The Myth of Grain

I have been experiencing some wonderful realizations. At least, they seem wonderful to me. I have been keeping an "eating journal" since Thanksgiving, and I know that doesn't seem like a long time, but I was adding breakfast this morning and went to look back over the list and the notes I made about certain foods and how I felt and I did not realize truly, how much raw I have been eating everyday. And how much better I felt on those days versus those that included a heavier cooked meal.

I actually don't know where to begin - I feel like I am having all these insights and increased brain function and cannot unravel the understanding fast enough, or relate it in such a way as it is "digestible", mentally speaking of course.

So here I have a picture of Demeter welcoming back her daughter Persephone from the underworld. And those of you have any interest or pursued any study into spiritual sciences, have encountered the Mystery Schools (Essene, Coptic, Rosicrucian, Theosophy, Gnosticism, Anthroposophy, The Elysian Mysteries, Mystical Christianity, Alchemy, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, the Grail Legends and, finally the Greek Mythologies) the endless symbolic natures of the tales told to initiates. I feel like I have encountered an understanding of the Persephone myth: It explains so much about, well everything.

When you read about the female/male attributes of the human soul, you inevitably arrive at the space in time when we humans stumbled and took a "fall" -- into what you may ask? It's in all the sacred scriptures: into materiality. There have been several books written about the nature of the Masculine influence holding a more powerful grip over the human psyche in relationship to this fall, which is what is meant to be understood when G-d tells Eve that she will be subservient to Adam. The loss of the feminine was a detriment to our evolution as spiritual beings but it was to protect us as well. Try and find books like Gnosis and the Law or the Keys of Enoch to open up deeper understandings of such things (it will take way too long for me to summarize them here with any respect to their content).

Anyway, this fall into materiality, we see in the Bible, allows the concept of death to occur in the human sphere. Now think back to Eden, and Genesis 1:29 : "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." The abundance of growth on the earth -- the continual flowering of fruit and edible plants was dependent on our innocence and communal relationship with the divine.

Now reconsider the myth of Persephone: whose mother is Demeter (later to be considered the goddess of grain). We find that Persephone was the daughter of Zeus or the God-Head in the Greek tradition. She is a young maiden playing amongst the flowers, a beautiful child, and so gains the attention of Hades, who abducts her and drags her into the underworld, the realm of death and promises her a number of things. How is this any different than the fall? Philosophically speaking? A dark seducer who ruled the underworld -- a beautiful maiden who falls below? She eats what she was forbidden to?

This loss of the feminine and in the case of Demeter, her child sends her into a shocked and deep despair. All of a sudden, nothing will grow on the earth, as Mother Demeter is out seeking for her lost child.

Once she finds Persephone, now having known good and evil -- the symbol of the pomegranate, like the apple, is itself meant to denote sexual knowing, she has trespassed the realm of child like communal relationships and wonder, and has become realized in the capacity of her material body, a sensual body: that is, composed and informed by the senses. And so Demeter cannot take her back as is. So she strikes a deal, and will have access to her daughter for 6 (+/- depending on the particular translation) months of the year.

Because of this, Demeter goes into mourning every winter, and knowing this, we are told that she descends into the realm of men to teach them agriculture so they may survive her mourning periods. In other words, I am realizing what raw food is doing to my communal consciousness. What I think about, what I do, what I eat, how I feel is all being affected. Demeter made a concession. This was not how things were meant to go. Just as the Bible relates that G-d did not intend for us to fall into materiality and made "arrangements" to ensure our survival until help could come our way. Whether you call it Christ or Sophia or the Mother, we are being given access to what will restore our consciousness. Why would such fall stories include, in all cases, food? Yes there is sexuality there too -- but even that can be reduced to a idea of self-propagating thought and creating one's reality. We are what we eat. The way I have been eating as of late, or drinking as is often the case with green juices makes me feel different. I think and feel differently. It's amazing. I am so grateful.

Outside, it has been snowing for almost 12 hours and I don't feel cold at all...