Grey wings and red

[T]he alchemical philosophers conceive their aqua nostra to be ignis (fire). The source  means not only the flow of life but its warmth, indeed its heat, the secret of passion, whose synonyms are always fiery. The all-dissolving aqua nostra is an essential ingredient in the production of the lapis. But the source is underground and therefore the way leads underneath; only down below can we find the fiery source of life.

(C.G. Jung, Dreams, p. 194)


It's cool how the universe sends exactly what you happen to be thinking about, when you're thinking about it. I'm still thinking about the dream about the man with grey wings and everything that brought up, so of course I keep finding stuff related to that. I was trying to finally finish Jung's Dreams and I kept running into the topic.

The dream about the Man with Grey Wings is about G. The symbolism of the color grey suits him pretty much to a T, both the problems he's having as well as the strengths that are his:

[S]ecurity, reliability, intelligence, staid, modesty, maturity, conservative, old age, sadness, and boring.

[T]imeless, practical, and solid... [C]an mix well with any color. Although well liked and often worn, people rarely name gray as a favorite color possibly because Gray also is associated with loss or depression.

Gray is the color of sorrow. People who favor gray can be the lone wolf type or narrow-minded. Gray with more silver in it can be a very active color.

Native Americans associate gray with friendship. Gray is the symbol for security, maturity and dependability. It connotes responsibility and conservative practicality.

Gray is the true neutral color. Its energy imparts void, emptiness, lack of movement, emotion, warmth and identifying characteristics. Because of this, gray can be restful. It has a detached and isolated feeling. Gray can have a cooling effect when placed next to other more vibrant colors. It has a stabilizing effect, making vibrant colors stand out while muting their vibration

This is pretty much a perfect description of G, and even as I was interpreting the dream I realized that my red wings had to have something to do with this. Below are what the color red symbolizes, from the same websites:

Red can symbolize many things; from blood, to love, to infatuation. For example, red can symbolize excitement, energy, speed, strength, danger, passion, and aggression. According to Henry Dreyfus, it is popularly felt that red, the color of blood and fire, represents life and vitality... Red is also looked upon as a sensual color, and can be associated with man's most profound urges and impulses.

Red is the warmest of all colors... Red is associated with fiery heat and warmth. It can also mean danger (burning). Red is the color of blood, and as such has strong symbolism as life and vitality. It brings focus to the essence of life and living with emphasis on survival. Red is also the color of passion and lust.

Put some red in your life when you want:
increased enthusiasm and interest
more energy
action and confidence to go after your dreams
protection from fears and anxieties

I can't help thinking about the Union of Unreconcilables and how central this difficult union is to my current tasks, in particular in regards to my relationship issues with G. Even in the description of the color grey they talk about how these two opposite colors have the ability to moderate each other. At the same time, it makes it obvious why our dynamic is as annoying as it is, with me pursuing (and scaring the bejeesus out of  him) and him being scared and running away. Aside from the fact that people who are focused on this world, as sensation types like him are, are pretty much completely terrified of the "other world" (which is also precisely what he needs from me), there's the fact that as the Grey in this pair, he's the one who's careful and fearful. And I'm the one who's frightening. Maybe I need my Mantis to help me keep this in mind and not take things so personally.

Another thing that's helping put things into perspective is in remembering the dream about The Man with Gray Wings is that fact that it's not me he's necessarily running away from, it's the shouting man in the water; i.e., himself. All I'm doing is reassuring him. But I really do feel this is something he needs, especially since he's living the more negative aspects of the Grey than the positive ones right now. Below is another thing that came up, which explores the relation of Dionysian passion with Hades (which is what G is):

The Dionysian element has to do with emotions and affects which have found no suitable religious outlets in the predominantly Apollonian cult and ethos of Christianity. The medieval carnivals and jeux de paume in the Church were abolished relatively early; consequently the carnival became secularized and with it divine intoxication vanished from the sacred precincts. Mourning, earnestness, severity, and well-tempered spiritual joy remained... "But Hades is the same Dionysos in whose honour they go mad and keep the feast of the wine-vat."

(1, p. 217)

I'm still not 100% sure of what it is that I'm supposed to be doing but at least the situation is becoming much clearer, especially compared to when I first got hexagram 38, Estrangement and I had absolutely no idea what that had to do with anything. Now at least I know what it has to do with... now I just need to figure out what it is that I need to do. I think it's to stay with it, but with a certain Mantis-like detachment and larger vision.



References

1.   Jung, C.G., Dreams.

http://www.three-musketeers.net/mike/colors.html#red
http://www.squidoo.com/colorexpert#module1541678
http://crystal-cure.com/red.html

The "traditional spirit"

I was reading Jung's "Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy" and came across the following passage - it drew my attention to it over and over, feeling like there was something important that I needed to absorb. As I re-read it I remembered my small animal dream and the young feminine:

A childish consciousness is always tied to father and mother, and is never by itself. Return to childhood is always the return to father and mother, to the whole burden of the psychic non-egos represented by the parents, with its long and momentous history...

It is of course impossible to free oneself from one's childhood without devoting a great deal of work to it, as Freud's researches have long since shown. Nor can it be achieved through intellectual knowledge only; what is alone effective is a remembering that is also a re-experiencing. The swift passage of the years and the overwhelming inrush of the newly discovered world leave a mass of material behind that is never dealt with. We do not shake this off; we merely remove ourselves from it. So that when, in later years, we return to the memories of childhood we find bits of our personality still alive, which cling round us and suffuse us with the feeling of earlier times. Being still in their childhood state, these fragments are very powerful in their effect. They can lose their infantile aspect and be corrected only when they are reunited with adult consciousness. This "personal unconscious" must always be dealt with first, that is, made conscious, otherwise the gateway to the collective unconscious cannot be opened. The journey with father and mother up and down many ladders represents the making conscious of infantile contents that have not yet been integrated.

(Jung, Dreams, 1974, p. 136, para 79 & 81.)


There's some relationship with the father, as well - he keeps showing up in my dreams (including the most recent dream dancing to funk). I keep wondering what for - is it my actual father? Or the archetype of the father? Or both? And not just my father but G's "father" has been referred to. Earlier in the same lecture Jung talks about the archetype of the father:

The father, the embodiment of the traditional spirit as expressed in religion or a general philosophy of life, is standing in the way. He imprisons the dreamer in the world of the conscious mind and its values. The traditional masculine world with its intellectualism and rationalism is felt to be an impediment, from which we must conclude that the unconscious, now approaching him, stands in direct opposition to the tendencies of the conscious mind and that the dreamer, despite this opposition, is already favourably disposed towards the unconscious. For this reason, the latter should not be subordinated to the rationalistic judgments of consciousness; it ought rather to be an experience sui generis. (124, para 59)

This passage brought to mind the dream I had where my father was literally giving me "spirits" (alcohol) - in it he drank whiskey, but I wanted absinthe, a spirit that I associated with wildness, specialness. It's also a drink I associate with Marissa - we first drank it together (it's "our drink") - another association with the "wild, free feminine."

I spent the last 10 years, more or less, being extremely "rationalistic." This seems to have differentiated and sharpened what had previously been a mushing together of my thinking and intuitive functions; I had always thought intuitively, but the last 10 years I trained myself to be very clear, logical and rational in my thinking. Although I went too far in that direction, and certainly benefitted from moving back to a more balanced way of thinking, this process allowed me to separate out and differentiate the two. Now I can think rationally and intuitively, depending on what the situation calls for.


Dream sequence

I went back and looked at how the "father" changed in my dreams - he's been appearing a lot lately, in particular. As I was doing it I felt more and more of my childhood crowding in on me... and the "child" being born in me.

9/1/11

Heads, use different heads for different views of same story.

Old man is being annoying - it's Hades' father. Hades is taking care of him.

The ego finds Hades' father annoying but Hades is taking care of him. I need different heads in order to have different views of the same story; different heads means different ways of thinking. Hades here is an archetype, not a person; he's the archetype of the demon lover. Also, G is a Hades; is he part of the dream? The old man is the grandfather; before father, ancient way of looking, older than the father. Is this related to a different way of thinking? The animus has taken care of older way of thinking - I need a different way.

9/22/11

[G and I] sit down on the ground, amongst a bunch of gangster type black youths. He pulls out a gun. He puts it down on his bag while we talk. I eventually get too freaked out by it and put it away in his bag. I ask him why on earth he has it and he says he got it from his father.

The gun is male power... potent, directed, point and shoot, the male member (which "shoots" sperm). It's also related to death, which can indicate rebirth (this is related to later dreams about pregnancy and birth.) The group of black men is group of men is undifferentiated masculinity, dissolving into a multiplicity (or maybe coming together?) In the last dream Hades took care of his father. In this one, G, a Hades, has directed power which he got from the father.

12/24/11

A woman is showing me how to take care of someone who's pregnant. she takes some small towels, puts them on another towel (that's on a bed?) and sprays them with alcohol to disinfect them. Then she tells me I'm pregnant. I want to get an abortion but she disapproves...

Amanda's had her child. It (he?) is in the other room, sleeping on his stomach. I have the urge to rub the child's back. The Dad is nowhere to be seen but Donald is there, talking witht he child. I think to myself the child is going to imprint on Don as the father figure.

I'm pregnant - something is being born from me. In the second part of the dream I want to take care of the child. Don is like G; he, too, has both Hades and Poseidon in his personality (although his primary and secondary types are reversed from G's.) Don's also like the Father - he's my father's brother - they're of the same generation - and, in addition, he was my surrogate father for a while. The third part is my connection with G; our relationship has impregnated me with the "child"

1/2/12

There's an open house of an apartment that's opened. I don't think I can buy it because I already have one and my money is in that - it's not as nice and it's smaller. This one is huge and has all sorts of great features built in. One is a red hood over the stove. The other is a dish cabinet that has a bench and chairs built in - when you have company you pull down the chairs. If you have a lot of company you can pull the whole bench down. I go exploring around the apartment. There are book cases - they make a small, windowed alcove in the corner for a tiny study "for the father to sit in."

"New apartment" means a new home, a new self (i.e. ego.) A new self has opened up - huge, with great features. I have a lot invested in my old self. The "built in features" of this new self are the red hood, the dish cabinet and the table and chairs - all have to do with cooking and eating, with food and nourishment. There's also a built in alcove "for the father," the mind. It's like the dream is saying, "Don't worry, there's a place for the intellect here, too."

3/1/12

With family in an old house (Victorian). There's a drink machine. The father pushes a button and gets a bunch of liquor. When he puts it out he tells me to be careful, it's strong. It's in a big green bottle - I can tell it's port. Then I ask for absinthe, which I drink.

The Victorian house is the traditional self, a traditional idea of the self. The father is there - it's the family house. It's a traditional idea of the collective unconscious. The drink machine is to "quench thirst" but with an element of something mechanical; push a button and out it comes. Is this because the traditional idea of spirit and religion is like that? The father, the traditional spirit, drinks traditional spirit (whiskey) but I drink absinthe, something young, wild, unusual and special. Something I associate with Marissa, the "young spirit."

3/11/12

I'm in a car with my Dad and a black woman - she's the one who's driving. I'm giving her directions, trying to get us out to the main road, where I assume she'll be able to figure out how to go from (we're at my Grandparent's neighborhood wehre I grew up.) We end up driving over our property and onto our driveawy. I think this is true because we can get out from there, and we do. As we drive down the road which will take us to the main road, I see they've put up barbed wire fencing. They turned that part (which used to be a wilderness) into a golf course. I feel bad. They tell me they did this at another place, too.

The black woman is the black anima, the natural woman. She's the anima of my animus... or at least the traditional spirit part of my animus. Does this mean that part of me is stuck in animal desire and/or power games? She's the one who's driving us on this trip. We're at my grandparents' place; the place of my past (before my father) but also of my own childhood. The wilderness is changed to a golf course - "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot." The golf course is tame, civilized. It's where old people go. The wild place was destroyed to make a place for the "traditional spirit."

3/20/12

A man (and his son?) are looking for a phone. They ask me and we all (I guess I'm with others) go all around with the two. We go all around but we can't find a single public phone. We go into my food coop to look for one. While we're looking, he picks up some food (some meat). We find a guard. Before he can accuse us I go over to him and ask him where there's a phone. He accuses us anyway, pointing to the food. I say that we paid for those (which we had) and get my membership card to slap down on the table in front of him. Then he's a tiny dog (or has a tiny dog head, or something like that.)

The father and son want to communicate (like the previous letter?) The food coop and food - the Father gets the meat. The guard (the Inner Cop) tries to stop it - dogs are servile, companions. They're also associated with police dogs. He has a small head - he can't think. The cop is just following what he was told, not thinking. The son is the child, the child who was born previously. He's the new project. The traditional spirit is with the new project, trying to communicate. The inner policeman is in the way but we get past the "tiny dog" - he's smaller and weaker than he first might appear.

3/27/12

Some people have been forcibly kept there by my father. I go find out from them what they need and gather the things up to take to their ship. They ask if my father won't try to stop me. As I try to go to their ship, my father stands in my way and starts talking, quite reasonably. He falls or lays down in front of me. I start yelling at him, that he's trying to stop them from leaving, and that if it was him who was taken prisoner I'd die to set him free. I'm banging bottles on the metal scaffolding as I talk. I finally just walk over him, twisting my foot in his wound while I walk over him.

The traditional spirit/intellect is keeping other parts of my personality from going where they need to, but I'm trying to help them. They're travelling on a ship - travel is a common theme in my dreams. A ship is a vessel that goes over water, over the unconscious. The "father" tries to stop me by being "reasonable," a typical move for the negative animus. It tries to convince you that you're wrong and crazy. I get past him by walking over him (although he himself lays down first.) But am I hurting him while doing this?

3/28/12

My father is out with his co-workers in the water - they're in fake boats (like robots) working while their real boats are inside. He notices bad guys (the bad guy?) They're amused - they take our ship. Whey they go back in they see that all the rest of the people are scared - the bad guys took over while they were in the water. The bad guy robot beats up the robot of my father. He's hurting him - at that point, my father's face becomes square, like a lego man.

From here on out the dreams become difficult for me to understand; I've noticed that if I wait a few days, or even longer, they becomes much more intelligible. Going back and looking over my dreams today, I noticed that many of the them were amazingly clear - I guess I've progressed enough that what was my "backside" then has become my front side.

Earlier in this dream it mentioned that I was "studying Japanese" (which feels like Jungianism to me - a different language, different country, a desired "place," the place of dreams, the past, of the ancestors.) In this part of the dream, the intellect/traditional spirit is with other parts of my personality which work together with it. They're in "fake boats" - this reminds me of the boat the other parts of my personality were trying to get on which the "father" was trying to keep them from. These boats are robots; they're mechanical, not alive - robots look like people but they're not. The real boats are inside - why didn't they take the real boats? Is it because the intellect here, or the traditional spirit, is incapable of getting the real boats? That it's too mechanical in it's approach? The "bad guys" (whoever they are) took over while the "father" was out in the water in the fake boats. The bad guy's robot beats up the intellect/spirit (I'm really unsure about this whole dream...)

3/29/12

I'm thinking of things to do on the trip. I want to get out and do things, like G did on his trip. There's a tiny house. Two young girls are playing in the front. I go in to see how they fixed it up. I hear a voice telling me that they put the twins' bunkbeds in the old fireplace to save space. I look at it but it just looks like a bricked in old fireplace. Two doors swing out - I can see two beds fitted into the alcove behind it in the tiny, closet like space. When you swing the doors closed there's a narrow gap left between them - this way you can open it easily but the doors still provide a visual barrier to the beds. I look around for the parents' bed. I go around to an alcove but but there's nothing there. When I look back at the main room again, I see the bed right there out in the open. The father's lounging on it.

The two young girls are the twins; the two sides of me, the conscious me and the soft side of me. The fireplace is the hearth, the "heart" of a home. I'm again on my journey, and again in a new home, a new self. The Father is there again - he's in the bed, the personal space, the inner space, the space where dreams are made (not quite sure of this dream either...)



The sequence is from distance to closeness, varying between helpful, obstructive and ineffective. One things that's interesting is his association with the child - the new project that's being born in me. He's often with him, or helping him or the child needs him. And there's definitely a place for him in my new life. Another interesting thing are the two couples: the animus and me, and the father and his anima. Both of us seem to be struggling with the "natural man/woman" - the anima(us) that is born with us, which needs to be transformed into a subtle form.

There's fertility; sex, birth, death. There's spirituality; "spirits" and the water. There's childhood and the mind. All of these things are bound up with the archetype of the "father" in my head.


... I feel like I'm not ending this post properly. I'm going to have to let this concept cook a little more - I'm sure there will be an edit in the future!

Rescuing Hades

Had a brainwave on the train today, I was thinking about G and I realized something. He's living (or needs to live) the myth of Hades and Sisyphus:

Zeus was enamored with the daughter of a river god and was romancing her in a wooded valley when her father started looking for her and ran into King Sisyphus who told him that Zeus had fallen in love with his daughter and was in the process of abducting her. The enraged father found them walking in the woods and, brandishing a large club, raced toward the unarmed Zeus (who had hung his thunderbolts in a nearby tree while he courted). The startled Zeus quickly turned himself into a rock, confusing the father, and this allowed Zeus time to retrieve his weapons and "shoot" him in the leg with a thunderbolt.

Even though he’d escaped, Zeus felt humiliated and was furious with the king and his big mouth! Zeus ordered Hades to capture and imprison the king and to administer the severest of punishments possible.

So Hades went to fetch Sisyphus. The king not only refused to go quietly but also tricked Hades into handcuffing himself, then kept Hades in captivity for over a month, walking him around the palace on a leash and making fun of him. Needless to say, the somber and dignified Hades was not at all amused!

Ares, the god of war, currently bored with the endless petty wars of the Greeks decided to rescue Hades and came to his assistance, threatening to decapitate Sisyphus if he didn’t release him and turn himself in as Hades’ prisoner.

The rescue was successful, but the wily Sisyphus had another trick up his sleeve. Once they had arrived in the Underworld, Sisyphus pleaded his case in front of the Queen, arguing that he could not be retain in the Underworld because he was not yet dead, nor had he ever paid the ferryman. Persephone allowed him to leave, but with instructions to return the next day, suitably dead and with a coin under his tongue to start his sentence.

Sisyphus laughed all the way home, thinking that there was no way that he would go back . . . but the next day Hermes showed up on his doorstep announcing that Fates had decreed that it was his time to die….and Hermes escorted him into the Underworld to face his fate.

Once they reached the Underworld, Hades’ Judges of the Dead pronounced his sentence -to push a heavy rock over the top of the mountain in Tartarus and each time the rocks rolls back (which it always did, of course) to start all over again. Hades added an extra touch and had the rock shaped just like the one Zeus had transformed himself into, just in case Sisyphus missed the point!

He's so stuck in his isolated world, only doing what he can do "perfectly," which means that he never does anything at all! But, even though this Capricorn/Saturn/Hades is an important part of him - and has, I'm sure, done a lot to help him - he's completely unbalanced. I know he also has an Ares/Aries side, which his Hades side keeps pushed down. One of the signs of this is the kind of women he's attracted to, like derby girl Suzy Hotrod - tough, passionate, lives loud and takes no prisoners. She's basically a female version of Ares, the part of himself that he runs away from (and whenver I try to talk to him about this he literally runs away.)

Ares part of the myth goes like this:

Ares, rarely went out of his way to come to the aid of his fellow Olympians. But once, bored with the endless petty wars of the Greeks, he decided to rescue Hades who was being held captive by King Sisyphus. Ares came to his assistance, threatening to decapitate Sisyphus if he didn’t release him and turn himself in as Hades’ prisoner. Trembling with fear, Sisyphus surrendered to Hades.

His Ares side has to rescue his Hades side. Maybe because it's bored? I don't know, but I do know that he's living this myth out.


Yesterday I read about Marie-Louise von Franz's relationship with physicist Wolfgang Pauli. She tried so hard to help him live the life his soul was directing him to but he ran away, too. In the end, he died that way. As she put it, "If you want me to sum up the relationship: I tried to pull him out and didn't succeed." It's sobering to see that it's possible to love someone and desperately try to help them and fail - it's possible to be as brilliant and strong as von Franz and fail - if the person you care for is too scared to go down the road that's calling him.

In the documentary The Way of the Dream von Franz talks about how women will sometimes try to protect themselves from the pain of relationships by not letting themselves fall in love. Well, that's what I'm getting to experience right now. It's hard enough to have to suffer for your own sake, but the grinding frustration of caring for someone but being completely helpless is almost intolerable! But we have to remember, as she said in the interview about Pauli, that to really love someone is the most healing thing you can do for them:

In a love relationship... you risk everything. You put yourself on a table, you stop the power game and the trying to dominate or conquer the other person. If you succeed in really loving the other person, if you really relate, then all sorts of miracles happen.

Hopefully, by staying with this, a miracle might happen.

Hades in myth

From Wikipedia

Hadēs ("the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. In Greek mythology, Hades is the oldest male child of Cronus and Rhea. According to myth, he and his brothers Zeus and Poseidon defeated the Titans and claimed rulership over the cosmos, ruling the underworld, air, and sea, respectively; the solid earth, long the province of Gaia, was available to all three concurrently. Because of his association with the underworld, Hades is often interpreted in modern times as the personification of death, even though he was not.

Hades was also called "Plouton" (meaning "Rich One"), a name which the Romans latinized as Pluto. Symbols associated with him are the Helm of Darkness and the three-headed dog, Cerberus. The term hades in Christian theology is parallel to Hebrew sheol (grave or dirt-pit), and refers to the abode of the dead. The Christian concept of hell is more akin to and communicated by the Greek concept of Tartarus, a deep, gloomy part of hades used as a dungeon of torment and suffering.

In Greek mythology, Hades (the "unseen"), the god of the underworld, was a son of the Titans, Cronus and Rhea. He had three sisters, Demeter, Hestia, and Hera, as well as two brothers, Zeus, the youngest of the three, and Poseidon, collectively comprising the original six Olympian gods. Upon reaching adulthood, Zeus managed to force his father to disgorge his siblings. After their release the six younger gods, along with allies they managed to gather, challenged the elder gods for power in the Titanomachy, a divine war. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades received weapons from the three Cyclopes to help in the war: Zeus the thunderbolt, Hades the Helm of Darkness, and Poseidon the trident. The night before the first battle, Hades put on his helmet and, being invisible, slipped over to the Titans' camp and destroyed their weapons. The war lasted for ten years and ended with the victory of the younger gods. Following their victory, according to a single famous passage in the Iliad, Hades and his two brothers, Poseidon and Zeus, drew lots for realms to rule. Zeus got the sky, Poseidon got the seas, and Hades received the underworld, the unseen realm to which the dead go upon leaving the world as well as any and all things beneath the earth.

Hades obtained his eventual consort and queen, Persephone, through trickery, a story that connected the ancient Eleusinian Mysteries with the Olympian pantheon in a founding myth for the realm of the dead. Helios (like Apollo, a sun god) told the grieving Demeter that Hades was not unworthy as a consort for Persephone:

"Aidoneus, the Ruler of Many, is no unfitting husband among the deathless gods for your child, being your own brother and born of the same stock: also, for honor, he has that third share which he received when division was made at the first, and is appointed lord of those among whom he dwells."

(Homeric Hymn to Demeter)

Despite modern connotations of death as evil, Hades was actually more altruistically inclined in mythology. Hades was often portrayed as passive rather than evil; his role was often maintaining relative balance. Hades ruled the dead, assisted by others over whom he had complete authority. He strictly forbade his subjects to leave his domain and would become quite enraged when anyone tried to leave, or if someone tried to steal the souls from his realm. His wrath was equally terrible for anyone who tried to cheat death or otherwise crossed him, as Sisyphus and Pirithous found out to their sorrow. Besides Heracles, the only other living people who ventured to the Underworld were all heroes: Odysseus, Aeneas (accompanied by the Sibyl), Orpheus, Theseus with Pirithous, and, in a late romance, Psyche. None of them were pleased with what they witnessed in the realm of the dead. In particular, the Greek war hero Achilles, whom Odysseus conjured with a blood libation, said:

    "O shining Odysseus, never try to console me for dying.
    I would rather follow the plow as thrall to another
    man, one with no land allotted to him and not much to live on,
    than be a king over all the perished dead."

(Achilles' soul to Odysseus. Homer, Odyssey)

Cult

Hades, god of the dead, was a fearsome figure to those still living; in no hurry to meet him, they were reticent to swear oaths in his name, and averted their faces when sacrificing to him. Since to many, simply to say the word "Hades" was frightening, euphemisms were pressed into use. Since precious minerals come from under the earth (i.e., the "underworld" ruled by Hades), he was considered to have control of these as well, and was referred to as (Plouton, related to the word for "wealth"), hence the Roman name Pluto. Sophocles explained referring to Hades as "the rich one" with these words: "the gloomy Hades enriches himself with our sighs and our tears." In addition, he was called Clymenus ("notorious"), Polydegmon ("who receives many"), and perhaps Eubuleus ("good counsel" or "well-intentioned"), all of them euphemisms for a name that was unsafe to pronounce, which evolved into epithets.

Hades and Cerberus

Although he was an Olympian, he spent most of the time in his dark realm. Formidable in battle, he proved his ferocity in the famous Titanomachy, the battle of the Olympians versus the Titans, which established the rule of Zeus.

Feared and loathed, Hades embodied the inexorable finality of death: "Why do we loathe Hades more than any god, if not because he is so adamantine and unyielding?" The rhetorical question is Agamemnon's. He was not, however, an evil god, for although he was stern, cruel, and unpitying, he was still just. Hades ruled the Underworld and was therefore most often associated with death and feared by men, but he was not Death itself — the actual embodiment of Death was Thanatos.

When the Greeks propitiated Hades, they banged their hands on the ground to be sure he would hear them. Black animals, such as sheep, were sacrificed to him, and the very vehemence of the rejection of human sacrifice expressed in myth suggests an unspoken memory of some distant past. The blood from all chthonic sacrifices including those to propitiate Hades dripped into a pit or cleft in the ground. The person who offered the sacrifice had to avert his face.

Tne ancient source says that he possessed the Cap of invisibility. His chariot, drawn by four black horses, made for a fearsome and impressive sight. His other ordinary attributes were the Narcissus and Cypress plants, the Key of Hades and Cerberus, the three-headed dog. He sat on an ebony throne.

The philosopher Heraclitus, unifying opposites, declared that Hades and Dionysus, the very essence of indestructible life zoë, are the same god. Amongst other evidence Karl Kerenyi notes that the grieving goddess Demeter refused to drink wine, which is the gift of Dionysus, after Persephone's abduction, because of this association, and suggests that Hades may in fact have been a 'cover name' for the underworld Dionysus. Furthermore he suggests that this dual identity may have been familiar to those who came into contact with the Mysteries. One of the epithets of Dionysus was "Chthonios", meaning "the subterranean."

Persephone

The consort of Hades was Persephone, represented by the Greeks as the beautiful daughter of Demeter. Persephone did not submit to Hades willingly, but was abducted by him while picking flowers in the fields of Nysa. In protest of his act, Demeter cast a curse on the land and there was a great famine; though, one by one, the gods came to request she lift it, lest mankind perish, she asserted that the earth would remain barren until she saw her daughter again. Finally, Zeus intervened; via Hermes, he requested that Hades return Persephone. Hades complied,

"But he on his part secretly gave her sweet pomegranate seed to eat, taking care for himself that she might not remain continually with grave, dark-robed Demeter."

Demeter questioned Persephone on her return to light and air:

"...but if you have tasted food, you must go back again beneath the secret places of the earth, there to dwell a third part of the seasons every year: yet for the two parts you shall be with me and the other deathless gods."[14]

This bound her to Hades and the Underworld, much to the dismay of Demeter. It is not clear whether Persephone was accomplice to the ploy. Zeus proposed a compromise, to which all parties agreed: of the year, Persephone would spend one third with her husband.

It is during this time that winter casts on the earth "an aspect of sadness and mourning."

Theseus and Pirithous

Hades imprisoned Theseus and Pirithous, who had pledged to kidnap and marry daughters of Zeus. Theseus chose Helen and together, they kidnapped her and decided to hold onto her until she was old enough to marry. Pirithous chose Persephone. They left Helen with Theseus' mother, Aethra and traveled to the Underworld. Hades knew of their plan to capture his wife, so he pretended to offer them hospitality and set a feast; as soon as the pair sat down, snakes coiled around their feet and held them there. Theseus was eventually rescued by Heracles but Pirithous remained trapped as punishment for daring to seek the wife of a god for his own.

Heracles

Heracles' final labour was to capture Cerberus. First, Heracles went to Eleusis to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. He did this to absolve himself of guilt for killing the centaurs and to learn how to enter and exit the underworld alive. He found the entrance to the underworld at Taenarum. Athena and Hermes helped him through and back from Hades. Heracles asked Hades for permission to take Cerberus. Hades agreed as long as Heracles didn't harm Cerberus. When Heracles dragged the dog out of Hades, he passed through the cavern Acherusia.

Minthe

According to Ovid, Hades pursued and would have won the nymph Minthe, associated with the river Cocytus, had not Persephone turned Minthe into the plant called mint.

The Realm of Hades

In older Greek myths, the realm of Hades is the misty and gloomy abode of the dead (also called Erebus), where all mortals go. Later Greek philosophy introduced the idea that all mortals are judged after death and are either rewarded or cursed. Very few mortals could leave his realm once they entered: the exceptions, Heracles, Theseus, are heroic. Even Odysseus in his Nekyia calls up the spirits of the departed, rather than descend to them.

There were several sections of the realm of Hades, including Elysium, the Asphodel Meadows, and Tartarus. Greek mythographers were not perfectly consistent about the geography of the afterlife. A contrasting myth of the afterlife concerns the Garden of the Hesperides, often identified with the Isles of the Blessed, where the blessed heroes may dwell.

For Hellenes, the deceased entered the underworld by crossing the Acheron, ferried across by Charon (kair'-on), who charged an obolus, a small coin for passage placed in the mouth of the deceased by pious relatives. Paupers and the friendless gathered for a hundred years on the near shore according to Vergil's Aeneid. Greeks offered propitiatory libations to prevent the deceased from returning to the upper world to "haunt" those who had not given them a proper burial. The far side of the river was guarded by Cerberus, the three-headed dog defeated by Heracles. Passing beyond Cerberus, the shades of the departed entered the land of the dead to be judged.

The five rivers of the realm of Hades, and their symbolic meanings, are Acheron (the river of sorrow, or woe), Cocytus (lamentation), Phlegethon (fire), Lethe (oblivion), and Styx (hate), the river upon which even the gods swore and in which Achilles was dipped to render him invincible. The Styx forms the boundary between the upper and lower worlds.

The first region of Hades comprises the Fields of Asphodel, described in the Odyssey, where the shades of heroes wander despondently among lesser spirits, who twitter around them like bats. Only libations of blood offered to them in the world of the living can reawaken in them for a time the sensations of humanity.

Beyond lay Erebus, which could be taken for a euphonym of Hades, whose own name was dread. There were two pools, that of Lethe, where the common souls flocked to erase all memory, and the pool of Mnemosyne ("memory"), where the initiates of the Mysteries drank instead. In the forecourt of the palace of Hades and Persephone sit the three judges of the Underworld: Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus. There at the trivium sacred to Hecate, where three roads meet, souls are judged, returned to the Fields of Asphodel if they are neither virtuous nor evil, sent by the road to Tartarus if they are impious or evil, or sent to Elysium (Islands of the Blessed) with the "blameless" heroes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hades


From Men, Myths & Minds

Hades, Greek God of The Underworld

    Hades, like his brothers and sisters, was swallowed at birth by his father, the Titan ruler Cronus, to prevent the fulfillment of a prophecy that one of his offspring would grow up to replace him on the throne. Years later his younger brother Zeus (who had been hidden away by their mother to prevent him from also being swallowed) made Cronus vomit up his siblings, and then led them in a battle to overthrow the Titans.

    Knowing they would need armor, weapons, and troops to win the war, the three brothers, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, traveled to the Underworld to release the Cyclopes from their captivity.



    The Cyclopes were a tribe of one-eyed giants who were fine metal smiths. Cronus had imprisoned them in Tartarus, a region in the Underworld that functioned both as a prison and as a place of exile and punishment, rather like our modern vision of hell. The Cyclopes, grateful for their release, crafted gifts for the brothers - thunderbolts for Zeus, a trident (three pronged spear) for Poseidon, and a magic helmet that rendered the wearer invisible for Hades.

    The war was long and bloody, and Hades fought ferociously on the battlefront and proved himself a valiant warrior. The younger generation finally won when Hades, wearing his helmet of invisibility crept up on Cronus, Poseidon pinned him down with his trident, and Zeus rendered him unconscious by striking him with a thunderbolt.



    Once the battle with the Titans was over, the brothers drew lots to determine which regions each of them would rule. Poseidon won the oceans, Zeus the sky (which made him the supreme ruler over all the gods and goddesses as well), and Hades drew the Underworld.

    This seemed to suit Hades just fine. The Greek god Hades, ruler of the Underworld, spent little time with his Olympian siblings, preferring instead to withdraw to his own space and to mind his own business, so to speak.

    And surely his divine responsibility was large -- the management of the Underworld, an underground kingdom wherein lived the spirits of those who had died, those who slept and dreamed, and others who, for whatever reason, had been banished from the earth. With his dark, somewhat morbid nature, the Greek god Hades was undoubtedly well-suited to his career. Nonetheless, at times he was bound to be lonely.



    And so he decided that he needed a wife, and the adolescent goddess Persephone unwittingly attracted his eye. One can hardly blame Hades because the Underworld probably needed some “brightening up”, and the young Persephone's radiance would certainly liven up the place.

    Hades, however, did not bother to woo the young Persephone. After asking for (and receiving) the approval of her father Zeus for Persephone's hand in marriage, Hades simply abducted her one bright sunny day when she stooped to pluck a narcissus from a field of wildflowers growing near her home. The meadow was suddenly rent open, and Hades simply reached out and snatched Persephone away, taking her to his underworld kingdom and making her his Queen.



    Persephone remained lonely for her mother and the life she'd known on earth. Meanwhile her mother, the goddess Demeter, began an intensive search for Persephone. After learning how Zeus had betrayed their daughter, and consumed by grief and sorrow, Demeter refused to allow the crops to grow until Persephone was returned to her. Mankind was facing a dreadful famine. Zeus finally relented and sent the god Hermes to bring Persephone back to her mother.

    Part of Persephone missed her mother horribly, but another part had grown rather fond of the god Hades. And Persephone was rather enjoying her role as Queen, even if it was in the Underworld.

    While preparing to return to the earth with Hermes, Persephone accepted a pomegranate offered to her by Hades. She knew full well that anyone who had eaten while in the underworld would not be allowed to return, even a goddess -- but Persephone went ahead and ate seven of the seeds. Her choice prevented her from ever being fully restored to Demeter, but did open up the possibility of a compromise.

    Hermes was able to negotiate an agreement between Hades and Demeter. Persephone would be allowed to stay with Hades in the underworld for four months each year (winter) and would return to the earth and her mother the remaining months. Each year as Persephone left to join her husband in the Underworld, Greek mythology tells us that the goddess Demeter would begin to grieve, bringing on the cold, barren winters. But a few months later Persephone would return, bringing spring with her.

    Like most of the other gods, Hades wasn’t especially monogamous. And like the other gods’ wives, Persephone wasn’t usually very sympathetic and tended to vent her anger on his lovers instead of her husband.

    When Persephone discovered Hades’ affair with the beautiful wood nymph Mintha, she simply trod her underfoot, turning her into the plant that we now call Mint.

    More than any of the Greek gods, Hades seemed to respect women and was willing to participate in a marriage of equals, sharing his decision-making powers with his wife. The two of them functioned well as a team.
       

    Given his lengthy absences from world affairs and his famous helmet of invisibility, it is understandable that Hades was called the “Unseen One” and the “Invisible One”. Hades is often depicted wearing the helmet, holding a cornucopia (horn of plenty) full of precious metals and jewels . . . not surprising since they are to be found underground, that is, in the realm of Hades.

    Before proceeding with the myths of Hades, it would be a good idea to paint a clearer picture of his kingdom . . . it wasn’t all bad! Of course there was the aforementioned Tartarus, a place of profound misery where political prisoners and the most outrageous criminals were sent to endure unending punishments.

    By some accounts the Underworld also contained the Elysian Fields, where those who were notably heroic or noble would go for their reward after death. But, for the most part, the Underworld was a place where anyone’s shade, or soul, could go after death.

    The price of admission was one coin (of any denomination) to pay Charon, the ferryman, to take the shade across the River Styx that separated the earth from the Underworld. This led to the practice of placing a coin under the tongue or on the eyelids of the recently deceased . . . a way to be sure that the departed could pay the ferryman. Otherwise, without the coin, the spirit would have to restlessly wander the earth for more than a hundred years. Those whose shades entered the Underworld could rest there forever, or choose to be reborn, hopefully perfecting their lives so they could qualify for admission to the Elysian Fields after their next death. Everyone got three lives.

    Hades appears to have had three major responsibilities in running the day-to-day operation of the Underworld. The first was to prevent escapes, or returns to the earth, by the dead. In this he was assisted by a ferocious three-headed dog named Cerberus, who actually belonged to the goddess-sorcerer Hecate who had her home in the Underworld.

    Since the rule was that once you entered the Underworld you were not allowed to leave, very few ever visited the kingdom (or cared to). Two notable exceptions to that rule were Zeus’ messenger Hermes and the goddess Hecate, who lived in the Underworld, but often left to walk around on the earth visiting the shades who had to wander the earth, bringing them comfort. She was often accompanied by her dog Cerberus on these visits. The other permanent guests who had responsibilities both in the Underworld and on earth, and therefore could come and go freely, were: Thanatos (Death), Hypnos( Sleep), and Morpheus (Dreams).

    Others visited only by special invitation. Psyche was allowed to enter the Underworld to pick up a jar of beauty ointment from Persephone for her mother-in-law Aphrodite. Another visitor, Orpheus, who was grieving the death of his wife Eurydice, played and sang so movingly for Hades and Persephone that, touched by his performance, Hades agreed to let Orpheus take his wife back with him to the land of the living. He set only one condition - that Orpheus could not look at her until they reached the sunlight of the earth. Unfortunately Orpheus couldn’t resist the impulse, and the shade of Eurydice returned instantly to live with the dead. Hades refused to allow Orpheus a second chance.

    The only visitor who ever entered without Hades’ permission was the great hero Heracles (Hercules) who had been sent to rescue Theseus as a test, the Twelfth Labor of Heracles. Theseus’ best friend had become infatuated with Hades’ wife and had persuaded Theseus to him kidnap her and bring her back to earth so he could marry her. Hades became suspicious and invited them to dinner. The two, naturally, agreed thinking this would be the perfect opportunity to whisk Persephone away. But Hades was prepared for them and had the forge god Hephaestus make him some magical “Chairs of Forgetfulness”. The two set down to dine and promptly forgot what they had come to do.

    At any rate, Heracles, managed to rescues Theseus away from Hades, dragging Cerberus to the surface and wounding Hades as they struggled.

    Another responsibility of Hades was meting out punishment. While Hades was naturally fearsome to behold because of his association with death, and was not a particularly merciful god, he was perceived as being just and fair.

    Finding just the “right” punishment to fit the crime was not a job that most would have envied, but Hades did it well, coming up with countless creative sentences that enliven Greek mythology. Perhaps the most famous was the punishment of Sisyphus.

    Zeus was enamored with the daughter of a river god and was romancing her in a wooded valley when he father started looking for her and ran into King Sisyphus who told him that Zeus had fallen in love with his daughter and was in the process of abducting her. The enraged father found them walking in the woods and, brandishing a large club, raced toward the unarmed Zeus (who had hung his thunderbolts in a nearby tree while he courted). The startled Zeus quickly turned himself into a rock, confusing the father, and this allowed Zeus time to retrieve his weapons and “shoot” him in the leg with a thunderbolt.

    Even though he’d escaped, Zeus felt humiliated and was furious with the king and his big mouth! Zeus ordered Hades to capture and imprison the king and to administer the severest of punishments possible.

    So Hades went to fetch Sisyphus. The king not only refused to go quietly but also tricked Hades into handcuffing himself, then kept Hades in captivity for over a month, walking him around the palace on a leash and making fun of him. Needless to say, the somber and dignified Hades was not at all amused!

    Ares, the god of war, currently bored with the endless petty wars of the Greeks decided to rescue Hades and came to his assistance, threatening to decapitate Sisyphus if he didn’t release him and turn himself in as Hades’ prisoner.

    The rescue was successful, but the wily Sisyphus had another trick up his sleeve. Once they had arrived in the Underworld, Sisyphus pleaded his case in front of the Queen, arguing that he could not be retain in the Underworld because he was not yet dead, nor had he ever paid the ferryman. Persephone allowed him to leave, but with instructions to return the next day, suitably dead and with a coin under his tongue to start his sentence.

    Sisyphus laughed all the way home, thinking that there was no way that he would go back . . . but the next day Hermes showed up on his doorstep announcing that Fates had decreed that it was his time to die….and Hermes escorted him into the Underworld to face his fate.

    Once they reached the Underworld, Hades’ Judges of the Dead pronounced his sentence -to push a heavy rock over the top of the mountain in Tartarus and each time the rocks rolls back (which it always did, of course) to start all over again. Hades added an extra touch and had the rock shaped just like the one Zeus had transformed himself into, just in case Sisyphus missed the point!

    Like most of the other gods, Hades wasn’t especially monogamous. And like the other gods’ wives, Persephone wasn’t usually very understanding and tended to vent her anger on his lovers instead of her husband. When Persephone discovered Hades’ affair with the beautiful wood nymph Mintha, she simply trod her underfoot, turning her into the plant that we now call Mint.

    More than any of the gods, Hades seemed to respect women and was willing to participate in a marriage of equals, sharing his decision-making powers with his wife. The two of them functioned well as a team.

    In his role as “Good Counselor,” Hades was responsible for helping those who had died to make a successful transition into the afterlife, introducing them to the riches of a life lived subjectively and internally, away from the distractions of the external world. Hades teaches us to be quiet at times, listening carefully to the inner voices that direct us to the hidden riches buried deeply within the soul.

Copyright©2002-2006The Goddess Path   
http://www.men-myths-minds.com/Hades-greek-god.html

The Hades archetype: an in-depth look

Exceprts from "Gods in Everyman" Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.

Hades as the Ploughton- The Archetype of The Rich One

A different type of reclusive Hades may have sampled the outer world, and know that he

prefers the subjectivity and richness of his interior world - the Plouton or “riches” aspect

of Hades. In our extraverted culture, which emphasizes productivity, people are not

encouraged to spend time alone “doing nothing”.  Thus the introverted recluse is judged

negatively, or considered peculiar for spending so much time alone.

Hades the reclusive Ploughton is, however, a “missing” part in many people, who do not

value opportunities to be introverted in they way that this archetype can be.  Introverts

can live an interior life in touch with their own subjective reactions to outer experience. 

A type of introversion (introverted sensation, in Jung’s psychological topology) may be

experienced as inner dialogues, visions, or bodily sensations.

To have Hades as part of ones psychological nature can be very enriching. Hades the

recluse is a source of creativity that can be expressed through the arts, often in visual

arts. However, without access to Zeus’ view of objective reality, and Poseidon’s

emotional responsiveness, which are needed to balance and make sense of Hades’

subjective perceptions, the person runs a danger of emotional isolation and withdrawal

into a world of one’s own.

Hades the Man

The theme for Hades is how to adapt: Can he stay true to himself and also fit into the

outer world? His innate subjective predispotion is not encouraged; on the contrary, he is

measured against a personality standard that is the very opposite of who he is. He usually

grows up in a culture that is foreign to him, that requires him to grow beyond the

confines of this archetype if he is to find a place in it.

Early Years

The introverted child such as Hades does not usually make a strong impression. The

invisibility for which Hades was noted sets in early. Because he does not have either a

strong will or a get-into-an-uproar personality like his brothers, as far as others are

concerned, he often seems to react unexpectedly, especially to new people and new

situations. How something or someone appears to others isn’t what he is reacting to; how

it subjectively affects him is responsible for how he reacts.

Even if he does nothing out of the ordinary he prefers to hold back and take in

experience rather than reach out for it. So he will appear shy as a little child and serious

and withdrawn as he gets older.

There is something autistic about the Hades personality that shows early. When he is

distressed, the sensations he perceives or the impressions he experiences may be purely

subjective, so that others don’t fathom what is going on

So the Hades boy may thus feel unwelcome in the world as he is and find that his interior

world is, in contrast, a refuge. The Hades boy enjoys his own company, anyway and wants

to spend time by himself - or perhaps with an imaginary friends. From nursery school

onward he is intruded on by others needs for him to be more social, and he probably

continues to thwart the nurturing needs that his mother may have for him to be

dependant on and responsive to her.

Adolescence and Early Adulthood

A Hades adolescent follows a very different drummer and runs into trouble when he tries

to conform to the beat of adolescent conformity. He doesn’t know how others just seem

to know what the fads are, doesn’t get caught in having the “right” clothes and would

just as soon miss most of the “right” parties even if he were invited. If he has developed

an extraverted side to himself that is “good enough” to let him get by, and has the inner

security to be himself, he knows by now that he is a distinct individual and has tested the

conversational waters enough to conclude that he prefers his own company to most

people.  By now he may have one or two friends, which is as many as he wants.

For him to get into college or into a career requires development of other archetypes.

Education promotes Apollo’s rational thinking and objective perceptions and teaches

writing and speaking, which are Hermes qualities. Both gods help him to be more

extraverted.  He runs danger of doing this too well and tries to be what others expect of

him- a risk of entering a work world in which he can be competent, but that has no depth

of meaning for him.

Work

The key that can connect inner and outer worlds for him is to have an interest that grows

out of his inner experiences develop into an occupation. This provides him an in-the-

world identity and means making a living through doing something that has meaning for

him.

This archetype is unempowering, in that ambition, communication and persona are all

lacking. Unless he develops other archetypes, he could “drop by the wayside” in his high

school years and anytime thereafter. He may not be hired for anything other than

unskilled work at marginal pay. Whatever he does do, he often does quite seriously. He

often stays at a repetitious job that offers no challenge because his “real” life is the

interior one.

If a Hades man has a well-developed Hermes (the archetypal communicator- who can

move between worlds and carry information between them- and the conductor of souls to

the underworld) then he may bring the depth level to which he has aces up to the world.

These two archetypes function together in film making, depth psychology, and other

fields. Here he may find that he has special gifts to do deeply meaningful work that he

loves to do for its own sake.

Relationships

Yet like Dante, who saw Beatrice once and was then inspired by his inner relationship with

her to write The Divine Comedy, Hades men can be deeply affected by their subjective

inner experience of a woman whom they hardly know. A Hades man is also capable of

having a deep soulmate connection with a woman, who can share the riches of the inner

world.

The reclusive and secretive Hades does not know how to enjoy the camaraderie of other

men. He feels apart and makes his way in a world pretty much as a loner. Other men let

him be. Something about him keeps him from being picked on - or included. Being one of

the boys doesn’t matter to him, which gives them no shunning power, and something bout

his inner orientation conveys strength. He is “different” but not in a way that invited

being a victim. The few friends that he might have in his life will have to enter his realm,

perhaps drawn into discussion about his perception.

If he finds a woman to love him, he will get married. Like Zeus and Poseidon, Hades men

also want to establish households, and have stability and order. Marriage is crucial in

determining the course of his life. Without marriage, he will stay a loner, and an outsider,

maybe a recluse. With a wife and children he becomes part of a family and community

through them. His wife mediates between her introverted husband, who is often

inaccessible to others, and other people. Often she interprets to his children as well.

If he has the support of a family a community and works, then most likely he is the stable,

patriarchal head of a family. If he developed an intellectual life, he may be an

academician, absorbed in an interest that allows for a rich interior life. If he has

developed an expressive ability in the arts or literature, his work is highly subjective.

If he has developed and lived out several other archetypes through his significant,

enduring relationships and work, he may have entered both the emotional realm and the

realm of the mind and will as well as the interior realm. Without Hades as a primary or

major archetype, a man may not naturally develop a familiarity with this realm. Many men

do not, especially those who find the outer–world tasks of the first half of life easy. Thus

the Hades man who has had to adapt to outer life is at midlife more often fully integrated

in these three spheres than most men.

Psychological Difficulties: The Invisible Man

Often, like the god who hardly ever left his realm, and had a cap of invisibility when he

did, a Hades man is unseen because he avoids people or, if he’s present, he doesn’t show

himself. Because, he’s not interested in whatever is going on in the world anyway, so he’s

not up on sports, current fads, political news, the chit-chat of a cocktail party and the

backyard barbeque. And his reactions are subjective, anyway, which strikes others as

peculiar, so he’s learned to be quiet and invisible rather than inappropriate.

The Loner Personality: A Schizoid Person

The Hades man has a predisposition to be alone. If  circumstance and people confirm his

tendency to mistrust others and feel inadequate in a competitive world, he will withdraw

into himself. He keeps to himself what he perceives and how he reacts. Others let him be

reclusive, since his nonverbal and often verbal message is “Leave me alone.” As a loner,

he can live in a closed-off inner world, leading a schizoid existence based on a stable but

constricted psychological disorder

Inferiority complex

If we use Jung’s descriptions of psychological types and accept his observations that the

“inferior” function is usually devalued and the opposite of the most conscious, utilized

“superior” function, Hades represents the inferior function in the Western, patriarchal

industrial world. What is valued are hard facts or objective reality and logical thinking;

what is rewarded is the ability to get to the top, to successfully compete for status,

power, affluence. So Hades is likely to suffer from feelings of inferiority, low self-

esteem, and lack of confidence, because he is not up to “the standard” of what a man

should be like.

Inferior performance in this culture is also a source of low self-esteem. It is hard to

compete in a foreign culture, and this situation is equivalent. The dominant extraverted,

competitive culture is foreign to the Hades man. Yet it is possible to compensate, to

develop a  second language, adapt well to a different culture, and even excel. Still, he

often has an underlying feeling of inferiority, a continual monitoring of himself, and a

feeling of somehow being a fake when success comes.

Difficulties For Others

The difficulty Hades creates for others by being himself is that he lives in his interior

realm, and the rest of the world usually lives elsewhere. The direction of his psychic

energy or libido is inward. And his significant others want some of that energy to flow

outward into their relationship or into the world. At the very least, they want Hades to

communicate about what is going on down there. Loving someone with a reclusive nature

is especially hard for extraverts, who may take their exclusion personally and think that

they have done something wrong when an introverted partner or child withdraws. That

very tension and the tendency for opposites to attract can draw Hades out- or can make

the other person more introverted or lonely.

Ways to Grow

A Hades man will be an isolated person unless he develops other aspects of himself. He

needs to develop a persona to be approachable and visible, and to find the means to

express his inner experience.

A persona is the face we wear into the world. The Latin word person meant “mask”, and

referred to the masks that were worn on stage, which made the role the actor was to play

immediately recognizable. A persona is how we present ourselves, the initial impression

we make. A Hades man who lives more in his inner world than in the outer world must

consciously craft himself an appropriate persona, putting some thought into how he

presents himself. Since the small talk that allows strangers to be at ease with each other

does not come naturally to him, he’ll need to put some thought into what he says and

how he wants to come across. A well-functioning persona - like the clothes we wear -

needs to be appropriate to the situation, as well as reflect the person. Hades needs to

make an effort to be both visible and approachable, in other words.

Finding Persephone

A Hades man will do well to find a receptive woman who can mediate for him with the

world. A Hades man will gradually open up and share his perceptions and richness of his

inner life, but he must first be accessible. “Persephone” does this for him, either as a real

woman, or as his anima - which Jung describes as the unconscious feminine aspect of a

man through which he expresses gentleness, emotionality, and sentiment. This

expressiveness softens his more forbidding aspects and makes him more approachable.

Activating Hermes

Hermes was the only god that freely entered and left Hades’ realm. As Messenger god and

psychopomp (which means guide of souls), Hermes delivered messages, guided souls to

Hades, and came for Persephone. He was noted for the suddenness of his appearance-

which is how an intuitive insight arrives on the scene- as well as for the quickness of his

mind and his facility with words. When Hades and Hermes are present together, Hermes is

the means through which the images or shades in the underworld of Hades are understood

and then communicated to others.  This is what C.G. Jung did when he described the

archetypes of the collective unconscious.  If through reading Jung and other analytical

(Jungian) psychologists or poets such as T.S. Eliot, a Hades man finds the vocabulary to

convey the riches of his inner experience, then his own Hermes has been activated.

Drawing on other gods - Going out into the world.

The man who is predominantly and innately an introverted Hades usually has ample

opportunity to develop other archetypes, which is the way he grows. All the years of

compulsory education draw on Apollo qualities. Living in linear time, meeting schedules,

thinking scientifically, rationally explaining cause and effect help develop this archetype.

Putting ideas into words is also a part of school that develops Hermes. And if he is loved

or loves anyone, then the realm of emotions also becomes a place in which he grows.

A Hades man who recognizes himself in these pages and realizes that his family was so

dysfunctional that he withdrew too much into himself, can grow psychologically beyond

Hades as an adult. It begins with a decision and a commitment to do so. Then it takes

courage, to venture out of the world of his own in which he found safety and isolation.

If he realizes that he is spending too much time in his inner world, he might structure his

time to focus more on the outer world; he could take courses that will teach him what he

feels he does not know, or take up a skill and concentrate on it.

http://www.fourthfloorphotography.com/Hades.html

Archetypal relationships: Persephone & Hades

This is a grown-up blog. I will be dealing with grown-up material in this post (this is the Underworld we're dealing with, after all). The following contains some possibly uncomfortable content - be sure you actually want to continue before going any further.

You've been warned.

Exploring the archetypes: Hades

This series is going to be both a collection of information about a particular archetype as well as an ongoing exploration of the archetype: it's mythological history, relations with other archetypes, my own musings, whatever comes up.


Hades in Myth: a synopsis

Hades was the King of the Underworld, the god of death and the dead. He presided over funeral rites and defended the right of the dead to due burial. Hades was also the god of the hidden wealth of the earth, from the fertile soil with nourished the seed-grain, to the mined wealth of gold, silver and other metals.

Hades was devoured by Kronos as soon as he was born, along with four of his siblings. Zeus later caused the Titan to disgorge them, and together they drove the Titan gods from heaven and locked them away in the pit of Tartaros. When the three victorious brothers then drew lots for the division of the cosmos, Hades received the third portion, the dark dismal realm of the underworld, as his domain.

Hades desired a bride and petitioned his brother Zeus to grant him one of his daughters. The god offered him Persephone, the daughter of Demeter. However, knowing that the goddess would resist the marriage, he assented to the forceful abduction of the girl. When Demeter learned of this, she was furious and caused a great dearth to fall upon the earth until her daughter was returned. Zeus was forced to concede lest mankind perish, and the girl was fetched forth from the underworld. However, since she had tasted of the pomegranate seed, she was forced to return to him for a portion of each year.

Hades was depicted as a dark-bearded, regal god. He was depicted as either Aidoneus, enthroned in the underworld, holding a bird-tipped sceptre, or as Plouton, the giver of wealth, pouring fertility from a cornucopia. The Romans named him Dis, or Pluto, the Latin form of his Greek title Plouton, "the Lord of Riches."

http://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/Haides.html

From the Library of Halexandria

God of the Underworld.  He is grim, inexorable, sternly just, irrevocable in his decrees; he was not evil in himself, not an enemy of mankind, nor a tempter of evil.  His realm was the unconscious.  He was the god of riches, the cornucopia or horn of plenty, the unseen presence.  Human recluse, unaware of what is happening in the world, without a persona, invisible, without position or wealth, preferred the subjectivity and richness of his interior world, capable of “doing nothing”, a source of creativity, good counselor, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Zeus and Hades), introverted, weak will or simply didn’t get-into-an-uproar, autistic, secretive, “different”, but with an inner orientation which conveyed strength and thus did not make him a victim, cut off from the realm of emotions, emotionally illiterate, dreamer (“Fantasies and active imagination are voluntary descents to be entered and left at will.”).  Both Zeus and Poseidon forced women sexually repeatedly, yet it was Hades who got the bad reputation; the others got away with it.

http://www.halexandria.org/dward373.htm

Tarot Correspondences

Each archetype has two corresponding Tarot cards: one from the Minor Arcana, which shows the archetype at it's healthiest - it's the way we can manifest their power and energy. The corresponding card from the Major Arcana, on the other hand, is the divine gift of the spiritual realm that they're seeking to manifest through us.

King of Pentacles

Usually everything the King of Pentacles touches turns to gold. He is a pillar of stability, with experience to share with everybody. This is the logical conclusion of all the positive ideals of the Pentacles suit: through diligence, responsibility and attention to detail we can and will become like the King of Pentacles. He is usually rich materially and he encourages you to live your life like he would. No one has a stronger character than the King of Pentacles. His word is as good as gold, and certainly just as valuable. He's similar to the Knight in that whatever he says he will do, will get done. But where the Knight takes on responsibility for the sake of responsibility, the King is in it for profit. He's the master of the material world. This could be seen as a fault, and it can certainly become so if he lets it get too far out of hand, but this rarely happens. He has too much experience and intelligence to be swept away by the allure of money; he prefers the security and peace of mind that it brings him. A lot of people see the King of Pentacles as dull and unimaginative, but this is probably because he simply prefers old ways of thinking and acting. This is not to say that he refuses to learn new things; in fact, he likes learning and has a wide variety of skills to call upon. But the old methods usually work best for a King of Pentacles and so he sticks with them. He is relied upon because of his devotion to duty and his trustworthiness. It's rare to see a King of Pentacles get angry, because they have a steady temperament and a very long fuse. But he is unforgiving to those who violate his trust, and for those people he has absolutely no mercy.

Whenever you need the skills to manage your affairs competently and efficiently, you can call upon the King of Pentacles. Take up all the vast challenges of the material world, and know that you can conquer them all if you work hard. Give generously of your time and resources, because by giving you often receive more. Let the King inspire you to success so you can inspire others in turn.

The Hermit (IX)

When questions about the nature of existence and the purpose of life start eating away at your mind, answers will not be found in the physical world. They can only be found inside of you. You have risen above your desires and emotions because they will no longer help you on your journey. Now you must become like the Hermit, who seeks the answers alone. Only the whispers of his Inner Voice, and the light of his lamp, will guide him now. Eventually even that lamp shall be cast away, because it is artificial and will not help the Hermit forever. His own inner light must learn to shine in the absence of the light of others. For true wisdom to emerge, there can be no distractions. Any preoccupations of the world, no matter how small or inconsequential they may seem, will be heard as shouts that drown out the still voice within. It is not enough to rid yourself of inner turmoil, though that is a step in the right direction. The next step is to eliminate outer turmoil, through isolation and withdrawal from the world. This is the path of the Hermit, who slips into darkness in order to have the light revealed to him when he is ready. Like the Fool, he is once again alone, separated from all others. But this time it not only by choice, but by necessity.

Once he has learned the lessons and seen his true wisdom, the Hermit will often pick up his lamp and return to the real world, in order to help others see their own potential as well. But the Hermit is not a teacher; he will not lecture his students and tell them all about his experiences of solitude and isolation. They must experience it themselves, for wisdom earned simply by listening to another person is not really wisdom at all. True wisdom and true enlightenment always come from within. A teacher may tell the student how he found wisdom, but the student must go and find it for himself. Wisdom is not a gift presented to you on a platter. It is a gift you give yourself.

His gift is a call to learn more about yourself and the nature of your existence. It will be a powerful change requiring much effort and commitment. If you are ever in doubt, know that all the wisdom you will need is already inside you, waiting to emerge. This light will not come unless sought out, but when it does, you will see that you had the answers all along.

http://www.ata-tarot.com/resource/cards/index.html

Hades Posts

The Hades archetype: an in-depth look
Archetypal relationships: Hades and Persephone
Hades in myth 
Hades musings

Again, much of the above descriptions comes from The American Tarot Association, Goddess Power, The Library of Halexandria and from Wikipedia pages on the various tarot cards. All credit goes to them for their brilliant explorations of the archetypes and tarot cards. Make sure you check them out yourself and get their wisdom first hand (links are over there to the right.)