We had a good laugh over it--dragged? Hardly! I leaped into his big van-shaped silver chariot with my critters and my stuff faster than you can say "nutball ex-girlfriend". But then, envisioning me being dragged off to Oklahoma by the hair must help her justify her view of him as a bad guy which, I'm sure, helps her cope with the fact that she lost him.
Which got me thinking...
Maybe the whole "all unwilling" version of the Persephone myth
, (which--one absconded lady to another--I don't buy in the least), was started by one of Hades'
nutball ex-girlfriends--jealous of the fact that Persephone got the hook-ups with the wealthiest god of all while she was stuck fending off the lusty advances of far less commitment-minded deities.Well, that's my theory anyway.
Blessed by the Mystery,
-M. Ashley
It's funny how Pagans in the Hellenic Polytheist traditions, and Pagans of other Traditions, who are perfectly willing to accept the few popularly known Greek myths as A) The only stories about the Theoi, and B) Literal stories about the Theoi, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteAh, but if you really do your research and pay attention to the latest conclusions in scholarship, you get a very different view of the myths than what is popularly accepted. In "Narcissus and the Pomegranate", the author makes a very good case for Persephone being complicit in, if not her abduction, then in the settlement where she spends half her time in Hades and half above with Demeter.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right, the latest scholarship does suggest quite different spins on the myths than those commonly accepted--and, no matter what time period in which we live and what versions of the myths we choose to accept, "latest scholarship" will ALWAYS posit new interpretations--because that is "latest scholarship's" job.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, the only way that could impact your spiritual center would be if you were a myth literalist, as, unfortunately, some Hellenic Polytheists are. On the other hand, if you understand the myths as intended not as history, but as a method by which to impart the character of our Theoi, then whatever spin a myth takes, whatever the latest scholarship suggests, your center, like Hestia's flame, will burn on eternally, undisturbed yet perhaps a little brighter for the added insight.