ments, Persephone procrastinates. She acts as if she expected to be
rescued from the task or as if she had all the time in the world. When
neither turns out to be true, and it is time to deliver, she is ill pre-
pared. At best, she manages to get the work done in a last-minute,
stay-up-all-night effort.
Although work is never important to a woman who resembles
the Kore, the situation is quite different if she matures into Queen
of the Underworld. Then she is likely to enter a creative, psycholo-
gical, or spiritual field; for example, working as an artist, poet,
therapist, or psychic. Whatever she does is usually deeply personal
and often unorthodox; she works in a highly individual way, com-
monly without the “proper” academic degrees.
RELATIONSHIPS WITH WOMEN
A young Persephone woman is comfortable with other young
women who are like herself. She is often a sorority sister in high
school or college and habitually tries out new situations in the
company of other girls rather than on her own.
If she is pretty, she may attract women friends who do not think
of themselves as very feminine, who project their own undeveloped
femininity onto her and then treat her as special. If she has been
treated as fragile and precious all her life, she’ll take such treatment
for granted. Her closest friend often is a girl with a stronger person-
ality. The Persephone evokes maternal responses in peers and older
women, who do favors for her and look out for her.
RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN
(WHO PREFER GIRLS)
With men a Persephone woman is a child-woman, unassertive
and youthful in attitude. She fits the pattern of Persephone the Kore
as the most indistinct and unthreatening of all the goddesses. She
means it when she says, “Let’s do whatever you want to do.”
Three categories of men are drawn toward Persephone women:
men who are as young and inexperienced as she is;
Persephone: The Maiden and Queen of the Underworld, Receptive