PBP: J is for Justice (Dike)

Yeah I know that this isn’t very creative but I really have been stuck for about a week on what to write as nothing was really coming to mind. So this is the best y’all are getting for the letter J. But that said, she is a very important figure as Dike is the goddess who sees all acts of injustice and acts against them, and likewise hears all falsehoods and witnesses all treachery. With that in mind, consider too that she is considered the councillor of Zeus and it certainly sets a certain weight on her importance, as she not only imparts all that she witnesses, but also often personally carries out action against injustice.

Of course in the U.S, we like to imagine Dike as a figure which is blinded. Blind justice. On one hand I can imagine that it is supposed to represent that justice is blind to social status, ethnicity, wealth etc, but on the other, especially in these times, it seems that blinding her can also make her seem as a goddess who is not capable of seeing injustice, and her scales are weighted down and tampered with as she stands unknowing with sword in hand. So, whereas in my youth I appreciated the image of the blinded Dike because of what that represented, it seems anymore that I have become jaded towards what we call “justice” that is so against the divine providence of Dike who is the defender of law….to a degree mortal law, but to a greater degree the greater laws of nature and the gods, so much so that it is not surprising to see Dike equated directly as the same being as her mother Themis who bore her from union with Zeus. If Themis provides divine law, Dike is that law which she has born forth for divine law itself is not injustice. The only injust laws are the fallable ones of humanity, and in such we can make good laws or good order by Eunomia which is but an echoe of the right law, the divine law, of Themis . In such fashion Dike is also the law of her father even as she is the law of her mother. This is what makes her the perfect councillor of Zeus who is as father and judge of all men and gods. Naturally, Dike brings forth her own result that we see in her own daughter Hesykhia, or Tranquility. For one who lives in accordance to Dike, who is not injust, nor acting in an unlawful manner and deceitful, nor filled with hubris, experiences happiness and contentment. Making it even more so reasonable that Dike herself is part of a triumvate of goddess bent towards this end, her two sisters being Eunomia, or Good Order or Lawfulness, and Eirene, or Peace. But to get back to my point, I see no reason to make Justice blind, because by her nature she sees all but has a different system of value. It is not necessary to make her blind. For it is said by Aeschylus in Agamemnon: “From gilded mansions, where men’s hands are foul, she departs with averted eyes and makes her way to pure homes; she does not worship the power of wealth stamped counterfeit by the praise of men, and she guides all things to their proper end.” Dike will happily dwell with the humble and poor, if they hold justice and rightful action in regard.

Of course there are other gods with whom Dike can be associated with remotely. As Apollon is a god of truth, I have often considered him a protector of law which would be a part of his nature as a god of the demos in Athens and god of the assembly in Sparta. He is the preserver of divine law. It was for this reason that it inspired me some months ago to write a poem regarding Justice and Apollon against the injust legal systems. And then there is Ares too, whom Dike has been depicted, by the aid of Hermes, to have Ares chained that the implimentation of war should be controlled by Justice with the aid of Intelligence (represented by Hermes). But Dike is foremost devoted to her father Zeus, as by Dike he overthrew his father’s injust rule, for which she sits by the throne of her father as stated in a fragment of Aeschylus. On his part she follows every man and woman, to speaks of all she sees into the ear of her father, and she is established by Zeus and the Fates to bring Justice to men and punish those who are injust, represented by an image of her striking the personification of injustice with a hammer.

There are some versions of astral myth which say that the constellation of Virgo, the maiden holding the wheathead, is alternatively not Persephone but rather Dike who, in disgust with the ages of man that followed the golden age, removed herself to heavens where she watches over all. However it makes a certain sense that Virgo could represent both goddesses, as both goddesses are children of earth goddesses (respectively Demeter and Themis), and Persephone’s passage into her marriage represents part of the divine order and law that blesses mankind who embraces her with tranquility/peace of mind and heart rewarded to those who submit themselves to divine law and act justly.

Apollon and Death

Apollon as the god of truth, the god of enlightenment, god of light, divine musician and dancer extraordinaire…this is the Apollon that often first comes to mind, and it is a large part of who he is to be sure, but it only very briefly glosses over the domain and rule of Apollon who is called king Apollon frequently in ancient poetics. It is but a hint towards the larger nature of the god in the cosmos.

Apollon, perhaps adequately revealed through his name which means “destroyer”, is the god of the ultimate truth, the guardian of boundaries (but to who those boundaries are but an illusion of a difinitive zone), all-seeing god through all spaces of time, shedding his light to bring into visibility and awareness. He is a god of passages and transitions, those of life, and the ultimate ones of the soul. Simply speaking Apollon is the god who rules the laws of death and the transformations it brings. One might think of his associations with death to be limited to his bow as the far-shooter, or lord of the golden sword, or even the labrys he holds in Crete under the guise of the god who inflicts justice on adulterers, and then of course there are the plagues. But even this is just a brush upon the surface. Apollon is the god which rules this part of nature. Not the abode of the dead, but the transition from life to death…the dying. Even more intimately than his sister who is the huntress but doesn’t participate much further than the slaying by her arrows, who, in Hippolytus can’t even permit her eyes to gaze upon the death of her favorite. No, Apollon’s association with Death is by far more influential and pervasive in what he does and who he is. Apollon is he who destroys. Slayer of evil, of ignorance, of superstition…of life ultimately. Yet he is also the god of new beginnings and new life at the same time as he is honored with the birth of sons, and with the birth of the new cresent moon hanging in the sky. Yet it is death which this post is concerning.

Pausanias speaks of this deathly domain when he says that Apollon receives offerings in the cemetary at the death of a person, whereafter Apollon looks after the soul for 30 days (though I have also heard 40), after which Hermes collects the soul and Apollon again is sacrificed to. This also is backed up by imagery of Apollon and Hermes weighing the soul of a hero in a woodcutEuripedes in his Aclestis also demonstrates a very interesting clash between Death and Apollon, in which by the dialogue one understands that the former more or less works for the law over which Apollon holds (which Death uses against Apollon for his efforts at perserving both Admetus and Aclestis who has offered herself in his place for death). What is of course interesting about this is that Apollon is clearly angry with Death but really doesn’t do anything personally to stop him, which makes me believe that this agrument with Death is a poetic device in which the goodness of Aclestis and Admetus are highlighted and yet that Apollon and Thanatos ultimately are joined in their functions, which can also be inferred by their joint epithet Paian. So it says much. There is also the scene from the Iliad in which Zeus instructs Apollon to take away the corpse of Sarpedon, to annoint it (basically embalm it) before delivering into the care of Hypnos (sleep ) and Thanatos to be taken to Lycia. This is of course an echo of the myth of Apollon being entrusted with the remains of Zagreus which he choses to carry to his sacred mountain Parnassus for burial. Apollon is placed distinctly the position of burial and caring for the dead and dying. And of course he has been, incidentally, connected with death even from his infancy when he began his godhood slaying the dragon Python (or Delphina..which ever you prefer as both names are used). From there it is a long list of those that he has killed, in some cases accidentally, and in other cases intentionally.

Yet this is the god of purification, the god of truth and light. It certainly seems contrary on the outset unless we consider that there is no distinct line between life and death..it is fluid and our souls continue existing. Hellenic myths say that the soul after death is nothing but a shade, possessing memories but not really who they were. Well of course they wouldn’t be, because their lives would be as a shade and an echo of a memory of the vastness of the soul which is not contained by form and the limitations of the physical mind. Therefore the gate of death is the gate of truth, that all passes between life and death, everything evolves and transitions and transforms. And so even as his light can be peircing and harsh, it also invites us to pass without fear.

I have often wondered about that so called light at the end of the tunnel that so many people with near death experiences speak of. I died for a few minutes when I was younger, and though I didn’t see a tunnel, when I had fought my way past my fears there was only light and I was that light. A spiraling, turning, orb of light (almost like an egg in shape). There was no tunnel, but there was light. It is interesting then to me that coming near death is not something of trepidation and darkness (though it may start that way in the darkness), but that there is the welcoming beauty of light. Light is a big part of life, but it is also a part of death in a different form and fashion. He illuminates the way as there is no division truly and we continue on. Ah he is the god of the roads in so many ways! Perhaps it is appropriate then that Leto, his mother, is associated with the underworld in Asia Minor.

Apollon is the god of the fiery serpents, charioteer of dragons, lord of the python that is so often represented together with him in iconry. He is the god, together with his sister and mother, to whom are sung in the Thesmophoria, the festival of the earth goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, as we see in the Thesmophoriazuia of Aristophanes. His prevading light my at times cast gentle illusions, small games of light, at the bounaries, but they ultimately reveal truth…the truth of the passages and transformations of life and death. And the god of truth is naturally the perfect leaders of the Muses who teach all arts of knowledge to men to elevate our souls. For, divine musician as he is and grandson of the Koios (the north star/heavenly axis), is the axis about which all things orderly turns to his harmonic measure and his is the divine song and dance which sets life to order and motion as it comes to being and passes away.

In this matter than we shall see the surest distinction between Helios (the sun) and Apollon. Because Apollon’s light is all-pervasive, all-illuminating even as he sees all. Helios is limited at the world of the living. He sees all which happens in the mortal world, but his light touches nowhere else. Helios is a close companion of Apollon, but he is limited and his function can not touch on Apollon’s domain. Helios’ rays can burn and rot, even as it happened the corpse of Python in accordance to Apollon’s will. Apollon bears the flaming heat of the sun and the far-flung stars, and delights in the soft spun light of the moon in the night for which he is honored every Noumenia with the first cresent showing of the moon and for there are festivals of his that culminated on the fullmoon. Apollon’s light sheds to all corner of the cosmos…I would consider him as a heir of Phanes whom Zeus swallowed up.

Hail Apollon!

Rape in myth

Recently I read huffington post article/blog (which can be viewed here) in which the author essentially tore down Hellenic myth as immoral, and one of the biggest points she made was on the subject of rape. So that is what I wanted to address in this blog, because I have spoken many times about the allegorical nature of myths and how they are teaching tools that contain certain messages that should not be taken literally. So I am not going to rehash all that right now, I am just going to focus on this message of rape that bothered her so terribly much.

Now I know that myths can be a difficult subject to teach children, particularly when the myths are no part of their spiritual life, of neither the teacher or the children she is teaching usually. Therefore, this makes it doubly difficult to talk to children about myths, because there isn’t this fundamental groundwork for understanding the myths. In fact the teachers who are instructing children of this subject often know no more about the myths than rudamentary textbook information. It is unlikely that they have read any of the big mythographers of the ancient times such as Apollodorus, and Diodorus Siculus, or the religios history works of Pausanias and the bits found in the Geography of Strabo. Therefore, they are learning from what other people have summarized about the myths rather than reading any primary source material of the myths themselves. I can’t fault them too much because teachers of young students typically are not specializing, and don’t always have the time to read all of these texts, but they should get familiar with the subject a bit more than the worn out view of the myths as barbaric examples for pre-christian religions, and therefore passing on the myths in a completely mischaracterized manner. Though it does amuse me in some ways that they are so aborhant of the myths of other cultures when their own christian myths are often more bloody and brutal, and certainly filled with images of rape, incest and murder. The only difference is that in the new testament the interaction between Mary and Yahweh is played down that the holy spirit descended upon her and she is miraculously pregnant.

In reality this is no different than what we see in the rape myths, and even in some early christian iconography such as the passion of Theresa which is remarkably akin the descriptions of Cassandra in Agamemnon as she is possessed by Apollon. This seizure by the embrace of the divine is the essence of the rape myths. However, ancient Hellenic myth relates the event in quite pragmatic terms. The sexual becomes the allegory for the union with the god, because it is procreative/transformative. Rape is non-consentual sex, therefore serves as an allegory of being seized by the god which is awe-inspiring, terrifying on some level, and quite overwhelming to the senses…and it is done without permission, it just happens. Even the christian god does not ask for permission, so this should hardly be shocking or surprising to anyone. But it has nothing do with sex. Rather is symbolic of the penetrative nature of the gods (which is a reason that most goddesses are related as having sex with mortals in myths) that it can cause a reaction from their union with human souls. Yet, because the gods are so much more than humanity, it can be a shocking, though not unwelcome experience. You very rarely see bitter laments of the lovers of the gods after the fact, the only exception being Creousa in Ion, but this was more about her child she left exposed out of fear of her family in the play, and in fact, many of them end up receiving some kind of divine status as they became “more” from joining in the  union with the gods. Morever, it was honored. Europa was honored, Ganymede was honored, Io was honored, Leda was honored, and so on and so forth.

To be embraced by a god and pentrated, was to become more than what you were, just as through marriage, you may become more….and in ancient societies it was an expected duty that one married, because to be a bachelor or bachelorette was to be less. So much so that in ancient Sparta unmarried men were not permitted to attend certain festivals such as the Gymnopaidia. Marriage, was a transformative and procreative union..it transformed two people into a unified whole, and created a new oikos (household). And the young people in question often didn’t have any say in the matter, or very little say depending on how indulgent families were. It is difficult to imagine now-days when most people are accustomed to the idea of love-match marriages and can’t even imagine the idea of marrying a virtual stranger via an arranged marriage. From there we proceed to what is classified as ”rape” myths which are actually of a marital character such as that of Persephone and Hades who are joined in union by Zeus for a function together.

The problem is when teachers are teaching such things literally as rape, and then of course they are going to be hesitant about it because teaching it is rape almost takes the image to them of condoning forced sex. This is, of course, not the message of the myths…and in fact rape was very frowned upon (see Ares who killed the rapist of his daughter, the son of Poseidon, and won his case in the court of the gods). Therefore, what is needed is a change in language in how the myths are talked about to distinguish between what is rape and what is the transformative union of the gods (which is also quite obvious in the story of Medusa). Quite honestly, in the translations of the original texts I never even see the word rape when it comes to such descriptions.

The bottom line is that if teachers aren’t willing to look more at the myths and look deeper into them, I really don’t think they should be teaching them at all.

Apollon’s Mastery

Since posting yesterday there was a point I had left out that I wanted to revisit today. I have said in a tweet on twitter that Apollon, as a master, isn’t ruled by fear, and this is what makes him a god of excellence in using fear. Thus as Paian he banishes the fear from those who invoke him before battle, and in such capacity he is acting as the Marshaller of the Host, and drives fear into the enemies. He is able to use and direct fear, and is himself not ruled by fear or really any passion or feeling. Therein lies much of his mastery. He is not a god who gets carried away with, or ruled by his emotions. There is just one exception in myth which speaks a great deal of the necessity Apollon’s mastery in that it highlights an instance where the god is without control. And that is the myth of Daphne. There we see the god in the first brilliance of his youth, probably shortly after slaying Python (for which we get the god traveling to his sacred laurel in the festivals of Stepteria in the Tempe valley) who encounters Eros, and being young and not yet in the knowing of certain things, mocks him for his small bow. Apollon is effectively mocking the power of love. Because of this mockery Eros stings him with his arrow causing Apollon to fall in love with the nymph Daphne. She, however, flees from him and ends up transforming into a laurel tree (in some versions of the myth it is because her father transforms her, and in others Gaia receives her as the ground swallows her and a tree sprouts from the spot where the earth parted beneath her. Apollon, embraces the tree and takes the leaves of the laurel into his keeping as his most sacred symbol which we see in association with him in hands of his oracle, the Pythia, as well as in any scene of purification.

It is from this point we can see the manifestation of the god who does not distain tender feeling and emotion, but by recognizing its power he is able to achieve mastery over his emotion rather than having it rule him. And we certainly see no real instance in myth with the god getting carried away like this again. He loves and cherishes, but he is not ruled by it. Nor do we see him particularly ruled by any other passion. One might say that his struggle with Herakles over the tripod, which the hero attempted to steal from the god, and only by the power of Zeus were Athena, Leto and Artemis able seperate the pair from their struggle. But I would say that the quarell displayed in the myth really doesn’t strike me as the god being swept up in some rage, but rather brutally refusing to allow what is a part of his rule, really a part of himself to be stripped from him. Certainly Apollon seems quite agreeable otherwise towards Herakles, which also indicates that whatever kind feeling he may have does not negate his retaliation when a wrong is committed…which leads up in turn to why Herakles attempted to steal the tripod because, due to the murder he committed, Apollon (via his priest) refused to speak to him. That not even his mother, Leto, nor his sister, Artemis, both of whom he is very fond, could cajole him from his struggle, adds to that unswaying focus of his. What was being committed way at the heighest level of against divine will, for we see in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes that Apollon says to his brother that he cannot give him his prophecy because this was something imparted on him by Zeus and essentially that none other than he may have this office. Therefore that Herakles was attempting to steal it was a direct offense towards this. And Apollon is a god who acts swiftly towards offenses towards law, injustice, oath breaking, lawbreaking etc. He acts towards necessity, and what is decreed by Zeus, the king of the heavens. Which we also see in the Iliad that Apollon could not be moved, even with the mocking of his twin, to fight his uncle, Poseidon, for all that he fought on the side of Troy it was not for any great particular personal reason, but rather that it was the will of the heavens (the will of Zeus) that he do so. Apollon effectively seperates himself from taking sides for any personal agenda, but rather does what is deemed as right. Even his actions against the Aegeans which riddled them with plague for the offense towards his priest were less about personal resentment, and more about punishment for following with traditional proceedures of ransom for one man’s vanity and self-glorification. And when the situation was corrected, the torment ended in following with his impartial relationship. The thing is, that though he is a god who is sympathetic towards humanity, which we see when Zeus was determined to start over and Apollon petitioned on our behalf with his music, he is also a god that is distant. We must go to the mountain, or the swamp, or across the sea (so to speak, I am not saying literally go), to seek him. He loves, but is not ruled by that love. We have to come to him, and as we approach and spiritual absorb his essence, we come to a likeness of him through the love of devottee and god.

However, he is rarely swayed by tenderness of feeling…and those few who he has gone out of his way for in myths are those who have earned by being exempliary figures..such as Admetus who was a wise and fair king loved by his people, and Creousis who was taken from Libya to Hyperborea. But this expliary state is a spiritual state, that as we are enlightened and become more spiritual evolved, that we too will be blessed in the end. For, althought Hyperborea is considered rooted in a physical place and people, it is also a spiritual place, the blessed garden of Apollon to which the swans of Apollon (the divine musicians of the god), upon singing their swan’s song at the end of their mortal existance, I consider to be then as Hyperborean swans. Just as Hyakinthios, the deified prince beloved by Apollon, was depicted carried upon a swan. It is appropriate then that this far place is the second home of the god where he is said to spend half of the year away from humanity….and yet I have also found these winters to be a time of profound personal connection as I too move on another level mentally , emotionally. I am in a sense internally across the far mountains. Winter is often a time of profound internal spiritual work for me, whle during the summer I tend to be less internalized and connecting with the world around me more.

Thus the mastery of our own spiritual songs of our evolving soul is aligned to the domain of the god which is all about the mastery of the self. And thus we see with the myth of Herakles, who, through his labors after a bit of a clumsy beginning in life, achieved such high mastery that he joined the gods. It seems of little wonder that the temples of Herakles and Apollon in Thebes were directly across from each other, and I can just imagine the daphnephoria carried out every spring in celebration of the god who receives the victor, just as he receives the victors of the games. For he or she who achieves mastery is the victor…the victor of the self in the contest of the lives that we pass through.

Energy and Mastery: Artemis and Apollon

Recently I had been reading a bit about Shiva and Kali, two hindu gods that have been my favorite since childhood. These are also gods that I equate with Apollon and Artemis, a very long time connections for me from my renderings of Artemis from my youth with features of Kali (of course if you look at some of the gorgon-faced images of Artemis from the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia…it doesn’t take a particular stretch of imagination, but that was long before I read of such things when I was only 14 or 15 years old). And this thinking of Shiva and Kali, wherein Kali acts as a principle of energy to Shiva’s domain, Artemis has something of a similar relationship to Apollon (though portrayed differently as a sibling relationship rather than a spousal…though his spouse Kyrene mirrors Artemis to a high degree).

There is much in the domain of Artemis that is just that…the energy drawing to action, towards progress. She is the huntress, and drives forth all living things. She is also the nurturing goddess, like a mother or wetnurse, who provides sustinance to nourish us and provide us the energy we need for growth. She is like a “terrible” mother, who aids our transition into life, cares for  us, and then drives us forth with an almost terrifying clamor, as she slays with her arrows. Though this is as far as she goes to this end..she ends the movement of the energy through life, and the dead rest in the cemetaries which are governed over by Apollon who is caretaker of the soul for the thirty days before it departs with Hermes to its destination. Something quite appropriate if we consider that both gods are gods accredited with transitions, and such transitions would deal with all the pertinent ones that are demonstrated in life. In fact the Odyssey mentions a mythic island too where the people were said to never get old, but rather when their time to die came that they were shot down by the arrows of Apollon and Artemis. Thus we see a very real connection between the transitions of life as the boy whose birth (or actually survival seven days after birth) is praised to Apollon, so too does he sing for the god in his childhood that when he is grown he will marry and have a family, and so on and so forth. He is the god at the developmental boundaries that Artemis is pushing us all towards as both nurturer and huntress.

And they both, while they are honored in cities, and in homes and other venues, are gods that often dwell, or spend a great deal of time, far from human habitation. They may have their occassional divine companions: Artemis hunting with her nymphs and mother, Apollon secluded with some favorite now and again…but it is selected company. But they are never far from each other. I say that Apollon is the god of the roads, but this includes the game trails upon which his sister hunts…and it is necessary for this roads to exist to propel us towards where we need to be, just as Leto took the roads in her weary wandering before she arrived at her ultimate destination…again, far from all on an uninhabited island. So we find that Herakles has chased the golden deer of Artemis to the sacred lands of Apollon, Hyperborea, where he is able to seize the deer and bring it to stillness only to be confronted by both gods there. Hyperborea being as destination, the land beyond the most northern points in myth, and the deer of Artemis being the vehicle by which the hero was propelled there. He is confronted there and is permitted to take the deer with him, but also takes the olive from Hyperborea which he is said to have planted at Olympia when he established the Olympic games…something also that Artemis and Apollon (as Thermios) take great part as preservers of the games and the rules that pertain to them. And what are these games but competitions of those who have harnessed their energy and attained mastery of the self in order to compete for the best among them? Thus it is natural that the deer is sacred to Artemis but is often also depicted in the hand of Apollon. Artemis propels the deer foreward toward growth and maturation, but Apollon instructs mastery that should come hand in hand with such spiritual maturity. I have spoken of this before too when I wrote of Apollon’s role with music in my post on Sound, and the allegory of the competition of Marsyas as an illustration of attainment of mastery which allows evolution.

Therefore we end up seeing something of a paralleling running relationship in this fashion in which a very well established closeness is demonstrated (the only other goddess he really has this closeness to is Athena, which it amuses me that as I relate her to Durga…both Kali and Durga are believed to be manifestations of Shiva’s wife….which makes sense to me because Athena and Artemis opperate on very different levels with him and serve very different purposes, and yet together would make the most idea counterpart to Apollon! But this post is for Apollon and Artemis so I will temporarily shelve that thought for now, though I have written on it before in my blog and should be available in my catalogue here probably under both Apollon and Athena. In any case with Apollon and Artemis we have Apollon god of harbors and seastorms, and yet Artemis Soteira as savior of men at sea. We have Artemis utilizing the light of a torch in order to hunt in the depths of the night as the primal use of light, and we have Apollon who bears the torch of illumination and who has utter control of the light of his domain and bends it towards production (both agriculturally and otherwise) and enlightenment. Both gods carry bows, though tend to impliment them in different kinds of situations generally when they are not out slaying (such as they did in the myth I had mentioned above and in another myth of the children of Niobe). And the list really goes on and on. There is a completeness in nature that is carried out between the two, and which makes it reasonable that Aristophanes mentions them several times in his play of the mystery of Demeter. They are pertinent in the spiritual movement of the soul in the mystic play carried out in the sacred festivals of Demeter from what we can tell from Aristophanes. And it is these gods who so favor the mountains and far places who have such influence on cultivation of the self, for they are truly hekatois, and hekataia…shooters from afar. And even afar they are seen, and felt and their influence known.

Establishing Apollon Agyieus In Your Home

While usually phallic protruding images often typically get associated with Hermes or Dionysos, we cannot forget that such is also the case of Apollon as Agyieus, god of the roads (which also correlates with ideas of the god who sends people out to their journies, as well as a god of harbors..the receiving destinations..but for now we will just stick with Agyieus and how he is honored in domestic worship.

I have in the past said that I used a large black wooden raven to represent Apollon Agyieus, but have ceased doing so…because whereas I do believe still that the raven has symbolic associations with what is going on, there is very specific purpose towards having the particular image associated with Agyieus…because it is particular. It is not a statue that may vary a bit from here to there. It is a very simple thing…a black, somewhat phallic shaped, curved rock which utterly takes the place of the image of the god. It is not even modified like the herms occassionally have been with partial likenesses of Hermes. It is just a stone unto which offerings were given, and beside which there was the laurel.

Now in ancient times, you know…back in the day when people tended to stick around from generation to generation and not move with wanderlust as many modern folks (myself included) have a tendency to do, this stone was massive…as was the herm, as they were like sentries before the courtyard gate, by whom all had to pass. This is fairly impractical to me with the way things are, at least for myself. I am not a home owner. I don’t have my own yard much less a courtyard…and a great number of people are in situations where they are not living in houses but rather in apartments.

Now one can still have the large herm and agyieus stone if they wanted, but it seems that this would be difficult to fit by the frontdoor, and even you do get it to fit, it may become something of a safety hazard that is continously bumped into and tripped over. There is also the question of where to get it, because not everyone is going to be in the position of being able to find some big chunk of rock meeting their specifications.

Instead, what I recommend, and what I am planning on doing this weekend, is to find a smaller rock. One approximately twice the size of your palm perhaps. This can even be shaped a bit with tools if you like but I prefer to hunt around for one that appeals to me that naturally has something close to the preferred shape to it. It can then be placed in a bowl (which would catch libations that you pour over it since being indoors there won’t be soil to naturally soak overspill up. This then can be placed on a shelf beside the front door entry where it will serve the same purpose, but be more adequate towards cramped living conditions. Ideally the shelf should have a herm and an agyieus stone near the same size perhaps, sharing a shelf together (since rarely are doors position that they have wall to either side of them). This then becomes a very effective shrine in your home, and also one which is nearly invisible because it just looks like rocks to the casual observer’s eye who may step into your entryway.

Apollon Ammon

Though Zeus regularly gets associated with Ammun/Ammon, and had an oracular cult center where he was hailed under this epithet, it seems less known that Apollon is also strongly associated with Ammon in Libya too. This is something I attempted to talk briefly of in my book, and in hindsight I don’t think I pulled it off very elequently, so I wanted to take a moment to speak of it more again.

First, I don’t dispute that Zeus is associated with Ammon, but rather to say that when I think of Ammon I typically think foremost of Apollon. Reality says it can go either way as both are gods represented as ram-horned deities. However, for me it makes a stronger impression linked with Apollon, which we know from the Libyan city Kyrene who, according to Pausanias, dedicated an image of Ammon driving a chariot to the temple of Apollon. Charioteer images of Apollon are not uncommon, so this comes to not surprise, nor should it also that Apollon be associated with this god when Libya seems to be referred to as a garden of Apollon, as a far land to which he took his bride Kyrene and inspired the Therans to create a colony therein. In Kyrene, Zeus was specifically worshiped in his guize as the god of Mt Lykaion, and therefore a mountainous wolfish personality, and again one shared with his son, which again supports a certain overlap that would naturally develope.

Diodorus Siculus makes no definite statement on this matter. Rather he speaks of the cosmology of Libya in very different terms that what we tend to be familiar with…familiar gods in a less familiar order. Athena as the daughter of Poseidon. Ammon as the first husband of Rhea, and alternately the father of Dionysos as well as the god who raises the infant Zeus and ceeded his throne in Asia Minor to him when overthrown by Cronus (again not unusual association for Apollon who is attributed as the father of the Corybantes who were said to have reared the infant Zeus in Asia Minor). Zeus was born of Cronus and Rhea when the goddess left Ammon for his brother due to the insult of his siring Dionysos with Almathea in Nysia. As Zeus is credited as the heir of Ammon, it is natural that Zeus would engage the name of the god as his epithet. So then the question rises that whereas it would be natural for Zeus to assume it why does Apollon have it if not because he was recognized as a later form of Ammon (who went into exile after being overthrown by his brother…again not an uncommon theme for Apollon who himself in myth has been exiled and enslaved). And as Apollon is linked to Libya as he is, it would be natural that he would have some mythic place in Libya where he is not mentioned at all by Diodoros Siculus in any direct myth. Meanwhile the Egyptian god Amun was directly linked with Zeus by Greek travelers to Egypt, though even he bears some characteristic similar to Apollon such as his association with the sun, and the moon (though as the father of the moon), and the winds, especially those on stormy seas (which I have spoken before on many occassions when speaking of Apollon Telchinus). That the name of Amon supposedly means “educator, and builder” certainly contains associations that can be seen with Apollon who is a god intimately connected, with Athena, to the educational institution…the Lykeum likely derived from his name, and Apollon as a god who is associated with building foundations, as he did for his own temple even as he built the altar at Delos.

Therefore, while I recognize the association of Zeus with Ammon, perhaps due to the supremisy that Amon gained in Egypt that caused an equation of one king god with another (nevermind that the Hellenes also called Apollon king, which we can see in the Iliad and in other poetic works). It is somethig that is really open to many interesting interpretations and lines of speculation and inquiry in which we can see a manifestation of the closeness in domains of Apollon and Zeus, something which is alluded to very indirectly in the Orphic hymns where an a goodly overlap is observal when comparing a handful of poems together…particular that of Apollon, that of Helios, that of Zeus, and that of Pan. It is all quite fascinating