🥀Book Review: Persephone's Pathway: Wisdom, Magick & Growth by Jennifer Heather
Full Title: Persephone's Pathway: Wisdom, Magick, Growth
Author: Jennifer Heather
Published by: Heather Publishing (seemingly self published) 2020
Good Reads: Link
My Quick Review: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5) stars.
Persephone’s Pathway which while flawed and at times meandering is perhaps the best resource available for the modern pagan worshipping or working with Persephone and I wholly recommend it.
Official Blurb: Persephone's Pathway is one of balance and duality; embrace the dual goddess archetype of Underworld Queen and Spring Maiden in order to achieve harmony. This book shares the wisdom of Persephone, along with spells and rituals to help you in your daily life. Shadow work exercises encourage you to work with the Underworld aspect of the Dark Goddess, whilst flower magick celebrates the joy and gentleness of the Spring Goddess. Blend the dark and light aspects together to experience how they shine a light on each other in this celebration of wholeness and authenticity.
Personal Reason for Purchasing: Was looking for a pagan/witchy perspective on Persephone and stubbled across this one. (Bought from Amazon UK)
Overview of the book's contents.
Introduction: A solid introduction, focusing on what the purpose of this book will be, and the author’s goals in writing it, namely ‘an exploration of the mythology and Symbolism surrounding Persephone, along with chapters dedicated to a facet of what she can teach us’, ‘both a collection of information and tribute to her’.
Chapter 1: 'Who is Persephone': Introduction to Persephone, her role, dual nature, The Eleusinian mysteries, possible connections to Erishkegal (a mesopotamia goddess originating 4000 BC), and of course the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
Chapter 2: 'Historic Origins': An exploration of the genesis of Persephone in Mythology, through to the Evolution of her story in present day literature. (A personal highlight).
Chapter 3: 'A Myth Retold': A modern retelling of the hymn to Demeter by the author.
Chapter 4: 'Symbolism': An exploration of the artefacts associated with Persephone, both modern and ancient, the creation of a unique glyph/sigil for Persephone and an extensive and detailed discussion of association/correspondences, some ancient, some contemporary and lastly her common epithets.
Chapter 5: 'Creating an Altar': A collection of suggestions and guidelines on creating your own altar for Persephone and common offerings to gift the Goddess.
Chapter 6: 'Persephone Magick: Begins with a basic beginners to magickal practice, followed by a recipe for a Persephone Anointing oils, a guide to connecting to Persephone, an innovation and an adaption of the Orphic Hymn to Proserpina.
The Seeds of Persephone
A collection of chapters surrounding what the Author considers to be the six core aspects/values which Persephone embodies.
Seed 1: 'Union': Focuses on Shadow-work, divine alignment for body and Spirit union, and includes a spell for Spiritual union of lovers, guidance surrounding meditation, shadow-work rituals, and a recipe for a love attraction oil.
Seed 2: 'Balance': Begins with a discussion of how to, and the importance of maintaining balance in one’s life, including a meandering discussion of grounding, living with the seasons, incorporating nature into your life, meditation, seasonal altars, self-care, massage, and yoga. Lastly it includes recipes for a Persephone Beauty Elixer’ cream/lotion, a medicinal tonic, a spell for resolution, and a spell for making a decision.
Seed 3: 'Intuition': Looks at ways to develop one’s intuition, including an outline for a Persephone focused Lithomancy technique (10 planetary stones, 6 Persephone stones (named for each of the author’s ‘Seeds’: Fertility, Justice, Balance, Union, Sovereignty and Intuition), three tarot spreads and the script for a guided meditation.
Seed 4: 'Sovereignty': Is a discussion of [personal Sovereignty, and self-esteem, with journal prompts. Guidance on enchanting a power talisman, and a spell for protecting personal boundaries.
Seed 5: 'Justice': Focuses heavily on Persephone in her Queen of the Underworld Aspect, touching on several myths in which she acted as a Purveyor of justice, (Orpheus and Psyche, and a discussion on Trust in regards to the Goddess. Followed by Several spells for truth telling, reflection on behaviour and fair resolutions.
Seed 6: 'Fertility': Focuses on Persephone's Spring/Maiden Aspect. Followed by a discussion of Maiden goddesses, Flower Magick, creating Floral elixirs, cleansing sprays, a flower bathing ritual, and spell jars/Witch’s bottles. Followed by the Associations/correspondences and finally a script of a guided meditation, to meet Persephone in her Spring Aspect.
Appendix: The Orphic hymn to Proserpina, translated by Taylor Thomas 1792.
Personal Thoughts and Review.
I’m conflicted about this book. The first half is an excellent primer on Persephone and including her into one’s personal practice however, the second half the ‘Seeds of Persephone’ are at times Meandering, unfocused and clumsy, but there are jewels among the ramblings.
The book appears to be self published, so I’m inclined to be kinder to the Author than I would otherwise be; however, Persephone’s Pathway could really use reformatting (text justified etc), and would benefit immensely from an informed and passionate editor. Nevertheless this book is an excellent edition to the libraries of those of us who work with Persephone.
Aspects in detail.
General content: The first half goes over a lot of content around Persephone, in some detail and is appropriately referenced through allowing the reader to research further. The Second half (the Seeds) is a mixed bag and approaches certain subjects extremely casually, namely Shadow-work and herbal medicine.
Persephone’s correspondences: Primarily contained to Chapter 4, the Correspondences are in depth, reference and diverse. However, there are inaccuracies, the most obvious is a mention of Corn/Maize being cut as a part of the Eleusinian Mysteries. As a New World crop Corn was not in ancient Greece at the time and as such has no historical connection to the Mysteries. From my own understanding the crop cut during the Mysteries was likely Barley, a grain though to have great significance to the Eleusinian Mysteries as a part of the hallucinogenic cocktail thought to be drunk by initiates, barley is also part of the offering given by Oddyseus to summon Persephone (“first with milk and honey, then with sweet wine, then with water; and sprinkle white barley-meal above”).
Rituals and Spells: It’s Always interesting to see another practitioner's approach, and covering a very broad scope although, I wish they were indexed since they appear throughout the book.
Origin Myth retelling: An interesting retelling, possibly my favourite version, however it is not without flaws.
Guided Meditations: Enjoyable and Interesting, these scripts approach many aspects of Persephone’s Mythos.
Journaling Prompts: These appear seemingly at random in the latter half of the book, but are nevertheless thought provoking.
Recommended Reading: While good to see, it is worthy of note that none of these books reference Persephone, Hellenic Polytheism, or Shadow-work. Which are the topics I would like to see additional material given some of my concerns with the book itself.
Bibliography: Extensive and good practice.
The Seeds in Detail.
Given their significance to the book I’ll review these chapters separately:
Union: a clumsy chapter whose advice on Shadow-work is surface level and possibly dangerous for a beginner or someone who is mentally vulnerable. But this chapter does handle the topic of Love workings with the required levity.
Balance: Waffling and honestly feels like filler, of the seeds this one is disappointing and feels like lost potential.
Intuition: a major highlight of the book, a detailed exploration of Lithomancy, well written and thought provoking.
Sovereignty: A good chapter, if a little long winded.
Justice: Spectacular, discussion of Queen Persephone and of how to connect to the Underworld Aspect. A personal highlight.
Fertility: An excellent close to the book but desperately needs reformatting.
Final Thoughts.
I wholly recommend this book especially as a gateway into working with or worshipping Persephone. Despite its flaws, it is the best resource I’ve found on Persephone from a pagan/witch perspective, and my practice is better for reading it.
