The chart below is for the moment the following phrase came into my mind:
They anthropomorphized universal traits and called them gods.
For several months I've been pondering the ancient Greek stories of gods, especially as told in the Illiad. I have struggled for years with the Bible, mythologies of various cultures and miracle stories. I used to find them all very irritating and just wanted to make them go away like flies at a picnic.
Now, on the internet, we all have access to scholarly presentations from people who are steeped in the languages and cultures from which these tall tales originate. It's so refreshing to get a respectful but sober perspective on these ancient writings. Here is a link to one of my favorites Mueller on Menis.
I still have many moments of profound irritation: do they really have to make it all so convoluted and complicated? And after a break from study, a return to the everyday ups and downs of human existence, I am reminded of just how frought and complicated life is, all life. Scientifically and psychologically life is a barrel of monkeys and very often a fight to the death.
Sure, when we get a better look we can see that the nucleic acids in our cells are all neatly wound on spools, and the amino acids in the proteins that hum away like invisible robots hidden deep in our cells are all folded according to a rule that precedes the oldest form of human knowledge. But it took an incredible amount of human striving, searching, real suffering and dispassionate cooperation to unravel those secrets. This morning I clicked on an article about how scientists have linked forms of lead and silver to various ancient mines to trace the early spread of silver coinage and the rise of Athens. They neglected to mention the slave laborers who extracted ore from those mines.
I like to quietly give thanks for the social justice rabble rousers when I see mentions in articles, say in wikipedia, that make a note of slave labor. A fact that once would have been considered unworthy of mention.
But back to my chart for this post. See Venus at the top? It looks just like the symbol we use for female. It's in the sign Libra ♎ where it actively rules. It's only been in this place of power since Wed. Can you see diplomacy on the rise?
Meanwhile the Sun is less than 2.5 degrees from its lineup with Mars. They have this meeting every couple of years, but it rarely happens in a sign where the planet of passion is ruling. See the blue M to the left of Libra with the arrow on it? That's Scorpio ♏. So while the planet of the ego is lining up with War in the sign of self preservation, the planet of diplomacy is in a section of its cycle where it too has power.
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The Moon (crescent at top of chart) in ♎, was crossing the meridian the moment that phrase came to me. That really means Raleigh, where I live, was facing toward the Moon in the sign of diplomacy, just at the moment that phrase was finally born in my little mind. A location on Earth only faces a particular planet along the ecliptic for a few minutes, then passes on to the next degree in the 360degrees it passes each day.
I've been reading Philo of Alexandria. He was about 25 years older than Jesus. Like most Jews of those days living in Egypt, he didn't speak Hebrew. He knew enough to make Hebrew references in his writings, but by that time most Jews in Egypt were reading their sacred books in Greek. Also like a lot of Jews he read a good bit of Greek philosophy. And though I never see it mentioned, I would guess he was familiar with a good bit of Egyptian and Achaemenid writings. I'm reading his work 'On the Creation', a commentary on the Book of Genesis. I'm delighted with many passages, but I made a note of the one copied below, which refers to a place in Genesis where 'God' is referred to in a plural rather than singular term.
XXIV. (72) "And he would not err who should raise the question why Moses attributed the creation of man alone not to one creator, as he did that of other animals, but to several. For he introduces the Father of the universe using this language: "Let us make man after our image, and in our likeness." Had he then, shall I say, need of any one whatever to help him, He to whom all things are subject? Or, when he was making the heaven and the earth and the sea, was he in need of no one to co-operate with him; and yet was he unable himself by his own power to make man an animal so short-lived and so exposed to the assaults of fate without the assistance of others? It is plain that the real cause of his so acting is known to God alone, but one which to a reasonable conjecture appears probable and credible, I think I should not conceal; and it is this. (73) Of existing things, there are some which partake neither of virtue nor of vice; as for instance, plants and irrational animals; the one, because they are destitute of soul, and are regulated by a nature void of sense; and the other, because they are not endowed with mind or reason. But mind and reason may be looked upon as the abode of virtue and vice; as it is in them that they seem to dwell. Some things again partake of virtue alone, being without any participation in any kind of vice; as for instance, the stars, for they are said to be animals, and animals endowed with intelligence; or I might rather say, the mind of each of them is wholly and entirely virtuous, and unsusceptible of every kind of evil. Some things again are of a mixed nature, like man, who is capable of opposite qualities, of wisdom and folly, of temperance and dissoluteness, of courage and cowardice, of justice and injustice, in short of good and evil, of what is honourable and what is disgraceful, of virtue and vice."
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Somehow, thinking on Philo's commentary on Genesis helped formulate the idea I've been striving for, just like the Titans whose name means to strive or reach, those early generation gods of the Greeks. I keep thinking of Paris being pressured into choosing the fairest of 3 goddesses, and how that was not even the root cause in the tragic war recounted in the Illiad, but a step along the long descent into madness. Beauty personified, righteous anger personified - not just personified but elevated to a godlike status. Why? Maybe because all humans have been striving since first memory (Mnemesone, another early generation goddess) to free themselves, ourselves from the bondage of these universal traits.
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