The Fruit of Suffering
by Sofia Skavdahl

“for God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom.
For she is more beautiful than the sun,
and excels every constellation of the stars.

Compared with light she is found to be superior,
for it is succeeded by the night
but against wisdom evil does not prevail.” —Wisdom 7:28-30

In Greek mythology, the goddess Persephone’s withdrawal to the underworld rationalizes winter, while her return to the land of the living marks the start of spring. She offers an archetype for the experience that both men and women undergo, the loss of innocence in childhood, the complicated rite of passage that is often left unspoken and fails to be ritualized in contemporary times. For most people, the tension between childhood and adulthood, between dependence and autonomy, struggles to be honored and brought into consciousness. Without acknowledgement of the distinction of these stages, young people fail to understand what it is they must leave behind to move forward on their paths of individuation, and more importantly, are unable to see what they will gain by assuming responsibility for their destiny. This seems to be an existential conflict with a deep history and yet there is also a long trajectory of mythic and spiritual wisdom for how to rectify this, if only we are willing to listen. 

Persephone’s abduction to Hades, her relationship with her mother Demeter, and their mutual influence on the fertility of the land has been an artistic focal point for thousands of years. Their story is ripe with symbolism for the literal and psychic seasons we all experience over the course of our lives. One detail, though, near the end of the myth often gets overlooked, where Persephone eats the pomegranate seeds Hades has given her, and essentially seals her fate and relationship to the underworld. This is the major turning point in Persephone’s transformation, the mark of her matured psychic development, and the moment where her pain is transmuted into wisdom. The acceptance and digestion of the pomegranate seeds is the catalyst for a new life, but it is the stage that many of us struggle to reach. Thus, we remain in Hades for a prolonged period, even after our suffering has passed its use.  

Hades is the namesake for both the underworld and the god who presides over it. Though he is commonly thought of as a malicious figure who kidnaps the innocent Persephone while she is picking wildflowers, symbolically he is less of a predator and more of an initiator. Without his involvement, Persephone would remain in a dependent and infantile relationship with her mother. In archetypal storytelling, all of these characters represent different energies in one individual psyche, meaning, it is not necessarily the meeting of an actual intruder who propels our development, but rather the encountering of the underworld character within us. Thus, each episode of profound suffering seems to be first marked by a confrontation with Hades. We are living life as we are used to, or have planned for, when suddenly we are seized by grief and the world is no longer as it was before. 

With enough time and lived experience, we hopefully grow more attuned to anticipating these trips to Hades and learn we can make it easier on ourselves when we willingly go. It is the resistance of our own underworlds that often makes traversing the terrain more difficult. Going to Hades might be thought of as the process of “wintering” psycho-spiritually, the periods of time when it is less about doing and more about being. They are so challenging because there is usually not much we can do, it is a time for acceptance rather than action. Whether we are more prone to avoiding or accepting our suffering does not change the fact that suffering is what it is— painful, uncomfortable, disorienting. In the moment, all of these emotions feel terribly unproductive. Enduring such a period requires incredible trust that spring will eventually come. 

And it does always arrive. After Demeter’s persistent campaigning of the gods on her daughter’s behalf and halting of the harvest, Zeus forces Hades to let Persephone return. When Persephone learns this, she is overjoyed at the prospect of returning to the world and reuniting with her mother. It is at this moment Hades gives her the pomegranate seeds. By eating the fruit of the underworld, she accepts her place in it. When she eventually reunites with her mother, Demeter is dismayed to learn that Persephone has eaten the seeds, and will now have to spend one-third of the year in the underworld. During the period she is in Hades, the earth will lie fallow. This is not symbolic of a cruel trick, but of psychic development. Had she not eaten the pomegranate seeds, Persephone’s time in the dark would have been in vain. The seed is what she must take with her back to the land of the living—the seed of her experience that will eventually sprout into wisdom, for what she lost in innocence, she gained in consciousness. Persephone must accept that suffering offers its own kind of nourishment, that she has been fed by her time in Hades in some way. By accepting the pomegranate seeds she metabolizes her grief and is now protected from further childlike naïveté. 

If one looks to Persephone’s story for guidance on how to navigate suffering, the question then becomes: how do we accept the pomegranate seeds in our own psyches? Practically, we must take what our pain has provided us and find sustenance in it. This is a process of deep healing that cannot be rushed, although one tends to sense intuitively when the moment has presented itself. It is the feeling one reaches only after they have dealt with the nonlinear phases of anger, denial, and despair. Attempting to discern meaning preemptively can be a defense mechanism against deep grief. There is a difference between forcing a rationale and allowing a sincere feeling of value to emerge. The work of finding meaning in our suffering is sometimes taken offense to, for people think that it means saying what happened to us was okay. But finding meaning is not about determining that an experience was justified, it is about accepting that it happened. Discovering meaning lifts us out of our victimhood and has a redemptive quality, where our circumstances and wounds do not have the last say. It is the act of taking responsibility for one’s story. 

When one fails to find meaning in their past injuries, they often feel themselves caught in between the tension of two seasons, neither fully leaving winter behind nor arriving into spring. An old self is not fully let go of, while a new self is not yet resurrected. What results is an overall state of malaise. To fully embody one’s suffering is perhaps the closest one can come to death without succumbing to it. Ultimately, Persephone only learns this by going into the underworld, the very place where the dead reside. Our suffering always demands that certain things must go: outdated beliefs, limited attitudes, a way of life that we had long hoped for. While popular and material cultures allege that such a period can be overcome through the love of another person, money, improvement in status, medication, or even our own will power; all wisdom literature— myths, fairy tales, religious texts— emphasize the opposite and state clearly that this is a period that cannot be left undone. 

Of course, there is the reality that some physical injuries and illnesses do not abate, and people we deeply love die and do not come back. Accepting the pomegranate seeds ensures a new season in the psyche, it does not mean that all is as it was before. But meaning allows for growth and greenery, for a new perspective even if the initial cause of our suffering does not change. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Auschwitz survivor and psychotherapist Victor E. Frankl writes: “In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” [1] Meaning is the momentum that continues one’s story, the rite of passage that transforms one who was once seen as a victim into a heroine.  

It is an interesting paradox how the pomegranate seeds symbolize both that Persephone has transcended her suffering and guaranteed its return. She is now to divide her time between the land of the living and the dead, for she belongs to both worlds. But this is the price of wisdom and it is well worth the cost. Were she not to accept her place in Hades, her life would lack a relationship with the depths. Though she may spare herself some initial discomfort, she would lose access to the place that offers her soul renewal. Mythologist Michael Meade says that the soul is not interested in the notion of worldly ‘success’ as much as it is in transformation. If Persephone had not been separated from her mother, she would have been overly protected and unable to discover herself as an individual. 

Though the story of Persephone is generally interpreted as it relates to female initiation, she offers a model that both men and women can relate to. The capacity to endure and find meaning in one’s suffering is the marker between the psychological states of childhood and adulthood. It is not an easily segued passage that happens only once, but if it is actualized at least once consciously, future suffering tends to take on a different tone. While children should be rightfully spared from having to grow their sense of resilience too early, if they are not given the opportunity to realize their own buoyancy, they can struggle to make peace with the winter seasons that take place in their own lives eventually. This beloved Greek myth shows how one locates their inner wisdom not by the intellect, wily avoidance, or even divine rescue but by the process of accepting their life as it is and who they truly are. So much unnecessary suffering comes from refusing all the seasons of the psyche their due time. If we are able to recognize the unique opportunities they all bring, we become more whole and find we do not have to lose any part of our lives completely.  Like Persephone, we too can learn to inhabit the depths of our inner world and have respect for its mysteries. If we are in the midst of deep suffering and struggling to observe any inherent meaning, we can be assured that our story is not over yet, and against all odds—spring will have its say. ✧