Demeter is an ancient Greek Goddess of harvest and agriculture, presided over the sacred law including cycle of life and death. Her Roman equivalent is Goddess Ceres. That’s where we got the word ‘Cereal’. She is considered to be the ‘Mother’ figure hence represents ‘Providence’, ‘Nurturing’ and a great teacher of the sacred law. That is nothing but the code of conduct or ethics to be followed in life. It is believed she went looking for her daughter who was kidnapped. That was the period of loss and grief, during which the earth became barren. Winter presided and there was no food. As she found her daughter, earth was green again.
Metaphorically, Demeter reminds us to be generous and have gratitude towards the nourishment nature provides us. We have a duty towards the mother nature. Symbolically, her daughter represents the trees and other natural bounties. Mother nature grieves if her offspring is taken away and that could be reason behind natural calamities, forest fires, unexplained change of weather, landslides, flash floods or hurricanes.
Annapurna is the Hindu Goddess of food and nourishment. Much like Demeter, she is worshiped for divine providence, prosperity and charity. She is considered to be an incarnation of Goddess Parvati, who is wife or consort of Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva, metaphorically represents consciousness and Goddess Parvati is considered to be matter. As Annapurna, she depicts the importance of material life, to manifest the abundance in this life as human beings by nurturing, being abundant and providing to others. There is a popular story where Shiva does not give due credit to Annapurna’s gift of food to the world and proclaims one can live on consciousness as food for the soul. That’s when Annapurna goes in hiding to prove to the world that as much as the head has to be high in the soul consciousness, feet have to be firmly grounded for the roots to get nourishment.
Annapurna reminds us of the sacred law of nature- what we sow is what we shall reap. Being generous with sowing the seeds to nourishment for oneself and others will bring prosperity to us. The other key learning is that as there is spring in life, there will be winter. In the winter of life, one will harvest the benefits of providence sown earlier. Life is a cycle and as we keep doing good to oneself and others, it will only multiply and come back to us.
The similarity between Demeter and Annapurna is no coincidence. Every culture has messages embedded in stories for humanity to decipher, learn and practice. One of it, here is to share love and abundance.