Abstract
“Sowing Seeds of the Pomegranate: A Garden of Memoir” is a work of creative nonfiction. The inspiration for this project goes back more than thirty years to the late 1970s and early 1980s, a time when the author lived in the backwoods hills of Middle Tennessee. This work is composed in three aspects. First is the story itself. Second are snippets of myth, folklore, and sacred literature woven throughout the story. Third is the journey of the woman telling the tale as she moves from youthful womanhood to become a mother. The story begins with a group of people who, in the mid-1970s, decide to join the growing “back-to-the-earth” movement. For them, this means leaving the northern city life they’ve always known to become part of a community of people following a different way of life in the southern hills of Tennessee. Their journey forms the core of this story, and the author’s involvement the lens through which we glimpse them. The idea to incorporate myth, folklore, and sacred literature into the story came about through the author’s studies at Sacramento State University, and from her firm personal conviction that the peoples who told these stories are not so different from ourselves. Their stories are relevant still, if only we take the time look for the connections to our own lives. These threads of story are woven throughout human history. The final piece to tie these threads together is the story of Persephone and Demeter. This myth is used to illustrate the author’s personal journey from the young woman to the mother: she embodies Persephone at the start, and becomes Demeter by the end.