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Hi, Michael-- thanks for engaging in this conversation.

To me an argument should hinge on logic and evidence. If Edgar Cayce had a better track record of accuracy, I'd consider that there was something to his trance statements in relation to astrology.

The use of mediums' statements is problematic for astrology. Medium Alice Bailey's body of work (cf. esoteric astrology) contains portions that are anti-Semitic and racist, yet in keeping with ideas current in her day.

By way of comparison, I happen to like the Jane Roberts Seth books, also supposedly channeled by a medium in a trance state. Probably because they pretty much stuck to the metaphysical realm. I do not believe all of Seth's pronouncements. I cannot say that Seth even existed; but if not, it simply confirms that Roberts was an amazing woman who had a unique method of coming up with metaphysical insights.

Mythology is not objectively real, but neither is great literature. We don't consider whether a profound work of fiction is real, but whether it invokes deeper insights about the human condition.

Myths point to and reinforce a society's concept of ethics, values, and proper social order.

Plutarch (ca. 46-119 CE,) in Isis and Osiris commented on the mish-mash that was Egyptian mythology, where gods' functions overlap and the same attributes were given to different gods. Plutarch said that the Egyptians saw their amalgam of religious lore primarily as surface manifestations that pointed to deeper, more unified truths.

I think Plutarch had a sensible guide to mythology. I would add to that, reading myths in the original (translations OK,) as well as learning something about the myths' cultural and environmental contexts. Powerful myths that were current for centuries did not emerge out of a vacuum.

Because mythology has been so much a part of the nature of the astrological planets for millennia, it would indeed be a different approach simply to ignore it today, in focusing on orbital patterns, historical events, or New Age wish-lists, &c. I wouldn't ignore these, but I personally believe that mythology provides us with a much deeper look at planets' functions and meanings.

(More on your latest, later....)

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Sigh..., I really, really didn’t want to post anymore on this topic, but it’s important to put Edgar Cayce in the proper perspective. From comments Waybread has made, it’s obvious that she has only a surface understanding of Cayce, rather like the ordinary person quoting from a newspaper astrology column.

Cayce was NOT a medium. Mediums open themselves to external influence and take on the characteristics of another person. This is a function of the solar plexus chakra. I have followed the Cayce work and publications since the 1960s, and have a large Cayce library.

Cayce put himself to sleep and traveled to the astral plane to access the akashic records. He ‘read’ the records and stated what he saw there. He never had any recollection of what he said in this unconscious state. I don’t have the figures as the moment (can look them up), but the vast majority of readings were on health topics, with meticulous records kept by the organization as to results and follow up correspondence with individuals Cayce read for. (Edit: See reading note below.)

Probably the next topic (number wise) were readings that mentioned reincarnation and astrological factors. Only a very, very small percentage of readings had to do with world affairs and events. This was Cayce’ weakest area, it seems, and the A.R.E. does discuss his failings in that area. At any rate, most the readings were from the akashic records.

It is generally agreed upon that attempting to date the future is something of a lost cause, even for the best psychics. (And Cayce wasn't a psychic in the traditional sense.) A review of psychic literature shows a great number of event dates that were never met in psychic predictions.

From my point of view, it's perfectly all right to question and test any of Cayce's statements that relate to astrology. The Vulcan-Pluto statement was mentioned only once, and it was of particular interest to me. In individual readings Cayce did warn against fire and fire arms in relation to this planet.

Another interesting source I have (which I can't support or verify in any way) is Franz Bardon's The Practice of Magical Evocation (2001-14). He gives "all aspects of fire" to the sign of Aries (p. 341).

Here's an interesting quote I just 'accidentally' found when picking up a book (Contemporary Cayce by Kevin Todeschi and Henry Reed, A.R.E. Press, 2014, p. 72.)

"Because of the notoriety on the Cayce material on earth changes, most individuals are extremely surprised to learn that less than twenty readings out of more than 14,000! actually address the potential for earth changes."
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

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waybread wrote:Michael, continuing from my previous post:

I use both traditional and modern rulers in natal chart interpretation, but just traditional rulers in horary. So Mars isn't going anywhere.

Michael, I have (or used to have) some elementary tourist German, but even that is pretty meagre at this point.
I can't blame you for not keeping up your German just for the sake of it. It surely isn't exactly the most melodious of languages.

Image

German-speaking countries are obviously in the temperate zone (not to mention portions at high elevations) which are nothing like the cradle of Greco-Roman mythology, let alone Babylon and ancient Egypt. Some of your translation is still in Dutch, which I don't read at all.
And I believed you were omniscient... ????
What I can say as someone with a lot of interest in how environments interact with people's belief systems is that the place to start is the regions of origin. In which case we are looking at Mediterranean climates and riverine desert societies like Mesopotamia. These climates are characterized by periods of drought (referred to during Demeter's grief sojourn) and winter rains or river floods in season.

Ancient Mediterranean agriculture was based on planting winter wheat and barley just prior to the autumn/winter rainy season. The grain sprouted with the winter rains. Interestingly, the Jewish holy day cycle (from another Mediterranean culture) includes a lot of prayers for autumn rain. Zeus/Jupiter was a rain god.

The "half-year" divided by lunar months is from the Latin author Ovid. The earlier Greek authors referred to a 1/3-2/3 split.
The treatise makes reference to Ovid's version in particular.
The proper English translation is not "robbery," but rape.
Google got that one right, though. German "Raub" literally translates as "robbery", sometimes used with the meaning of "abduction".
Anciently Persephone's abduction was called "the rape of Persephone" and was an iconographic theme. Normally neither goddess was associated with the moon, which was given to the triple goddess Diana/Artemis, Selene (sometimes Hera) and Hekate. Hekate herself has a role in the recovery of Persephone, as a chthonic goddess.

Your footnote looks interesting, but I would need to learn the classical primary sources, not the secondary ones.
Here's the download link for the dissertation. Just in case you want to try and track down the primary sources.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... FGHP4kyMKP
The father of Pluto would have been Saturn/Kronos. Pluto did get above ground occasionally, which is how he came across Persephone. Some myths about her have no reference to the bargain forged between Zeus/Jupiter and Demeter/Ceres, but simply refer to her as queen of the dead.

Demeter's Eleusinian mysteries spoke to the esoteric, metaphysical interpretation of the myth..

I can go into this more if you like, but you have reminded us to stay on-topic.
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64
waybread wrote:Michael, I am not a classicist but I think that astrologers benefit from the study of mythology; and that, if we're going to do that, we need to look at the original primary sources-- in translation when we don't know the ancient languages. We need to look at what classical studies scholars tell us.

What we find are usually multiple versions of myths. Sometimes these seem to be variants of one another; but sometimes very different narrative themes seem to be grafted onto one another. Sometimes a myth is more stand-alone. A philologist could make more sense of them than I could. But what I try to do is set myths in their broader cultural and environmental contexts.

Starting with the Homeric Hymn to Demeter https://uh.edu/~cldue/texts/demeter.html we learn a couple of things about seasons.

In the opening, Persephone is out picking flowers with her friends. Homer itemizes them and they seem to be flowers that bloom in spring or early summer. Gaia, the earth personified, actually sets these out as a lure for Persephone at Zeus's request, to make her an easier catch for Hades. Persephone picks a narcissus (NB, Jungians!) the earth opens up, and she's captured.

[Just as a gloss, to me there is an inexorable quality to astrological Pluto-- the gods seem to align on profound-- unwanted-- trip to the Underworld.]

In Homer we have a version (1) where Persephone disappears in spring/early summer, and as time progresses, we're into the Mediterranean seasonal summer drought season. If you're familiar with this type of area, hillsides that are green in spring become parched and brown by mid-summer. Demeter, indeed causes a much more severe drought, in her grief. This is a kind of Mediterranean weather & climate Just-So Story. The rainless summer is caused by Demeter grieving for her daughter.

Hekate, a chthonic goddess whose lineage may predate Hades, emerges from the depths, bearing torches to light the search.

Demeter's search is reminiscent of Isis searching for Osiris.

Demeter pauses at Eleusis, which became the site of the Eleusinian mysteries.

After many entreaties, Demeter finally brokers a bargain-- not with Hades-- but with Zeus, in whose hands the matter always rested.

Persephone is to return in the spring, for 2/3 of the year. Here, we seem not to be dealing with summer drought, but with (2) the vegetation that emerges by the end of the winter rains. This would also make Persephone a metaphor for seeds planted in the ground in autumn.
Also, this would be the part directly pertinent to the Scorpio/Aries theme. Is there a variant of the myth extant that revolves around this alone? Homer's variant does appear to be somewhat jumbled.
Near the end of the hymn, right after the flowers begin to bloom, Demeter ends the drought and(3) grain is ready to be cut (winter barley, probably in April)-- which offers another metaphor. The harvest of the grain is the death of the grain plants.
So now we have reached the end of what seemed to be a Summer drought, however, we somehow ended up in Spring time/Aries season... That's more than just a bit confusing!
Because the Eleusinian mysteries were to be kept secret, not much is known about them. But apparently the soul's descent to earth was a parallel with Persephone's descent to Hades. I. e., the earthly life is like hell, but one hopes for a good afterlife. There is some thought that the rituals involved hallucinogens, but this cannot be provden.

Here is another version of the myth from Ovid https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Met ... #479128839

This one takes place in Sicily. At the end, Jupiter divides the year evenly between Pluto and Ceres.
This suggests a division of the year into a cold period (Autumn/Winter) and a warm period (Spring/Summer). Certainly the treatise I cited previously comes to this conclusion. Again, this seems aligned with the Scorpio/Aries interpretation.
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65
waybread wrote:James, re: mythology, as I mentioned previously, you have to be a connoisseur of what you read. As with astrology, there is the good, the bad, and the ugly.

It also depends upon the uses you wish to make of myths. Some uses make a lot more sense than others.

Perhaps you are incorrectly imagining that I believe that myths are objectively true?
Just as an aside, they indeed have a core of truth in so many cases.

Schliemann's discovery of Troya comes to mind, and in quite recent times, Odysseus' royal palace on Ithaka may have been found:

https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2018/ ... ns-resume/
A major reason to study myths in connection with astrology is that they were the basis on which the characteristics of the different planets were assigned in ancient times. The myths pre-dated their assignment to planets.
This we can't be sure of. If we (being astrologers) see the planets as representing Platonic archetypes with their own quasi-objective existence in what Jung called "psychoid space", then the myths linked to them should be considered metaphors expressing those planetary archetypes' nature within the World Soul and, microcosmically, human soul.
Myths are cooked into the rulerships of planets.

Astrological Mars is the planet of warfare and soldiers because mythological Mars (Greek Ares, Babylonian Nergal) were war gods. Astrological Mercury rules liars and thieves because the young god Mercury was a trickster.
Again, you seem to be supposing that the Gods and the myths that represent them are basically the fruits of human imagination later projected onto the celestial bodies. That would reduce a horoscope chart to some kind of inkblot test, however.
Jungians are still into myth interpretation.

Also, in ignoring myths-- in their original forms (allowing for translations) we lose a lot of their meanings; meanings which have value in chart interpretation today.
I'm with you on that.
Speaking of Persephone, in ancient Greece she was also called Kore, meaning a little girl, not a sexually mature young woman. This gives extra poignancy to her kidnapping and her mother's frantic search. If you ever want to use Ceres in chart interpretation, this kind of information is worth knowing, because Ceres has to mean more than some kind of junior moon.

Re: Pluto as possible ruler of Aries. Myths also have to be set in their cultural-environmental contexts.

Aries the ram (or lamb, actually) is our first sign because we essentially follow the Babylonian calendar. Their first month of Nisanu (cf. Hebrew Nissan) started just after the vernal equinox, and it means "new beginnings." [The "hired man" name comes from extra workers needed in spring lambing season.]

If you've ever seen wild rams butting heads, you get the Ram's association with battle. If you've ever seen a wild ram lead his small flock up a cliff and then position himself in front of them, on a rock facing outwards, challenging all comers, you get the association of the ram with raw courage. Very Mars.

I think the genius, if I can call it that, of Hellenists like Ptolemy was keeping the meta-narrative of myths intact, while putting them on a more "scientific" or Aristotelian footing.

Michael, I personally sometimes describe astrological Pluto as like the Phoenix, another myth. But hard Pluto transits never leave one with the pre-transit inexperience and naivete. We always retain the experience of metaphorical death via the ruler of the underworld.

Similarly, in a number of the Greek myths, Persephone does not happily re-emerge into springtime and roses. She remains underground as the fearsome Queen of the Dead.
Pluto's association with Scorpio certainly makes sense. What I am taking away from this thread so far is looking into my old idea of assigning the trans-Saturnians double rulerships more seriously.
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66
waybread wrote:James, in my earlier post, I said that for a modern planet to be considered to be a sign ruler, it has real work to do in a horoscope. It has to function as a house cusp ruler (lord.)

If Pluto works as the ruler of a house with Aries on the cusp, hey, let's use it. Have you tried this? Michael?
Yes, I am adopting this view both for house cusps and planets in Aries. And it works well for me.

For instance, I noticed that Aries Suns with Pluto in Virgo frequently show a distinct "Virgo undertone" otherwise hard to explain.
As I said earlier, I am not necessarily taken with linking historical events to a modern planet's discovery date. These tend to be heavily biased towards western history, ignoring events (or non-events) in other parts of the world. But because they are typically used by way of extracting meaning from a planet's discovery date, I simply wanted to show that Eris holds her own.

Of course, other dwarf planets discovered around the same time muddy the waters.

Wars, earthquakes, and the like have been going on since about forever. On reflection, I think one of the biggest new things to occur around 2005 was the launching of social media. As I mentioned, they initially seemed like a boon, but we are just now finding out how much strife they are causing. Facebook algorithms were specifically designed to feature content that aggravates people, because aggravated people spend more time with their eyeballs in contact with advertisements.

I also should have mentioned that Eris was involved in charts for the rapid spread of the Covid pandemic. From a hypothetical domicile in Aries, it squared that big slug of planets moving through Capricorn.
Was Eris actually in Aries during the respective part of the pandemic?
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67
waybread wrote:Hi, Michael-- thanks for engaging in this conversation.

To me an argument should hinge on logic and evidence. If Edgar Cayce had a better track record of accuracy, I'd consider that there was something to his trance statements in relation to astrology.

The use of mediums' statements is problematic for astrology. Medium Alice Bailey's body of work (cf. esoteric astrology) contains portions that are anti-Semitic and racist, yet in keeping with ideas current in her day.
Now give me a break.

To infer from one particular medium having made racist statements that mediums' statements are generally problematic for astrology doesn't make any sense to me.

Talk about sweeping assumptions...
By way of comparison, I happen to like the Jane Roberts Seth books, also supposedly channeled by a medium in a trance state. Probably because they pretty much stuck to the metaphysical realm. I do not believe all of Seth's pronouncements. I cannot say that Seth even existed; but if not, it simply confirms that Roberts was an amazing woman who had a unique method of coming up with metaphysical insights.
I like the Seth books too and read them alot in the past. :)
Mythology is not objectively real, but neither is great literature. We don't consider whether a profound work of fiction is real, but whether it invokes deeper insights about the human condition.

Myths point to and reinforce a society's concept of ethics, values, and proper social order.

Plutarch (ca. 46-119 CE,) in Isis and Osiris commented on the mish-mash that was Egyptian mythology, where gods' functions overlap and the same attributes were given to different gods. Plutarch said that the Egyptians saw their amalgam of religious lore primarily as surface manifestations that pointed to deeper, more unified truths.

I think Plutarch had a sensible guide to mythology. I would add to that, reading myths in the original (translations OK,) as well as learning something about the myths' cultural and environmental contexts. Powerful myths that were current for centuries did not emerge out of a vacuum.
I would say, they were created (you may as well call it "channelled") based on transpersonal perception of archetypal forces. Certainly cultural and environmental contexts play a role in this.

Archetypes and archetypal entities like Jane Robert's Seth challenge our common understanding of real/imaginative, inner/outer, subjective/objective...

I don't wish to go off on a tangent with all this, perhaps a separate thread in the Philosophy forum would be in order...
Because mythology has been so much a part of the nature of the astrological planets for millennia, it would indeed be a different approach simply to ignore it today, in focusing on orbital patterns, historical events, or New Age wish-lists, &c. I wouldn't ignore these, but I personally believe that mythology provides us with a much deeper look at planets' functions and meanings.

(More on your latest, later....)
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68
Therese, I am glad you are back. I was not trying to drive you away. I think that if a proposition is robust, it will stand up to criticism and be none the worse for it. If a proposition "needs improvement" then ideally the function of criticism is the revision and strengthening of the proposition.

I will happily defer to you on Edgar Cayce's proper designation. For what it's worth, Wikipedia calls him a clairvoyant. I conflate mediumship, clairvoyance, channeling, and a lot of theosophical writings. Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe it matters that the distinctions be preserved.

And yes, I have read some of Cayce's work, but it's been a while. I confess, it didn't do much for me.

I view the akashic records as metaphorical.

69
Hi, Michael. I don't know if you use your real name, but I would translate "Sternbach" as star-stream. 8)

I think Persephone's descent into the underworld actually shows up in three ways. They don't necessarily agree, but important myths are like that, often showing multiple layers.

OK, so let's think geography. The hot-summer Mediterranean climate region is shown in these maps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_climate Basically it is characterized by hot dry summers when it seldom rains, and cool rainy winters. So it makes sense to talk about a seasonal drought.

In the northern hemisphere, this seasonal summer drought roughly corresponds to four months around Jun, July, August, and September. This would correspond to the 1/3 of the year period when Persephone is underground.

If you scroll down on the article, you will see climate graphs showing how little it rains in summer.

During the summer drought, vegetation dries up and the hillsides turn brown.

Like most climates, the Mediterranean climate can fluctuate over a period of years. So if the rainy period is skimpy over a longer time-frame, we might talk about a longer-term drought.

This is a major environmental context for Hellenistic mythology and astrology.

When we outline the Demeter-Persephone myth, Persephone is out picking spring/early summer flowers with her friends. We know the season because Homer lists the flowers.

(1) So the first underworld descent of Persephone is the death of spring greenery with the onset of summer drought. Later, Demeter causes a long drought that causes a famine.

Agriculture has to adapt to the summer drought/winter rain regime. The solution was to plant grain in late summer/early Autumn, in anticipation of the rainy season. With rain in a frost-free climate, the seeds will sprout and grow over the course of winter. Such crops are often called "winter wheat," or "winter barley," &c.

The month of Scorpio would be the early part of the rainy season. After spending a year once in Israel, I can attest that the weather is decidedly cool, but it doesn't freeze. From an agricultural point of view, the important thing is the amount and timing of rain.

Barley was historically the more ancient crop, ready to be harvested in spring, perhaps around April. Wheat took a little longer, ready to be harvested in early summer, perhaps around June.

In all kinds of folklore throughout Europe, the harvest was compared to the death of the grain crop. The sheaves of grain would often be tied up on some kind of frame or scaffold to dry out, prior to being threshed.

(2) If we think of Persephone as a grain spirit, the seed gets "buried" in Autumn. The grain dies as a seed, but is "reborn" as the maturing crop in spring. Which is why some scholars think Jesus was essentially a crop god in a more spiritual form.

(3) Not only does Persephone as personified Spring die in summer, but as personified grain, she also dies as the crop is cut down. [Cf. images of Chronos/Saturn as "the grim reaper" bearing a scythe.]

In the Demeter-Persephone narratives, Hades/Pluto has an important role to play as the personification of death, but he actually does not have much to say. The action belongs to the upper-world characters.

70
Michael, it's not hard to make a case for Pluto as modern co-ruler of Scorpio. As co-ruler of Aries, not so much.

Unfortunately for other theories about why a given classical planet has a particular set of attributes, it is incontrovertible that the ancient astrological societies worshipped gods with particular attributes prior to their naming planets after the gods and ascribing the same attributes to the planets.

Ancient Greece is a clear example. Starting with Homer in the 7th-8th centuries CE, they had all kinds of lore about their gods. But astrology wasn't introduced into Greece until the 3rd century CE by the Babylonian astrologer and historian Berossus, according to contemporary sources.

So we can compare what the Greeks thought about their planetary gods before and after the introduction of astrology.

Another really old Greek source is Hesiod, Works and Days. He doesn't recount the Demeter-Persephone myth, but it is pretty clear that she is the major agricultural goddess. Most of this book is a kind of farmer's almanac.

Hesiod says to harvest the crops when the Pleiades rise-- which would have been in spring, and to plant when they set, which would have been in Autumn. My footnote says November. I don't know if the translator allowed for precession, but this would have been the seed going underground in the month of Scorpio. Further:

"When the piercing power and sultry heat of the sun abate, [415] and almighty Zeus sends the autumn rains,1 and men's flesh comes to feel far easier,—for then the star Sirius passes over the heads of men, who are born to misery, only a little while by day and takes greater share of night—"

We see here that the paramount significance of Jupiter was that he was the rain god. (Usually associated with thunder and lightning.) We also read that summer drought was a hardship-- it was not necessarily the pleasant time of year.

The crop planted in Autumn is to be harvested in mid-May (lines 570-580.) "But when [615] the Pleiades and Hyades and strong Orion begin to set,2 then remember to plough in season: and so the completed year3 will fitly pass beneath the earth." i.e, in early Autumn again.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 3Acard%3D1

It is interesting that Hesiod never mentions the zodiac, despite his apparent knowledge of the Mediterranean crop cycle and reckoning time by the stars.

He certainly points to a different agricultural cycle than people in temperate climates would be used to.

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Michael Sternbach wrote:
Yes, I am adopting this view both for house cusps and planets in Aries. And it works well for me.

For instance, I noticed that Aries Suns with Pluto in Virgo frequently show a distinct "Virgo undertone" otherwise hard to explain.
Presumably Virgo has been Plutonized!
Was Eris actually in Aries during the respective part of the pandemic?
Yes-- check it out. It squared that big stellium in Capricorn.

If a clairvoyant/psychic (Alice Bailey) channels a lot of racist, anti-Semitic material, I truly question what were her own personal beliefs and what could be attributed to The Tibetan. It is doubtful that a man, even an adept, living a monastic life in Tibet would have even known any Jews, for example.

The trouble is, once we admit that a given clairvoyant made statements from that clairvoyant state that are patently untrue or bigoted, we have no way of determining with the other material, what is genuinely far-sighted, and what is simply the person's own personal beliefs.

72
waybread wrote:Hi, Michael. I don't know if you use your real name, but I would translate "Sternbach" as star-stream. 8)

I think Persephone's descent into the underworld actually shows up in three ways. They don't necessarily agree, but important myths are like that, often showing multiple layers.

OK, so let's think geography. The hot-summer Mediterranean climate region is shown in these maps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_climate Basically it is characterized by hot dry summers when it seldom rains, and cool rainy winters. So it makes sense to talk about a seasonal drought.

In the northern hemisphere, this seasonal summer drought roughly corresponds to four months around Jun, July, August, and September. This would correspond to the 1/3 of the year period when Persephone is underground.

If you scroll down on the article, you will see climate graphs showing how little it rains in summer.

During the summer drought, vegetation dries up and the hillsides turn brown.

Like most climates, the Mediterranean climate can fluctuate over a period of years. So if the rainy period is skimpy over a longer time-frame, we might talk about a longer-term drought.

This is a major environmental context for Hellenistic mythology and astrology.

When we outline the Demeter-Persephone myth, Persephone is out picking spring/early summer flowers with her friends. We know the season because Homer lists the flowers.

(1) So the first underworld descent of Persephone is the death of spring greenery with the onset of summer drought. Later, Demeter causes a long drought that causes a famine.

Agriculture has to adapt to the summer drought/winter rain regime. The solution was to plant grain in late summer/early Autumn, in anticipation of the rainy season. With rain in a frost-free climate, the seeds will sprout and grow over the course of winter. Such crops are often called "winter wheat," or "winter barley," &c.

The month of Scorpio would be the early part of the rainy season. After spending a year once in Israel, I can attest that the weather is decidedly cool, but it doesn't freeze. From an agricultural point of view, the important thing is the amount and timing of rain.

Barley was historically the more ancient crop, ready to be harvested in spring, perhaps around April. Wheat took a little longer, ready to be harvested in early summer, perhaps around June.

In all kinds of folklore throughout Europe, the harvest was compared to the death of the grain crop. The sheaves of grain would often be tied up on some kind of frame or scaffold to dry out, prior to being threshed.

(2) If we think of Persephone as a grain spirit, the seed gets "buried" in Autumn. The grain dies as a seed, but is "reborn" as the maturing crop in spring. Which is why some scholars think Jesus was essentially a crop god in a more spiritual form.

(3) Not only does Persephone as personified Spring die in summer, but as personified grain, she also dies as the crop is cut down. [Cf. images of Chronos/Saturn as "the grim reaper" bearing a scythe.]

In the Demeter-Persephone narratives, Hades/Pluto has an important role to play as the personification of death, but he actually does not have much to say. The action belongs to the upper-world characters.
Alright. We can now make a note of the fact that astrological interpretation of the myth in terms of Scorpio and Aries and their associated seasons is supported by the narrative. Although the latter contains further elements due to which a modern reading may occasionally appear jumbled. Thanks for the clarification!
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