The following story of Erichthonius comes from Anne Wight’s website The Constellation of Words ( ): The suffix – chthonius means “earth,” Taurus being an earth sign. The island is symbolically identified with the constellation Auriga, the Chariot which is driven by Erichthonius, son of Athena and Hephaestus. Next the Sun moves into Taurus and the crew make a stopover on the idyllic, beautiful and bountiful Goat’s Island, where they replenish their stocks and have a peaceful sojourn. This occurs with the Sun on the verge of entering the sign Aries, which symbolically means the disentanglement from the sweet oblivion of the Piscean collective waters and making a decisive step towards Arian consciousness. Odysseus orders them to be dragged back to the ship and bound under the rowing benches. His three companions, who were sent there on a scouting mission, taste the sweet flower and fall into mellow oblivion, forgetting about their homes and the purpose of their journey. As the Sun passes Pisces and Cetus, the sea monster, he lands in the Land of the Lotus. In the first month of Odysseus’ post-Troyan adventures, the Sun passes northern fish (Pisces) and Odysseus’ fleet gets hit by a hurricane. The book Homer’s Secret Odyssey plots his adventures along the ecliptic of a star chart. In the story of Cyclop the conflict between Poseidon and Athene lurks in the background, which I will reveal in more detail shortly.īefore Odysseus landed on the Cyclops’ island, he visited the Lotus-Land. Athena’s gift of an olive tree was deemed as more precious than Poseidon’s stream of salty water. The dispute was to be settled by a contest: whoever offers a more precious gift to the citizens, will also lend his or her name to the city. Poseidon and Athena had a long history of being divine adversaries, who disputed between themselves whose name should be given to a new mighty city in Attica. Sandro Botticelli, “Athena and the Centaur” (detail)Īthena is symbolically present in one of the most famous adventures of Odysseus: his encounter with the Cyclop Polyphemus, son of Poseidon. Athena’s mother, Metis, was a Titaness of wisdom, deep thought and “magical cunning.” Metis, meaning wisdom and cunning, was a quality Athena bestowed on Odysseus, her beloved protégé. In her Asteroid Goddesses, Demetra George credits Pallas Athene with “advancing the civilizing influence of culture upon humanity.” Like Odysseus, she was a master of tactics and strategy, and stood for creative intelligence. A special protectress of Odysseus is Athena, who has a special relationship with our hero. Gods and goddesses are present both as themselves, in the flesh, and as archetypes projected upon the starry firmament. The Odyssey is a profound meditation on archetypal patterns, a celestial journey through Zodiac signs and constellations. … The heroes live under the regard of their observing gods, and it gives them dignity.” These gods, who have time on their hands and sacrifices on their minds, are also inveterate onlookers, watchers of humanity and eager interferers. The gods fly through the sky and skim over the earth, assume whatever look suits them, and what is more, females become males, while all are untrammeled by the social decencies of the human world… The world of the gods is incorruptibly beautiful, full of hilarity, exquisite artifacts, ever-fresh lovemaking, a world in which distance is not laboriously conquered and time is not inescapable. … Seen against them, as dark shadows against a scene of light, human mortals gain their gravity. Since almost nothing they do has serious consequences for them, they give themselves over completely to the present… And the ichor is stemmed, and all the wounds are healed immediately, and death is not a prospect. In Homeric Moments, Eva Brann, reflects on the qualities of Greek gods: What makes the Odyssey so fascinating to me is the constant presence of gods and goddesses, who ceaselessly impinge on the human world.
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