Tag Archives: Greek mythology

Sisyphus and Stone

Posted on October 3, 2021 by Symbol Reader

Stones symbolize that which is ancient, eternal, impenetrable and unconscious. Unsurprisingly, the first chapter of human history was called the Stone Age. For the ancients stones were infused with the spirit of the gods and ancestors. Stone caves were places … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, Artemis, boulder, fertility, Greek mythology, Jungian psychology, myth, petrus, psyche, rock, Sisyphus, sliding stone, stone, symbolism, symbols, Verena Kast | 13 Comments

The Sirens as Psychopomps and Muses of the Underworld

Posted on May 1, 2021 by Symbol Reader

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 →

Posted in sirens | Tagged Acheloos, archetypes, death, Greek myth, Greek mythology, guide, Kerenyi, muse, music, psychopomp, sirens, Soul, sphinx, symbolism, symbols, Underworld | 6 Comments

The Nymphs

Posted on December 30, 2020 by Symbol Reader

I. To Nereids “O lovely-faced and pure nymphs,daughters of Nereus, lord of the deep,at the bottom of the seayou frolic and dance,fifty maidens revel in the waves, maidens riding on the backs of Tritons,delighting in animal shapes,bodies nurtured by the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Ancient Greece, Apollo, archetypes, beekeeping, Calypso, cave, Cave of the Nymphs, Chariklo, childbirth, Chiron, civilization, Crete, Daphnis, Delphi, Dionysos, divination, Dryads, fertility, Greek mythology, healing, Hera, Hermes, Ida, Ithaca, Maia, marriage, mountain, mythology, Naiades, Nereids, nostos, numpholeptos, nymphs, Oceanids, Odyssey, oracle, Pan, Pleiades, Porphyry, psyche, Soul, symbolism, symbols, Syrinx, water, Zeus | 3 Comments

The Danaids, the Lernaean Hydra and Heracles

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Symbol Reader

According to the Greek myth, the Danaids, fifty daughters of Danaus, were forced to marry fifty sons of Aegyptus, a ruler of Egypt. Forty-nine of them killed their husbands on the wedding night. The forty-nine heads of the men were … Continue reading →

Posted in The Danaids and Hydra, Uncategorized | Tagged archetype, archetypes, arrow, Bachofen, Chiron, Danaides, Danaids, Greek mythology, Hercules, Hydra, Lernean Hydra, magic, matriarchy, patriarchy, priestess, Robert Graves, symbolism, symbols, twelve labours, wounded healer | 6 Comments

Hermes in the Forest of Symbols

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Symbol Reader

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 →

Posted in Hermes, Uncategorized | Tagged Adocentyn, alchemy, archetypes, Argus, Botticelli, C.G. Jung, caduceus, Carl Jung, Corpus Hermeticum, crossroads, dead, esotericism, Faivre, God, Greek myth, Greek mythology, guide, herma, hermaion, Hermes, Hermes Trismegistus, Hermetica, hermeticism, Hermopolis, magic, Marcilio Ficino, Mercury, messenger, myth, mythology, peacock, Picatrix, Primavera, psychopompos, Soul, symbolism, symbols, Thoth, Zeus | 6 Comments

The Underworld in Finnish and Greek Myth

Posted on January 25, 2020 by Symbol Reader

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 →

Posted in "The Underland" by Robert MacFarlane, Uncategorized | Tagged "The Dead", Acheron, Ancient Greece, archetypes, Cocytus, descent, five rivers of Hell, Greek myth, Greek mythology, Hades, Kalevala, katabasis, Lethe, myth, mythology, Phlegethon, Robert MacFarlane, Styx, symbolism, symbols, The Underland, the underworld, Tuonela | 5 Comments

Persephone, Lady of the Mysteries

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Symbol Reader

“Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.” William Blake, Proverbs of Hell Is one even allowed to talk about the gods of the underworld? For Rudolf Otto, a twentieth-century theologian, the holy or the numinous … Continue reading →

Posted in Persephone, Uncategorized | Tagged abaton, analytical psychology, archetypes, C.G. Jung, Cancer, Capricorn, Carl Jung, cave, dark moon, Demeter, Demetra George, Dionysos, dismemberment, Eleusinian Mysteries, Eleusis, grain, Greek mythology, mysteries, myth, mythology, Orpheus, Orphism, Persephone, Peter Kingsley, pomegranate, Porphyry, religion, sacred, solstitial gate, sphinx, symbolism, symbols, well, Zeus | 13 Comments

Reflections on Narcissism: The Feminine and Masculine Experience of Sexual Love

Posted on April 5, 2019 by Symbol Reader

“I love myself…I love you. I love you…I love myself.” Rumi You have probably seen this image – the illustration to a short story by Kristen Roupenian’s entitled “Cat Person,” which was published in December 2017 in The New Yorker and … Continue reading →

Posted in Kristen Roupenian | Tagged archetypes, C.G. Jung, Cat Person, depth psychology, Echo, Else Voigtländer, extroversion, Freud, Greek mythology, introversion, Kristen Roupenian, lierature, Murray Stein, myth, mythology, narcissism, Narcissus, psyche, self-love, short stories, Soul, symbolism, symbols | 10 Comments

The Suffering of Perseus and Medusa

Posted on June 3, 2018 by Symbol Reader

“I wasn’t hurt enough when I should have been, Kino admitted to himself. When I should have felt real pain, I stifled it. I didn’t want to take it on, so I avoided facing up to it. Which is why … Continue reading →

Posted in Medusa, Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, Cellini, Gorgon, Greek mythology, healing, Jungian psychology, Medusa, Men Without Women, monster, Murakami, myth, patriarchy, Perseus, shadow, suffering, symbolism, symbols, trauma, wound | 2 Comments

Chaos, Harmony and the Birth of Alphabet

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Symbol Reader

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 →