Tag Archives: Zeus

Hekate: World Soul, Cosmic Bridge and a Liminal Goddess

Posted on October 21, 2023 by Symbol Reader

“Ever since the ‘Timaeus’ it has been repeatedly stated that the soul is a sphere. As the anima mundi, the soul revolves with the world wheel, whose hub is the Pole. … The anima mundi is really the motor of … Continue reading →

Posted in Hekate | Tagged anima mundi, Apuleius, archetypes, boundaries, C.G. Jung, cave, Chaldean Oracles, cosmic harmony, daimones, dogs, goddess, Greek myth, Hekate, Helios, Hellenistic era, Hesiod, iynx, Karians, keyholder, keys, kourothropos, liminality, limits, magic, Moon, Olympians, Persephone, Plato, Plutarch, Porphyry, Sibyl, sun, sunthemata, symbola, symbolism, symbols, sympathy, Theogony, theurgy, Titans, torches, Underworld, world soul, Zeus | 3 Comments

Master Arnold Böcklin

Posted on March 13, 2021 by Symbol Reader

Arnold Böcklin (born in 1827) was a Swiss symbolist painter, whose work The Plague (1898) has recently emerged as the emblem of our moment in time. It seems that through his symbolist lens he managed to capture the timeless terror … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, Arnold Böcklin, art, death, Dodona, Mermaids at Play, oracle, painting, symbolism, symbolist art, symbols, The Isle of the Dead, The Plague, The Sacred Grove, Zeus | 8 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

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

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

To Apollo: The Averter of Evil, the Bringer of Harmony (part 1)

Posted on August 23, 2015 by Symbol Reader

1.“I am the eye with which the Universe Beholds itself, and knows it is divine; All harmony of instrument or verse, All prophecy, all medicine, is mine, All light of art or nature; – to my song Victory and praise … Continue reading →

Posted in Apollo | Tagged Ancient Greece, Apollo, archetypes, art, bow, civilization, Daphne, Delos, depth psychology, Greek myth, Greek mythology, Homeric hymn to Apollo, Leto, lyre, muses, music, nymphs, paean, possession, sun god, symbolism, symbols, the Self, Zeus | 21 Comments

Nemesis: the Restorer of Cosmic Order

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Symbol Reader

I. ”Nemesis, winged tilter of scales and lives, Justice-spawned Goddess with steel-blue eyes! Thou bridlest vain men who roil in vain Against Thy harsh adamantine rein. Great hater of hubris and megalomania, Obliterator of black resentment, By Thy trackless, churning, … Continue reading →

Posted in Nemesis | Tagged archetypes, Greek myth, Greek mythology, griffin, Helen of Troy, hubris, inferiority complex, justice, Leda, Narcissus, Nemesis, psychology, superiority complex, symbolism, symbols, Zeus | 32 Comments

The Secrets of the Odyssey (13): Journeying on Snakelike Wet Paths

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Symbol Reader

While reading Hermes Guide of Souls: The Mythologem of the Masculine Source of Life by Karl Kerènyi I came across the following passage describing the nature of Odysseus’s journeying and the special patronage of Hermes over Odysseus: “We previously called the … Continue reading →

Posted in The Odyssey | Tagged archetypes, Greek myth, Greek mythology, guide of souls, Hermes, Homer, journey, journeying, Kerenyi, messenger, Odysseus, Odyssey, psychopomp, symbolism, symbols, travelling, Zeus | 31 Comments

The Guilt of Prometheus and Pandora’s Gifts

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Symbol Reader

Prometheus was one of the Titans – the gods who descended from primordial deities, and preceded Olympian gods and goddesses. His name meant “forethought;” he proved he deserved it by showing a gift of premonition and prophecy when he sided … Continue reading →

Posted in Prometheus | Tagged afterthought, Athena, C.G. Jung, Chiron, depth psychology, fire, forethought, Franz Kafka, Greek myth, Greek mythology, guilt, Heracles, Hesiod, individuation, Pandora, Pandora's box, Pandora's jar, pithos, Prometheus, redemption, suffering, Titans, Zeus | 39 Comments

Juno: the Source of the Soul’s Procreation

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Symbol Reader

Erte, “Hera” Before Her reign was overthrown as the Achaean tribes took over Greece Hera (Roman Juno) was the supreme mother goddess, a benevolent cow-eyed triple goddess of the earth and the sky, the creator of the Milky Way, which … Continue reading →