Wednesday March 29, 2006
Gem Fire Air
Spring iii: Pluto-Persephone|Ravage and Rape, or Ravishment?
by marty kleva
The maiden Kore must be snatched from the strong, unconscious maternal bonding that is between her and Demeter, and initiated by Pluto into the womanhood of Persephone.
Does he ravage and rape her, or will he ravish her?
The Thesaurus classifies “ravish” under the category of Affections, in General and Personal as words that relate to the Sentient and Moral Powers. In the General category, it is found under the word “excitement” which includes nouns like: excitation of feeling, stimulation, galvanism; and verbs such as touch, intrigue, inspire, arouse and inflame.
Under Personal Affections, “ravishment” is found beneath the word “Pleasure” and includes words such as gratification, satisfaction, joy, delight, enchantment, ecstasy, honeymoon, and happiness.
On the other hand, the word “ravage” is found in the Abstract Relations Category, and further indexed in “Power of Operation” under “Non Production” in the noun “Destruction”, accompanying such words as perdition, waste, breaking up, desolation, extinction, annihilation, suppression, and abolition!
Do any of the words referring to “ravage” sound familiar to what is happening in our world today or to what has regularly taken place throughout recorded history?
Now, we come to the word “Rape” and find it beneath the category of Possessive Relations, and Volition. Specifically, it is found beneath the word “Stealing”, and associated with the likes of cattle stealing, thievery, highway robbery, blackmail, embezzlement, and fraud.
Clearly, ravish includes the personal, and has positive feelings that involves the other person. Both rape and ravage however, are destructive energies that do not empower. Rather, they seek to grab power away from someone else and inflict the negative forces of power, as in to overpower others and to take ownership of something that is not ours.
The maiden Kore symbolically represents the virgin archetype in both males and females. All males and females must separate from the unconscious mother to become the maturated man and woman.
Pluto represents the symbolic masculine phallos, distinct from the physical phallus. The word phallos translates into our desire for union with our own creative power, or conscious masculine.
Contrary to what the ego may wish, phallos is manifested through the surrender of our feminine archetypal maiden self, in both the male and the female.
This is the divining moment in the individuation of the Self. When the true virgin within each of us surrenders and unites with the creative divine masculine, the divine child is created from that union. It is the progeny of the divine child, which gives us the creative energy to shift life into a different reality.
Can you see how this all correlates into the physical? The physical, meaning matter outside of our body-mind-spirit holographic self, is not the true source of the soul’s quest for growth. Spiritual growth will be manifested into the physical realm only if the source is from our personal unconscious and brought to consciousness.
According the Jungian analyst Marion Woodman, when a woman does not have a strong enough Pluto to ravish her maiden Kore away from Mother Demeter, her masculine self is trapped in her mother-self. She fears aggression, both her own and that of others, and acts out her own unconscious rebel.
Her creative masculine is not strong enough to protect her in the physical world, and she will recoil from defending her own truth. She also will not demonstrate her strengths; afraid that if she does her male partner will feel weak. She becomes subservient to her own unconscious making. This woman’s reason for living is that she produce and lend her power to the cause of her male partner. Very different is the woman whose power compliments her male partner, yet also stands on her own.
Woodman further says, “A woman’s creative masculinity is shaped by her early bonding (or lack) with her father.” If her father has not differentiated his own creative masculine, then he cannot help his daughter create hers. If he is still wounded by the unconscious mother, then his daughter will also inherit the wound from him.
Today’s patriarchal society has very few males who have brought the unconscious mother to the light. In The Ravaged Bridegroom, society trains him to, as Woodman says, “. . . ignore or suppress their feeling values . . . .In a goal-oriented race to the top, men even more than women are side-tracked from what is of value to their essences. . . . Feeling without value, however, degenerates into emotion charged by a complex.”
It does not take much imagination to see one of the root reasons that today’s woman has also removed herself from her feeling value to compete in a race that demands that she suppress the very thing which gives her feminine power.
We have a culture where many fathers are missing from the home, either physically, emotionally, or both. We have a culture of young women-maidens (of all ages) who have no symbolic creative male to initiate them into womanhood.
What we do have is a sick patriarchy that has no value for the feminine, who instead of being the full bodied adult males, are now the feminine diminished, non-differentiated, un-embodied male form that rapes and ravages the maiden Kore instead of ravishing her.
Alongside that sick patriarchy, our culture is inundated with men who themselves are wounded by the events of and their participation in five major wars in the last sixty years.
In the UnderWorld where Pluto takes Kore, there is a positive side to the darkness. Here Pluto can either rape or ravish her. Then she may either become the differentiated Persephone, his mate for life and Queen of the UnderWorld, or she will remain bound to her mother Demeter with additional wounds of her own trauma to add to the unconscious ones she inherits from her mother.
In Spring ii, I said:
“Pluto is in a class of his own. Anyone who can live in the dark realms such as he does, has powers beyond the usual. His wisdom is one that may be difficult to accept, for Pluto can see in the darkness. And because of that, he can see to the depths of the unspeakable realms what it is our soul needs to complete its agreements in this lifetime. Once called upon nothing will stop Pluto from that charge.
He resides in the most chthonic abodes beyond that of the Earth Mother. And with that, he contains the most primordial of energies connected with the Ultimate Creation of even the gods.”
It seems evident that Pluto has differentiated the mother. He can travel in both worlds, the upper and the lower, although the lower realm is his home, the place where he reigns. There are very few gods who have that power. Mercury is one of them, which is why Jupiter sent him to negotiate for Persehone’s release. However, before he did, Mercury enticed Persephone to eat a few pomegranate seeds, the seeds of fertile blood-red color, of initiation, and knowledge.
Anyone who has tasted the pomegranate knows that it can be sweet, yet also have a slight bite to it. Knowledge holds its own challenge, and initiation its moment of penetrating fullness that rips the veil of innocence from us, male and female alike.
True initiation is far different from those that are carried out, to this day, in the name of Hades or of some other demonic being in the halls of the patriarchal degenerates, beneath the guard of secrecy. These rituals hold no opportunity for the creative masculine to present the divine child, but instead are full of non-differentiated “emotion(s) charged by a complex.”
They prolong and proliferate the dead masculine, the one that is outmoded, and which has perpetuated the patriarchal father image who sucks the lifeblood from his children, his charges, in the futile attempt to replenish his own waning negative-based power.
Here is the difference between the creative masculine and the unconscious, dying patriarch that has never differentiated from the mother, whose femininity is still bound by an overbearing mother complex, and who in their wounding have lost their feeling value.
The mother complex of the Patriarch resides in the unconscious and is projected out onto women in their personal life and in society as a whole. The Patriarchy call her the whore, the scarlet woman, and denote her by denigrating Mary Magdalene to the fallen position, so that she now becomes the Black Madonna, the shadow virgin for women.
These are projections from the Patriarchs who did not have a strong enough inner creative masculine to separate them from their powerful feminine mothers. They have yet to come up to the mark. They are mama’s boys (and girls) — still taking out their vengeance on women, children, the minorities, and the imprisoned. In their frozen bodies, they cannot fight their own battles, so they pay others to fight for them, convincing them that it is a patriotic duty.
This is the world we live in. There is little that is conscious about it. No wonder it feels like Hell, not to be mistaken for Pluto’s UnderWorld that is full of creative opportunity.
So how do we do this? How do we integrate the creative masculine with our feminine?
Frankly, I cannot say what each individual must do. But generally, I can say that it is good to begin with an assessment. Check what your dream-state is relaying to you from the unconscious. Find a good Jungian analyst and combine that with someone who is familiar with what it means to be embodied.
Not every analyst is for everyone, and not every yoga class is for everyone either. Begin to decipher your instinct. Observe what happens when you do not listen to it, and what happens when you do.
Then involve your awareness with your body and your breath, and include that in your daily assessment, and further, on a moment-to-moment basis.
And lastly, find someone who does know what it is like to be in their body, and who is trained to teach others. You must become discerning. Not everyone who has credentials is qualified to work with you. Licenses and certifications are bought and paid for. They do not qualify if the person has not done their personal work, and only you will know by your instinct, so pay attention, stay flexible, and move on when you are ready.
You must be active as a participant here. This is not the case where you go to someone and have them tell you what to do, nor do they do it to you. Pay attention to the demands of your body, instinct, and your soul. And most of all begin to honor these needs. This is what will keep you on your path and not someone else’s, even if they are some “great teacher.”
Does a woman need a man, or a man need a woman to complete this process? Well, somewhere along the way, I think we do if we are to embody the soul in the physical form.
There are other thoughts on this I am sure. Some believe the soul to be feminine and the Holy Spirit to be masculine. Frankly, my view to date is that it is the soul that is masculine, forming the downward pointed triangle, which must pierce the auric field to descend into the form of the body.
I do not see the soul as automatically embodied, and do believe that it is our personal responsibility to embody the soul. I do see the Holy Spirit as the Holy Fire that fuses the soul with the body. It is an all-encompassing energy, a feminine trait of inclusiveness, and is like a sea of fire.
Again, the patriarchy created what they called the Holy Trinity and said that it is made up of the Father, the Son, and The Holy Ghost. And that’s it! A purely all-male trinity!
The fire of the Divine Mother is more fierce than that of a Male Warrior. Male energy cannot fuse to male energy without the Feminine involved.
The Patriarchy speaks out of its negative mother complex, with the uncontrolled emotional fear. It denies and denigrates the existence of the feminine in our lives, despite all their rhetoric of including women and minorities in the cultural system. It has attempted to annihilate the Feminine in all of us by rewarding those who display the traits of the patriarchy, namely suppressed feelings, and a fervor for competition to get to the top and to stay there by whatever means, including thievery and fraud.
I do not doubt the power of the person who chooses celibacy as a way of spiritual path. I do question though whether or not this allows for leaving the mother behind and embodying the creative masculine. However, it is not impossible for a person to build the creative masculine power alone just as it is for the woman who had no strong male to image her in childhood.
In fact this may be the greatest spiritual quest undertaken and may need lifetimes to accomplish. It is an alchemical process that is created out of nothing — like raising the phoenix out of cold ashes, by tenaciously taking one step after another, by relentlessly asking question after question that ultimately leads to the Grail question which unlocks the mystery that has been held in the unconscious dark realms of Pluto — a jealously guarded secret that one must work for to gain access to it.
Here is the “work” we are destined for. This view does not discount the work of a vocation and service or that of menial labor if it qualifies under the former two. The Patriarchy has twisted the meaning of the word work into menial labor that leads us nowhere — that keeps us bound to the Patriarchy and its non-feeling values. A system set up by the Patriarchy to keep us subservient to their value rather than to be released to seek the work of the soul — the mystery of the creative masculine/feminine.
Here is the inner marriage, the male in union with his feminine counterpart internally, and the female in union with her own masculine self.
This is Jesus bidding us to leave our family and take up our path with Him. He gave his own mother notice when he told her that he must now be about his father’s business. I am not sure that how we interpret these words of his are exactly what he meant, especially as they are interpreted by Christians all over the world today, an interpretation from strictly a patriarchal viewpoint. For just as we individuate from the mother, so must we also individuate from the father.
We the Patriarchy, with our own undifferentiated feminine aspect is afraid of the feminine. It is the complex, the negative mother that unconsciously rules our suppressed emotions, and so we see the true feminine as a threat to us. We see our shadow selves as a threat to our power — our dark-skinned brothers who unknowingly embody the shadow — as a threat to our very existence.
Anything that threatens the negative complex is target for destruction. The negative complex is the terrorist within us that gets projected outwardly and onto women and the minorities not just of race, but also the minorities of culture, socioeconomic and political status.
And so the unruly terroristic emotions take over. The little boy — the mama’s boy tries to use the intellect, missing the feeling values, he preemptively attempts to wipe out his dark brother, for unacknowledged though he may be, he is the other half of him.
If there is ever to be a difference made in this world, our white masculine self (for both males and females) yet dominated by the falsely powered patriarchy, must either step into the dark world of Pluto, or be annihilated by Pluto’s power that is full of the Divine Feminine chaos.
The old order must collapse for a new one to be born. But the new cannot come from the ego. It must come out of the collective conscious that has traveled to the unconscious deep — Pluto’s UnderWorld — to find the necessary, discriminating raw source of creativity and wisdom. Then we can emerge with the new symbol of Unity that has the integrity to hold up and sustain us and gives us regenerative life.
Old attitudes of the Patriarchy are dead and provide no sustenance. If we follow the personal guidelines to individuation of the maid Kore to the womanhood of Persephone, bringing them into the collective, then we have a chance to create a collective system that not only sustains us all but also regenerates the creative collective power by means of ravishment.
What a way to go!
On this New Moon Solar Eclipse in Aries, intending that both you and I experience the ecstacy of being ravished,
- mek
Friday March 24, 2006
Gem Fire Air
Roots of Spring ii: The Imperfect Gods
by marty kleva
Spring in the high desert of the Southwest is like hot and cold therapy. The sun at 7000 feet is warmer than warm as it coaxes the buds of the first flowering trees to bloom.
By mid-afternoon, just when I am sure that the sun will last all day, a curtain of snow showers moves in from the northwest to drop its white sparkles all over my bare skin.
The temperature was 80 degrees at 10 am this morning and I am wearing shorts and a tee shirt for the first time this season. The flakes that melt on my warm skin are tiny and gentle, despite the cool breeze that has blown them in.
Taking it as my signal to bring the spring-cleaning of my kitchen garden to a close, I can smell the numerous herbal aromas lingering on my hands, from Greek oregano and rosemary to lavender. Truly an experience of my love affair with the essences of earth I have carried on since before I was five.
Ceres/Demeter has always been intimate with me. Oh, not in the usual pagan ritual sense, but just as if she were an obvious aspect of my own deeper nature — an energy that has filled me with a love for the earth.
Growing up in the East, I was accustomed to her lush, abundant body — greenery and water everywhere. I did not need to look beneath a rock to find moisture. Her abundant nature of the all-nurturing mother was comforting.
Here in the west, Earth Mother is different. Exacting might be the word. She leaves very little place to seek her comfort. One must find it within.
There is no place to hide here — no lush greenery, trees to provide canopies, very little places that can be called a lake, which back east would be called a pond. The rivers here are equivalent to creeks that I grew up swimming in, and by no means as wide or spacious as the lovely Susquehanna.
In the east, it is wind, water and earth. Here it is wind, earth and fire. The water must be provided by my own tears.
Beneath the never-ending horizon of the western sky, Earth Mother makes no pretense of who she is — she does not appear to be nurturing. I’ve had to create a different relationship to her — one of reciprocity — where I give to her my full commitment to her existence, express to her my appreciation of the monochromatic color scheme she displays.
Here, her colors are earth-tone browns and reds, and different variations of sky blue. When she goes to sleep at night she reflects an incredible spectrum of vermillion, purple, salmon, and cyan.
One of the themes of the story of Ceres or Demeter, and her daughter Kore/Persephone, is the power of the grief of a mother for her missing child.
Any mother who has lost a child whether it was for just a moment or for a lifetime, knows that the grief of a mother is like no other. It matters not whether that child is but an embryo or a short-lived infant; a fully-grown man or woman killed by some tragic accident, by an illness, or the adult child who will never return from the wars we sent them to fight.
I can lament with Ceres/Demeter for the loss of her daughter, and know well the cold empty arms of a mother who has lost a child, having been there myself. For the chill vacuous feeling of a broken heart and destroyed aspirations are as cold and disparate as the coldest and most frigid winter of the soul’s experience.
Beneath this land between the Sangre de Christo Mountains and the Jemez to the west of Santa Fe, there is an extinct caldera that has left a volcanic layer of sleek black obsidian. The esoteric properties of obsidian include drawing out the impurities from the environment. It is singularly a Plutonian property to live with. Obsidian will pull the issues out from the deepest core of a person’s being, presenting them for our perusal.
The Earth Mother here provides the spiritual fire necessary to differentiate from the mother/father complexes developed over our childhood years, and lived out in our adulthood. She supplies the crucible to come to terms with own power that frees us from victimization and gives us access to the autonomy of a balanced masculine/feminine power that is authentically ours.
The male/female archetypes present in this story of Demeter, Persephone, Jupiter, Poseidon, and Pluto provide us with some very important clues to our own natures.
In Tibetan Buddhism there is the concept of the duality of character, or essence of an energy. The Tibetans classify five energies and they are called the Buddha families. These are based on color, form, dynamics and power.
The most useful that I have found, is the concept that all energies, such as archetypal energies, have two sides. One, is called the Wisdom side, the other is the Neurotic side.
In Jungian terms, the Neurotic side is the equivalent to a complex, meaning that there is a primal energy so strong that it has you by the short hairs. This is an archetypal energy that has yet to be differentiated and brought out of the unconscious; therefore it is on the neurotic side and means that we have knee-jerk reactions that get us into trouble in our relationships with others.
Working from the Wisdom side seems to be self-evident when we can easily move through our life with complete ease and understanding, regardless of what life produces.
That being said let us look at these so-called gods.
The males are clearly dominating. Each of them has been given the power to rule a region with the exception of Jupiter, who in addition to being King of the Heavens and the Earth also has reign over all of the other gods.
The brothers Jupiter, Poseidon and Pluto are the three most powerful Titan or Olympian gods. Each one has a history of violence, especially where it concerns their sexual pursuits. All of them have taken females by surprise and raped them. It is standard procedure. They have even gone to the extreme to turn themselves into animal forms to try to fool the female if she shuns his initial advances.
In sexual matters they have no mastery and are ruled by their complexes. So much for foreplay and male sexual finesse.
This behavior certainly is classified as neurotic. And what it helps to produce is a trauma event in the female, which is rooted in the interaction with a violent, dominating male. Do we wonder why the collective female unconscious includes either a healthy fear of, or an unhealthy attraction to alpha males?
It is heartening to see more actual males recognizing this part of their psyche and working to bring it to consciousness. That being said, it also remains for us females to realize that we are not exempt from the unconscious effects of violence within our own natures. Do we realize that we too perpetrate violence? As a collective gender, women must also work to loosen the bonds of trauma and release the effects of violence that we have received.
It is said that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I believe it can also be said that violence is in the experience of the receiver. Violence can be delivered in so many ways. Some of them will forever remain unknown to the initiator if the receiver does not speak up and say so.
Communication that remains open is very important, even when it may hurt to tell someone that their actions or words, their inaction or silence are invasive, or that they are landing too hard within your sensitivity range.
It is not easy to hear this, especially when it comes from someone you love and/or admire, and even more difficult when it is between genders. But where are we to begin if we do not take up our courage and confront what keeps us separate and prevents us from relating more closely with each other?
Each of these male archetypes also has a Wisdom side. Jupiter is justice loving and finds study, travel, and religious pursuits worthwhile.
We may need to look deeper to find Poseidon’s wisdom, for he has a reputation for violent revenge. His wisdom may actually be found in the symbol of water he is most associated with. Within the records I searched, this is the best I have to say about King Neptune at this time. However, my views are always subject to change.
In the first segment I credited Poseidon with the rape of Demeter and conception of Kore. According to another source, that is not true. She seems to have a nebulous, untraceable origin, which in turn may also make for a more complex situation in the character of Demeter.
However, it is said that while Demeter was looking for Persephone, Poseidon did come upon her in lust, and in the form of a stallion, he forced his attentions on her. In not so politically correct language, he raped her! From that rape Demeter bore a daughter, Arion - ‘the very swift’ - in the form of a horse!
Other sources do record that Zeus is the father of Kore. To make matters even more incestuous, Zeus is also said to have fathered Dionysus, the god of fertility and wine by either Persephone or Semele.
Pluto is in a class of his own. Anyone who can live in the dark realms such as he does, has powers beyond the usual. His wisdom is one that may be difficult to accept, for Pluto can see in the darkness. And because of that, he can see to the depths of the unspeakable realms what it is our soul needs to complete its agreements in this lifetime. Once called upon nothing will stop Pluto from that charge.
He resides in the most chthonic abodes beyond that of the Earth Mother. And with that, he contains the most primordial of energies connected with the Ultimate Creation of even the gods.
Yes, I do wonder — who created these gods — I mean all of them. Not who their mothers and fathers were as can be traced, but who or what created the ORIGINS of the gods?
However, an exploration of that is for another day.
Getting back to Pluto. Being connected to the primordial is like having access to kundalini energy 24/7, which in its own self can have both wisdom and neurotic sides. Sexuality and sensual awareness can be a very Plutonian quality.
Pluto had the opportunity to create something of value with Persephone. Did he do so? We may explore that more deeply in another segment.
And now for the females — the feminine archetypes.
Ceres/Demeter is the utmost of the female deities, who stands for Abundance, Feminine Power, Fertility, Stewardship of the Earth, and Provider of the mortals with all that they need to raise the grains, crops, and fruits. She is the Connector between the earthbound mortals and the gods.
Once Kore has been taken, Demeter also becomes a symbol of maternal grieving for the loss of a child.
We do not know if Demeter ever integrates that loss into her life. Since the origins of Kore are so vague, what part of her does Kore/Persephone symbolically represent?
With the abduction of Kore at that particular age, by such a powerful male figure as Pluto, where might that have fit into Demeter’s own life as a young maiden?
This is the age when young women are first attracted to, and in return sexually attract males. That first sexual encounter is very significant. If it happens to be with a male of the same age, that is one experience. If it is with a male much older, that is another. But if it also happens to be with a male that is a brother or an uncle, then we have another set of dynamics that has been added to the mix.
In addition, if a sexually sensitive and well-tutored male leads any of the above-mentioned experiences, then the entire experience can be positively oriented and can have lasting effects for the initiated female. In our western culture with puritan based values, shame and guilt will be the deciding factors that will separate the event into a positive or negative one in all of the above. If any one of these experiences includes unresolved violence, then we have an event that also involves trauma. Shame and guilt can be trauma inducers.
Violent sexual practice was the norm during the times of the gods. Frankly, I don’t know how it might have affected the females of that time given that it was such a prevalent practice.
However, the one thing that I am sure about is that the violent nature with which these male gods encountered the females in sex, was less than base. It was criminal. This is not the physically arousing sex of partners who keep each other in mutual esteem that I am speaking of. Violent sex such as the gods practiced is degrading. And there can be no doubt that the males had the upper hand when it came to physical strength, not to mention reigning power.
Here is a clear legacy rooted in sexual energy, handed down to us by the gods, of the domestic violence in present society. One can only deduce about the effects of this fact; that these women grew up around violent males who took what they wanted and gave little to nothing in return when it came to personal relationships.
Do we really have to wonder why we have to this day such a rift between the genders? Given that scenario, I must fully respond to those males who can see that violence gets them everything except what they most want — love in relationship with a good woman.
However, there are not enough men who realize this. Nor, are there enough of us women who have differentiated the maiden Kore, from the sexually initiated female Persephone and thereby also from the wounded mother Demeter in our lives. Thus we have a gender-wide neurosis to either live in ignorance with, or to deal with and bring to consciousness.
This may be the core of the world’s problems — a violent, incestuous legacy of family dynamics from the imperfect gods.
So much for deification!
May today bring you a new insight to your deepest longing.
With the love of the Earth Mother,
- mek
Just the thought of the word Spring seems to automatically invoke a sigh of relief within me — bringing forth visions of vibrant red and yellow colors splashed up against a deep green background.
It is Spring again with its smells of the Earth rising . . . the freshness of new sprouts, green grass, spring bulbs pushing up their pointed tips, breaking through the top layer of dirt, having been dormant beneath the ground for such a long time. Having replenished their powers, they now appear to bloom again.
Sap rises up the tree trunks to bring forth new blossoms and leaves, like kundalini rising up my spine and spreading out my limbs to the tips of my fingers and toes. I have always held in wonder the fact that the blossoms appear before the leaves.
But the origins of Spring, and the differences between seasons goes back in history BC, to the story told of the Greek and Roman deities, a story which may even have its roots further back than that into the origins of civilization in Sumerian culture and the goddess Inanna. But to cover all that history in time can make one’s head spin and cause the eyes to drop back into the head!
So, for the purpose of this writing, lets stay with the story, complex enough as it is, and as it has been brought forth in the names of the Earth Mother — the deities and priestesses Ceres (Roman), and Demeter (Greek), and their respective daughters, Proserpina and Persephone, or Kore.
As the story goes, Persephone was in a field of flowers when the god Pluto (Hades), who had just emerged from his home in the UnderWorld, saw her and took her for his own. Driving his black chariot with black horses, and he also in black, Pluto abducted Persephone and returned with her to the UnderWorld. Persephone was not to be found by her mother Demeter.
First, some family history: Demeter is the Greek form of the Roman goddess Ceres; both are the Earth Mother, the Mother of all, named Ma-Bellona. Between the Greek and Roman versions, the facts stay pretty aligned, although there are some subtle differences between Demeter and Ceres that I will get to in another segment.
Jupiter is their brother who rules the Heavens, the Sky, and who is supreme deity over all the other gods. In other words, he is King of The Mountain, Olympus that is.
Pluto is also brother to both Jupiter and Demeter. He has been relegated by virtue of the luck of the draw being the third son of Rhea and Cronus, to the regions of the dark. As we might say today, he has been sent to Siberia. Perhaps the thought is to send him far enough away from the King to stay out of the King’s business. But as we can see in the story, not far enough away to stay out of the King’s hair.
Poseiden, or Neptune is the second brother who rules the sea.
So we have siblings ruling the Heavens, the Earth, the Sea, and the UnderWorld!
This sounds like the perfect makings of a soap opera called The Divine Comedy!
Check out which of these three is given to rule the Earth, a Feminine goddess in the form of a mature female body.
Previous to the time of Persephone’s abduction, the earth may not have gone through all the seasons that we know today. Ruled with the benevolence of the Earth Mother, everything in Nature was more constant.
With her daughter gone, and when after much searching, Demeter could not find her, Demeter went into a very deep place of mourning for her lost maiden daughter, and halted her stewardship of the Earth.
All of Earth’s abundance, which was formerly taken for granted, came to a screeching halt. There were no crops, no grain or fruit, no harvest, and an icebound winter descended upon the Earth and her mortals.
The cries of misery got so loud that they reached the lofty Mt Olympus and the ears of Jupiter. When he surveyed the scene and it was discovered that Pluto was the one responsible, Jupiter knew he would have to intervene.
Now, Jupiter was known for his championship of justice, and when he saw that there was some injustice done by Pluto’s abduction of Persephone from her mother’s abode, he sent his son Hermes (Mercury) to Pluto to mediate the situation. Mercury is one of the few immortals who could traverse the realms of the UnderWorld.
The settlement came — that Persephone would be allowed to be with her mother for a certain period during the year (versions vary from six to nine months), but for the remaining months, Persephone would have to spend it with her mate Pluto, in the UnderWorld.
While Persephone was there, she ate some seeds of the pomegranate. She imbibed of the juices from the fruit of the Deep. Her name translated means “bringer of death.”
There is much yet to be learned about Persephone’s life in the realms of the UnderWorld as consort to Pluto. I will write more on this in another segment.
When Persephone appeared out of the earth’s dark abyss, her mother Demeter was so overjoyed that immediately the Earth sprang forth with the vibrant colors and new growth. Due to the coming and going of Persephone to and from the UnderWorld, we have the Four Seasons.
Now That’s The Story!
But what else is there to learn . . . beneath the surface I mean? After all, here we have an interaction between some of the most powerful archetypal images ever known to wo-mankind.
Are we going to set it aside as simply a “story”, a “fairytale”, or a figment of someone’s wild imagination?
Wild, I’ll admit. But I have learned that stories and myths have their basis in some fact, and that they also are deeply imbedded into our collective human psyche.
So, to recap: we have here powerful male/female archetypes in the form of deities.
Jupiter or Zeus, head of all the gods, resides on Mt Olympus, in Heaven, and NOT on Earth.
His Elder Sister, Demeter, is Earth Mother, and without exception, takes care to provide for all who are on Earth.
Pluto, God and Ruler of the UnderWorld, is brother to both Jupiter and Demeter.
Persephone, daughter of Demeter and Poseidon, is also the young maiden archetype of her mother. She was conceived out of the rape of Demeter by Poseidon. She lived beneath her mother’s heart for nine months; was fed and nurtured by her mother’s body, the Earth.
Consider that Jupiter is the status quo. I know . . . he is not usually thought of in this way. But in the time period of this story, we must face a few things otherwise thought.
Jupiter was the head of the gods; therefore he was the establishment of rule. As freedom loving, adventurous, and in favor of justice as he may be, the fact is that he ruled the Roost!
Demeter, his sister ruled the Earth BELOW him, and still BENEATH that, Pluto was assigned to the deep dark spaces of the UnderWorld, the lowest place to be had . . . alone.
Do you think that there may have been some jealousy there of his BIG BROTHER Jupiter sitting nice and comfortable as can be upon his throne?
Well just remember the dramas of these gods as they played their little relationship games — those that we mimic in our very own human relationships . . . or do you doubt it?
So I think that Pluto decided to have a little fun and take a trip upside to see what mischief he could create for his big brother. I don’t think he had an exact plan, but as the story also goes, when he got there he was seen by Aphrodite.
Now Aphrodite also knew power, and liked power, and was not above extending her power to new regions. Since Pluto’s visit was a rare one, she saw her chance and instructed her son Eros to fling his love arrow at Pluto’s heart.
I know . . . do you believe that it can get anymore complicated? Doesn’t it sound like the original soap opera?
You can guess the rest. Full of Cupid’s love arrow, Pluto saw the young maiden Persephone. In full passion, and out of his senses, he was overcome with lust and he absconded with her to the nether regions.
He now had his niece, the daughter of his brother and sister. And he made her his Consort of the Under World.
I’d say Pluto was parti to the biggest scandal going!
I hope I’ve given you enough to think about and wonder — other than the usual.
(To be continued)
Until next time, I bid you a Wonderful Spring Morning,
-mek
PTSD Effects: The Healing Process "No Map"
PTSD Effects: The Healing Process
Poetry Offerings: Entreaty & How Is It?
Thursday, March 9, 2006
Gem Fire Air
by marty kleva
Today I am —
as delicate as a new born babe,
as fragile as a petal of
the emerging cosmos,
Treat me gently —
Sway me with the greatest of care,
for
Today I am —
a tender shoot
in this world of volatile illusions
that threatens to consume us all.
___________________________________________________
How Is It?
by marty kleva
How is it — that something
as intelligent
as the mind
can be
the origin of all suffering?
How is it — that the mind
can project so powerfully —
that our instinct is
deceived and overtaken?
Sunday March 6, 2006
Gem Fire Air
If I Were A White Man
by marty kleva
What a wild weekend!
Awakened again at 4 am today, Saturday, from wild compensatory dreams to write the short - If I were A White Man.
Later, I read Eric Francis’s blog and in it, a letter from an Arizona reader chronicling the good life of the homeless in America, about which I will restrain myself from commenting on, as Mr. Francis handled it with his usual compassion and wisdom.
Then, this morning — I almost reached my destination for a digital photography workshop in Albuquerque, when the clutch in my car failed on a three lane thoroughfare, and it seemed that everything was destined to go downhill from there.
But not to despair.
The number of angels who showed up on the spot was nothing short of grace.
Within minutes a guy stopped behind me and checked out my car, as three other people came running across the street, a mother — Julia, and her two teens.
Before I knew it, they pushed my car off the street into a parking lot, offered me a phone to call AAA, and gave me advice on how to handle the situation.
Julia’s teen daughter is a graphic artist and her son, a writer! We had lots to talk about as we waited for the tow truck.
My car was towed by a poker-faced guy named Smiley, who assured me he would tow my car but not take me to the cleaners, as he quoted me a price I could not refuse, and which would get me and my car home to Santa Fe later in the day.
Then I was offered a ride to the workshop from another woman, Olga, who stopped to see if she could help me. She is from Chile, and had recently lost her husband.
After the workshop was over, Cindi, one of the organizers, drove me to the towing company to meet up with my car and a ride home!
That was seven people!
An incredible lesson in humility for independent me to continue to accept offers of assistance from people who seemed to descend upon me from every direction.
So I kept saying “Yes.” and “Thank You.”
You might have thought I was giving away a million dollars, when it was they who offered me priceless gifts!
I cannot remember having an ounce of anxiety throughout the entire day, even when Smiley gave me a guesstimate on what it might cost me to repair the clutch.
Such a display of abundant help and goodwill toward me a stranger has left an indelible imprint upon me.
I will never forget this day.
May the blessings bestowed on me be multiplied and cast across the world to everyone else, and especially, back toward those seven, who gave so freely from the love in their hearts.
con amore,
-marty
From Bill Bonner in an e-letter, the Daily Reckoning, a lightning-bolt-shot of insight from his German cab driver in Deutschland.
Two things most impressed me as I read it: the fact that he is second generation post-war, and his words, "after you all finished bombing". See what you get from it.
Oh you are an American, said our cab driver last night.
We get a lot of Americans here in Köln, but all they want to know about is the war. I can't tell them much about the war...I wasn't even born then.
But this whole area was still a ruin when I saw it as a child. Only the church was left standing after you all finished bombing the town.
You know, that was a remarkable thing...the war. I remember when I was little you could ask your parents about it. They didn't want to talk about it. And then, when they did talk, they blamed it all on Hitler.
Everybody blames it on Hitler, but I could never understand that.
How come you went along with Hitler?' I would ask.
And they told me, "Because they'd shoot us if we didn't."
But Hitler couldn't shoot 40 million Germans.
No, it doesn't work that way, does it?
People go along, you know, because they are afraid to do anything else.
But why are they afraid to do anything else?
I don't know; one step leads to another - some are afraid...some are ambitious...some are believers in the cause.
And pretty soon, everybody is marching in the same direction.
That's when you really get into trouble: when everybody goes in the same direction.
Oh, I didn't tell you though...I'm not completely German. My mother was Italian.
Well, the Italians are smarter. They never go in the same direction, even when they try to - remember, they were with the Germans in the war - they ended up going in different directions.
That's why you can't really govern Italy, not in the way you can govern Germany or America. That's what's nice about Italy.
But America is a lot like Germany. I visited it a few years ago and I felt right at home. People there actually obey the law. They all get behind their president, even when he's a man like Mr. Bush.
I'm not criticizing, mind you. He's probably a good president, even though all the press here is against him.
But still, it's scary. I mean, the way a whole nation can get behind something, march off in the same direction and end up together...in Hell.
Oh what a bitch it is to be collecting karma.
-m
If I Were A White Man
by marty kleva
And finally this . . . what I woke up with today: the tune of “If I Were A Rich Man”, from “Fiddler On the Roof”, except that the title was changed, and — yes, I do dream in surround sound.
Frankly, this is something that is extremely disturbing to me.
I must offer a preface to acknowledge those Caucasian males who consciously work with the issue of male dominance, just as I, a woman, am confronted each day with recovering my power from those who once wrest it from me, and to whom I and the Feminine naively gave it away.
So that there is no misunderstanding about If I Were A White Man, there are some things that need to be said.
Those men who are presently incarnated into the form and body of a white male, among other things, are here collectively to both magnify and transform the meaning of all aspects of the White Brotherhood, the Patriarchy, the Misogynist, the Terminator, the King of the Mountain, and the White Supremacist.
History will show that all of these archetypes are blatantly apparent in the United States today.
This does not exclude those of us who also operate our lives within these same attitudes inside the form of a female body, or the form of a different-colored male.
Where it may be easier for a white man to epitomize the archetypes mentioned above, the rest of us have some part in the dynamics that are being played out.
This is not a soliloquy for the white male.
We are all being forced to look at the principles of power: how to define it, to work with it, to hold it, to retrieve it, to own it, and to make use of it responsibly.
For me personally, as a woman in this lifetime, I am aware that it is my charge to transform feminine power for the collective.
It demands that I explore and bring to light new perspectives; that I work along with males who are willing to take on the challenge of transforming the meaning and representation which the above White Male Archetypes embody.
And so, If I Were A White Man is the view I have been given as a white woman inside the psyche of a white male, different, yet not separate from him.
If I Were A White Man…
Who had not yet begun
to address
My place in
the echelons of power
present—
today
I too would be afraid
of the dark man
following Me
into the shadows of
My own denial
to annihilate
those who are
of a different kind —
a different
mind
before My Draconian
demonic fear
annihilates
Me.
-mek