The Food of the Living and the Dead
What's so special about pomegranates? With juicy writing prompts and photos from artist Jose de los Reyes.
Welcome back to The Cauldron!
This post features artful nudes from SF-based photographer and mysterious gentleman Jose de los Reyes. See more of his work on Instagram.
Now is the season of death.
Leaves are shed, layers of fat and fur thicken. For North America, this is also the fittingly paradoxical season of the abundant pomegranate, the fruit of the living and the dead, sex and purity, fertility and birth control. One of the oldest foods in the world, first domesticated around 10,000 BC, the pomegranate originated in what is now known as Iran. Globe-shaped, with a crown on top, there are over a thousand varieties of pomegranates, in shades of red, purple, yellow, and green. Each one harbors, on average, between 200 and 1400 arils. Its beauty fascinates; a fruit that looks like jewels. Or is it the other way around? “Garnet,” a semi-precious red stone, comes from “pomegranate.”
No ordinary fruit
In the West, the best-known mythological tie to the pomegranate is Persephone (though in many ways her mother Demeter/Ceres, goddess of the harvest, is the true protagonist of the story).
The myth unites loss and the turning of the seasons. Edith Hamilton tells it like this:
[Demeter] lost [Persephone] and in her terrible grief she withheld her gifts from the earth, which turned into a frozen desert. The green and flowering land was icebound and lifeless because Persephone had disappeared.
The lord of the dark underworld, the king of the multitudinous dead, carried her off when, enticed by the wondrous bloom of the narcissus, she strayed too far from her companions. In his chariot drawn by coal-black steeds he rose up through a chasm in the earth, and grasping the maiden by the wrist set her down beside him. He bore her away weeping, down to the underworld.
Demeter wanders for nine days before the Sun tells her what happened. Bereft, she abandons Olympus to live in disguise on Earth. Here there’s a fork in the story: in Edith Hamilton’s tale, Demeter is discovered by four girls in the city of Eleusis, who bring her home to their mother Metaneira. In another version, Demeter rests by a well in Eleusis, disguised yet visibly distraught. An old servant comes across the goddess and flashes her vulva at her to make Demeter laugh. This is Baubo, potentially a divine figure in her own right, represented by torso-less figurines with their heads perched atop their hips.
Back to the first version: Demeter takes up residence in Metaneira’s home and starts nursing her baby, which is of course not weird at all, anointing him with ambrosia, and setting him in the fire each night to grant him immortal life. One night Metaneira interrupts this ritual in an understandable fright. Demeter throws the baby on the floor and unveils her divine glory. Then she demands a temple to win back her favor.
Metaneira’s community builds the temple–what choice do they have? Demeter comes and takes up residence. It becomes the throne of her depression, while the Earth suffers a grave famine in her absence. (An original withholding mother figure?)
Eventually, Zeus intervenes and tells Hades he has to give up Persephone or all the nice little humans who make offerings will be gone. Before Persephone returns to the living world, Hades makes her eat some pomegranate seeds, the food of the dead. It’s a trick; now she’s bound to his realm.
Zeus sends his own mother, Rhea, who almost never makes house calls, to invite Demeter to return to Olympus. Rhea also informs Demeter of a new arrangement: Persephone will spend a third of each year in the dark with Hades.
Demeter does as commanded. She returns the Earth to fecundity. And forever after, for four months a year, her daughter rules over the land of the dead, becoming a chthonic deity: a goddess who dies and is yearly reborn. (There is an older, parallel myth from Sumeria, where the queen of the Great Below, Ereshkigal, is likewise abducted. Only the scheme to recover her somehow fails and she remains in the realm of the dead full-time.)
In Pomegranate: A Global History, archaeologist Damien Stone describes the pomegranate in Persephone’s story as symbolizing “[…] female fertility, as well as the loss of virginity that comes with the consummation of marriage, evoked by both its red stains and its rich seeds.” (Side note: IRL, bloody sheets are a sign of inadequate lubrication, not virginity.)
Stone goes on:
Imagery of the fruit functions as a reminder of what it is to be a woman, the red seeds that spill from the pomegranate replicating the blood of the menstrual cycle. Greek medicine in fact prescribed pomegranate juice as a way of stopping menstrual bleeding.
The pomegranate is an obvious fertility symbol that might also, paradoxically, function as birth control. Pomegranate vaginal suppositories have been used as far back as ancient Assyria. Modern studies in rats have yielded promising results.
There are various other pomegranate associations in Greek mythology: the first-ever pomegranate was created by Aphrodite on an island of Cyprus, where it formed from the blood of Adonis, one of her mortal lovers. The fruit is also attributed to Athena as a symbol of “the female battle” (fertility cycle).
Then there’s the myth of Agdestis, a “wild man” who terrorizes humans and gods alike. Dionysus spikes his wine and Agdestis falls into a drunken sleep. Meanwhile Dionysus binds his feet and prompts a vine to grow over his genitals. Agdestis wakes, moves to stand, and the vine rips his jewels off. From the blood sprouts a pomegranate tree. Then a river nymph eats some fruit from the tree and falls pregnant. Her son, Attis, becomes the goddess Cybele’s lover.
In another delightfully violent story concerning Dionysus, the infant god is torn apart and cannibalized by Titans. A pomegranate tree grows out of his blood too.
In some iterations, including a reference in the Odyssey, the fruit that evades poor Tantalus (from whose name the word “tantalize” is derived) is a pomegranate.
Finally, the prized golden apple that sets off the Trojan war is actually a pomegranate: Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite all want the fruit. Paris, prince of Troy, judges the contest to see who gets it. Each goddess offers him something tempting. Aphrodite proposes the most beautiful woman in the world, who just so happens to be Helen, who’s already married. The grave insult of absconding with another man’s wife starts a 10-year WAR. Here the pomegranate symbolizes sex and the bloodshed to come.
In ancient Egyptian myth, the lion goddess Sekhmet’s plan to destroy humanity is thwarted by the sun god Ra when he gets her drunk on beer and pomegranate juice (a common drink in ancient Egypt), which the goddess mistakes for blood. She gets too wasted for mass slaughter.
More Pomegranate Facts
The study of pomegranates is called “punicology.”
Pomegranate trees live up to 300 years. Some varieties are deciduous, others evergreen.
A silver pomegranate vase was found in Tutankhamun’s tomb.
From the 16th-11th century BC in Egypt, pomegranates were used to treat tapeworms, which may have actually worked, due to the alkaline value of the fruit.
Hippocrates recommended pomegranates to treat eye infections, morning sickness, and digestive issues.
Pomegranates arrived in Mexico with Spanish missionaries. In the 18th century, Spanish settlers introduced the fruit to Texas, California, and Arizona.
In Turkey, Armenia, and Iran, pomegranates are associated with weddings.
In China, the pomegranate is a symbol of fertility, abundance, posterity, numerous and virtuous offspring, and a blessed future. Pomegranate flowers also feature in ancient Chinese poetry. In those days, Chinese pomegranates were mostly yellow, a color with important cultural significance.
Around the world, over millennia, the pomegranate has engaged our appetites, both tangible and spiritual.
In Buddhism, the pomegranate numbers among the three blessed fruits. The goddess known as Kishibojin in Japan was originally an ogress/demon who eats children. She quits the habit when the Buddha gives her a pomegranate to feast upon. Once she becomes a divine figure, her domain includes children and motherhood.
A representation of righteousness in Judaism, the symbolic pomegranate contains 613 seeds, one for each of the mitzvot (commandments) of the Torah. Torah scrolls are often stored with pomegranate-shaped finials covering the scroll’s wooden handles. On Rosh Hashanah, it’s customary to eat pomegranate arils while reciting a prayer for your good deeds to proliferate.
Images of pomegranates adorn many ancient synagogues and you can find all kinds of Jewish handicrafts in the shape of pomegranates. Likewise, Islamic pottery, vessels, textiles, and tiles all traditionally feature pomegranates.
In the Qur’an, the gardens of Paradise grow pomegranates. In one hadith, Muhammad shares with his followers that within each pomegranate is an aril from heaven.
Pomegranates appear in Islamic fables, with several references in The One Thousand and One Nights. In Iran, the Shahnameh is a national epic poem narrating the lives of Persian kings. It weaves together myth, history, and legend. There are pomegranates in those stories too.
Historically, the Crusades brought pomegranates to medieval Europe when surviving knights carried them home. The pomegranate altered European cuisine, as well as religious iconography, with the myth of Persephone fostering an association between the fruit and resurrection.
In The Unicorn in Captivity, the famed medieval tapestry adorning many a museum calendar or dorm room wall, a fenced-in unicorn is chained, bleeding, to a tree. That tree is a pomegranate, and the blood is actually seeds/juice. The unicorn is a symbol of fertility and marriage, both physically, and spiritually in Christ. Writes Damien Stone:
The many seeds of the pomegranate protected inside a single rind came to stand for the Church itself, which unified people in faith. The pomegranate and its symbolism would survive in later icons and religious paintings. In the common scene of Mary holding the infant Jesus, one of the pair is sometimes represented holding a split pomegranate, or both have pomegranate seeds fall upon them.
Witches and Pomegranates
Many witches revere Persephone as a chthonic deity associated with the triple goddess (maiden, mother, crone), a sacred trinity representing the cycle of life and fertility. As one hedge witch shares:
Apart from its association with fertility, abundance, and sexuality, the pomegranate is also associated with death and communication with the dead. According to the Ancient Sumerians, souls that ate pomegranate seeds would become immortal, allowing them to "live" forever. The pomegranate is what ultimately ties Persephone to the Underworld, and therefore acts as a link between the living and the dead. As such, the pomegranate is often used in ceremonies and celebrations of those who have died and can be used to communicate with those who have passed on by connecting the imbiber to the Underworld.
In the memoir Witches of America, Alex Mar describes a ritual in which a woman who was raped symbolically stabs a pomegranate. The abundant seeds turn to gore.
The gods, too, possess contrasting aspects, symbolized by pomegranates. Many deities with life-giving or sexual powers are also vengeful destroyers, like Sumerian Inanna, the predecessor of Ishtar (and Aphrodite, to some extent). Also associated with the pomegranate, Inanna is a goddess of sex and war.
The well-traveled pomegranate embodies duality. That is just one part of its magic. It’s a fruit so unique, it inspires divine association and mythology concerning the most epic of themes: life and death.
In the next post, I’ll dive more deeply into some chthonic mythology, with a focus on the gods who die.
I so badly want to see green, yellow, and purple pomegranates!
Love this so much! The original cover of my book Fruitflesh had a pomegranate on it (I'll link here to show you, since the only other place I can find the hardcover is on the evil Amazon): https://pangobooks.com/titles/fruitflesh