I've opened this thread to discuss what myth and literature can teach us about the times we are in and the personalities involved.
These stories have come to me in visions while trying to figure out what will happen. Some of you have mentioned your own thoughts about myth and certainly astrology is about mythic stories relevant to these times. Anything thoughts? Can you help me know more about the visions I've had that I list below? And/or have any ancient archetypes, stories in history, or in literature come to you?
11/1/16: Hades and Percephone/also Pluto, Hades' Roman counterpart: When meditating on the 2016 election and how it would unfold, I saw image of Pluto, also Hades. Then the image of Percephone as a flower, the goddess of springtime. It brought up the story of Hades kidnapping the innocent lovely goddess Percephone and imprisoning her in the underworld which caused the crops to fail. Her mother, Demeter, the goddess of the grains went into such grief at the loss of her daughter, that nothing would grow and famine spread throughout the land. Then the people begged Zeus, the king of the gods to order Hades to bring her back. They made a deal. She would be back for six months of the year and thus the seasons were born. Pluto and Hades are our shadow. Percephone our joy and innocence. Demeter is our maternal self that rules the crops.
Trump and the GOP, and the corporate greed that enables them, have become the shadow that now rules over our land. They suck the life force out of our collective. They wage endless wars to make money. They treat the Earth as a supply house and sewer. With the installation of Donald Trump, the people are depressed and stressed, and if the GOP is allowed to continue, it's only a matter of time before famine sweeps this land. Once enough people awaken to the destruction they are causing, then change will happen.
11/13/18: Hercules and the Hydra: When meditating on Mueller after Trump installed Whitaker, I saw the story of Hercules slaying the Hydra where the dark monster with many heads lives in a lake where he prevents people from accessing the water while he comes out at night and kills their cattle. His many heads each a monster who if you cut off a head, two more grow in its place. Until the people's strongman, Hercules, was given the task of slaying the hydra. Who is the hydra? How did it come into being? Perhaps it can tell us more about the orgins of the darkness we find ourself in now and how it will play out.
11/13/18: Henry the Eighth and the Pope: In meditating on Trump, the image of the 16th century Roman Pope and the image Henry the Eighth appeared. Henry, a hedonist, narcissistic , late Medieval King broke ties to the Catholic Church that ruled over Europe to marry Ann Bolyn and retain the riches England had formerly to send to Rome. The Pope excommunicated Henry on December 17, 1538. Is there a message in Henry's fate that can tell us what will happen with Trump?
P.S. Two other works of fiction:
I also keep thinking about Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as a glimpse by the genius Conrad, into the heart of the imperialist. It's a short novel that can be read repeatedly. Does anyone know any novels that also help us understand the times we are in and the personalities we are dealing with?
I just finished the last season of House of Cards - dark satire on politics in this country. It goes like a Shakespearean tragedy turned horror movie where everyone dies and those who survive are like the walking dead. It doesn't escape me that the series' hero, an anti-Christ politician President (Frank Underwood) had to be killed off (murdered) because the actor Kevin Spacey's sexual abuse. Whoo-ha-ha-ha
They manage to touch on every possible Donald Trump issue in the last season -- the Emoululent Clause, creating false flag nuclear war events as a distraction and killing off journalists. I got the feeling the writers just wanted the American public to be familiar with these tactics as eye openers.
Don't forget that after Henry Viii, the time was full of growing pains, and England had to go through two (three?) other rulers before they got Elizabeth. First was the boy King Edward VI, who was very religious, and established Protestantism fully. Henry had left it half done once he got what he wanted out of the split. It was also a time of economic problems, social unrest and rebellion (sound familiar?) and Edward was a child. Then there was the tragic Lady Jane Grey (the cousin) who was put up as a pawn Queen to prevent Mary the throne and keep the Protestants in power. She lasted 9 days. Lastly poor Bloody Mary, who tried to return the country back to Catholicism by force which proved to be very unpopular and people were hostile to it. Some good things came from her reign -which benefited Elizabeth when she came into power, but too late for Mary to get any credit, such as the Book of Rates regarding customs and duties, and her efforts to return the currency to silver and withdraw from circulation the debased coins from Edward/Jane years.
Finally we get Gloriana herself, Elizabeth the 1st, who ruled for 45 years. Her rule is considered the Golden Age of Britain and was a time of peace and prosperity. She did the following: defeated the Spanish Armada, turned England into a dominant naval power, increased literacy, encouraged world exploration and expanded overseas, founded the Church of England, addressed poverty with The Poor Laws, promoted the arts, and made England into a respected world power. She also disliked extremism, and as long as Catholics behaved themselves and were loyal to England, showed up to the Church of England on occasion, they were free to believe as they wished in their own homes. It was a huge difference from Mary who was burning Protestants at the stake for their beliefs. She did this all as a woman!!! Unheard of during the time period.
I'm sorry I'm geeking out on this time period. I have had an affinity for the Tudor era from a very young age and I feel a familiarity with the people in it.
I expect that the USA will get your "Gloriana" , however there will likely be an Edward (swing to progressive side) and a Mary (try to force you back to the extremist side) in there first :). I recall Jeanne saying she felt the full change would occur at the end of the 2020's, which makes sense. It takes fits and starts and tries and retries to get to where we want to be.
PS - Elizabeth was total vindication for the poor murdered Anne Boleyn. Just my personal thoughts. Take that Henry!
Adora, Thank you for geeking out on Henry the 8th and Elizabeth I. I loved it. And I love this thought that you left us with:
I expect that the USA will get your "Gloriana" , however there will likely be an Edward (swing to progressive side) and a Mary (try to force you back to the extremist side) in there first :). I recall Jeanne saying she felt the full change would occur at the end of the 2020's, which makes sense. It takes fits and starts and tries and retries to get to where we want to be.
PS - Elizabeth was total vindication for the poor murdered Anne Boleyn. Just my personal thoughts. Take that Henry! -- --Adora
Yes and Yes.
Hahaha! Love all of you geeks so much! I've read (and once taught high school mythology) but as an undergraduate at age 21 given 3 different high school classes to teach with no help from the 'supervisory' teachers other than heres a few books, I taught Greek/Roman/some Norse and my favorite William Blake. ..I was more of an allegorical storytelling survivalist weaving magical fun than knowledgeable.
Love all the historical novels and films but what's real and fiction has blurred more than a bit in that mash up . So, I love, love everything, everyone has shared here.
Loved Carl Jung since I was 16, his archetypes and oh his and Joseph Campbell's allegorical tales!! Pure heaven!
I once read that Jung was asked by American intelligence for insights on Adolf Hitler as Hitler was just rising to prominence and power.
As Jeanne has mentioned for two years now of his presidency the parallels can not be denied!
What was in those insights passed on by Jung may never have been released but for sure with Jungs insights on archetypal patterns and the Shadow of our deepest most negative states buried within each of us, I'm sure he had a lot to say even it was learning how alike we all are in our complex selves.
But as far as mythology goes Trump is the primordial shape shifter, the greatest trickster of all whether going by the Norse Loki (American might be "Loco" as he trumps his flute/Pan horn calling all lemmings over the cliff) or Native American Coyote who still brought fire to keep humanity warm, food cooked, and campsites brightened through the darkest nights.
What will Trump bring you ask? Well, the economy is blooming as the rich get richer which illuminates the poor and the disappearing middle class. And light shines bright on all of our hatred, our ability to redicule those we dont like or deem loco ?and we really believe, it appears, in vested self interest and gold in our pockets, ear lobes, wrists and neck decor more then the Golden Rule.
And the list of mythological comparison goes on and on. And yes, I know Jung was accused of being a Nazii sympathizer etc.etc. but so has our current Pope, and Mother Theresa was quoted as saying she helped the poor not because she loved them but because she loved Jesus. And Dr. Seuss in real life was not a good influence for shaping childrens beliefs and Freud married his 15 year old cousin etc.
And the intelligence officer who asked for Jung's input became the head of the CIA and said the world would never know how much Jung and his insights helped the allies.
So, yes. Shadows are real. We all have one we can see when the Light shines our attention on it, we all symbolically project many, and it's for a very good reason that humans can be known for being afraid of their own shadow. They're pretty amazingly "awful" and they are part of all of us and this, our collective shadow and this very intense, and often extremely frightening, archetypal journey through time and space, the universe, and now here on this beautiful planet we called home.
But we put out far more light than a campfire, we have lightened and brightened our own part of reality by sharing our collective understandings and are sharing our illuminations with the whole world.
Does science fiction count as myth? Because I've read far more science fiction than classical literature.
For me, it's difficult not to see what's happening in America now as something that reminds me a lot of the Star Wars prequel movies, when you see how the Evil Emperor got into power. Not in detail - the Star Wars Emperor is more devious than Trump, Trump just uses brutal con-man and mafia methods without any restraint. The thing with the Star War movies, in spite that you knew that it was all going to end in tears, they made it look like it didn't have to be that way, that it could have been stopped if things had happened a little differently. They're a warning rather than a prediction, and that's what's good about them.
There's a particular line in there that really stuck: "So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause." Because that's how you know that things have gone past the point of no return. When something that is clearly wrong gets lots of approval.
By the way, just now, thinking about classic sci-fi movies, I got a feeling that somebody involved with them is going to die very soon. Not a Star Wars person... more like 2001 or Close Encounters of the Third Kind, maybe Star Trek. Well, by the end of the week we should see if I was right.
Joseph Conrad’s books often dealt with the subjects of imperialism, colonialism and “the other” and how they are treated in society. He was born in Poland and only became fluent in English in his twenties. I am sure that his experience of travel in younger years as a merchant marine and having a father who was both a writer and a translator contributed to his unique writings. In a way, he embodied being “the other’ and was in a unique position to write about it. I especially enjoyed his book, Lord Jim.
As far as books that are regularly quoted over the last couple of years in referring to the current administration, Animal Farm, Farenheit 451, Nineteen Eightyfour and the Handmaid’s Tale come to mind. Sadly, I don’t think the people that are being referred to in the quotes probably don’t read enough to realize what they are referring to.
In some ways, it just shows that these issues aren’t new and that some of the negative things that we are dealing with now have happened before, just in different constellations.
Baba, so helpful. I can see more clearly our current situation using Conrad's stories. In Heart of Darkness, barbarism was at the core of British imperialism -- reaping profits for their companies, so that ladies could drink tea in elegant mansions back home. At the heart of aristocratic pretense was a barbarism in the methods they used to get their wealth, a primitive depravity that Conrad summed up as "the horror. the horror."
The barbarism of the recent murder of the Saudi journalist, Khashoggi - his ambush, the unspeakable torture, and dismemberment of his body, tacitly approved by Donald Trump and his son in law who formally pretend not to know about it, fits the methods that enable Donald Trump and his associates to attain wealth and power.
Trump wrote in his recent White House formal justification for continuing to do business with the Saudis that at stake is "a lot of money." He glowed about over a hundred billion of it going to American military companies who will sell equipment to a crown prince who our own CIA believes committed heinous acts.
The images of the puffy Donald Trump, his Barbee daughter and weak-eyed son-in-law, and the pasty Mitch McConnell, fit the "weak-eyed devils" Conrad describes as the ultimate Lucifers in elite society.
Jeanne, perhaps we should consider having a recommend book reading list section. People have been recommending so many lately and they are getting buried in posts.