The Orphic Egg The egg is a germ of life with a lofty symbolical significance. It is not just a cosmogonic symbol — it is also a “philosophical one”. As the former it is the Orphic Egg, the world’s beginning; as the latter, the philosophical egg of the medieval natural philosophers, the vessel from which,…
“Chaos at the Heart of Orion”; NASA title of Hubble photograph from Hesiod: Theogony 8th Century BCHail, children of Zeus!… Tell how at the first gods and earth came to be, and rivers, and the boundless sea with its raging swell, and the gleaming stars, and the wide heaven above, and the gods who were…
Water is the commonest symbol of the Unconscious. Carl Jung, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Aphrodite was born when Cronus cut off Uranus’ genitals and threw them into the sea, and from the sea foam (aphros) arose Aphrodite.. Aphrodite Continuing on with the amplification of the myth of Hercules — what…
From Wikipedia:Uranus In the Olympian creation myth, as Hesiod tells it in the Theogony, Uranus came every night to cover the earth and mate with Gaia, but he hated the children she bore him. Hesiod named their first six sons and six daughters the Titans, the three one-hundred-armed giants the Hecatonchires, and the one-eyed giants…
I did not reduce them [dreams] to personal factors, as Freud does…. I compared them with the symbols from mythology and the history of religion, in order to discover the meaning they were trying to express. Saturn Devouring His Son Francisco Goya 1819–1823. Oil mural transferred to canvas 143cm x 81cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid…
Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent. Carl Jung Jupiter Musée du Louvre ceiling fresco Jupiter et Semele Gustave Moreau 1894-95 Oil on canvas (83.8 in × 46.5 in) Musée National Gustave-Moreau (Moreau Museum), Paris From Encyclopedia Mythica [This was the…
Heracles & Cerberus (Caeretan is the black-figure) Hydria C6th B.C., Musée du Louvre KERBEROS (or Cerberus) was the gigantic hound which guarded the gates of Haides. He was posted to prevent ghosts of the dead from leaving the underworld. Kerberos was described as a three-headed dog with a serpent’s tail, a mane of snakes, and…
Charon carries souls across the River Styx Alexander Dmitrievich Litovchenko 1861 Russian Museum, St. Petersburg From the Encyclopedia Brittanica: Charon, in Greek mythology, the son of Erebus and Nyx (Night), whose duty it was to ferry over the Rivers Styx and Acheron those souls of the deceased who had received the rites of burial. In…
Psyche’s Second Task Romano Guilio 1526-28 Fresco Sala di Psyche, Palazzo del Tè, Mantua From: The Golden Asse by Lucius Apuleius Adlington’s translation, 1566 THE FIFTH BOOKE THE TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER The most pleasant and delectable tale of the marriage of Cupid and Psyches When night was passed Venus called Psyches, and said, Seest thou yonder…