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When the New Year turns, according to Greek tradition, a pomegranate is smashed on the threshold of each home, to break it open and reveal an abundance of seeds symbolizing good fortune and prosperity. The more juicy seeds, the more luck for the year ahead!

So here it is!!!!!

 Let it bring good luck and abundance of stories for our blog in 2008!!!!!

The pomegranate is a fruit with a history, going back to Greek mythology. It is widely mentioned as a symbol of regeneration, fertility, prosperity and symbolizes the inseparable course of life and death. One version of the myth is the following…

Hades, the god of the Underworld, abducted Persephone, who was taken off to live in the underworld as his wife. He would not let her return to Earth, as a result her mother Demeter, goddess of the Harvest, went into mourning for the loss of her daughter. She was so depressed that nature ceased to grow. So, Zeus ordered Hades to return Persephone. But fate had its own way. It was the rule of the Fates that anyone who consumed food or drink in the Underworld was convicted to spend eternity there. Persephone had no food, but Hades fooled her into eating four pomegranate seeds while she was still his prisoner. So she was condemned to spend four months in the Underworld every year. During these four months, when Persephone returns in the Underworld next to her husband Hades, her mother Demeter mourns and the earth becomes infertile. Here you have the ancient Greek explanation for the seasons.