Every fountain has its nymph

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Understanding the language of the stars in which the myths, scriptures and sacred stories of virtually every culture on earth are speaking is not simply an "intellectual exercise" or a fascinating hobby like solving jigsaw puzzles or Rubik's cubes.

Understanding the language of the myths opens our eyes to the view of the cosmos contained in and conveyed by those ancient stories, stories given to humanity as a precious inheritance for our benefit, depicting for our hearts the reality of the Infinite Realm.

The myths embody the stars and constellations in the heavens in the stories of gods and mortals -- portraying throughout the endless and intimate interaction of the material and the invisible realm, and describing a cosmology in which this world is indwelt and entangled at every single point by the Other World: the realm of spirit, the realm of infinite potentiality, the realm of the gods.

In the myths of ancient Greece (upon which my most recent study of sacred celestial metaphor, Star Myths of the World -- Volume Two, focuses almost exclusively), we are shown a vision of this material realm which is connected to and in fact flows from the divine realm, a world in which the realm of the gods was present at all times and in all places.

The vision of this material realm infused and intertwined at every point by the infinite realm has been expressed by various modern authors in recent centuries through the observation that in the world-view of the ancients, "each fountain had its presiding nymph" -- a phrase so common that it can be seen to echo down through the works of different writers from one decade to the next, probably quoting a much earlier source (but one that is perhaps forgotten, since never explicitly cited), and usually expressed in tones indicating that with the dimming of this vision, something good was lost to humanity (although often this tone is tempered by words dismissing that vision as "primitive," "superstitious," "overly imaginative," "ridiculous," "misplaced," and of course, "idolatrous" -- if you follow the links provided below you will see each of these ideas expressed in the sentences before or after the description of the world-view of the ancient Greeks).

Here are a few selections -- by no means exhaustive -- of this common description of the ancient understanding of our world's interdependence at every point upon the Other World:

1830: "Each cave had its Faun or Dryad,-- each fountain its Nymph."

1836: "Not a spot but had its altar; every grove was consecrated to its peculiar nymphs, its Dryads and its Fauns; every stream and fountain had the votive marble for its own bright Nereid; -- along the plain rose the splendid colonnades of the yet mighty temples of Jupiter, and all the Olympian gods; and above all, on the high Acropolis, the noble Parthenon rose over the glorious city, proclaiming to the eye of the distant traveler, the honors of the virgin goddess of wisdom, of taste and philosophic virtue, whose name crowned the city, of which she was throughout al the reign of Polytheism, the guardian deity."

1838: "The shady groves and flowery vales were peopled by Dryads or wood-nymphs, and Satyrs, a species of rural deities, who, like Pan, had the horns, legs, and feet of a goat. Mountains and streams possessed their guardian gods and goddesses, and every fountain had its Naiad or water-nymph. The lively imagination of the Greeks made them consider the thunder as the voice of Jupiter; the soft breezes of summer were to them the movement of the wing of Aeolus; the echo of the forest was the voice of a goddess, and the gentle murmur of the streamlet sounded as the tones of its presiding deity. In short, whatever sound or sight in nature charmed their fancy, the Greeks ascribed the pleasure to the agency of unseen, but beautiful and immortal, beings."

1848: "The poorest wayfarer kept august company, in whose very silence there was a soul-stirring eloquence; he celestialised his thoughts, withersoever he might wander, not only by the marble divinities that graced his path, but by the spiritual ones brooding over it in unseen beauty; for every locality had its tutelary genius, every tree its hamadryad, every fountain its nymph, every sea its nereids, and by the tongues of winds, and waves, and woods, their voices were heard, whispering the secrets of the invisible world, or thrilling the imaginative hearer with melodious hymns and canticles."

1859: "What a land for the poet to die in! A land where each star in the lofty vault was a Deity, where each mount had its Oread, each river its Naiad, each fountain its Nymph, each woody copse its Dryad, and every scene its guardian angel!"

1866: "The very religion of the Greeks originated in a deep love of Nature, and their gods and goddesses were but the types of human attributes; whilst the same spirit permeated their mythology, and the ideal beings who inhabited its shadowy domains. The powers of earth, air, and water, were embodied in human forms; the woods resounded to the voice of the unseen Pan and his joyous crew; each spring, each grotto, and each fountain had its presiding nymph; and all these were but the embodiment of those feelings awakened in the mind by the particular character of the place."

1877: "The Epic of Homer, which was the Greeks' Bible, portrays gods and men, not quite in equal numbers, as mingling in the fray, and sweeping in bloody swirls about the walls of fated Ilium. Each fountain had its nymph; each brook its naiad; each wood its dryad; each wind had its presiding god, and a deity was at the beginning and end of diversified human experiences. The sea was heaved by them, the earth teemed with them, and the air swarmed with them. The universe, as they knew it, was believed to be filled with deities, inferior and superior; and every natural occurrence which they could not explain was supposed to be a direct interference of the gods."

All of the writers above express this vision of the world in the past tense: "each fountain hadits nymph" -- as though the streams and forests and fountains and oceans are no longer infused by the Invisible World, or presided over and protected by the gods and nymphs and dryads and naiads.

And, while some of them offer a tone of nostalgic regret for the loss of this vision of the world, nearly all of them simultaneously offer their reasons to believe that this ancient vision, present with little variation in virtually every ancient tradition of every culture on our planet, was simplistic, naive, mistaken, or even (for those writers advancing the literalist Christian view) blameworthy.

In all likelihood, all of these writers (including those advancing the literalist view) were unaware of the fact that the same celestial metaphors which form the foundation for the world's myths also undergird the stories in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, and that the myths of the world use the realm of the stars to represent the Infinite Realm (the heavens above, in fact, being infinite themselves: when we gaze into the night sky, we truly gaze into infinity) -- indicating that the myths are actually expressing truths about the Other World, and not (as is often assumed) trying to explain natural phenomena which today we explain "more accurately" and "less imaginatively" using science.

By honoring the presence of the nymphs and dryads and naiads and oreads in each and every tree, forest, stream, fountain, river, mountain, and ocean wave, the ancients were acknowledging that not only is this material realm inseparably connected to the Invisible Realm, the realm of the gods, but that this material and natural world which we perceive with our ordinary senses proceeds from and is vitally dependent upon the divine realm, the "seed realm," the realm that is in fact "the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that world" in the words of the Lakota seer Black Elk.

The same post linked in the preceding paragraph also contains a quotation from a scholar of ancient Egypt attesting to the fact that the sacred traditions of the Egyptians basically express the identical vision, in which everything in this physical realm proceeds from and has its source in the "hidden realm," associated with the Duat and the hidden Amenta.

The same could be said of other ancient cultures, including China, where the construction of roads and railroads in previous centuries was strongly influenced by beliefs about invisible forces and powers including "dragon lines" (which also strongly impact decisions about the locations of tombs and burials, even to this day).  And the presence of such a vision of the world in traditionally shamanic cultures is difficult to dispute.

Other posts have explored evidence that the Bible actually expresses many of the same concepts -- a worldview which is essentially shamanic in nature, as is the worldview expressed in virtually every other myth-system on earth.

Of course, because they were writing in the 1800s, the writers who gave us the quotations above were also unaware that beginning in the early years of the twentieth century, the results from new experiments designed to learn more and more about the nature of the physics of this material universe would cause physicists to arrive at a very similar vision of our universe, which would later come to be known as "quantum physics" -- a vision in which the realm of "pure potentiality" is present at the level of each and every molecule and atom and subatomic particle, and in which certain things seem to "manifest" or "unfold" from that "implicate" realm of potential in conjunction with consciousness (through a mechanism that is still, apparently, not at all completely understood, even by theoretical physicists, even though it is fairly easy to demonstrate that this is indeed what is going on).

And, again perhaps because all of the above quotations are from the 1800s, any sadness about the passing of that vision of the natural world connected at every point with, and protected in every place by, gods and goddesses and nymphs and hamadryads, is expressed in terms of benign nostalgia or wistfulness -- and not as a loss that could in fact threaten the extinction of the entire human species and perhaps many other species of plant and animal on earth as well.

Because the writers in the 1830s or 1840s probably had little capacity to imagine that in the course of the next one hundred to one hundred and eighty years, representatives of cultures which had decided that the idea that every tree has its dryad and every stream and fountain its nymph was a bunch of "ridiculous," or "imaginary," or "mistaken," or "superstitious," or "idolatrous" nonsense from a long-gone, more "primitive" era would be dumping chemicals into rivers and streams in such quantities that some of them could catch on fire, and fish and frogs would begin exhibiting mutations, or dumping radiation into the oceans and using islands and atolls for "experimental" detonations of thermonuclear devices, or ripping down swathes of the Amazon rainforest and burning all the remaining undergrowth in order to graze relatively small numbers of cattle, or deliberately inserting the genes of worms and bacteria into corn and soy and rice and wheat intended for human consumption, alterations that would (in conjunction with massive increases in the spraying of new types of pesticides and herbicides) cause massive die-offs of bees and other crucial pollinators, as well as cause the seeds of those plants to be unusable to plant the next generation of food crops (necessitating the purchase of new seeds each year), and many other widespread practices taking place on a massive scale whose details those writers from the 1800s could not imagine in their wildest dreams.

It should be fairly clear that a culture that believed that every tree has its hamadryad, every fountain its nymph, and every sea its nereids would be aghast to learn of such wanton desecration and destruction -- and indeed would argue that, since all of us are also simultaneously connected to and sustained by the very same Invisible Realm which interpenetrates every tree and indwells every stream and river, such behavior is not only destructive but self-destructive.

Nor is this question of what we might call (and have called in previous discussions) opposing "visions" of the way the world actually works simply a question of technology (one vision, it might be argued, being "pro-technology" and the other being "anti-technology").

In the ancient text of the Odyssey (discussed at length in my most recent book), when Odysseus describes his catastrophic visit to the island of the Cyclops, he says that the Cyclopian giants have no laws, plant no plants, and do not plow. Further, he explains, they have no ships, for among them are none who know how to make such vessels, and thus they have no trade. 

Odysseus and his crew, of course, come from a culture which does make ships, and plow the fields, and plant crops, and make wine, and conduct trade -- but in doing these things (some of which involve chopping down trees, presumably, since their "well-benched ships," their "vermillion-prowed ships," were made of wood), they nevertheless maintained the awareness that this world is presided over by gods and goddesses and nymphs and dryads, and that this material world proceeds from and is sustained by the Invisible World, the realm of the gods.

In the very opening lines of the Odyssey, when the gods are meeting on Olympus and Athena reproaches Zeus for leaving Odysseus captive on Ogygia, Zeus admits that one of Odysseus' most salient characteristics is his respect for the gods, and his carefulness to honor them with offerings and to pay attention to them beyond all other mortals.

And, when Odysseus and his companions watch in horror as the Cyclops murders two of their ship-mates at a time in order to make his monstrous meal, Odysseus addresses the monster and urges him to "Revere the gods!" (in Odyssey Book 9). But the Cyclops replies that he cares nothing for Aegis-bearing Zeus or any of the other blessed gods -- "since we are much superior to them" (9. 308 - 310).

This encounter (among many other things it teaches) should make abundantly clear that the subject we are discussing is not actually about "using technology" or "being primitive," but rather about the informing vision or heart-attitude: the recognition and reverence for the gods and the divine realm, which gives life to and sustains everything and everyone in the material realm, or the disregard for or denial of the gods and their primacy, the refusal to recognize our dependence upon them, and the declaration (which the Cyclops utters in just so many words) that he and the other Cyclopes are in fact "much superior to them."

It is not that we as human beings can never make use of the woods or the rivers, but that we must do so in accordance to the actual order of the universe, and with reverence and respect for the representatives of the Invisible Realm which preside over and dwell in every aspect of this one -- an attitude, in other words, of elevating the spiritual (which is blessing and life-affirming) rather than denying, debasing, or ignoring the spiritual realm that is present in each person, animal, plant, rock and stream (a denial which is in error, and which is a form of cursing, and which is ultimately self-destructive and suicidal).

The culture that is informed by the first vision -- the vision described in all the quotations above, which acknowledges and reverences the presence of the divine in every single stream and fountain, not to mention in every person and plant and animal -- will naturally look very different from the culture that will grow out from a denial and rejection of that understanding of the natural order of the universe.

Every ancient myth and sacred tradition from virtually every culture around the globe can in fact be shown to be expressing a vision of the cosmos as infused by, and connected to, and dependent upon the Invisible Realm, the Infinite Realm, the realm of the gods.

The disastrous consequences -- and the erroneous nature -- of the rejection of that vision should, by now, be self-evident to all.

But the good news is that the actual situation in the universe never really changed, even when that vision was suppressed, denied, or largely forgotten. The mistaken conclusion that the ancient myths were "mere superstition" did not actually change the fact that the Invisible Realm does indeed touch and interpenetrate every single aspect of this material, visible, and natural realm -- did not change the fact that every tree and stream does in fact have its protecting and sustaining power in the "real world that is behind this one."

The writers from the 1800s cited above chose to frame their assertions in the past tense, but their doing so did not actually change the reality that the world's myths and sacred traditions are trying to show us. It requires only to go to the world's sacred scriptures and traditions, and listen to them in the language that they are actually speaking to us, to change all of those "past tense" verb-forms to the continuing present -- an operation which is very much necessary if we are to begin to remedy some of the destruction which has already been wrought, before it is too late.

And, as we face what might accurately be described as the "Herculean task" of trying to repair some of the "cyclopean" damage that has already been done, we can then be buoyed and encouraged by the fact that, as the myths show so vividly:

"every locality still has its tutelary genius, every tree its hamadryad, every fountain its nymph, every sea its nereids -- and by the tongues of winds, and waves, and woods, their voices can still be heard, whispering the secrets of the invisible world, or thrilling the hearer with melodious hymns and canticles."

The birth of Kvasir from the sacred truce of the Aesir and the Vanir

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Two of the most important repositories of surviving records of the ancient Norse myths are the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, with the Poetic Edda understood to be earlier (and also more mysterious) than the Prose Edda.

Great sections of the Prose Edda are devoted to the art of sacred poetry -- a very serious subject in the eyes of the Norse skalds, involving the discussion of subjects and truths using coded language.

At one point in the Prose Edda, in a section entitled Skaldskaparmal ("the language of poetry," or the "speech-way of poetry"), the text depicts the jotun Aegir (a sort of "old man of the sea," akin in Greek myth to Phorcys or Nereus or Proteus -- each of whom also had naiads or nymphs for daughters, as did Aegir) having a conversation with Bragi, the Norse god of skalds and poetry and cunning speech and metaphor.

Hearing Bragi say that the expressions of poetry are sometimes used specifically to conceal a matter in "secret language," Aegir asks Bragi:

"This seems to me a very good way to conceal it in secret language. How did this craft that you call poetry originate?"

To this the knowledgeable Bragi replies:

The origin of it was that the gods had a dispute with the people called Vanir, and they appointed a peace-conference and made a truce by this procedure, that both sides went up to a vat and spat their spittle into it. But when they dispersed, the gods kept this symbol of truce and decided not to let it be wasted, and out of it made a man. His name was Kvasir, he was so wise that no one could ask him any questions to which he did not know the answer. He travelled widely through the world teaching people knowledge, and when he arrived as a guest to some dwarfs, Fjalar and Galar, they called him to a private discussion with them and killed him. They poured his blood into two vats and a pot, and the latter was called Odrerir, but the vats were called Son and Bodn. They mixed honey with the blood and it turned into the mead whoever drinks from which becomes a poet or scholar. The dwarfs told the Aesir that Kvasir had suffocated in intelligence because there was no one there educated enough to be able to ask him questions. Prose Edda, Anthony Faulkes trans., 1987. Passage cited found on pages 61 - 62.

The murder of Kvasir leads to the episode involving the later theft of this marvelous mead of poetry by the Aesir god Odin from the jotun maiden Gunnlod, discussed previously here, in a blog post written back in 2014 (which also contains links to some online translated versions of both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda). The celestial aspects of that encounter between Odin and Gunnlod, and the stealing of the mead of poetry by Odin (who assumes eagle form) indicate that the origin of Kvasir from the vat likely connects to celestial analogues as well, and likely in the same or an adjacent part of the heavens.

But the aspect of the story of the wisdom-being Kvasir which I would like to focus most upon today is the fact that he is said to rise into being out of a vat into which the Aesir gods and the Vanir gods spat when they reached a truce in their great conflict -- a conflict, in fact, which occupies the first lines and stanzas of the Poetic Edda as well.

In the Poetic Edda, when Odin summons forth the spirit of the wise-woman, she explains that this conflict between Aesir and Vanir had to do with the breaking of oaths and the breaching of boundary-walls, and the treading upon the fields of the Aesir by the Vanir beyond the place where they should rightly have gone (a cosmic struggle associated with the earliest epoch of the theogony, akin to the struggle between the Olympians and the Titans in the theogony of the ancient Greek gods).

Hamlet's Mill explores the celestial origins of this worldwide mythical pattern of the "boundary-violating" Titan-like figures on page 152 and following in the first paperback edition (in the chapter entitled "The Twilight of the Gods"), saying:

But here it appears that there are forces which have worked iniquity in secret. They appear everywhere, these forces, and regularly they are denounced as "overbearing," or "iniquitous," or both. But these "forces" are not iniquitous from the beginning: they turn out to be, they become overbearing in the course of time. Time alone, turns the Titans, who once ruled the Golden Age, into "workers of iniquity" (compare Appendix #12). The idea of measure stated or implied will show the basic crime of these "sinners": it is the over-reaching, overstepping of the ordained degree, and this is meant literally. 

[. . .] 

The Angel tells Enoch:  "These stars which roll around over the fire are those who, at rising time, overstepped the orders of God: they did not rise at their appointed time. And He was wroth with them, and He bound them for 10,000 years until the time when their sin shall be fulfilled. 152 - 153.

Now, what is most interesting is that if this great schism in the cosmos, represented by the battle between the Olympians and the Titans, or the Aesir and the Vanir, connects to the "boundary violating" motion of precession -- and if precession (as with all other celestial analogues in the ancient myths) has a spiritual teaching for us, in that it embodies something about our spiritual condition here in this incarnate life, then the birth from the "reconciliation" of that split of a being who can answer all questions put to it is most significant.

I would argue that it has something to do with the reason we are down here in this "battlefield of incarnation" ourselves.

Somehow, when the Aesir and the Vanir reconcile their differences, and spit one by one into the sacred vessel to signify their treaty, a being arises out of the spit-bucket that is so wise that none can put to it a question to which Kvasir does not know the answer, a being who travels the world imparting wisdom to all.

This would suggest, on the most esoteric level, that when we come down into this incarnate life which embodies an endless struggle or "interplay" between material and spiritual realms, out of this struggle (if we an somehow reconcile or integrate the two) will arise new wisdom which can be obtained in no other way: and which is so wise that there is no question whose answer cannot be found if we can access this being born of the struggle and subsequent pact.

On a more practical level, it suggests that in the struggle and interplay between different people, new knowledge and wisdom can sometimes take shape that none of the individual participants could have seen on their own -- knew insights which, like Kvasir, rise up out of the swirling "pot of spit" created by the interaction of all the different parties, but a being which is in some ways even greater than the sum of the individual "spitters."

Many of us who have been married for a long time may even recognize this to be true in the interaction between the two parties of the marriage -- two parties who may not always agree with one another on every discussion, but who (even when challenging one another) may come up with solutions and insights during the interaction which is simultaneously a product of the two very different perspectives offered by each participant, and also independent and greater than the insights either party could claim to have offered out of his or her own wisdom.

It is this aspect of the "birth of Kvasir" that I referred to when I said that new insights beyond the knowledge of any one of us would be likely to arise out of the interaction with the different personalities and perspectives of those who participate in the Graham Hancock Message Boards -- and at the conclusion of my most-recent term as Author of the Month on Graham's site (for March, 2016 -- my previous visit there having been all the way back in January of 2012) I can say for certain that new insights did indeed rise like Kvasir out of the swirl and "melee" of ideas and observations set forth in the discussions on the Board.

In this world, we face vexing questions -- often, seemingly-insurmountable or unanswerable questions.

But the Eddas containing the ancient wisdom of the Norse myths suggest that, somehow, we can have access to a wisdom which knows no question which it cannot answer.

Sometimes, we can summon this transcendent gnosis when we get together and discuss the problem with those whose perspectives are different from ours. 

But ultimately, the real "transcendent knowledge" must come from the integration of two sides even more seemingly "at odds" than any between two different people -- the integration of the two worlds whose split is represented in the great schism that caused precession, the great battle between Olympus and the Titans, or between Aesir and Vanir. 

It is, I believe, the integration and reconciliation of the realm of spirit and the realm of matter, which we are all accomplishing in our individual lives as we come down here to this incarnate life -- sparks of divine spirit-fire, encased in human-animal bodies of gross clay and plunged for a time into the realm of matter.

The ability to solve any question which faces us here in this earthly sojourn comes not only from the "swirling mix" between individual people, but also from the integration of the realm of the gods.

And that is in fact possible for us to venture even in our present state -- the myths themselves, I believe, were given to us to point us towards that very process.

Hope to see you at the 2016 Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge!

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

I'm excited to be participating in this year's Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge from September 30th through October 2nd in Rancho Mirage, California (near Palm Desert and Joshua Tree National Park).

I hope you can join us there!

Early-bird sign-ups will be ending soon -- details are available at the Conference website here.

By careful coordination with the cycles of the heavens, the Conference will commence upon the first New Moon following the September equinox for 2016 -- which means we should have excellent opportunities to view the dazzling constellations of the desert skies in southern California at that time of year. 

Scorpio, Sagittarius, Ophiucus, Hercules, Aquila, Cygnus, Aquarius, Capricorn, and even Mars and Saturn are all planning to attend -- and we will schedule a star-gazing event on the night of the New Moon (Friday, September 30th) where I will point out some of these beautiful heavenly denizens and make sure that you know how to identify them for yourself.

For some, it may be the first time that they are confident in knowing that they have identified Hercules or Aquarius or some of the other constellations visible in the hours after sunset at this time of year.

The night-time "star-walks" in the California desert will of course be included in the cost of the conference. 

In addition, there will be daytime presentations and discussion with many exciting analysts and authors, including Walter Cruttenden, Dr. Robert Schoch, Christopher Dunn, Gary Evans, John Knight Lundwall, Jason Martell, and others (including myself, naturally).

You can of course pick up a signed copy of one of my books, or bring your own to have me inscribe. And there should be some time to just say hello and catch up. 

I am looking forward to the unique perspectives brought by all the different conference speakers and everyone attending -- all the different personal experiences and areas of interest of everyone who comes should produce some conversation and interaction that can only occur when we get together in person and share thoughts and discuss ideas.

I believe it will be a fantastic event and look forward to seeing you there!

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus

image: Hermaphroditus und die Nymphe Salmakis, Bartholomeus Spranger (1546 - 1611). Wikimedia commons (link).

It is probably safe to say that there is no actual fountain on earth which literally possesses the power to cause any man who sets foot in it to emerge from the waters half-man and half-woman.

And yet Ovid, in the fourth book of his Metamorphoses, relates the story of the son of Hermes and Aphrodite whose fateful encounter with the nymph Salmacis imparted this power to the waters of the spring, as though the location and effects of that place were actually well-known in his day.

Ovid actually tells the story as a "story-within-a-story" in his poem, during an extended episode in which the daughters of Minyas refuse to set aside their work and join in the rituals of the god Dionysus, but instead continue weaving -- and as they do so, they relate stories of various interactions with the divine realm, debating amongst themselves as they do so whether or not the gods could really perform all the wonders described (a question which is answered at the end of the tale, when the impious daughters who failed to recognize the divinity of Dionysus are transformed into chattering bats).

The final story they tell before this fate befalls them is the story of Samacis and Hermaphroditus. Alcithoe, one of the daughters of Minyas, begins:

I will explain the way in which the fountain
of Salmacis, whose enervating waters
effeminate the limbs of any man
who bathes in it, came by its reputation,
for though the fountain's ill effects are famous,
their cause has never been revealed before. Metamorphoses 4. 396 - 401.

Thus in the excellent translation of Charles Martin published in 2005 and available here and elsewhere where books are sold; many earlier translations are available on the web. 

I find that very literal translations can be the most helpful for examining Star Myths for the celestial clues that may have been included in the original but which may have been "lost in translation" if the translator does not pick them up and bring them across into the new language. With literal translations, the clues are usually carried over, because the translator is trying to render the words of the original as closely as possible into the new language, even if the result sounds a little unusual.

Here is a link to such a version, from the nineteenth century scholar Roscoe Mongan. The account of the encounter between Salmacis and Hermaphroditus at the pool which ever after bore its unique powers (and ever after was named after the nymph herself, becoming "the fountain  is translated there as follows (Alcithoe is speaking as she and her sisters weave at their loom):

Learn, then, from what cause Salmacis became notorious, and why, with its enfeebling waters, it unnerves the limbs bathed in it. The cause lies hid, but the power of the spring is very well known. The Naiads nursed, in the caves of Ida, a boy, born to Mercury from the Cythereian goddess, whose face was of that kind in which both father and mother might be recognised; he also obtained his name from them. As soon as he had completed thrice five years, he forsook his native mountains and, leaving Ida, that had been his nurse, he loved to wander about in unknown places, and to see unknown rivers, his curiosity lessening the fatigue. He proceeds to the Lycian cities also, and to the Carians that border upon Lycia. He sees here a pool of water, clear even to the very ground below. There are not here any fenny reeds, nor barren sedges, nor rushes with sharp points. The water is transparent, yet the borders of the pool are fringed with fresh turf, and with plants perpetually blooming. A nymph dwells there, but one who is not suited either for the chase, nor one who is won't to bend the bow, nor one who is to compete in the foot-race, and she alone, of all the naiads, was not known to the swift Diana. The report is, that her sisters often said to her: "Salmacis, do take either a javelin, or a painted quiver, and combine they leisure time with the toilsome chase." She does not take either a javelin or a painted quiver, and she does not combine her hours, spent in leisure, with the toilsome chase; but at one time she bathes her beautiful limbs in her own fountain; often she smooths down her tresses with a comb of Cytorian box-wood; and consults the waters which she looks into [to see] what is most becoming to herself [i.e., she looks into the pool to see which way of arranging her hair is the most beautiful on her]. And, at another time, having her person enveloped in a transparent garment, she reclines either upon the soft leaves, or upon the soft grass. She often gathered flowers, and now, also, by chance, she was gathering them when she saw the youth, and wished to possess him as soon as she beheld him. However, although she was hastening to approach him, she did not actually approach to him until she had arranged herself, and until she had looked at her raiment, and had assumed her [most captivating] aspect, and deserved to appear beautiful.

Then thus she began to speak: "O boy most worthy to be believed to be a god! if thou art a god, thou mayst be Cupid; or, if thou art a mortal, happy are they who gave thee birth. [. . .] If thou hast any spouse, let my pleasure be secretly enjoyed; or, if thou hast none, let me be [thy consort], and let us enter the same bridal chamber." After these words the naiad became silent. A blush suffused the features of the young. He knows not what love is, but even the very act of blushing was becoming to him. Such a colour is in apples hanging upon a tree exposed to the sun, or in painted ivory, or in the moon blushing beneath her brightness, when he auxiliary brazen cymbals resound in vain.

To the nymph soliciting, without cessation, at least such kisses as he might give to a sixte, and to her now advancing her arms to his neck, as white as ivory, he says: "Wilt thou cease? or must I fly and leave these places, along with thyself also?" Salmacis was alarmed, and said: "I surrender these places free to thee, O stranger!" and, with a retreating step, she pretends to depart. But then, also looking back and being concealed in a thicket of shrubs, she lay hid, and placed on the ground her bended knees. But he, as being only a boy, and as if being unobserved, goes hither and thither on the lonely sward, and dips in the playful ripples [first] the soles of his feet, and [afterwards] his feet as far as the ankles. Nor is there any delay; being delighted with the temperature of the gentle waters, he throws off from his tender person his soft garments. But then, indeed, Salmacis was amazed, and became excited with desire for his unrobed beauty; the eyes, too, of the nymph burn, no otherwise than the sun, when shining most brilliantly with a clear disk, it is reflected from the opposite image of a mirror. With difficulty can she endure delay; and now with difficulty can she defer her joy. Now she desires to embrace him; and now, distracted with love, she can scarcely restrain herself. He, striking his body with his hands bent inwards, swiftly plunges into the stream, and throwing out his arms alternately, shines in the clear waters, just as if any one were to enclose ivory figures, or white lilies, within clear glass.

"We have conquered!" exclaims the naiad, "lo, he is mine!" and, throwing all her garments far away, she plunges into the midst of the waters, and seizes him, resisting her, and snatches kisses in the struggle, and puts down her hand and touches his breast much against his will; and clings around the youth, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another. Finally she entangles him struggling hard against her, and anxious to escape from her, like a serpent, which the royal bird takes up and carries away aloft it, as it hangs suspended, holds fast his head and feet and entangles his expanded wings with its tail.

And [she clung to him as closely] as the tendrils of the ivy are wont to entwine themselves around the tall trunks of trees, and as the polypus, but letting down his sucker on all sides, grasps his enemy captured beneath the water. The descendant of Atlas persists, and denies to the nymph her hoped-for joy. She presses him closely, and as she was clinging to him with her entire person she said: "Although thou mayest struggle, O thou obstinate being! notwithstanding this thou shalt not escape. May ye so ordain it, O ye gods! and let no length of time separate him from me or me from him!" These supplications obtained the favour of the [lit. their own] deities, for the persons of these two, becoming incorporated, are united together, and one form includes both of them, just as if anyone should see from beneath a bark formed over both of them, branches to become united in their growth and to spring up equally. Thus, after their bodies were united in a firm embrace, they are no longer two bodies; but yet the form of them is two-fold; so that it could be called neither woman nor boy; it seems to be neither, and yet both.

Wherefore, when Hermaphroditus sees that the clear waters, into which he had descended as a man, had rendered him only half a male, and that his limbs were becoming softened in them; holding up his hands, he says, but now not with the voice of a man: "O both father and mother! grant this favour to your son who has the name of you both. Whosoever comes as a man to these streams, let him go out thence as half a man, and let him suddenly become effeminate in the waters that he touches." Both parents being moved, confirmed the words of their double-shaped son, and tinged the fountain with a drug that renders sex ambiguous. 11 - 14.

Where is this famous fountain, whose properties were apparently well-known? Is it possible that it actually existed in ancient times, or that its waters still possess such properties to this day?

I believe in fact that this fountain actually does exist -- but that it is located in the celestial realms, and not on earth. The pool is found at the widest, brightest section of the Milky Way band, where the two zodiac constellations of Scorpio and Sagittarius are stationed on either side (visible this time of year in the hours prior to sunrise). 

The clearest indication that this is the section of the night sky to which this myth is giving reference is the extended metaphor in which the poet compares the clinging of Salmacis to the person of Hermaphroditus to a serpent being carried upwards by an eagle, and twisting and wrapping about the bird. This metaphor clearly points to the two Milky Way constellations of Aquila and Scorpio, the Eagle of Aquila being located above the Scorpion in this brightest portion of the Milky Way band.

In fact, I believe that from the clues in the ancient poem itself (the best extant version of this particular myth, although it is also referenced by the earlier historian Diodorus Siculus, and obviously has an origin much earlier in the mythology of ancient Greece rather than Rome, since the boy's name is a combination of the Greek names of the god Hermes and goddess Aphrodite, rather than the Roman versions of the same, although Ovid of course uses their Roman names Mercury and Venus), the youth who dips his feet into the waters is played by the constellation Ophiucus, which is flanked by serpents on either side -- just as Salmacis is described as clinging to him with her entire body, like a serpent, first on one side and then on the other.

In the diagram below, you can see that Ophiucus is "dipping his feet" into the pool (the widest and brightest part of the Milky Way band):

The nymph Salmacis is probably Scorpio, crouching in a thicket before she rushes out to wrap herself around Hermaphroditus, although earlier in the poem some of the description suggests Virgo (particularly the part about gathering flowers when she first spies Hermaphroditus -- can you see what celestial features might play a role in this part of the account?)

The struggle that ensues contains an extended metaphor involving an eagle ("the royal bird") and a snake -- again, this probably refers to Aquila and Scorpio, and is a pattern found in many myths and traditions involving this part of the sky.

After Hermaphroditus emerges from the pool, now merged with Salmacis and sharing the gender of both man and woman, the waters from then on have the power of effecting the same change upon those with whom they come in contact. 

The constellation Sagittarius, which in ancient Greek myth frequently plays characters of either male or female sex (as you will see if you examine the evidence discussed in my latest book, Star Myths of the World and how to interpret them, Volume Two) may play the role of Hermaphroditus emerging from the stream, now changed. 

Thus, the "action" of the myth can be said to commence on the right of our screen as we look at the star chart above (the west) and proceed towards the east -- a very significant direction of movement, from a spiritual point of view (this is also discussed in the latest book). The two figures of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis begin on the right side of the sky (as we look towards the south in the northern-hemisphere view above), then they go into the fountain and there is a struggle (described in terms of a serpent entwining about an eagle) and emerge on the other side as one hermaphroditic figure (Sagittarius).

From the above analysis, we can be confident that the above encounter never actually took place on this earth between literal, historical figures who merged into one being. 

But that does not mean that the myth itself is "not true."

In fact, I believe the myths are actually true, and on many profound levels (perhaps not just "many levels" but rather infinite levels, descending deeper and deeper without end).

One of the ways that they are true is that they describe the experience of our human soul, "plunged down" into this material realm, a realm characterized by the "lower elements" of earth and water (as opposed to the "upper elements" of air and fire).

When our invisible spirit takes on a material body, we become for a time a "blended being" composed of both divine soul and physical form.

Myths having to do with the "plunge" into the waters of incarnation often do involve the constellation Virgo, who stands at the edge of the "lower half" of the year, at the point of autumnal equinox (see discussion in this previous post).

But the plunge down into matter often involves (at first) the loss of awareness of our spiritual or divine inner spark, as we sink more and more into sensual enjoyment of the body (and Salmacis is described as basically spending all of her time in such enjoyment, looking at her reflection in the water, combing her hair and bathing her limbs, and lying around in the grass wearing diaphanous garments). At a certain point, there is a "spiritual turn" at which we begin to have an awakening of awareness of our spiritual nature -- and I believe that this myth actually depicts that very point of awakening, when Salmacis sees the child of Hermes and Aphrodite and exclaims that he must be of divine origin, and that she must have him.

The integration of the two natures is actually the point of this famous incident, I believe -- portrayed here in the frank sexual imagery sometimes employed in ancient myth, but actually using the sexes as a way of expressing spiritual concepts in allegorical or metaphorical form: to "clothe" the truths of the invisible reality in the physical forms of nature, to better convey them to our deeper understanding.

As we begin to understand how to interpret the myths in the language which they are actually speaking, the language in which they actually ask us to listen to them, we can begin to hear a message that we might otherwise have totally missed.

Each and every ancient myth is worthy of deep and careful contemplation, and the above explication of the myth of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus may serve as an example of the sort of examination and meditation we can profit by applying to the myths of the portions of the corpus of ancient wisdom which draws each of us most strongly (some will perhaps find themselves drawn to the myths of ancient Greece, others to the myths of ancient India or ancient Japan, or of the cultures spread across the vast Pacific, or the continents of Africa or Australia or the Americas, and so forth).

In fact, the above discussion only barely ripples the surface (so to speak) of the deep pool of the fountain of Salmacis: one could meditate upon this tiny portion of the stories in Ovid's work, and in the wider context of the daughters of Minyas, for years on end and probably never exhaust the amazing lessons that it might hold for him or her.

image: an engraving by Magdalena van de Passe (1600 - 1638). Wikimedia commons (link).

!Despertemos, humanidad!

video link

Two weeks ago, just after midnight on the morning of March the Third (2016), Berta Cáceres was murdered in her bed with four bullets fired from a gun (or guns). It was the day before her 45th birthday.

She was the co-founder of COPINH, the Consejo Civico de Organizaciones Populares e Indigenas de Honduras (the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras), and the recipient less than one year ago of the 2015 Richard and Rhoda Goldman Environmental Prize for her leadership in standing against the displacement of the indigenous Lenca people in order to dam the rio Gualcarque to provide power needed for massive corporate mining projects.

While the question of whether or not to dam a river for energy needs may be complex and multi-sided, the question of whether it is right to murder a woman and mother who speaks out for her people and against the violation of human rights is not complex and it is not multi-sided at all: it is always a heinous, inexcusable, and catastrophic crime.

The Lenca people (or "Pueblo Lenca," en espanol) are the largest indigenous group in Honduras. Their way of life has been severely suppressed over the past centuries (at times with overt violence), and their original native language has been virtually eradicated and lost forever.

Nevertheless, the Lenca people have managed to hold on to many of their ancient traditions and beliefs, one of the most distinctive and widely-remarked upon in literature being the ritual of compostura, a world which signifies "mending," "fixing," or "repairing."

In Dimensions of Ritual Economy (Volume 27 in the academic series entitled Research in Economic Anthropology), edited by H. Christian Wells and Patricia A. McAnany (2008), compostura is described as follows:

Compostura, meaning literally "fix" or "repair," is a complex set of ritual performances conducted anytime someone attempts to disturb the natural landscape through various activities, such as planting or harvesting crops, hunting game, collecting firewood, or drawing water from a stream. [. . .] Regardless of the scale of the compostura, each one is conducted basically in a similar manner. The host gathers with his or her family (together referred to as the principales) and invited guests (called gente común) and erects a scaffold made of pine boughs to which one or more crosses and several sprigs of zomos (a plant that grows in trees in high altitudes) are attached. [. . .] After the altar has been prepared, the host lights the candles and burns the copal, and then asks the ancestors through prayer and chants to accept the "gifts" of chocolate, alcohol, and blood as payment and for permission to disturb their world. The work begins and alcohol is consumed, sometimes in large quantities throughout the task. [. . .] Lenca environmental worldview does not differentiate between terrestrial and celestial landscapes. The orchard, pasture, and agricultural field are cosmic realms inhabited by communal ancestors. 194 - 198.

The centrality of this aspect of the cosmological vision (or cosmovision) of the Lenca people, expressed in the understanding that there is no actual differentiation between the invisible realm of the ancestors or spirits (also referred to as los ancianos or "the ancient ones") and the terrestrial landscape through which we ourselves move in our "ordinary reality," and that what we do in the natural world impacts the supernatural world -- resulting in the need to ask permission for any disturbance of the game, the soil, the woods, or the rivers -- should make it very clear why the Pueblo Lenca was so upset when without warning or notice or explanation, strangers started to show up with construction equipment and drive it across the bean plots of the Lenca farmers, on the way to the sacred Gualcarque river, where the men with their construction machinery began to emplace concrete works in preparation of damming it up.

In explaining her leadership of opposition to the damming of the Gualcarque river without the consent of the people being displaced from the area, Berta expressed the spiritual significance of the river to the traditional vision of the cosmos and the interconnectedness of the invisible and visible realms. In the video above, she says:

Este rio tiene un importancia ancestral, espiritual, porque en ello vive el espiritu femenino desde la cosmovision del Pueblo Lenca.
 Y siempre se no han senando de que son las ninas que custodian nos rios
 Y este rio Gualcarque sirve para la alimentacion, y hay plantas medicinales, y he por supuesto el agua sirve para muchas poblaciones, rio abajo
 Y yo creo que significa vida.

[my transcription of what she says in opening scenes of the video, which I would translate literally -- with apologies for any errors, as follows:  "This river has an importance ancestral, spiritual, because in him there lives the feminine spirit of the cosmology or cosmic vision of the Pueblo Lenca. And always I know they have not heard that there are the young girls that are protect the rivers. And this river Gualquarque serves for nourishment, and there are medicinal plants, and of course the water serves many people, down-stream. And I believe that it signifies Life."]

This way of seeing and expressing the violation that was being perpetrated, in spiritual terms as well as in terms of sheer physical sustenance provided by the river, is striking and significant.

In her now-famous acceptance speech for the 2015 Goldman Economic Prize, shown in the video below, Berta says something very similar:

video link

As I understand it, she says the following:

Gracias, Buenas Noches, Gracias a la familia Goldman.

En nuestras cosmovisiones, somos eres surgido de la tierra, el agua, y el maíz. 

De los rios, somos custodianos ancestralejal cola Lenca.

Resguardados ademas por los espíritus de las niñas, que nos enseñan que dar la vida de múltiples formas por la defensa de los rios es dar la vida para el bien de la humanidad y de este planeta.

El COPINH caminando con pueblos por su emancipación, ratifica el compromiso de seguir defendo el agua, los rios, y nuestros buenos comunes y de la naturaleza.

Asi como nuestro derecho como pueblos.

!Despertemos! 

!Despertemos, humanidad!

Ya no hay tiempo.

Nuestras conciencias, nuestras conciencias seran sacudidas (?) por el hecho de estar solo contemplando la autodestrucción basada en la depredación capitalista, racista, y patriarcal.

El rio Gualcarque nos ha llamado.  Asi como la demás que están seriamente amenazados en todo el mundo.

Debemos acudir. 

La madre tierra -- militarizada, cercada, envenenada, donde violan sistemáticamente derechos elementales -- nos exige actuar.

Construyamos entonces sociedades capace coexistir de manera justa, digna, y por la vida. Juntemonos, y sigamos con esperanza defendiendo y cuidando en la sangre de la tierra y de sus espiritus.

Dedico este premio a todo las rebeldias, a mi madre, al Pueblo Lenca, a Rio Blanco, al COPINH, y asi los martires por la defensa de lo naturaleza.

Muchas gracias.

My translation (again, with apologies for any errors) of the above speech is as follows:

Thank you, good evening -- thank you to the family Goldman.

In our cosmology or cosmic vision, we are "surged forth" or sprouted from the land, the water, and the maíz or corn.

Of the rivers, we are the custodians of the long ancestral line of the Lenca.

Watched over, moreover, by the spirits of the young girls, who call us [with the message that] to give our lives in many forms for the defense of the rivers is to give our life for the good of humanity, and for the good of this planet.

The Council COPINH walks along with the people for emancipation, carrying out the solemn promise to defend the water, the rivers, our good communities, and nature in general.

Such is our right as the people. 

We must wake up!

We must wake up, humanity!

There is no longer any time.

Our consciences, our consciences should be shaken-up [I am uncertain if I am hearing this word correctly in the original, but if so it is probably sacudidas] for the work of being focusing solely upon the self-destruction that is based upon or built upon the depredations of capitalism, racism, and patriarchalism. 

The river Gualcarque has called to us. In this same manner are the rest threatened or menaced in all the world.

We have an obligation to rescue or succor.

The earth mother -- militarized, fenced-in, envenomed or poisoned, where the elemental rights are systematically violated -- urges us to get moving.

We should construct, then, societies with the capacity of coexisting in a just manner, with dignity, and for Life. 

Join together, and then -- with hope and caring -- protect the blood of the earth and the spirits.

I dedicate this award to all of the rebels; to my mother; to the Pueblo Lenca; to Rio Blanco; to COPINH; and additionally to the martyrs who have defended the natural world.

Muchas gracias.

This is an eloquent and moving and rousing speech. While those who have accepted (almost as a tenet of religious faith) that the word "capitalism" is identical to "freedom," "prosperity," and "goodness" may have cringed at Berta's identification of the self-destruction being wrought by the three depredations of capitalism, racism, and patriarchalism, it is quite evident that if by "capitalism" is meant the criminal murder of those who stand in the way of your dams and mines (which is exactly what happened to Berta Cáceres two weeks ago (and others in COPINH have also been murdered before and since), then this quasi-religious devotion to the term "capitalism" needs serious reconsideration.

When in previous centuries the Middle Kingdom of China did not want to trade their tea, silk and fine ceramic (now known as "china") for any western goods, and the leaders of China tried to say "no" to the foreign powers who wanted to trade the addictive products of the opium poppy for those Chinese products, the response by the outside powers who wanted "free trade" was to begin wantonly killing people in China in massive numbers using large guns mounted on boats sailing up the rivers (giving rise to the mordant term "gunboat diplomacy," as in "discussions which use massive guns throwing explosive projectiles at your towns and cities").

Obviously, upon a moment's reflection, anyone can see that this was in no way "free trade" or an example of the much-vaunted "western" devotion to the so-called "rule of law" (which some western apologists claim is a characteristic of western civilization and no other civilization on earth).

If the only way one can enjoy tea is by murdering in order to have access to the luxury of drinking tea, then there is no excuse for that kind of trade.

While we may like to think that such behavior was only common in previous centuries and that the world has moved on from such depredations, the murder of Berta Cáceres and other leaders of the resistance to the damming of the rio Gualcarque proves otherwise.

It should also be noted that the number of permits for massive mining projects, for which the rivers in question were to be dammed in order to provide energy, skyrocketed after the military coup enacted in Honduras in 2009 -- which the US at the time refused to condemn or even to label a military coup (which would have necessitated the cessation of the massive amounts of aid, coming from the tax dollars levied on the people of the United States, being sent to the government of Honduras that now consisted of a military junta that had accomplished the coup).

In the video at top, anyone can clearly see that all the Honduran military personnel supporting the damming and mining projects against the protests of the indigenous people are wearing US kevlar helmets and US-patterned camouflage fatigues and US-style load-bearing equipment (LBEs), and that they are carrying US-designed and supplied M-16 rifles, and driving in US-style HMMWVs ("hummvees"). They are also carrying their weapons in a manner that suggests US training (to anyone who knows anything about this subject), and a simple search for more information on this subject will reveal that some have found evidence which suggests that the military officers from Honduras who carried out the 2009 coup were trained in the notorious (and US-taxpayer funded) School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.

This suggests a level of culpability in the coup -- and in the murder of Berta Cáceres and others since the coup took place -- among the leaders (and, by extension, the taxpayers) of the US, a level of culpability which should be investigated by the government representatives elected by the American people, who themselves are paid by the taxes of the American people and who are dispensing the money which comes from the taxes of the American people and which is then used to purchase US-made military gear such as that which is shown in the video above.

If corporations are "persons" who are allowed to give campaign donations in elections under the Constitutional protection of free speech (a contentious topic, since corporations are not really "persons" except as a legal fiction), then those corporate "persons" should be held accountable if they are in any way accomplices to murder or involved in a conspiracy to commit murder -- and they should face the possibility of being completely dissolved if it can be proven that any officials in the banks or mining companies had any prior knowledge regarding the commission of such crimes as the murder of Berta Cáceres (rather than the usual process of just paying a few millions of dollars to the families of the victims if the corporations are forced to do so in order to quiet public opinion, which they are happy to do if it allows them to then move on and make billions or tens of billions after that). Any actual persons who are implicated in such crimes should of course face criminal charges as well.

If the persons who carried out the military coup in Honduras were trained in the School of the Americas, then it too should be dissolved and disbanded -- and any US military officers who know they were responsible for such training should consider making apologies to the families of persons murdered by the junta that perpetrated that coup, whether murdered in 2009 or in the years since then.

But now to return to the eloquent vision of the brave Berta Cáceres -- it is extremely striking that she is expressing what appears to be a Lenca understanding that the rivers are guarded by the spirits of young girls, and that she sees that the destruction of the river that is sacred to the Lenca actually calls to all of us with the message that "in the same manner are the rest threatened or menaced in all the world."

In other words, whatever mentality is threatening the destruction of the Gualcarque (a mentality which in fact goes beyond the specific banks and mining companies and even individual persons who were working to destroy the specific river in Honduras) is the same mentality which in fact threatens all the rest of the rivers in all the world -- and indeed, not just the rivers but everyone and everything.

Because in the Lenca wisdom which Berta Cáceres is communicating and which motivated her to act, the spirits which are associated with the rivers are the feminine spirits and the spirits of young girls -- and it should be clear to anyone upon only a moment of reflection that without women there will not be any human life on earth for very much longer.

And what is most striking to me is the fact that while this specific identification of the spiritual aspect of the river with the espiritus of women and young girls may seem completely alien or incomprehensible to those of us who were not raised in the Pueblo Lenca, in point of fact the ancient myths of Greece associate the spirit of the rivers with goddesses and young maidens time and time again.

We can see this association with the encounter of Odysseus with the princess Nausicaa and her other maidens-in-waiting in the Odyssey. We can see it in the description of the goddess Aphrodite and her attendant Graces, who wash her and anoint her in her sacred grove in Cyprus. And we can certainly see it in the famous episode of Actaeon and the goddess Artemis, in which the young hunter Actaeon accidentally stumbles across the goddess Artemis and her attendant Nymphs, when the goddess is bathing in her sacred grotto in the valley which Ovid calls Gargaphie.

In all of these cases (and there are others), the ancient Greek myths specifically associate rivers with goddesses and with young maidens.

The celestial reasons for this association are discussed in some length in my most recent book, Star Myths of the World and how to interpret them, Volume Two.

But it should be quite clear from the fact that Artemis is the goddess who presides over every child's birth that the very preservation and continuation of the human race is connected to the espiritu feminino expressed by the Lenca tradition which is specifically associated with the river in the Lenca cosmovision -- and in the ancient Greek cosmovisionas well.

In the story of Actaeon, the results suggest that the one who violates or breaches the sacred boundaries of the river, and desecrates (even unintentionally) the sacred place of the goddess and her divine maidens, will lose his humanity, and be reduced to the condition of an animal, a beast -- losing contact with the spiritual world of the Infinite, which would certainly seem to be a situation that would have serious spiritual ramifications.

This is another reason why the message proclaimed by Berta Cáceres is so urgent, and so powerful. The ancient myths, even from around the world, suggest that to miss what she is saying is to risk being turned into brute beasts (our behavior on a large scale seems to suggest that this may have already happened, and Berta's murder certainly seems to confirm this dire assessment).

The fact that this very same understanding, preserved in the Pueblo Lenca all the way on the other side of the world, was also present among the sacred stories of the myths of ancient Greece, suggests that we have somehow become disconnected -- dangerously disconnected -- from something we once knew, and which once helped us to observe the proper respect for the rivers and the forests and the spirit world that flows through every aspect of this world.

In the scholarly journal description of the compostura quoted above, we see that the "Lenca environmental worldview does not differentiate between terrestrial and celestial landscapes." There is no clear barrier between the two worlds, between the spirit-realm of the ancianos and the ordinary realm where we do our business or grow our food-crops or trade our goods and services.

The world around us was known to be connected to and interpenetrated by the Infinite Realm, everywhere and at all times.

This is the vision which infuses the mythology of ancient Greece, and indeed the myths and sacred traditions of virtually every culture on the planet.

Somewhere, "western civilization" became disconnected from this vision and this understanding.

Berta Cáceres urgently calls to us that we need to wake up. There is no longer any time to ignore this issue or politely pretend that it does not exist.

We should construct societies which can coexist with each other in a just manner, with dignity, and for Life.

Amaterasu, revisited

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

I've now completed the links for the first twenty-six "squares" on the mosaic-board of Star Myth links in the myths section of my new website, Star Myth World (dot com).

While there are still more to go (and more to be added in the future), you may enjoy perusing some of them now, and continuing to check back later.

The most recent Star Myth to be linked there is the story of Amaterasu -- and it is well worth revisiting. Here is the link to the new page discussing that myth, with illustrations and star-charts.

In addition to all that this myth can teach us regarding our sojourn through this incarnate life in the material plane, the story of Amaterasu also contains elements which I believe clearly link it with the story of Abraham and Sarah in the Hebrew Scriptures, and with the story of Loki and Skade in the Norse myths, and which thus provide us with yet more evidence that the sacred traditions and ancient wisdom preserved by all the different cultures spread across the surface of our planet earth share a common, celestial foundation.

The story of Amaterasu is discussed in even greater detail in the first volume of my multi-volume series, Star Myths of the World, and how to interpret them.

Its spiritual significance, and ways in which this story from the Kojiki of ancient Japan links to the spiritual themes at the heart of the Iliad of ancient Greece, is also discussed in Star Myths of the World, Volume Two (just recently published).

Volume One and Volume Two each have a very different "feel." 

In Volume One, we explore together a small sampling of myths and sacred stories selected from a wide variety of cultures around the world, in order to introduce some of the elements of the "language" of celestial metaphor which is operating in the Star Myths of the world, and to provide abundant evidence that this language is indeed a world-wide phenomenon.

In Volume Two, we focus primarily on the myths of ancient Greece, going into great depth (and yet only really "scratching the surface" of the depth and breadth of the incredible ancient wisdom available in that body of ancient wisdom).

In Volume Two, by virtue of the greater "depth" with which we are able to explore the myths of a single ancient tradition, we also get deeper into the spiritual message which I believe the treasure of humanity's mythologies is trying to preserve and convey for our benefit, and how the "spiritual language" of the ancient myths may work.

That system is discussed in numerous previous posts as well -- for understanding the message of the story of Amaterasu, I believe the post entitled "Here it has reached its turning point" is very pertinent.

The name of the goddess Amaterasu, 天照 , is composed of two characters which mean "heaven" and "shine" or "splendor" or "glory" in Chinese and Japanese.

Remembering March 11, 2011

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

On this day, March 11, it is appropriate to take time to remember those whose lives were lost in the tragic earthquake and tsunami five years ago.

As I wrote here four years ago, one year after the disaster, it is also appropriate to deliberately take time to meditate upon compassionate thoughts and the desire for the reduction of suffering, and to take whatever actions we can to reduce the suffering of others (especially those affected by the disastrous earthquake and tsunami in Japan) wherever we see a way to do so. [link]

As is now well known, the impact of the tsunami on that day caused the meltdown of three of the six nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

As is perhaps not as widely known, the knowledge of these meltdowns was deliberately withheld from the public for months after the fact.

As this CNN article reports, a senior official and representative of the Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency was fired after mentioning the possibility of a core meltdown in a press conference the day after the disaster. The same article notes there was a "perceived conflict of interest" because the Safety Agency was subordinate to a parent agency "responsible for promoting nuclear power."

The decision to hide the fact of the meltdown of the cores of three of the nuclear reactors from the public by the agencies and individuals -- for months -- is obviously reprehensible, repugnant, and criminal.

That information of such magnitude was deliberately covered up should cause people to ask what else about the magnitude of the nuclear aspects of this catastrophe might also have been downplayed since that terrible day -- or might continue to be kept from the people who deserve to have the information they need to make decisions about their own health and safety (and that of their families and loved ones).

I believe that when people have lost their lives, it is a dishonor to their memory to cover up the truth of what happened or to decide that it is too painful to seek after that truth. I cannot imagine that someone who lost his or her life in a disaster would say to those who survived, "Please don't try to find out the truth -- it might be too painful."

I hope that we can all take the time today to think compassionate thoughts for those affected most directly by the disaster, and that in the days and years to come we will also dedicate ourselves to finding the truth about historical events that took the lives of others, because we know that there are some who are determined to cover up the truth.