"Demeter's Fall"

"Demeter's Fall," pen & ink, 11" x 14"
Copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2014

Greek Mythology explains Fall this way. Persephone, Goddess of Spring and the Queen of the Underworld, is the daughter of Demeter, Goddess of the Earth/Agriculture/Harvest. For half of each year, Persephone lives with her husband, Hades, as Queen of the Underworld. She spends the other six months of the year with her mother in the sunlit world. She must do this because when Hades abducted her, she ate six pomegranate seeds in the Land of the Dead. This is why plants go fallow in Fall and Winter, this is time when Demeter is parted from her daughter. In spring, when Persephone returns to the Earth, Demeter rejoices and the land return to bloom.

Although Demeter is usually depicted as a mature woman, as a goddess she doesn't need to. My representation of Demeter (above), dressed by her other child, Dionysus, God of the Grape/Wine, is preparing for the departure of Persephone. She is not pleased.