You’re probably familiar with the Hero’s Journey, the monomyth famously described by Joseph Campbell—“monomyth” meaning that it appears all over the world, in virtually all mythologies. (Some people may even think it’s the only myth.) It’s the story of the journey of the Hero who begins in innocence, ignorant of the Call that awaits him. He leaves home under its irresistible compulsion, faces great obstacles and commits great deeds, most often with the help of unforeseen allies, yet must face the greatest trials alone in the deep black forest, triumphing in the end and returning home wiser.
My friend bluenomada told me one day that she got the insight, which felt almost like a smack upside the head, that “I don’t live the Hero’s Journey. I stay in the forest!” She lives a different kind of myth, one of being alive to the wisdoms of the forest plant and animal powers and using them in her healing practices. Her story is different, a shaman’s journey, that keeps her in the midst of mystery, staying connected and attuned.
I won’t say more about bluenomada’s story, because it belongs to her, but it got me thinking too. Jung asked a great question: “What myth is living me?” He asked himself that question, when, relatively early in his life and career, wild dreams and waking visions nearly overcame him and his tools as a psychoanalyst weren’t enough to rescue him. As an old man, he said that living with that question every day, which he did by making art like a child and observing his own process like a scientist, showed him glimpses of what he came to call the collective unconscious and laid the foundations for the work he did for the rest of his life.
Jung’s story had been on my back burner for years, as I tried to understand what the question meant. Bluenomada’s smack upside the head brought it to the front burner. Then I understood, in a flash, why I was so taken with a special set of myths.
Here’s the myth that has been working me. There are without doubt others that work me, and all of us. But I recognized that a story I love has been playing on my lifestrings. When I pick it up, I can see myself, like in a mirror. Myths, however inscrutable, do work that way. A mythic story can give us glimpses of the inside of the soul’s engine. Myths that don’t speak to us pass out of memory and die. We’ve never heard the dead ones.
So, here is the one that’s been working me. Hephaistos is the Greek god of fire and metalworking, one of the twelve Olympians ruled by Zeus. He is a wounded god, as are many of the maker-gods in myths from all over the world. I see him as a god of embodiment, representing the mysteries of incarnation in a body of flesh and bone, on a planet, with weather and an atmosphere, and myriad other embodied beings. The ancient Greek hymn to Hephaistos asks for him to make good things for human life, like good houses that protect us from the elements. Hephaistos also makes things of beauty that are game-changers. When they are used, fates are altered, like the gorgeous armor used at Troy that ensured the fame of Achilles (ever read the Iliad?) or the fabulous belt that Aphrodite lent to Hera to seduce Zeus, successfully diverting his attention, for the moment, away from a plot Hera hatched at Troy.
You can read about Hephaistos on any number of internet myth sites. Here are four themes that appeared whole-cloth to me, that come from his story. I call them “The Four Hephs.” They are still only snippets—there is so much more to the story, but the general shape of the whole story is here. (Unlike the first three, the last of the four Hephs you may not readily see among the versions of Heph’s myth. It comes from my dissertation research, and I am working on a book about them. This story has been working me for quite a while!)
I have received insights about my life and how I live it from thinking about The Four Hephs. I invite you to do the same. These bits of myth yield questions that create more stories—your stories. The stories that come from the Hephs and the questions they seem to ask are different for everyone.
I’ll tell you a little about what each of these questions has given me. They have each yielded much longer, more complex, richer stories, far too much to share here (though I may blog on them in the future). I work with them sometimes using a journal, or talking with a friend and sharing stories. And, I lead a series of workshops called “Fanning the Flames.” The flames we fan are from the unique spark that each of us carries, and that needs to get oxygen to burn in the world.
The First Heph is “Finding the Jewel in the Wound.” Hephaistos is born club-footed, a disappointment to his mother, Hera, who demanded of Grandmother Gaia a strong boy child who would grow up to punish Zeus for his offenses to Hera. Furious, she throws the infant from Olympus. He falls for days and lands in the sea. We all have wounds, whether physical or psychic, often incurred in childhood. These wounds contribute to our sense of self. People who have been wounded or experienced illness or other physical conditions, even grievously, very often say that they have received gifts of insight that they would not have otherwise attained and might not trade.
The questions this Heph have suggested to me are: What is a wound in your life that contains for you a jewel, of identity, awareness, or purpose. What is your jewel? Reflecting on this question led me down a long trail of self-story. There were breadcrumbs leading back to childhood. But thinking about the wounds as jewels that, however painfully, formed my identity, gives me a greater sense of power. I don’t think I would have done a lot of what I have done in my life without there having been some benefits from the wounds. Because I had to take care of myself, they had the chief effect of making me independent, almost fearless. One of the jewels I received from being wounded, I believe, is self-confidence.
The Second Heph is “In the Undersea Cavern.” Infant Hephaistos is rescued by two sea nymphs, Thetis and Eurynome, daughters of the Sea and goddesses of older lineage than the Olympians, and thus possessing knowledge the Olympians do not. They are shapeshifters and possessors of Metis, intuitive intelligence (named for their sister nymph, Metis, mother of Athena, whom Zeus swallows, subsequently giving “birth” to Athena though his head—midwifed by a hammer blow from Hephaistos). Thetis and Eurynome hide and protect Hephaistos, adopting him as their foster child. They arrange for him to be tutored in the mysteries of metalworking (a techne comparably fateful, mysterious, and potent in the ancient world as space technology, biotechnology or digital technology today). His talent thrives and he lives in the undersea nymphs’ cave, happily creating objects of great beauty, to his foster mothers’ delight.
The questions I get from this part of Heph’s story are: What/who is a place or people in whose embrace you learned something of importance about the unique gifts you carry? Who are those people; where and how were you fostered in recognizing your gifts, and what are they? I was gifted with two extraordinary teachers whose independence and humility invited me to step forward as a person in my own right. There have been many more teachers in my life, and there continue to be. Each one of them gave me a different gift, a different mirror for seeing my own talents. I remember all of them with gratitude. And, if I do not make good on my own gifts, I am dishonoring the gifts they have given me.
The Third Heph is “Returning to Olympos.” At length, Zeus hears of the prodigious making talent of Hephaistos and demands his return to Olympos. Hephaistos at first refuses, but shows his tricky side by sending a gift throne to his mother Hera. Homer says that Hera loves the trappings of power, so she sits in the throne, which imprisons her, hanging her upside down on the ceiling. The gods, lacking craft, cannot rescue her. When Hephaistos returns to Olympus, he regains his seat at the exclusive table of 12 gods. He is renowned as a peacemaker, and as a worker. He is also a civilizer: the maker of symbolic objects that represent power, such as Zeus’s thunderbolts, the scepter of Agammemnon, the armor of Achilles—and the magically beautiful girdle of Aphrodite—all objects of power that affect the destinies of people and nations. Objects, too, of beauty—beauty that is powerful enough to be a game-changer.
The questions that come from this Heph are: In what ways do you assent to or defer taking your rightful place at the table of power? What is the nature of your personal power? What is unique about your power? How do you exert it, and what is your relationship to others who carry power? This is probably the biggest Heph for me in my life at this stage. It’s a challenge to stand fully and nakedly in my own power. I sometimes fear I will blow other people away. I want to learn to raise my voice and live out loud, loudly enough for people to clearly hear me. At the same time, I want to build my confidence that I can modulate my voice, raising it just enough, not too much. When I think about the power of others, I know that collaboration is what I need in the coming phase of my life, to be able to extend my reach and offer my gifts to the world. That will mean being able to blend my gifts with those of others, to both speak with appropriate persuasion and forcefulness when I need to, and to listen with full and open attention.
The Fourth Heph is “Stepping into the Mystery.” What is little known about Hephaistos, but can be pieced together from ancient sources, is that Hephaistos was the patron of certain mystery cults in Greece; not the most famous, the Elusinian, which lasted for a thousand years; but of cults at Samos and other places, and often in association with Dionysos, that thrived on seafaring. The sea is pathless, and sailors might, or might not, return, even if they have a good knowledge of the stars and other technologies to guide them. Surfers today say that, “When you enter the ocean, you enter the food chain.” And, the recent Air France crash off the coast of Brazil reaffirms that the pathless, metistic nature of the ocean is still filled with fateful mystery for humanity. Seafarers, and all of humanity who are embodied, must at length come to terms with our deepest fears, and ultimately, our own mortality. Hephaistos is the god of forge-fire, volcanic fire—and sacrificial fire. Heraclitus said: “All life is fire.”
The questions that arise from the Fourth Heph involve: Coming to terms with incarnation through friending your deepest fears and dreams. We are mortal, and face the mysteries of hunger, uncertainty, aging and death. What must we release in order to achieve personal peace of mind? How may we acknowledge our deepest fears with awe and respect, and live and die with peace and dignity? Ah, the big one!
In my dissertation research, I discovered that Hephaistos was the patron of mystery cults. The aim of ancient mystery cults was for the celebrant to come into relationship with the mysteries of the signal aspects of physical embodiment: maturation and sex, community unity, individuation, and vulnerability to illness, aging, and death.
The myths of the maker gods speak to us about the mysteries of incarnation on Earth. The maker gods usually stand in some kind of subordinate relationship to the creator god/desses, who often recede or absent themselves, while the maker gods continue to stand in relationship to humanity, making good things for life. They often complete the creation of humans begun by the creator god/desses, and it is through the encounter with the maker gods that we achieve individual and community identity and instrumentality.
Incarnation is a great mystery, and we need to come into profound relationship with it in order to attune with the huge shifts that are occurring now; with the planet, human economy, questions of national and global identity, and hugely rapid technological advance. Hephaistos is a maker god, so is Yoruban Ogun, Egypgtian Ptah, Ugaritic (Palestinian) Kothar-wa-Khasis, Vedic Bramanaspati and others from all over. They are usually imaged as masculine, but are intimately intertwined with strong feminine powers, from whom they learn the mysteries of Earth. They are all of the oldest divine lineages, older than dirt, and are known as the Wise Ones.
Oh, Hephaistos, make me wise!
© 2009 Cheryl De Ciantis, Ph.D. aka Daedala, aka Hephaistos Semyorka in Second Life
