April 23, 2020

Springtime and Resurrection

by Joe Geidel

Growing up in the Northeastern United States, I have experienced several harsh winters throughout the years. The kind of winters where the frigid breeze stings your face and your hands crack open from the absence of moisture in the cold air.

It’s a tough time.

Yet, life in the 21st century comes with many advantages. Most of us have heated homes to avoid constant exposure to the elements. However, consider those who cannot afford heat. Consider the homeless. For many, winter is a time of depression and despair. Only a few short decades ago, it was a struggle to secure and maintain a heated home. Failure could very well result in death.

Winter is the season of death. Trees lie bare. Animals disappear to hibernate in their dens. The ground hardens. Lakes freeze.

Just when all hope seems lost, something magnificent happens.

The flowers blossom and the birds sing.

Everyday miracles, often overlooked, heralding the change of seasons.

Springtime arrives. The season of life and resurrection.

Throughout history, people have tried to make sense of this seasonal change. Modern science tells us that the shifts in temperature and weather patterns are due to the earth’s axial tilt. However, that explanation has only gradually satisfied us within the past several hundred years. Prior to this acceptance and understanding, humans were left to ponder the big questions surrounding life and death while observing the radical metamorphosis of the landscape.

In Paleolithic Europe, humans depended on hunting and gathering to survive. Every moment was precious. One mistake could jeopardize the entire tribe. Life was defined by the search for nourishment.

How remarkably different from our own time! Could you imagine living day to day wondering if you will be able to provide for your family?

There were many things to be concerned about. So you might imagine creating art to be a nonexistent activity. If you reasonably thought that, you would be wrong. Archeological finds across Europe have discovered that these Paleolithic peoples found it necessary to craft female sculptures, which we today call “Venus figurines” after the Roman goddess of love, beauty, and fertility. Archaeologists and historians have pondered the purpose and meaning behind these Venus figurines for over a hundred years since the first one was discovered in 1864. One interpretation, which has been widely embraced, is that Venus figurines may have been objects of veneration toward a nature goddess connected to a fertile earth. This view appears to make sense since these ancient peoples were so closely connected to the earth and the cycle of seasons for survival. Perhaps they worshiped these objects and/or the goddess behind them in hopes that nature would yield sustenance and be plentiful!

If you were a human during this time, what would you have done to ensure a bountiful hunt? Hunters today still have traditions they adhere to for good luck. It is possible honoring the nature goddess was the first one.

If this interpretation of the Venus figurines is true, it demonstrates to us what we already know, that the Paleolithic peoples of Europe had an extremely valuable trait for survival which has propelled human civilization since its inception: Hope.

Thousands of years later in Greece, human beings began to understand the cycle of seasons in a different way. The Neolithic Revolution brought an end to the dependency of the hunter-gather lifestyle in favor of a more predictable method: farming. Farming allowed for a sense of security. As a result, humans now had more time to engage in other activities and think deeper about the existential questions surrounding life and death.

Devotion to the nature goddess depicted by the Venus figurines was further developed and took new life in complex mythology. In Greece, she was known by many names, including Persephone.

The story of Persephone is one whose central myth has penetrated the collective consciousness of mankind since it was first told. It is a repackaging of established notions combined with novel thoughts surrounding the nature of existence. In it, the secret behind the cycle of season is reinterpreted.

THE CORE MYTH GOES THAT PERSEPHONE WAS THE DAUGHTER OF DEMETER, THE GODDESS OF THE HARVEST. WHILE PERSEPHONE WAS WANDERING THE EARTH SEARCHING FOR FLOWERS, HADES, THE GOD OF THE DEAD, CAPTIVATED BY HER BEAUTY, ABDUCTED HER AND TOOK HER WITH HIM TO HIS ABODE IN THE UNDERWORLD. IN HER PURSUIT TO FIND HER DAUGHTER, DEMETER NEGLECTED THE NATURAL WORLD WHICH, AS A RESULT, PREVENTED THE VEGETATION FROM GROWING. WHAT DID GROW, HOWEVER, WAS THE DESPAIR OF THE PEOPLES OF EARTH, UNABLE TO FEED THEMSELVES OR THEIR FAMILIES. ZEUS, THE KING OF THE GODS, SAW THE TOLL THE DISAPPEARANCE OF PERSEPHONE BROUGHT UPON THE EARTH AND ORDERED HADES TO RETURN PERSEPHONE. HADES OBLIGED, BUT WITH ONE CAVEAT. HE WOULD TRICK HER. JUST PRIOR TO HER RETURN, HADES OFFERED PERSEPHONE POMEGRANATE SEEDS TO EAT. THE BEAUTIFUL PERSEPHONE ATE THEM UNAWARE OF THE PENALTY. WHEN SHE RETURNED TO HER MOTHER, DEMETER, SHE WAS MADE KNOWN THAT BECAUSE SHE ATE FOOD IN THE UNDERWORLD SHE WOULD BE FORCED TO SPEND NEARLY HALF THE YEAR THERE, STRADDLING THE LINE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH FOREVER.

Hades (death) and Persephone (life) are captured in an eternal dance. Persephone never really dies, she persists.

Like the Venus figurines, Persephone was a tool utilized to make sense of the world by drawing upon the common archetype found universally throughout human civilization. The Earth Mother.

Those who revered Persephone saw her as an escape from the total annihilation of death. In the ancient Greek world there was no post-death paradise concept that we are familiar with today. The ancient Greeks believed that death was a dark void where the basic essence of the individual went to reside following their lifetime. Based on the earthly actions of the individual, one could have a joyful existence following death. However, this was mainly reserved for heroes who fought gallantly in battle. The cult of Persephone and her mother Demeter provided another option for a favorable afterlife.

The Eleusinian Mysteries were the rites administered by the practitioners of the Persephone cult. In this ceremony, scholars believe, individuals consumed psychedelic entheogens which induced spiritual visions of the afterlife. The experience provided followers with a deep sense of peace and coming to terms with the nature of things.

This sacrament, like others elsewhere around the world, represents the first steps humanity undertook to escape the earth, centuries before the Space Race, while also very much becoming a part of it all. Unification with a mundane divinity. A redefined death that really isn’t death at all. A transition of eternal life.

As the fledgling human family grew and empires dominated the political arena, our deeply rooted relationship with the earth began to change. The mythological legends of the past no longer satisfied us. We wanted something more. The advent of philosophical schools taught students about the totality of reality to the extent in which could be rationally discerned, while near-eastern and Mediterranean cults appealed to the emotional sensibility of devotees.

Nearly two thousand years ago a newly established religious sect bridged the divide between philosophy and spirituality.

The early Jesus movement was revolutionary. Jesus, as a historical figure, shattered cultural norms and questioned closely held traditions.

His story can be understood as another reinterpretation of the concepts of life and death. His life was a human fulfillment of the cycle of season. His supposed birth occurred during the darkest moments of winter. His early life and ministry were his spring and summer, while his betrayal and death were his autumn and winter.

…but as winter comes to an end, so did death in Jesus.

His resurrection on Easter marked a new springtime for the world and all those in it who understood and kept to the truth.

Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” and “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” His words and life serve as an example of how one could come to escape death through him.

It is believed by adherents of Christianity that Jesus was both man and divine. In many respects, Jesus, the “anointed one” known as Christ, came to show us that while we may be man (earthly) we are also divine (heavenly) like him.

“Is it not written in your Law: I have said you are gods?” (John 10:34)

While our bodies may wither away in winter, our basic being, our soul, lives on forever in spring. Those who follow the truth will lie on the beach of eternity, while the white foamy waters of time part at our bodies, caressing them ever so gently — yet flowing beyond them. We all find ourselves on that shoreline under the sun.

Christ, like the Venus figurines and Persephone, is a retelling of the story of life and death found in the cycle of seasons.

Our understanding of this story continues to grow as we do. Yet, one constant endures throughout all retellings: Life continues.

Despite the bleakness of winter, there is always spring.

Although our struggles may consume us, they will pass.

It is never too late for springtime in our lives.

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