Persephone, the Underworld, and the Hidden Cycles of Entrepreneurship
Ep 1: On Persephone and Pomegranates
2024 was my Year of Terrible. A true Tower year.
Everything that wasn’t built on solid ground came crumbling down, and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t force my way out of it.
In this first episode of The Midnight Edit, I share how the myth of Persephone helped me understand my own underworld season as an entrepreneur and business owner, and what it taught me about surrender, timing, and navigating periods of deep evolution in business.
This episode is for you if you’re in a quieter, heavier, or more disorienting season and wondering how to keep trusting the process without rushing your way back to the surface.
Inside the episode:
Reflections on Persephone and how her myth supported me through a difficult business season
Why we need to normalize underworld phases in entrepreneurship and growth
What surrender actually looks like when a business is evolving
Why rushing your spring only delays it
🔗 Want the full backstory on my “Year of Terrible”? Read my Instagram post here.
Episode Transcript
Welcome to episode one of The Midnight Edit.
The time is 12:54 AM — so let's dive in.
2024 was a no good, terribly rotten, horrible year (or whatever the name of that book is). I often refer to 2024 as my year of hard or my year of terrible.
There was a cascading series of events — prescription changes, business changes, and just uncomfortable life changes in general — that led to the entire year being... well, for those of you who may know tarot, a Tower year. Basically, anything built on shaky, horrible foundations came crumbling down.
And that was all woven together with the super fun side effect of not being able to feel happiness due to a change in prescription.
All of that added up to not being a very good year for me.
When I was nearing the end of that year of terrible — I wanna say around October or November — I found myself reflecting on the Greek goddess Persephone and her journey.
Now, a quick mythology lesson for those of you who may not be familiar with her story (or maybe don't nerd out about Greek mythology as much as I do): Persephone is the goddess of spring.
Her story goes that one day she was kidnapped by Hades, Lord of the Underworld, and he took her deep down below the earth.
And now, when you're in any realm you're not supposed to be in, the golden rule is: do not eat or drink anything — no exceptions — or you will not be allowed to leave.
But Persephone had one tiny pomegranate seed, and so she was bound to stay in the Underworld forever.
Her mother, Demeter, goddess of the harvest, threw a first-class hissy fit at this news. She shut down the crops and the growth of anything because she was like, If I can't have my daughter, no one on earth is going to be having a good time.
This led to Zeus eventually getting involved and bargaining so that Persephone only had to spend one part of the year in the Underworld and one part of the year above the ground.
And that is why we now have the seasons:
Winter — when Persephone is underground and her mother is in mourning for her daughter, so nothing is growing and everything is barren.
Spring — when Persephone emerges once more into the sunlight and everything starts blooming, the flowers are growing, and all feels right in the world.
So… what the heck does this actually have to do with me, my journey, and business in general?
Persephone's story meant so much to me during my year of hard because what I held onto — what I finally came to realize, a solid eight or nine months into the year — was that eventually, this inner winter, this Tower year, had to come to an end.
But in that deep knowing, there also has to be a surrender.
You can't rush the seasons, no matter how much you may want to.
When I was in the middle of 2024, I was fighting against it hard. All I wanted was for things to get better, like, yesterday. But the more I pushed, the more I resisted, the less things shifted.
I remember trying new offers and they just totally flopped.
I remember trying to force myself to work and getting so frustrated when I was exhausted and just needed to rest.
It didn’t seem to matter what I was trying — nothing was working.
It wasn't until I really just let myself be in the season of winter — to trust the rest my body needed, to trust the crumbling and the shifting and the things that were falling away — that I really started to see what was meant to bloom.
And the reason I'm sharing this story is because I find often, especially in the online business space, we're really only presented with one narrative:
The overnight success — I rapidly made it.
Or the hard fight — I fought really hard and I made it.
Either way: I made it and now I'm here and it's here to stay.
The reality is that we are not meant to be static.
We are not meant to follow this weird, totally manufactured, linear journey that says:
Do these things in a certain order, then hit a predetermined definition of success, and stay there forever.
First of all — that’s not how it happens.
Second of all — that sounds really boring.
The truth is, there is cyclicality and seasonality to everything.
Most of the time when people are in their inner winter, they don’t talk about it.
So we only hear about the blooming, the harvesting, the amazing things. And if we hear a little bit of struggle, it's usually an “overcome adversity” story that’s been polished to death, without sharing the raw vulnerability of how hard it really is to be in the disintegration and crumbling and evolution — when you are basically just goo and mush inside the cocoon.
When you’re like:
I’m no longer a caterpillar. I don’t even know if I’m going to become a butterfly right now. I am just an absolute glob of disgustingness.
I share this because there is such power in owning the seasonality in our lives and businesses.
In normalizing these underworld journeys we go on — especially as business owners, where our work is a mirror of the journey we’re on in our own identities and lives.
We are not staying stagnant. We are not staying static in our identity. Which means our business needs to grow with us.
And often, that growth is painful, uncomfortable, and feels like a lot of things changing at once.
The second reason I share Persephone’s story is because she teaches us that we can be both.
We can be both the goddess of spring and the queen of the underworld.
We can go deep underground to rest and recalibrate, and still emerge for spring.
We can be strategic and brilliant in our businesses and still soft, sensual, poetic, and artistic.
🌱 So for those of you in your inner winters…
My advice to you is to trust that spring is coming.
Give yourself permission to be fully in the season you’re in.
Because I know your spring is inevitable — and what is meant to bloom is going to be so unbelievably powerful.
And it will be that much richer, that much more incredible, if you don’t force, rush, or overly manufacture the process.
✨ Let’s keep the conversation going
I’d love to hear what stood out for you in this episode - feel free to send me a DM on Instagram @emily.mwalker (it's my fav place to hang out!)
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