Final answer:
Demeter's separation from Persephone leads her on a sorrowful search that halts the fertility of the land, symbolized in the rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Thesmophoria, and her daughter's return marks the resumption of growth and life.
Step-by-step explanation:
When the goddess Demeter is without her daughter Persephone, she undergoes a period of deep sorrow and searches the earth for her missing child. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter details her journey, illustrating how Demeter's grief affects the fertility of the land, plunging the world into a state of barrenness until her daughter's return. The myth was enacted during the Eleusinian Mysteries, a religious festival and ritual in ancient Greece, with dramatic reenactments symbolizing Persephone's abduction and return, Demeter's search, and the subsequence restoration of fertility to the earth upon her daughter's reappearance. Indeed, Demeter's search for Persephone is deeply entwined with the Thesmophoria, a festival celebrated by women in ancient Greece, which featured rituals such as the reverent fasting and sitting on the ground during the Nesteia, symbolizing the stagnation of life and the absence of fertility. Upon Persephone's return, signified by the sounding of a gong by the Eleusinian high-priest, the initiates would witness a joyful reunion that reinvigorated the earth's fertility, culminating in celebrations with rejoicing and brandishing of torches.