Poppies and pomegranates

What connects pomegranates and poppies? Well obviously shape...

Ripe pomegranate, red and yellow:

Ripe (harvesting) opium poppies:

But also the fact that these two plants are associated with Demeter (poppies) and her daughter Persephone (pomegranates)...The goddesses of grain...

Persephone, deified grain and grain planting season, gets taken by Hades to the underworld (planted) in Oct/Nov...

Persephone gets reunited with her mother, Demeter, deified grain and grain harvest season, during the grain harvest in (Apr/May)...

Pomegranates are ready for harvest when opium poppies and grain are planted (Oct/Nov)...

Which is why Persephone's sacred plant, apart from grain, is pomegranate...

Before releasing her, Hades tricked Persephone, by giving her pomegranate to eat. And because she tasted "food in the underworld", she had to return to the underworld every winter. 

From the article "Abduction of Persephone" about flora and fauna found in Persephone legend... 

Pomegranates flower (Apr–Jun), when grain and opium poppies are ready for harvesting...

Which is why Demeter's sacred plant, apart from grain, was opium poppy...

You can read more about this in my post "Demeter riding a panther"...

Apparently, there is "common belief" that Demeter's poppies are common red poppies (Papaver rhoeas) and not opium poppies (Papaver somniferum)...So have a look at this:

Demeter holding grain and poppy pods...

Which poppies? Look at the shape of the poppy pods Demeter holds in her hand. Then look at the poppy pods on the two pics below. 

Red poppies

Red opium poppies

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words... 

Oh, why snakes? Cause mating season of most common European snakes is Apr/May...The same time when grain and poppy harvest begins in Eastern Mediterranean...I talked about this in my post "Goats and snakes from Körtik Tepe"...

Well, it wasn't just Demeter who loved poppies...

Grain goddess with poppies Anatolia...I talked about her in my post "Kubaba with grain and poppies"...

Grain goddess with poppies Mesopotamia...I talked about her in my post "Fertility goddess with poppies"...

So pomegranate and poppies are two opposite plant calendar markers, marking beginning of "old" winter, cool, wet half of the year (pomegranate, Persephone), and the beginning of the "old" summer, hot, dry half of the year (poppy, Demeter)...

I think this is quite cool...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...