Whether a Demeter woman fosters dependency or, on the contrary,
creates a sense of security in which the other person can grow and
thrive, depends on whether she herself has a sense of bountifulness
or scarcity. If she is afraid that she will lose the other person or that
her “child” is “not good enough,” she may become possessive,
controlling, and constricting. This insecurity makes her into a hov-
ering or a smothering mother.
One young mother in my practice realized, while her child was
still an infant, that she was the type who was going to find it hard
to let her daughter grow up. The first struggle came when it was
time to introduce baby food. She had been breastfeeding, enjoying
the exclusiveness of the relationship and the dependency of her in-
fant. As the time came to introduce solids, her husband looked for-
ward to spoonfeeding their daughter, which would be a major new
step in the father-daughter bonding. Luckily, the altruistic mother
in her knew it was time to start solids and share the child more with
her husband, although the possessive mother in her wanted to resist
as long as possible. Her wish to do what was best for the child won
out. Even so, she did transiently feel like mourning Demeter, grieving
over the loss.
Possessive Demeter women grow as they let go of their need to
keep other people dependent and tied to their apron strings. In doing
this, mutual dependency can get transmuted into mutual appreci-
ation and love.
PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR
A Demeter woman who can’t say no will get overburdened. She
may then become depleted and apathetic, or resentful and angry. If
she feels exploited, she typically doesn’t express it directly, showing
the same lack of assertiveness on her own behalf that had her say
yes when she should have said no. Instead of expressing her anger
or insisting that something change, a Demeter woman is likely to
discount her feelings as ungenerous and to work harder at getting
everything done.
When she tries to suppress her true feelings and they leak out
anyway, she begins to show passive-aggressive behavior. She then
forgets to “go a little out of her way” and doesn’t
Demeter: Goddess of Grain, Nurturer and Mother