Tag Archives: Greek myth

Reading The Red Book (40) – The Seven Sermons to the Dead

“One, two, three, but where, my dear Timaeus, is the fourth?” Plato, “Timaeus” We have now reached the fourth Sermon to the Dead, in which the dead demand of Philemon: “Speak to us about Gods and devils, accursed one.” The … Continue reading

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The Sirens as Psychopomps and Muses of the Underworld

I came across this beautiful description of the Sirens in Karl Kerenyi’s Gods of the Greeks (first published in 1951). It seems that far form being the evil seductresses often portrayed in literature, they were in fact guides of the … Continue reading

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Gender and the Cosmic Shift

Natural History Museum of Bern, Switzerland is currently running an exhilarating, colourful exhibition called “Queer – Diversity is in our Nature.” The thesis of the curators seems to be that the animal kingdom is rich and diverse with numerous examples … Continue reading

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Hermes in the Forest of Symbols

I. “…Hermesian reading is an open, in-depth reading, one that lays bare the metalanguages for us, that is to say, the structures of signs and correspondences that only symbolism and myth make it possible to conserve and transmit. To read, … Continue reading

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The Underworld in Finnish and Greek Myth

I have been reading The Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert MacFarlane, which is a dazzling exploration of the author’s daring travels into the bowels of the earth. He devotes space to mining, caving, cave painting, Parisian catacombs, glaciers … Continue reading

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Symbolism of the Labyrinth

The myth of Minotaur tells the story of greed and tyranny, which led Minos to deny a sacrificial bull to Poseidon. The angry god punished the king by making his wife fall in love with the bull. The fruit of … Continue reading

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Chaos, Harmony and the Birth of Alphabet

One of the most beautiful Greek myths, which fascinated Carl Gustav Jung because of its alchemical underpinnings, is the story of Cadmus and Harmony. It is beautifully retold in The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso, who begins … Continue reading

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Jung on Alchemy (5): Hermes, the Arcane Interpreter of All

“Mercurius is an adumbration of the primordial light-bringer, who is never himself the light, but…who brings the light of nature, the light of the moon and the stars which fades before the new morning light.” C.G. Jung, Alchemical Studies, par. … Continue reading

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Ariadne Awakens

“Enter the turret of your love, and lie close in the arms of the sea; let in new suns that beat and echo in the mind like sounds risen from sunken cities lost to fear; let in the light that … Continue reading

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Asclepius: Earth-Walking Healer, Son of Apollo

“Coronis was pregnant by Apollo when she found herself attracted to a stranger. He came from Arcadia, and his name was Ischys. A white crow watched over her. Apollo had told the bird to guard the woman he loved, ‘so … Continue reading

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