The intensity of the mother-daughter bond.

Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest, controlled the seasons, performing the divine functions
of nourishing the Earth, her daughter Persephone always by her side. One day Hades,
God of the Underworld, saw Persephone and instantly fell in love with her. He asked his
brother Zeus for help, and the two of them concocted a plan to trap her. One day, as the
child played with her companions, they caused the ground to split underneath her.
Persephone slipped beneath the Earth, and Hades stole her to the Underworld where he
made her his wife. It is said that after much protest, Persephone came to love the cold-
blooded Hades.

Consumed with rage and sorrow, Demeter abandoned her divine functions in order to
look for Persephone. She went to Helios, the Sun God, and demanded the name of her
daughter’s abductor. Helios told her it had been Hades, and said he thought Persephone
might have done worse for herself. Far from being comforted by this information,
Demeter continued to wander the Earth in misery. Vegetation languished, animals
ceased to multiply, and the Hand of Death was everywhere.

With all of existence under threat, Zeus intervened, sending his messenger Hermes to
demand Persephone’s release from Hades. He agreed to let her go only on condition that
Persephone spend just two-thirds of the year with her mother, and return to him for the
other third of the year, to live as his bride, Queen of the Underworld.

And so it was arranged that Persephone could be with her mother Demeter for two-thirds
of the year, but would spend the remaining months with her husband. Accepting this
compromise, Demeter agreed to let seeds sprout from the Earth for all but those three
months — the time known as Winter — when Persephone was with Hades.

Thus, when Demeter and Persephone, Mother and Daughter, are together, the Earth
flourishes with vegetation. But when Persephone returns to her husband in the
underworld, the Earth once again becomes a barren realm. Whenever the seasons
change, we remember Demeter and Persephone.