Feel the nurturing, unconditionally loving, all-encompassing, all-allowing mother in you.
Meditation from The Spiral Dance, by Starhawk
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Dive deeper into the world of Demeter and the Eleusinian Mysteries
with these resources including books, articles and videos.
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✎ Book
‘The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries’
by R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann & Carl A. P. Ruck -
✎ Book
‘Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter’
by Carl Kerényi -
✎ Book
‘The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name’
by Lilith Dorsey -
✎ Book
‘The Long Journey Home: Revisioning the Myth of Demeter and Persephone for Our Time’
by Christine Downing -
☆ Youtube Video
‘The Best-Kept Secret in History’
by After Skool -
✦ Article
‘The Eleusinian Mysteries: The Rites of Demeter’
by Joshua J. Mark -
✦ Article
‘The Greek Festival of Thesmophoria’,
by N.S. Gill -
✦ Article
‘Demeter’s Daughters: Women of the Thesmophoria’
by Mary E. Naples -
✦ Article
‘Unraveling the Eleusinian Mysteries’
by Mary E. Naples -
☾ Thesis
‘Demeter's Daughters: How the Myth of the Captured Bride Helped Spur Feminine Consciousness in Ancient Greece’
by Mary E. Naples -
✦ Article
‘Eleusinian Mysteries and Psychedelic Enlightenment’
by Mustapha Itani -
✎ Book
‘Evolutionary Herbalism: Science, Spirituality, and Medicine from the Heart of Nature’
by Sajah Popham
Image Credits:
Photographic print of Ceres/Demeter 1889 • Ceres Copperplate engraving • Antique Print Statue of Ceres 1856, British Museum Folio Book Plate • Glenn Mullaly • Demeter, by Kathlyn Breene • The Moon Oracle • Ceres Goddess (Allegory of Summer, 1895), Franz Bouhumil Doubek • Thalia Took • Demeter Mourning for Persephone (1906) Evelyn de Morgan • The Return of Persephone (1891) Frederic Leighton • Ceres (1717) Jean Antoine Watteau • Demeter rejoiced, for her daughter was by her side (1914), Walter Crane • Jennifer Parks