Myths – The Seminary of Praying Mantis Publishing

“No, one is not twenty-one again, but one has earned the gravitas, through life experience, to find that same youthful flame of passion again to create a unique, very personal life.”

~ The Astrology of Midlife and Aging, Erin Sullivan

One profound moment I can recall when myth and literature merged in my life started with a long stick, or some call sheath, of fennel and a stencil of Chiron.

Uranus goes Direst in Taurus 2023

“…so, it was left to Heracles to arrange a bargain with Zeus to exchange Chiron’s immortality for the life of Prometheus, who had been chained to a rock and left to die for his transgressions.” ~ Apollodorus, 2.5.4

Santa Monica Mountain Promethean Fennel sheath

They were in opposition to each other for a few years. I sat between them in my living room. Fennel was cut from a plant from my front yard. It stood about as tall as me. As it dries, a thick fennel stick becomes stronger and more resilient.

It rests near my hearth. The Chiron stencil is upon the wall in my living room. Art, I created years ago when my oldest son was young.

Yet there they were. I learned about the mythology that tells a story of Prometheus. He brought fire to humanity in such a fennel stick.

For this sacrifice he was punished and tortured by Zeus. Bound to a rock, and so the story goes.

Prometheus, it is the logos—that is, knowledge, consciousness, in a word—that lifts man above nature. But this achievement brings him into a tragic position between animal and God. Because of it, he is no longer the child of Mother Nature; he is driven out of paradise, but also, he is no god, because he is still tied inescapably to his body and its natural laws, just as Prometheus was fettered to the rock. Although this painful state of suspension, of being torn between spirit and nature, has long been familiar to man, it is only recently that woman has really begun to feel the conflict. And with this conflict, which goes hand in hand with increase of consciousness, we come back to the animus that eventually leads to the opposites, to nature and spirit and their harmonization.

~Jung, Emma. Animus and Anima: Two Essays (pp. 11-12). Spring Publications. Kindle Edition.

As if a secret story was told only to me. I finally comprehended it clearly. I imagined dancing around while holding hands with my two dear friends. I finally stumbled upon a hidden myth that it was Chiron who set Prometheus free.

The day I found this out. My living room bounded with joy. Here in my little living room, I came to understand this mystery! I felt liberated as well in a magical way.

It took me a great deal of time to see this, but there they were in opposition to each other. Yet not them but the struggle was in me. I mused so many imagined ideas. How much longer was it that I also stumbled upon the quote from Shelly’s prose Prometheus Unbound? I suddenly read the passage and knew the truth of what I read.

A conversation between the earth and moon. Prose describing the liberation of Prometheus towards the heavens.

Chiron, in Greek mythology, one of the Centaurs, the son of the Titan Cronus and Philyra, an Oceanid or sea nymph. Chiron lived at the foot of Mount Pelion in Thessaly. Unlike other Centaurs, who were violent and savage, he was famous for his wisdom and knowledge of medicine.

The moment Chiron sets Prometheus free.

The Earth

The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness!

The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness,

The vaporous exultation not be confined!

Ha! Ha! the animation of delight

Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light,

And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind.

The Moon

Brother mine, calm wanderer,

Happy globe of land and air,

Some Sprint is darted like a beam from thee,

Which penetrated my frozen frame,

And passes with the warmth of flame,

With love, and odour, and deep melody

Through me through me!

(320 _ 330 Prometheus Unbound)

I cried. my heart almost leaps out with him towards the heavens. Overjoyed how this all came together. I bear witness to this. Now I share my joy here. To at least know in a creative way, how liberation may be viewed by the earth and the moon. Also, I address humanity … we need to see how precious literature merged with mythology is. To feel it and be inspired. To know the hope, it offers us now!

Now to take this story further. Finding out that I will be working with Uranus, which is now in opposition to Uranus in my birth chart. I am taken down on a path to know Uranus better. To know myself better as well as humanity. I realize as we get older, we all share in this journey. Be it consciously or unconsciously. I want to know Uranus better consciously.

I already know Uranus better than I knew. I stumbled upon a book that made me realize all this time I had a relationship with the Uranian myth through what I have known about Prometheus.

“…the planet Uranus was reflected in the myth of Prometheus: the initiation of radical change, the passion for freedom, the defiance of authority, the act of cosmic rebellion against a universal structure to free humanity of bondage, the urge to transcend limitation, the intellectual brilliance and genius, the element of excitement and risk. So also Prometheus’s style in outwitting the gods, when he used subtle stratagems and unexpected timing to upset the established order: he, too, was called the cosmic trickster. And the resonant symbol of Prometheus’s fire conveyed at once several meanings—the creative spark, cultural and technological breakthrough, the enhancement of human autonomy, the liberating gift from the heavens, sudden enlightenment, intellectual and spiritual awakening—all which astrologers consider to be connected with the planet Uranus.”

~ Tarnas, Richard. Prometheus the Awakener (pp. 20-21). Spring Publications, Inc. Kindle Edition

“The same story was told of a certain Irish Tribe in Ossory, who became wolf-people when attending their Yuletide feast, devouring the flesh of cattle as wolves, and afterward regaining their human shape.”

s0088 — Romulus and Remus She Wolf (Ancient Rome)

Myths, fairy tales, children’s stories and scary stories seem to be just that. Yet if we pull the colorful ribbon to open these gifts, they share and reveal depth and revelations unimaginable and so “pow” exciting. History, wisdom, and ancient festivals move through the words condensed at a time when ‘the Church’ and ‘modern science’ did not own us.

A time when customs where not patriarchal. This knowledge revealed is often through the process of initiation or other worldly investigation. Sometimes taking the fire of passion to awaken these stories of truth. All the emotions come to play, and, in the process, we can be enlightened. When we begin to see the truths hidden within them.

It can be political or historically colored in the destruction of a world where festivals celebrated by Indigenous peoples’ stories can become alive once more. Where our unconscious holds the needed keys to open the truth. Legends can be upside down or reversed where evil is not evil and where righteousness contains the core of perversion, lies and powerful untruths.

We can skip lightly through these myths, fairy tales, children’s stories and scary stories or we can dive into them.

The evil Werewolf is partly a creation of the Inquisition, and the word lycanthropy was used then to describe it, which influences our modern perspective of a werewolf being something evil.

This lie is created by the Inquisition. A local villager, dressed in the pelt or skin of a wolf, stole an animal from a rich man’s livestock. Captured and branded as a thief and declared possessed by the devil. He was tortured and declared evil. The term used was lycanthropy. A person who transforms into a wolf.

celtic_wolves_by_microraptorarts-d2thd5w

Dressing in the skin of a wolf was an ancient custom and part of many peasant festivals. It is the celebration of the hunt, nature, and the Goddess.

The poor peasant thief is transformed into someone evil only by a period of history when an Inquisition was on a mission to transform and destroy ancient peasant customs, especially those holding dear the mysteries of nature and the Goddess.

“The She-Wolf was another aspect of the Triple Goddess, as shown by her triadic motherhood. Festivals embrace this continuity from ancient times by way of oral tradition, dance, rites, and rituals. Known as the “wolf-clan tradition.””

“Grandmother, what big arms you have!”

“All the better to hug you with, my dear.”

“Grandmother, what big legs you have!”

“All the better to run with, my child.”

“Grandmother, what big ears you have!”

“All the better to hear with, my child.”

“Grandmother, what big eyes you have!”

“All the better to see with, my child.”

“Grandmother, what big teeth you have got!”

“All the better to eat you up with.

And, saying these words, this wicked wolf fell upon Little Red Riding Hood, and ate her all up.”
~Charles Perrault `

Little Red Riding Hood is a story that contains an ancient tradition.

“The Red woven hood was the distinguishing mark of a prophetess or priestess…was part of a Virgin-Mother-Crone Trinity.”

In conclusion this has been a general look, a laywoman’s study, of ribbons pulled; a look at the she-wolf clan and red hoods and poor peasants. Life is a mystery and I find that these stories of antiquity show us a great deal more about the mystery of life then we know. The only thing evil presented here is the Roman Catholic Inquisition.

Notes and quotes taken from Barbara G. Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets.
Ossory
http://www.britannica.com/place/Ossory
Inquisition
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Inquisition

“The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, but convictions of unrepentant heresy were handed over to the secular courts, which generally resulted in execution or life imprisonment. The Inquisition had its start in the 12th-century Kingdom of France, with the aim of combating religious deviation (e.g. apostasy or heresy), particularly among the Cathars and the Waldensians. The inquisitorial courts from this time until the mid-15th century are together known as the Medieval Inquisition. Other groups investigated during the Medieval Inquisition, which primarily took place in France and Italy, include the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites, and the Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges.”
~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition