Kore

What does this mean for you? As Kore, you are one with yourself and fully aware of what matters to you. You are able to stand your ground and commit yourself to what you love. There is a magical integrity about you that blooms best when you feel comfortable about yourself and what you do.

While Kore’s story unfolds most prominently in a story about her mother, we find the pieces of her here to find. Her story goes like this: When the world was still young and full of life, there was no such thing yet as winter as we now know. Perpetual summer reigned and people worked the fields with ease. In this vibrant world lived slim-ankled Kore with her mother, dark-robed Demeter. She played amongst the flowers with nymphs and goddesses alike, giggling with petals falling from the wreaths in her hair. Undergrowth bloomed around her. All that she graced with her touch, life blossomed. Eventually, however, she wandered away from her friends and found a single narcissus flower. Little did she know the god and goddesses of young and old conspired against her. Until this time, she was unhindered by Death’s touch, just as the world was. But then the lord of many, dread Hades, erupted from the very earth and claimed her as his bride. 

Not to worry though, dear reader and established Kore, although she may have transformed into dread Persephone, goddess of death and queen of the underworld, the gods eventually made a pact with Hades to allow Kore to return to the land of the living. Demeter, her mother, raged against the world at the loss of her daughter, draining the world of its life and refusing to give her fertile blessing to the lands. As a result, Kore Persephone remained in the underworld for part of the year, and the rest with her mother. It is only when mother and daughter are reunited that the world becomes flush with life. Kore’s return signals the coming of spring, and her descent to the underworld brings winter from Demeter’s loss of her. This continuous cycle of life and death, spring and winter, still continues for all time. 

Now what does this say about Kore herself?

Kore stands as the embodiment of spring itself. This makes her eternally virginal. In the words of Mythologist Safron Rossi, PhD, “Kore reveals her root meanings of youthfulness, vitality and sovereignty. For the Greeks, to be kore or virgin did not mean sexually chaste but unmarried, therefore undivided or in integrity with oneself.” What does that mean for the Kore when she becomes married to Hades? She transforms into a queen, but like the vegetation she brings about when she arrives from the underworld to the land of the living, she is reborn again as internally virginal and one to herself all over again, unconnected to death and man, but purely herself. Time has no meaning for myths, which are said to not have happened once, but constantly, surrounding us with stories that happen over and over again, like spring and winter, life and death, a constant cycle. Kore will always reemerge as one to herself when she rises from the underworld and so shall you in your darkest hour. 

As Kore, you too are one with yourself, an embodiment of “individuality, contained integrity, and spirited agency,” in the words of Safron Rossi. However, due to the Kore’s contained integrity and individuality, you, like her, can lock your inner passion and resilience inside without letting the world in, remaining hidden and unwilling to accept what is around you. Beware of this fact, for it can contain the growth you are meant to find. 

For Kore and yourself, you will find the greatest things in life within a world all your own, lively and passionate, unhindered by the waves of change around you and stand for yourself in a world that constantly chooses to be someone, anything else but what lies within. That is not to say, however, to contain your individuality, but to showcase it for others to see and find the Kore not just in you, but everyone around you too. Embrace it and be constantly reborn from the darkest moments as a goddess of spring. Life itself can be found within you.