Demeter’s ice

impression of greta thunberg


The Goddess Demeter fell into such profound grief at the loss of her daughter, Persephone, that the seasons ceased and the world fell into an eternal winter.

Greta Thunberg, a Swedish political activist seeking to stop global warming and climate change, started the first school strike for climate, outside the parliament building.

For me, Greta’s years of depression and selective mutism (due to her grief about our looming environmental crisis) parallel Demeter’s grief.


I want you to act as if the house was on fire. Because it is.
— Greta Thunberg


Why Demeter?

In light of Greta’s life story, I see her as the ancient Demeter goddess. Greta’s years of selective mutism (due to her grief about our looming but ignored environmental crisis) parallel Demeter’s grief at the loss of her daughter Persephone and the resultant environmental changes on earth.

In ancient Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest and agriculture who presides over the grains, the fertility of the earth, sacred law and the cycle of life and death.

Demeter, enthroned and extending her hand in a benediction toward the kneeling Metaneira, who offers the triune wheat. Detail of the belly of an Apulian red-figure hydria, ca. 340 BC. image via Wikmedia Commons

Demeter, enthroned and extending her hand in a benediction toward the kneeling Metaneira, who offers the triune wheat. Detail of the belly of an Apulian red-figure hydria, ca. 340 BC. image via Wikmedia Commons

Demeter is often considered to be the same figure as the Anatolian goddess Cybele and the Latin goddess Ceres.

In Arcadia, she was known as "Black Demeter" and represented as snake-haired, holding a dove and dolphin, symbolizing her connection to the underworld, the air, and the water.

Demeter was said to have taken the form of a mare to escape the pursuit of her younger brother, Poseidon, who caught and raped her.

Triumph of Neptune standing on a chariot pulled by two sea horses (Latin: hippocampes). Mosaïque d'Hadrumète (Sousse) the mid-third century AD. Musée archéologique de Sousse. image via Wikimedia Commons

Triumph of Neptune standing on a chariot pulled by two sea horses (Latin: hippocampes). Mosaïque d'Hadrumète (Sousse) the mid-third century AD. Musée archéologique de Sousse. image via Wikimedia Commons

Furious at Poseidon's assault she dressed all in black and retreated into a cave in order to purify herself, an act which resulted in a universal famine. In this furious form she became known as Demeter Erinys.

Demeter's absence caused the death of crops, livestock, and finally, the people who depended on them. Later it was said that it was both her rage at Poseidon and the loss of her daughter that caused the famine. Demeter washed away her anger in the River Ladon, renewing her power and becoming Demeter Lousia, the "bathed Demeter".

She is also raped by her brother, Zeus, lord of the gods. The result of that rape is their daughter Persephone.

When Persephone is abducted by Hades and forced to live in the underworld, Demeter searches for her ceaselessly, obsessed with her loss and grief. The seasons halt, all life ceases to grow and the world plunges into a deep winter.

It is only when Zeus intercedes and convinces Hades to allow Persephone to return that Demeter allows life to resume.


This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!
— Greta Thunberg, at the UN Climate Action Summit, New York, 23 September 2019
Climate change activist Greta Thunberg

Climate change activist Greta Thunberg

You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes . . .

We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis. . . if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, then . . . we should change the system itself.
— Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg (born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish political activist seeking to stop global warming and climate change. She has challenged world leaders to take immediate action against climate change.

In August 2018, she became a prominent figure for starting the first school strike for climate, outside the Swedish parliament building. Greta Thunberg was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2o19 and 2020.

Greta Thunberg fell into a depression at the age of eight, when she first learned about climate change and could not understand why so little was being done about it.

Three years later she had stopped talking and eating. She lost ten kilograms (22 lb) in two months.

Eventually, she was diagnosed with Asperger syndromeobsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and selective mutism.

Finally she began protesting by means of her school strike.

Her father said: "[We] respect that she wants to make a stand. She can either sit at home and be really unhappy, or protest, and be happy".


I was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, OCD and selective mutism. That basically means I only speak when I think it’s necessary. Now is one of those moments.

I think that in many ways, we autistic are the normal ones, and the rest of the people are pretty strange, especially when it comes to the sustainability crisis, where everyone keeps saying that climate change is an existential threat and the most important issue of all and yet they just carry on like before.
— Greta Thunberg, TEDx Talk, Stockholm, November 2018

Thunberg does not view Asperger's as an illness, and has instead dubbed it her "superpower".

Climate activist Greta Thunberg discussed EU plans to tackle the climate emergency with Parliament’s environment committee on Wednesday 4 March. " rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20200227...</a> Th…

Climate activist Greta Thunberg discussed EU plans to tackle the climate emergency with Parliament’s environment committee on Wednesday 4 March. photo credit: CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2020 – Source: EP


Addressing Parliament to discuss the Climate Law, a proposal seeking to commit the EU to carbon neutrality by 2050, Thunberg criticized the proposal as insufficient.


The EU must lead the way. You have the moral obligation to do so and you have a unique economical and political opportunity to become a real climate leader.

You, yourselves, declared that we are in a climate and environment emergency. You said this was an existential threat.

Now you must prove that you mean it. [It is vital to follow] a science-based pathway. . .

Anything else is surrender. This climate law is surrender because nature doesn’t bargain and you cannot make deals with physics.
— Greta Thunberg

At places like Davos, people like to tell success stories, but their financial success has come with an unthinkable price tag.
— Greta Thunberg




resources

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  2. https://www.afn.ca/honoring-earth/
  3. https://www.afn.ca/Home/
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  5. https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/1400
  6. New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., New York, 1959
  7. Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood, Merlin Stone, Beacon Press, Boston, 1984
  8. When God Was A Woman, Merlin Stone, Harvest Edition, 1976
  9. The Civilization of the Goddess, The World of Old Europe, Marija Gimbutas, HarperCollins Publishers, 1991
  10. The Language of the Goddess, Marija Gimbutas, HarperRow publishers, San Francisco, 1989
  11. https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/book_report/phaidon-goddess-list-53182
  12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demeter