Then there is fear that we may never have another harvest and a suffering and darkness overcome us. Then he goes through an immense struggle against some prevalent dark force to bring this knowledge back to us. He endures a ritual of fire or blood in order to revitalize the soil. Sometimes the hero must die in order to bring us the benefits. After a period of sorrow or contemplation, the hero is reborn as a new plant or tree of life and with a new consciousness.
Great celebrations follow.
Later on in spiritual history, this myth took the form of an internal transformation as the death of the ego and a spiritual rebirth as seen in the Upanishads, Mahayana Buddhism, Gnosticism, Sufism and other mystical traditions. In the ancient way the Earth is our mother and we must return to the womb to bring back the essence that leads to rebirth. In the later traditions, the secrets to rebirth and immortality lie within each of us and we must die from our past life of attachment in order to be reborn in spiritual consciousness. The true essence and meaning of spring is rebirth. That is what religion is trying to download to us, and this is what every moment of life is trying to do-if we can open to it.