Feminine Power . . .
Athena the strong. With an echoing
cry she sprang full-blown from the sacred head of Zeus. The sky shivered before her great strength.
Athena was proof a father could father-forth without a mother – could anyone wonder that she instantly became
his favorite? Athena represents the masculine essence in woman. The perpetual virgin,
she honored the male in all ways except marriage and freed other women from the fear of entering a man’s domain.
Athena was the only one allowed to know where Zeus’s lightning bolts were hidden and only she could use her
father’s magic shield. She was above all else the goddess of civilization, a cultural weaver, which
defines her combination of Reason and Necessity.
Beauty . . .
Apollo
the fairest, son of Leto
and Zeus, he appears as the perfect masculine figure, modern man’s ideal – and perhaps modern woman’s.
Apollo’s essence is the personification of man’s highest intellectual and artistic aspirations.
He is noble, reasonable and beautiful, the god of many things, including music, prophecy, reason, science and medicine,
and finally the sun. His ultimate heroic act was killing the snake-dragon, Python. Plato
called him a scholar in the school of love, yet due to his single-mindedness regarding moderation and discipline he was not
comfortable with the intensities of love, instead expending much time in unsuccessful chases. First was
Daphne, daughter of Peneus, then came Cassandra who also refused him. Then Sibyl. For
their rebukes these women suffered consequences – not necessarily administered by Apollo, yet his pursuit was the
ultimate cause of their misfortune. For all his outward beauty and reasonableness, he could not quell
imposing his will on those he cared for rather than letting them “be themselves.”
Ultimate Mother . . .
Demeter is mother – earth mother, elemental mother, raging,
grieving, adoring, clinging mother. Grain, especially corn, is her gift. But one cannot consider Demeter without
seeing her daughter, Persephone, for most sculptures of one include the other and they gaze into each other’s eyes in
a way that goes beyond mother-daughter love. “Every mother contains her daughter in herself, and every daughter
her mother, and every woman extends backward into her mother and forward into her daughter.” The myth of Demeter
and Persephone is one of the richest and most profound in all Greek mythology, whereby Demeter, earth mother and fertility
goddess, is transformed into the goddess of the highest mysteries of man’s nature. After the transformation Persephone
can only spend one-third of the year with her mother, but in each early spring her return brings the blush of new growth to
the fields and hills.
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The One . . .
Zeus
is the first, Zeus is the
last, Zeus is the sun and moon, Zeus is the beginner of all things, the god with the dazzling lightning. “For
he has hidden all things within himself, and brought them forth again, into joyful light, from his sacred heart, working
miracles.” Orpheus and his followers worshipped Zeus as “the breath of all things.”
With his ability to integrate all powers in him, Zeus comes closest to The One, the ideal in whom many
are reconciled, the highest example in which the tensions of opposing forces is resolved. When followers
of the Orphic mysteries went on to exalt the supreme god that permeates us all, they called him Zeus.
The Loner . . .
Artemis
(Diana) the solitary. The essential Artemisian passion is a longing for freedom, to be eternally feral
and aloof from all entanglements. She is huntress, dancer, the goddess of nature and wildness, a virgin
physically and psychologically, belonging to no one, confined by no bond. She is Apollo’s twin
and her birth immediately established her power. Born first, easily, and when only a few moments old,
she became her mother’s midwife to assist over nine agonizing days the birth of her brother (are you getting the idea
Apollo’s main quest was to torture women?). Though remote and unapproachable Artemis, mercurial
queen of solitude, is at the same time loveable, gentle, and protector of childbirth.
One With The Ocean . . .
Poseidon is the god of oceans, horses and earthquakes and was
perhaps the most invoked of all the gods by the seafaring Greeks. Poseidon embodies two age-old symbols: water represents
in man infinite mysteries and possibilities – and infinite dangers of our fluid consciousness; the horse personifies
in its primitive potency instinctive drives within our raw nature. Homer speaks of Poseidon: “ . . . the illustrious
shaker of the earth. Underneath his majestic self-contained dignity the god of earthquakes and storms embodies the infinite
possibilities of our fluid consciousness, but also the turbulence and the dangers unleashed when the forces slumbering under
the surface of consciousness erupt.”
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