Ares / Mars
XVI The Tower
ARES: ARCHETYPE & ANCESTOR
Divine Descent; Mythology As Family
By Iona Miller, 2016
Prepared on invitation for Bibliotheca Alexandrina: Dauntless, a devotional anthology in honor of the Greek Ares, God of War and his Roman counterpart Mars, Father of Rome;
edited by Rebecca Buchanan.
"It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back. In fact, it may well be that the very high incidence of neuroticism among ourselves follows from the decline among us of such effective spiritual aid." --Joseph Campbell, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", 2008. Joseph Campbell Foundation, p.7
"It is a great mistake in practice to treat an archetype as if it were a mere name, word, or concept. It is far more than that: it is a piece of life, an image connected with the living individual by the bridge of emotion." ~Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols, Page 96
Divine Descent; Mythology As Family
By Iona Miller, 2016
Prepared on invitation for Bibliotheca Alexandrina: Dauntless, a devotional anthology in honor of the Greek Ares, God of War and his Roman counterpart Mars, Father of Rome;
edited by Rebecca Buchanan.
"It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back. In fact, it may well be that the very high incidence of neuroticism among ourselves follows from the decline among us of such effective spiritual aid." --Joseph Campbell, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", 2008. Joseph Campbell Foundation, p.7
"It is a great mistake in practice to treat an archetype as if it were a mere name, word, or concept. It is far more than that: it is a piece of life, an image connected with the living individual by the bridge of emotion." ~Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols, Page 96
We are born into a family which we share with more and more contemporary people as we look further back in time. But when we are gathered to the ancestors are we met by the gods? Shall we move Ares from our archetypal altar to the family shrine? Perhaps some of us can.
We know there is power in naming. What is it to name something, to name someone, to name someone an ancestor, or even name a god as direct ancestor? It all comes down to our own name, genealogy as a heritage led regeneration.
Descent From the Gods
Ares is our forebear. He is the psychic background of a historical drama that is still unfolding in us, a specific manifestation of energy. A secret unrest gnaws at our roots, an instinct for expansion. The less we are conscious of it, the more it influences us. Carl Jung thought that inclinations, moods, and decisions are influenced by the dark forces of psyche, and they could be dangerous or helpful in shaping destiny. (CW 10, Para 332)
We take our ancient lineage as metaphorical and symbolic, not just literal. Ancestors are trans-subjective facts made of our own psychophysical substance, still residing and working on us inside as they did outside. For Jung they were part of our inherited instinct and preformed patterns. With a bit of insight, we can read the epic story of the Trojan War and Founding of Rome from the top down in our genealogy.
Archetypes direct fantasy activity and inherited potential for ideas and action. We see with the soul's eye through the web of reality. In the case of Ares, Jung thought conflict, war, and conquest is about the failure of a myth to contain personal and collective dark energies projected onto real or imagined enemies.
War goes with the territory. We must endure it as we do the conflict between the sexes, and between the ego and unconscious. Ancient myths, their archetypes, heroes, and monsters still animate our anxieties.
Myth explains the unexplainable, especially when history is unreliable. Myths repeat again and again, hence the totem serpent/dragon of Ares is endless time. Everything that was outside is also inside the mythic unconscious, including the fiery warrior who 'sticks to his guns', perhaps far too long. Ares is an organ of our pre-rational psyche. If character is our genius, some have a terrible genius for war and make a career of it.
“Although the opposites flee from one another they nevertheless strive for balance, since a state of conflict is too inimical to life to be endured indefinitely. They do this by wearing each other out, like the two dragons or the other ravenous beasts of alchemical symbolism.” (Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, Pp. 230)
Relying on physical power, intensity, intimidation, and direct action, how often do we act and react unmindfully? When are we too primitive, too present, too strong? We all have to cope with violence, struggle, and death. What happens to the feminine, especially the dark feminine, in a society saturated by masculine war, or blood-soaked atrocities? Can conflict become the avenue to hope and self-worth?
The secret doctrine of antiquity survives in our bloodlines. Our genes pulse down the lines with us as temporary custodians. Separated across the face of time, we have the same genetic material. We go down in history, descending from the most remote and divine characters imaginable at the edge of reality.
In genealogy, inherent meaning unites with experience; historical facts help us uncover psychological meaning. Historical facts are set in and rooted in myth. The story acts on our psyche as much as it acted in the world. Even when non- or pre-historical, genealogy is a symbol of an unbroken relationship with the others and divine forces and our mortality.
My story, rooted in Ares, may be your story, too, if Ares is in your lineage or a spirit in your blood. It doesn't have to manifest in coercion, extreme rage, blood lust, or combativeness. We might be dauntless in our aspirations, inspired and sacrificing beyond ourselves, challenging our own personal best, courage and daring.
The first written words of Greek epic poetry were about the war with Troy in Asia and the return from it. We now know that all wounds in war are not visible and that soul-searing post-traumatic stress persists throughout a lifetime as a disease of the soul -- shell shock.
Odysseus failed in his long voyage home for many years, because the true voyage home is an inner journey to heal the deadness and stuckness that comes from visceral horror and atrocities.
"But this much I would claim to know: that a man cannot go to war in quest of power and wealth without doing mortal harm to some portion of his soul, and once the soul is damaged and impaired then all kinds of madness follow." (The War at Troy, by Lindsay Clarke, p. 272, 2004)
Not necessarily aggressive with primitive brutality, Ares is also chivalry, protection and self-protection, repressed action. We needn't be raiders, military or militant, do martial arts, collect weapons, or be sports or sex addicts. We don't need forceful exercise of the power drive to commune with Ares of the mighty heart and emotional wounds.
Courage, empowerment, assertiveness and other qualities shine when not confounded with shadow ferocity, violence, might, and impulse. Sometimes, we may be headstrong, rash, self-gratifying. We will risk, lose reason and restraint again; we will play tough; we will quarrel; we will be impetuous. We will be tense; we will overreact; we may surrender to despair or vengeance. Someone will press our buttons. We feel Ares as the surge of emotion, loyalty, or the urge to retaliate, but also the light generated by fiery emotions.
Soul Retrieval
Indigenous people equate ancestor loss with soul loss that can be retrieved by reintegrating our ancestral generations. Since soul is the living thing in us, soul loss is depression, loss of vitality or passion about life, or feeling that something is missing in life. Body-language betrays feelings. We define ourselves by interaction. When you put human names to it, perception shifts.
Genealogy is about re-connection. It helps heal loss of meaning, direction, vitality, mission, purpose, identity, and deep unhappiness. We need to know who we are and where we come from beyond the recent past. We can follow the lines of our genealogical descent like a path, our particular path into existence. In this case it is the path of Ares, through Aeneas, to the Roman Emperors.
The ancestors, including the divine roots create the form of all our experience. By facing our soul, we face our ancestors and the gods in a circumambulation of the self. Our devotion to Ares echoes how that archetype informs our lives. There is a caution warning, an object lesson in his frenzy, irrationality, and uncontrolled lust.
Ares harks back through the Mycenaen Greeks to the prehistoric Dragon lineages of the Hittites, Sumerians, and beyond. His character matches Teshub, another Asianic god. Ares fought on the side of the Trojans at the siege of Ilium. Hesiod and Aeschylus said he was the father of the race of Kadmos, who married his daughter Hermione. The warriors of Kadmos sprang from the teeth of the dragon of Ares, which Kadmos sowed.
The wolf is the totem animal of Ares, but the dragon is also his sacred animal. The nymph Telphousa bore the sacred dragon Ares begat on her. This Ismenian dragon was a giant serpent which guarded the sacred spring of Ares near Thebes.
We will be following this martial thread as a lead. Reading the line we "see through" the collective portion of a classical line of descent from Ares/Mars. It descends through Troy to the rise and fall of Rome, into the Middle Ages, and the modern world. Revisioning Ares (birth: circa -1680) as a direct ancestor forges an emotional connection with the root archetypes, the Olympians.
We realize what Ares means from deep inside as more than an unconscious psychic factor. Giving voice to the ancestors is giving voice to the gods so their images can live and ground our being. Our lonely hearts open fully to loving reciprocity.
Recognition
One of the most important things an ancient person could do was ceremonially recite their ancestors. In Scotland declaring lineage was part of the battle-rattle preceding war, designed to strike terror into the heart of the enemy. We can welcome them hospitably back into our lives. Their images impress us in a way beyond the physical facts, restoring form to the formless.
Recognition is a great mystery of the psyche. The inner wealth of the soul resides in our hearts. Jung calls the unconscious, "the unwritten history of mankind from time unrecorded." (CW 11, Para 280) And he notes, "The unconscious mind of man sees correctly even when conscious reason is blind and impotent." (CW 11, Para 608). Our genealogical lines certainly express this concept.
Our family tree helps us learn the family history and the stories behind the pedigrees which trail off into the mists of pre-history. Matters stuck in limbo are lured back into life by genealogical soul retrieval and emotional reconnection to the ancestors, gods, and primordial womb of nature.
When that is part of 'what we know' we don't have to merely believe. The ancestors and divine root permeate us through the dark borderland of body and soul and unify our archetypal essence. Everything in the psychic world is real.
In Scotland, oral traditions of genealogy marked the structure and evolution of the clan -- by blood descent, marriage and territorial holding. Oral recitation of genealogy was passed on to children round the fireside. The Highlanders did not use the form of a tree, but used the track of a wheel or the imprint of fingers tracing intricate relations in the dust.
Old seanchaidhean could recite the sinnsearachd, the Gaelic term used for the descent or genealogical track. So, pardon me while I idly trace the relationships and genealogical tracks left in the dusts of time, legend, and memory in the line of Ares/Mars.
What if God Was [more than] One of Us?
Myth is the DNA of the human psyche. Genes are memories, primordial and otherwise. Living myths give story and experience meaning. Genealogy is not always simple, being full of alternate matings, shared ancestry, inter-family marriages, natural and disputed offspring.
Because of the genetic shuffle in chromosomes at conception, such revelations come mostly through genealogy, not genetic tests which reveal ethnic identity but few if any individual ancestors.
In his archaic form, Ares was a fertility god. If the lines are to be believed, his descendants proliferate in the flesh to this day. The psychic fact is that he is in us all, and remains in us and our progeny through certain royal lines of descent. The soul becomes the arbiter of truth or error.
We embody the survival of the pagan gods. Psyche cannot be distinguished from its manifestations. The historical tradition is conflated with the mythic tradition through genealogy. The implication is that if we were engendered by them, they continue through us. They persist in our spirit, psyche and psychology, emotions, as well as physical bodies that create our reality every day.
The gods' misty pre-historical origin is our own origin. Thus, Ares/Mars is archetype and ancestor, an instinct for physical survival. Questionable empirical reality has a transcendent aspect, including dark and mysterious areas of our experience. We are informed by his Being. Umberto Eco says, wryly, in Foucault's Pendulum that we cannot betray an ancestor who never existed nor fail that old-time religion.
The general premise of The Survival of the Pagan Gods, by Jean Seznec (1981) is that "the ancient gods survive during the Middle Ages by virtue of interpretations of their origin and nature propounded by antiquity itself."
The gods are civilizers, who founded dynasties as well as legends. They hide in astrology, science, and magic as 'astral' planetary forces. The Renaissance reduced them to mythological allegory, but the bloodlines went silently on as testimony to the right to rule. Our genealogy informs our understanding of history and even the unleashed terror of a god. What happens when the warrior god culture goes too far?
Archetypal Genealogy
We still have to find the point where the evidence fails and search for reliable sources. Traditional genealogy is an archetypal activity, recapitulating and extending humanity's oldest activities, including the imaginal root. The aesthetic response is an ethical response -- a response of the heart -- that values the ancestors and the genealogical history.
Genealogy is thus an archetypal order, an aesthetic construction, and a virtual map of the personal and collective unconscious, reflecting a principle of totality and primordial origins. Traditional genealogy considered these mythological inclusions best-practice, yet it may be more of a psychic than historical "fact."
This does not mean we need to take that literally – historically as fact -- but the connections seem implicit by their nature. Genealogy is another way for us to connect with the gods, and if we are connected to one, we are therefore related to others, as well. Jung claimed, “There is no form of human tragedy that does not in some measure proceed from this conflict between the ego and the unconscious.”
Only a Jungian approach to traditional genealogy keeps the historic/mythic gestalt of The World Tree alive as a symbol of wholeness -- a holistic resonant field pattern. According to Jung, trees are a symbolic reference to the self, so family tree is self-defining. As well as our lineage, our ancestors also form a vast symbol chain, rooted in the mythic unconscious and pre-history.
The symbolic function is beyond innate impulse and ideological bias. Through introversion, we are fertilized, inspired, regenerated, and reborn. Self-incubation, self-castigation, and introversion are closely related ideas. Immersion in oneself (introversion) is a penetration into the unconscious, the imaginal world of psyche.
The World Tree is the Axis Mundi of genealogy, a worldwide database of genealogical connectivity. At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms. Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones and be disseminated to all. The spot functions as the omphalos (navel), the world's point of beginning.
The earliest mythologies are of the World-Tree, or Tree of Life. Aspects of the same image, sacred trees are the most common motif from the ancient world. The Tree connects our psychophysical aspects from sub-nuclear to macrocosmic scales. The trunk is the axis of psychic growth that unites Heaven and Earth, spirit and matter.
Indigenous societies insist that lack of connection to our ancestors is one of our greatest shortcomings, so reclaiming them takes on importance. It gives us a model of ‘how’ precisely we are connected, and just how many generations lie between. The further back in time they are, the more we can be certain we share them with most of humanity.
The mythology of our ancestors is as important as their cosmology. We can explore the mystic in ourselves and in our ancestors. Our worldview is the root of our identity and relationship to Nature and our own deep nature. Researching the cosmologies of our direct ancestors in the historical era provides a quick path into dream shamanism, as these ways are still half-remembered. Our common destiny lies beyond any worldview.
We know there is power in naming. What is it to name something, to name someone, to name someone an ancestor, or even name a god as direct ancestor? It all comes down to our own name, genealogy as a heritage led regeneration.
Descent From the Gods
Ares is our forebear. He is the psychic background of a historical drama that is still unfolding in us, a specific manifestation of energy. A secret unrest gnaws at our roots, an instinct for expansion. The less we are conscious of it, the more it influences us. Carl Jung thought that inclinations, moods, and decisions are influenced by the dark forces of psyche, and they could be dangerous or helpful in shaping destiny. (CW 10, Para 332)
We take our ancient lineage as metaphorical and symbolic, not just literal. Ancestors are trans-subjective facts made of our own psychophysical substance, still residing and working on us inside as they did outside. For Jung they were part of our inherited instinct and preformed patterns. With a bit of insight, we can read the epic story of the Trojan War and Founding of Rome from the top down in our genealogy.
Archetypes direct fantasy activity and inherited potential for ideas and action. We see with the soul's eye through the web of reality. In the case of Ares, Jung thought conflict, war, and conquest is about the failure of a myth to contain personal and collective dark energies projected onto real or imagined enemies.
War goes with the territory. We must endure it as we do the conflict between the sexes, and between the ego and unconscious. Ancient myths, their archetypes, heroes, and monsters still animate our anxieties.
Myth explains the unexplainable, especially when history is unreliable. Myths repeat again and again, hence the totem serpent/dragon of Ares is endless time. Everything that was outside is also inside the mythic unconscious, including the fiery warrior who 'sticks to his guns', perhaps far too long. Ares is an organ of our pre-rational psyche. If character is our genius, some have a terrible genius for war and make a career of it.
“Although the opposites flee from one another they nevertheless strive for balance, since a state of conflict is too inimical to life to be endured indefinitely. They do this by wearing each other out, like the two dragons or the other ravenous beasts of alchemical symbolism.” (Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, Pp. 230)
Relying on physical power, intensity, intimidation, and direct action, how often do we act and react unmindfully? When are we too primitive, too present, too strong? We all have to cope with violence, struggle, and death. What happens to the feminine, especially the dark feminine, in a society saturated by masculine war, or blood-soaked atrocities? Can conflict become the avenue to hope and self-worth?
The secret doctrine of antiquity survives in our bloodlines. Our genes pulse down the lines with us as temporary custodians. Separated across the face of time, we have the same genetic material. We go down in history, descending from the most remote and divine characters imaginable at the edge of reality.
In genealogy, inherent meaning unites with experience; historical facts help us uncover psychological meaning. Historical facts are set in and rooted in myth. The story acts on our psyche as much as it acted in the world. Even when non- or pre-historical, genealogy is a symbol of an unbroken relationship with the others and divine forces and our mortality.
My story, rooted in Ares, may be your story, too, if Ares is in your lineage or a spirit in your blood. It doesn't have to manifest in coercion, extreme rage, blood lust, or combativeness. We might be dauntless in our aspirations, inspired and sacrificing beyond ourselves, challenging our own personal best, courage and daring.
The first written words of Greek epic poetry were about the war with Troy in Asia and the return from it. We now know that all wounds in war are not visible and that soul-searing post-traumatic stress persists throughout a lifetime as a disease of the soul -- shell shock.
Odysseus failed in his long voyage home for many years, because the true voyage home is an inner journey to heal the deadness and stuckness that comes from visceral horror and atrocities.
"But this much I would claim to know: that a man cannot go to war in quest of power and wealth without doing mortal harm to some portion of his soul, and once the soul is damaged and impaired then all kinds of madness follow." (The War at Troy, by Lindsay Clarke, p. 272, 2004)
Not necessarily aggressive with primitive brutality, Ares is also chivalry, protection and self-protection, repressed action. We needn't be raiders, military or militant, do martial arts, collect weapons, or be sports or sex addicts. We don't need forceful exercise of the power drive to commune with Ares of the mighty heart and emotional wounds.
Courage, empowerment, assertiveness and other qualities shine when not confounded with shadow ferocity, violence, might, and impulse. Sometimes, we may be headstrong, rash, self-gratifying. We will risk, lose reason and restraint again; we will play tough; we will quarrel; we will be impetuous. We will be tense; we will overreact; we may surrender to despair or vengeance. Someone will press our buttons. We feel Ares as the surge of emotion, loyalty, or the urge to retaliate, but also the light generated by fiery emotions.
Soul Retrieval
Indigenous people equate ancestor loss with soul loss that can be retrieved by reintegrating our ancestral generations. Since soul is the living thing in us, soul loss is depression, loss of vitality or passion about life, or feeling that something is missing in life. Body-language betrays feelings. We define ourselves by interaction. When you put human names to it, perception shifts.
Genealogy is about re-connection. It helps heal loss of meaning, direction, vitality, mission, purpose, identity, and deep unhappiness. We need to know who we are and where we come from beyond the recent past. We can follow the lines of our genealogical descent like a path, our particular path into existence. In this case it is the path of Ares, through Aeneas, to the Roman Emperors.
The ancestors, including the divine roots create the form of all our experience. By facing our soul, we face our ancestors and the gods in a circumambulation of the self. Our devotion to Ares echoes how that archetype informs our lives. There is a caution warning, an object lesson in his frenzy, irrationality, and uncontrolled lust.
Ares harks back through the Mycenaen Greeks to the prehistoric Dragon lineages of the Hittites, Sumerians, and beyond. His character matches Teshub, another Asianic god. Ares fought on the side of the Trojans at the siege of Ilium. Hesiod and Aeschylus said he was the father of the race of Kadmos, who married his daughter Hermione. The warriors of Kadmos sprang from the teeth of the dragon of Ares, which Kadmos sowed.
The wolf is the totem animal of Ares, but the dragon is also his sacred animal. The nymph Telphousa bore the sacred dragon Ares begat on her. This Ismenian dragon was a giant serpent which guarded the sacred spring of Ares near Thebes.
We will be following this martial thread as a lead. Reading the line we "see through" the collective portion of a classical line of descent from Ares/Mars. It descends through Troy to the rise and fall of Rome, into the Middle Ages, and the modern world. Revisioning Ares (birth: circa -1680) as a direct ancestor forges an emotional connection with the root archetypes, the Olympians.
We realize what Ares means from deep inside as more than an unconscious psychic factor. Giving voice to the ancestors is giving voice to the gods so their images can live and ground our being. Our lonely hearts open fully to loving reciprocity.
Recognition
One of the most important things an ancient person could do was ceremonially recite their ancestors. In Scotland declaring lineage was part of the battle-rattle preceding war, designed to strike terror into the heart of the enemy. We can welcome them hospitably back into our lives. Their images impress us in a way beyond the physical facts, restoring form to the formless.
Recognition is a great mystery of the psyche. The inner wealth of the soul resides in our hearts. Jung calls the unconscious, "the unwritten history of mankind from time unrecorded." (CW 11, Para 280) And he notes, "The unconscious mind of man sees correctly even when conscious reason is blind and impotent." (CW 11, Para 608). Our genealogical lines certainly express this concept.
Our family tree helps us learn the family history and the stories behind the pedigrees which trail off into the mists of pre-history. Matters stuck in limbo are lured back into life by genealogical soul retrieval and emotional reconnection to the ancestors, gods, and primordial womb of nature.
When that is part of 'what we know' we don't have to merely believe. The ancestors and divine root permeate us through the dark borderland of body and soul and unify our archetypal essence. Everything in the psychic world is real.
In Scotland, oral traditions of genealogy marked the structure and evolution of the clan -- by blood descent, marriage and territorial holding. Oral recitation of genealogy was passed on to children round the fireside. The Highlanders did not use the form of a tree, but used the track of a wheel or the imprint of fingers tracing intricate relations in the dust.
Old seanchaidhean could recite the sinnsearachd, the Gaelic term used for the descent or genealogical track. So, pardon me while I idly trace the relationships and genealogical tracks left in the dusts of time, legend, and memory in the line of Ares/Mars.
What if God Was [more than] One of Us?
Myth is the DNA of the human psyche. Genes are memories, primordial and otherwise. Living myths give story and experience meaning. Genealogy is not always simple, being full of alternate matings, shared ancestry, inter-family marriages, natural and disputed offspring.
Because of the genetic shuffle in chromosomes at conception, such revelations come mostly through genealogy, not genetic tests which reveal ethnic identity but few if any individual ancestors.
In his archaic form, Ares was a fertility god. If the lines are to be believed, his descendants proliferate in the flesh to this day. The psychic fact is that he is in us all, and remains in us and our progeny through certain royal lines of descent. The soul becomes the arbiter of truth or error.
We embody the survival of the pagan gods. Psyche cannot be distinguished from its manifestations. The historical tradition is conflated with the mythic tradition through genealogy. The implication is that if we were engendered by them, they continue through us. They persist in our spirit, psyche and psychology, emotions, as well as physical bodies that create our reality every day.
The gods' misty pre-historical origin is our own origin. Thus, Ares/Mars is archetype and ancestor, an instinct for physical survival. Questionable empirical reality has a transcendent aspect, including dark and mysterious areas of our experience. We are informed by his Being. Umberto Eco says, wryly, in Foucault's Pendulum that we cannot betray an ancestor who never existed nor fail that old-time religion.
The general premise of The Survival of the Pagan Gods, by Jean Seznec (1981) is that "the ancient gods survive during the Middle Ages by virtue of interpretations of their origin and nature propounded by antiquity itself."
The gods are civilizers, who founded dynasties as well as legends. They hide in astrology, science, and magic as 'astral' planetary forces. The Renaissance reduced them to mythological allegory, but the bloodlines went silently on as testimony to the right to rule. Our genealogy informs our understanding of history and even the unleashed terror of a god. What happens when the warrior god culture goes too far?
Archetypal Genealogy
We still have to find the point where the evidence fails and search for reliable sources. Traditional genealogy is an archetypal activity, recapitulating and extending humanity's oldest activities, including the imaginal root. The aesthetic response is an ethical response -- a response of the heart -- that values the ancestors and the genealogical history.
Genealogy is thus an archetypal order, an aesthetic construction, and a virtual map of the personal and collective unconscious, reflecting a principle of totality and primordial origins. Traditional genealogy considered these mythological inclusions best-practice, yet it may be more of a psychic than historical "fact."
This does not mean we need to take that literally – historically as fact -- but the connections seem implicit by their nature. Genealogy is another way for us to connect with the gods, and if we are connected to one, we are therefore related to others, as well. Jung claimed, “There is no form of human tragedy that does not in some measure proceed from this conflict between the ego and the unconscious.”
Only a Jungian approach to traditional genealogy keeps the historic/mythic gestalt of The World Tree alive as a symbol of wholeness -- a holistic resonant field pattern. According to Jung, trees are a symbolic reference to the self, so family tree is self-defining. As well as our lineage, our ancestors also form a vast symbol chain, rooted in the mythic unconscious and pre-history.
The symbolic function is beyond innate impulse and ideological bias. Through introversion, we are fertilized, inspired, regenerated, and reborn. Self-incubation, self-castigation, and introversion are closely related ideas. Immersion in oneself (introversion) is a penetration into the unconscious, the imaginal world of psyche.
The World Tree is the Axis Mundi of genealogy, a worldwide database of genealogical connectivity. At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms. Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones and be disseminated to all. The spot functions as the omphalos (navel), the world's point of beginning.
The earliest mythologies are of the World-Tree, or Tree of Life. Aspects of the same image, sacred trees are the most common motif from the ancient world. The Tree connects our psychophysical aspects from sub-nuclear to macrocosmic scales. The trunk is the axis of psychic growth that unites Heaven and Earth, spirit and matter.
Indigenous societies insist that lack of connection to our ancestors is one of our greatest shortcomings, so reclaiming them takes on importance. It gives us a model of ‘how’ precisely we are connected, and just how many generations lie between. The further back in time they are, the more we can be certain we share them with most of humanity.
The mythology of our ancestors is as important as their cosmology. We can explore the mystic in ourselves and in our ancestors. Our worldview is the root of our identity and relationship to Nature and our own deep nature. Researching the cosmologies of our direct ancestors in the historical era provides a quick path into dream shamanism, as these ways are still half-remembered. Our common destiny lies beyond any worldview.
We are born into a family which we share with more and more contemporary people as we look further back in time. But when we are gathered to the ancestors are we met by the gods? Shall we move Ares from our archetypal altar to the family shrine? Perhaps some of us can.
We know there is power in naming. What is it to name something, to name someone, to name someone an ancestor, or even name a god as direct ancestor? It all comes down to our own name, genealogy as a heritage led regeneration.
Descent From the Gods
Ares is our forebear. He is the psychic background of a historical drama that is still unfolding in us, a specific manifestation of energy. A secret unrest gnaws at our roots, an instinct for expansion. The less we are conscious of it, the more it influences us. Carl Jung thought that inclinations, moods, and decisions are influenced by the dark forces of psyche, and they could be dangerous or helpful in shaping destiny. (CW 10, Para 332)
We take our ancient lineage as metaphorical and symbolic, not just literal. Ancestors are trans-subjective facts made of our own psychophysical substance, still residing and working on us inside as they did outside. For Jung they were part of our inherited instinct and preformed patterns. With a bit of insight, we can read the epic story of the Trojan War and Founding of Rome from the top down in our genealogy.
Archetypes direct fantasy activity and inherited potential for ideas and action. We see with the soul's eye through the web of reality. In the case of Ares, Jung thought conflict, war, and conquest is about the failure of a myth to contain personal and collective dark energies projected onto real or imagined enemies.
War goes with the territory. We must endure it as we do the conflict between the sexes, and between the ego and unconscious. Ancient myths, their archetypes, heroes, and monsters still animate our anxieties.
Myth explains the unexplainable, especially when history is unreliable. Myths repeat again and again, hence the totem serpent/dragon of Ares is endless time. Everything that was outside is also inside the mythic unconscious, including the fiery warrior who 'sticks to his guns', perhaps far too long. Ares is an organ of our pre-rational psyche. If character is our genius, some have a terrible genius for war and make a career of it.
“Although the opposites flee from one another they nevertheless strive for balance, since a state of conflict is too inimical to life to be endured indefinitely. They do this by wearing each other out, like the two dragons or the other ravenous beasts of alchemical symbolism.” (Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, Pp. 230)
Relying on physical power, intensity, intimidation, and direct action, how often do we act and react unmindfully? When are we too primitive, too present, too strong? We all have to cope with violence, struggle, and death. What happens to the feminine, especially the dark feminine, in a society saturated by masculine war, or blood-soaked atrocities? Can conflict become the avenue to hope and self-worth?
The secret doctrine of antiquity survives in our bloodlines. Our genes pulse down the lines with us as temporary custodians. Separated across the face of time, we have the same genetic material. We go down in history, descending from the most remote and divine characters imaginable at the edge of reality.
In genealogy, inherent meaning unites with experience; historical facts help us uncover psychological meaning. Historical facts are set in and rooted in myth. The story acts on our psyche as much as it acted in the world. Even when non- or pre-historical, genealogy is a symbol of an unbroken relationship with the others and divine forces and our mortality.
My story, rooted in Ares, may be your story, too, if Ares is in your lineage or a spirit in your blood. It doesn't have to manifest in coercion, extreme rage, blood lust, or combativeness. We might be dauntless in our aspirations, inspired and sacrificing beyond ourselves, challenging our own personal best, courage and daring.
The first written words of Greek epic poetry were about the war with Troy in Asia and the return from it. We now know that all wounds in war are not visible and that soul-searing post-traumatic stress persists throughout a lifetime as a disease of the soul -- shell shock.
Odysseus failed in his long voyage home for many years, because the true voyage home is an inner journey to heal the deadness and stuckness that comes from visceral horror and atrocities.
"But this much I would claim to know: that a man cannot go to war in quest of power and wealth without doing mortal harm to some portion of his soul, and once the soul is damaged and impaired then all kinds of madness follow." (The War at Troy, by Lindsay Clarke, p. 272, 2004)
Not necessarily aggressive with primitive brutality, Ares is also chivalry, protection and self-protection, repressed action. We needn't be raiders, military or militant, do martial arts, collect weapons, or be sports or sex addicts. We don't need forceful exercise of the power drive to commune with Ares of the mighty heart and emotional wounds.
Courage, empowerment, assertiveness and other qualities shine when not confounded with shadow ferocity, violence, might, and impulse. Sometimes, we may be headstrong, rash, self-gratifying. We will risk, lose reason and restraint again; we will play tough; we will quarrel; we will be impetuous. We will be tense; we will overreact; we may surrender to despair or vengeance. Someone will press our buttons. We feel Ares as the surge of emotion, loyalty, or the urge to retaliate, but also the light generated by fiery emotions.
Soul Retrieval
Indigenous people equate ancestor loss with soul loss that can be retrieved by reintegrating our ancestral generations. Since soul is the living thing in us, soul loss is depression, loss of vitality or passion about life, or feeling that something is missing in life. Body-language betrays feelings. We define ourselves by interaction. When you put human names to it, perception shifts.
Genealogy is about re-connection. It helps heal loss of meaning, direction, vitality, mission, purpose, identity, and deep unhappiness. We need to know who we are and where we come from beyond the recent past. We can follow the lines of our genealogical descent like a path, our particular path into existence. In this case it is the path of Ares, through Aeneas, to the Roman Emperors.
The ancestors, including the divine roots create the form of all our experience. By facing our soul, we face our ancestors and the gods in a circumambulation of the self. Our devotion to Ares echoes how that archetype informs our lives. There is a caution warning, an object lesson in his frenzy, irrationality, and uncontrolled lust.
Ares harks back through the Mycenaen Greeks to the prehistoric Dragon lineages of the Hittites, Sumerians, and beyond. His character matches Teshub, another Asianic god. Ares fought on the side of the Trojans at the siege of Ilium. Hesiod and Aeschylus said he was the father of the race of Kadmos, who married his daughter Hermione. The warriors of Kadmos sprang from the teeth of the dragon of Ares, which Kadmos sowed.
The wolf is the totem animal of Ares, but the dragon is also his sacred animal. The nymph Telphousa bore the sacred dragon Ares begat on her. This Ismenian dragon was a giant serpent which guarded the sacred spring of Ares near Thebes.
We will be following this martial thread as a lead. Reading the line we "see through" the collective portion of a classical line of descent from Ares/Mars. It descends through Troy to the rise and fall of Rome, into the Middle Ages, and the modern world. Revisioning Ares (birth: circa -1680) as a direct ancestor forges an emotional connection with the root archetypes, the Olympians.
We realize what Ares means from deep inside as more than an unconscious psychic factor. Giving voice to the ancestors is giving voice to the gods so their images can live and ground our being. Our lonely hearts open fully to loving reciprocity.
Recognition
One of the most important things an ancient person could do was ceremonially recite their ancestors. In Scotland declaring lineage was part of the battle-rattle preceding war, designed to strike terror into the heart of the enemy. We can welcome them hospitably back into our lives. Their images impress us in a way beyond the physical facts, restoring form to the formless.
Recognition is a great mystery of the psyche. The inner wealth of the soul resides in our hearts. Jung calls the unconscious, "the unwritten history of mankind from time unrecorded." (CW 11, Para 280) And he notes, "The unconscious mind of man sees correctly even when conscious reason is blind and impotent." (CW 11, Para 608). Our genealogical lines certainly express this concept.
Our family tree helps us learn the family history and the stories behind the pedigrees which trail off into the mists of pre-history. Matters stuck in limbo are lured back into life by genealogical soul retrieval and emotional reconnection to the ancestors, gods, and primordial womb of nature.
When that is part of 'what we know' we don't have to merely believe. The ancestors and divine root permeate us through the dark borderland of body and soul and unify our archetypal essence. Everything in the psychic world is real.
In Scotland, oral traditions of genealogy marked the structure and evolution of the clan -- by blood descent, marriage and territorial holding. Oral recitation of genealogy was passed on to children round the fireside. The Highlanders did not use the form of a tree, but used the track of a wheel or the imprint of fingers tracing intricate relations in the dust.
Old seanchaidhean could recite the sinnsearachd, the Gaelic term used for the descent or genealogical track. So, pardon me while I idly trace the relationships and genealogical tracks left in the dusts of time, legend, and memory in the line of Ares/Mars.
What if God Was [more than] One of Us?
Myth is the DNA of the human psyche. Genes are memories, primordial and otherwise. Living myths give story and experience meaning. Genealogy is not always simple, being full of alternate matings, shared ancestry, inter-family marriages, natural and disputed offspring.
Because of the genetic shuffle in chromosomes at conception, such revelations come mostly through genealogy, not genetic tests which reveal ethnic identity but few if any individual ancestors.
In his archaic form, Ares was a fertility god. If the lines are to be believed, his descendants proliferate in the flesh to this day. The psychic fact is that he is in us all, and remains in us and our progeny through certain royal lines of descent. The soul becomes the arbiter of truth or error.
We embody the survival of the pagan gods. Psyche cannot be distinguished from its manifestations. The historical tradition is conflated with the mythic tradition through genealogy. The implication is that if we were engendered by them, they continue through us. They persist in our spirit, psyche and psychology, emotions, as well as physical bodies that create our reality every day.
The gods' misty pre-historical origin is our own origin. Thus, Ares/Mars is archetype and ancestor, an instinct for physical survival. Questionable empirical reality has a transcendent aspect, including dark and mysterious areas of our experience. We are informed by his Being. Umberto Eco says, wryly, in Foucault's Pendulum that we cannot betray an ancestor who never existed nor fail that old-time religion.
The general premise of The Survival of the Pagan Gods, by Jean Seznec (1981) is that "the ancient gods survive during the Middle Ages by virtue of interpretations of their origin and nature propounded by antiquity itself."
The gods are civilizers, who founded dynasties as well as legends. They hide in astrology, science, and magic as 'astral' planetary forces. The Renaissance reduced them to mythological allegory, but the bloodlines went silently on as testimony to the right to rule. Our genealogy informs our understanding of history and even the unleashed terror of a god. What happens when the warrior god culture goes too far?
Archetypal Genealogy
We still have to find the point where the evidence fails and search for reliable sources. Traditional genealogy is an archetypal activity, recapitulating and extending humanity's oldest activities, including the imaginal root. The aesthetic response is an ethical response -- a response of the heart -- that values the ancestors and the genealogical history.
Genealogy is thus an archetypal order, an aesthetic construction, and a virtual map of the personal and collective unconscious, reflecting a principle of totality and primordial origins. Traditional genealogy considered these mythological inclusions best-practice, yet it may be more of a psychic than historical "fact."
This does not mean we need to take that literally – historically as fact -- but the connections seem implicit by their nature. Genealogy is another way for us to connect with the gods, and if we are connected to one, we are therefore related to others, as well. Jung claimed, “There is no form of human tragedy that does not in some measure proceed from this conflict between the ego and the unconscious.”
Only a Jungian approach to traditional genealogy keeps the historic/mythic gestalt of The World Tree alive as a symbol of wholeness -- a holistic resonant field pattern. According to Jung, trees are a symbolic reference to the self, so family tree is self-defining. As well as our lineage, our ancestors also form a vast symbol chain, rooted in the mythic unconscious and pre-history.
The symbolic function is beyond innate impulse and ideological bias. Through introversion, we are fertilized, inspired, regenerated, and reborn. Self-incubation, self-castigation, and introversion are closely related ideas. Immersion in oneself (introversion) is a penetration into the unconscious, the imaginal world of psyche.
The World Tree is the Axis Mundi of genealogy, a worldwide database of genealogical connectivity. At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms. Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones and be disseminated to all. The spot functions as the omphalos (navel), the world's point of beginning.
The earliest mythologies are of the World-Tree, or Tree of Life. Aspects of the same image, sacred trees are the most common motif from the ancient world. The Tree connects our psychophysical aspects from sub-nuclear to macrocosmic scales. The trunk is the axis of psychic growth that unites Heaven and Earth, spirit and matter.
Indigenous societies insist that lack of connection to our ancestors is one of our greatest shortcomings, so reclaiming them takes on importance. It gives us a model of ‘how’ precisely we are connected, and just how many generations lie between. The further back in time they are, the more we can be certain we share them with most of humanity.
The mythology of our ancestors is as important as their cosmology. We can explore the mystic in ourselves and in our ancestors. Our worldview is the root of our identity and relationship to Nature and our own deep nature. Researching the cosmologies of our direct ancestors in the historical era provides a quick path into dream shamanism, as these ways are still half-remembered. Our common destiny lies beyond any worldview.
Divine Ancestry
Hesiod writes in Theogony 921 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or 7th B.C.) : "Zeus took Hera to be his fresh consort, and she, lying in the arms of the father of gods and mortals, conceived and bore Hebe to him, and Ares, and Eileithyia."
There are a number of ways in which the idea of descent from the gods is used in ancient medieval writings. In some legends individual heroes are said to be sons of gods or descended from a god, like Ares. Rather than literal divine ancestry and divine descent we can approach the god as a symbolic and metaphorical reality… a lived and living connection to the Olympians as close as our skin.
Homer's story of Troy is the first written in Greek, allegedly 500 years after the events. It is a foundation of western tradition and archetypes of all sorts of behaviors and legendary heroes. Before that stories were sung about heroes and battles. In the 13th century BCE, Trojan and Greek warriors fought a long bloody battle that became an epic that still resonates through history.
The defeat of Troy was the end of the Bronze Age. It ushered in the Greek Dark Ages. More legends were born. But there are real people behind many of the legends. Trojan refugees were led West by Aeneas, who Julius Caesar claimed as his ancestor. As Romans they later returned and conquered Greece. In between pre-history became history and empire.
Aeschylus says in Fragment 282 of Papyri Oxyrhynchus, (trans. Lloyd-Jones):
"[Dike the goddess of justice speaks: ...And I will tell you a proof which gives you this clearly. Hera has reared a violent son [Ares] whom she has borne to Zeus, a god irascible, hard to govern, an one whose mind knew no respect for others. He shot wayfarers with deadly arrows, and ruthless hacked . . ((lacuna)) with hooked spears . . he rejoiced and laughed . . evil . . scent of blood."
As the gods do not appear in isolation, a relationship with Ares, implies one with his extended and immediate family – Aphrodite, Zeus and Hera, and other Olympians. Their drop lines, include the divine Hermaphrodite that unites the opposites, and Rome's founders Romulus and Remus, listed as gr-uncles of today's descendants. We are reminded again of Ares and his totem wolf.
Yet, clearly, “No one can 'prove' a descent from Julius Caesar,” [my 59th].
The dynasty Aeneas Gens Iulia includes Iulus, my 81st → Ascanius, King of Alba Longa, his father → Aeneas, King of Lavinium, his father, my 83rd]
This family which spawned Julius Caesar claimed descent from the Roman goddess Venus-Aphrodite (my 84th gr-gr) through Aeneas, her son by her lover Anchises, who was a Trojan prince. My genealogy shows this in the profile of Aeneas, closely braiding the Aphrodite and Ares dual-divinity generation of this line. Aphrodite as anima mundi binds all states of being together, the totality of the psyche.
Legend says Aeneas escaped the Fall of Troy (about 1200 BCE) and journeyed to Italy. This tale from the 5th century BCE reveals that by 400 BCE, Aeneas was venerated in Italy as the god Iuppiter Indiges, the tribal ancestor of Latins and the Etruscans. This acknowledges Zeus is his ancestor.
In some Roman traditions, Iulus, the semi-divine ancestor of gens Iulia, was identical with Aeneas’ son Ascanius (Vergil). In other traditions, Iulus was the son of Aeneas by his Trojan wife, Creusa, while Ascanius was the son of Aeneas' Latin wife Lavinia, daughter of Latinus (Livy). And, in still another tradition, Iulus was son of Ascanius. My genealogy lists Iulus as son of Ascanius and Lavinia.
Aeneas was a popular figure in medieval genealogical inventions. In the Norse saga, the Deluding of Gylfe, he is called Anea. Medieval Welsh genealogies called him Annyn Tro. In one Welsh source he is called a son of Brydain, giving name to Britain) and a grandson of Aedd Mawr (Edward the Great), c. 1300 BCE. These chronologies are too confused to be credible.
But, the further back in history we go, the more sure it becomes most people are genetically related, even if the genealogy cannot be traced. The story becomes one not of our own family, but the collective family of man. Still, it is one thing to read history in a book, and quite another to read it in the lines of one's own direct descent.
The historian Strabo has Poseidon prophetically declare in Iliad XX, “But, now I know, the lineage of Aeneas will rule over all, and so too will his son, and his son's sons, who will be born thereafter." And so seemed, throughout the rise and fall of Rome, including some of the most famous names in global history.
The city of Alba Longa was an indigenous Latin iron age settlement in the mountains near Rome today. In Roman mythology, Alba was founded by Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, as a new colony of Trojan refugees and native Latins. In some accounts Ascanius was the son of Lavinia, and grandson of Latinus. (Livy); in other versions, Ascanius was the son of Creusa (Dionysius,Virgil). Vergil claims Ascanius and Iulus were the same. Dionysius makes Iulus the son of Ascanius, the founder and first king of Alba Longa, Iulus was claimed as the ancestor of the Julian gens.
Eratosthenes places the sack of Troy around 1184 BC, more than four centuries before the traditional founding of Rome, in 753. The Alban kings history neatly closed the gap from Aeneas to Romulus. It is a mythical justification for the close ties between Rome and the indigenous Latin families descended from the Trojan immigrants or their Alban descendants.
Fifteen Trojan pedigrees of the Alban kings from Aeneas to Romulus survive. In the Aeniad, Virgil claimed that Latinus was the son of Faunus, and grandson of Picus, the first king of Latium, who was in turn the son of Saturn. But Picus was also said to be the son of Mars, rather than Saturn.
The Latins attacked the intruding Trojans, were defeated, and peace was cemented with the marriage of Aeneas and Lavinia, daughter of the Latin king. Aeneas founded a town of both Trojans and Latins, named Lavinium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_of_Alba_Longa
Founding Rome
Following the Ares descent line down through time, we come to the era and people associated with the founding and legends of Rome. Ares insinuated himself actively into the founding of Rome. His character defined that of the Empire -- its conquering and martial nature. The Romans considered Mars second only to Zeus or Jupiter, his father, and my 95th gr-grandfather.
In the Iliad, the god Poseidon prophesied that the descendants of Aeneas (the Aeneadae), would survive the Trojan War and rule their people forever,[42] but also that the rule of the Aeneadae would never happen in Troy.[43] Virgil provided the imperial legacy of the Aeneadae by making Iulus the divine ancestor of Augustus in the Aeneid. From this divine connection the line of Aeneas stretched through Romulus, Augustus, and the Julio-Claudian emperors down to Nero.[44]
the silvian dynasty Dionysius makes the four hundred and thirty-second since the fall of Troy (i.e. 751 BC, only two years later than the era of Varro), Romulus and Remus set out to establish an Alban colony, which ultimately became the city of Rome.
The first literary suggestions that the Romans were descended from survivors of the Trojan War are found among the Greek writers, many of whom considered the Romans descendants of the Achaeans, rather than the Trojans.[32] At the conclusion of the Theogony, Hesiod mentions Latinus and Agrius as sons of Odysseus and Circe; Agrius ruled over the Tyrrhenians, originally a somewhat vague term for the inhabitants of central Italy, which in later times was applied specifically to the Etruscans. This passage reveals Hellenic interest in the peoples of Italy dating to at least the eighth century BC. In this account, the Romans are descended from Odysseus, one of the Achaeans, rather than his contemporary, the Trojan prince Aeneas.[33][34] Writing in the fourth century BC, Heraclides Ponticus, a pupil of Plato, referred to Rome as a "Greek city".[35] About the same time, Aristotle related a tradition that Achaean warriors returning home after the Trojan War were driven to Italy by a storm. Stranded on the Italian shores with a number of captive Trojan women, they built a settlement called "Latinium".[36]
Romulus and Remus were the direct descendants of Ares, through Aeneas, whose fate-driven adventures to discover Italy are described by Virgil in The Aeneid.
Romulus and Remus were related to Aeneas through their mother's father, Numitor. He was a king of Alba Longa, an ancient city of Latium in central Italy, Numitor was father to Rhea Silvia. Rubens depicts the Roman god Mars, identifiable with his war helmet and shield. raping the vestal virgin Rhea Silvia.
There is much debate and variation as to whom was the father of Romulus and Remus. Some myths claim that Mars appeared and lay with Rhea Silvia; other myths attest that the demi-god hero Hercules was her partner.
However, the author Livy claims that Rhea Silvia was in fact raped by an unknown man, but blamed her pregnancy on divine conception. In either case, Rhea Silvia was discovered to be pregnant and gave birth to her sons. It was custom that any Vestal Virgin betraying her vows of celibacy was condemned to death; the most common death sentence was to be buried alive.
However, King Amulius, fearing the wrath of the paternal god (Mars or Hercules) did not wish to directly stain his hands with the mother's and children's blood. So, King Amulius imprisoned Rhea Silvia and ordered the twins' death by means of live burial, exposure, or being thrown into the Tiber River.
He reasoned that if the twins were to die not by the sword but by the elements, he and his city would be saved from punishment by the gods. He ordered a servant to carry out the death sentence, but in every scenario of this myth, the servant takes pity on the twins and spares their lives. The servant, then, places the twins into a basket onto the River Tiber, and the river carries the boys to safety.
Romulus named his city Roma after himself. Following the foundation of his city, Romulus instated a government system which implemented senators and patricians. As the popularity of his city and government system grew, so did the population. Rome's initial population was supplied by fugitives, exiles, run away slaves, and criminals and other cast offs. Due to the inflation of the male population, Rome was unable to produce any generations of their own. As a result of the low ratio of women to men, the newly Roman men decided to abduct women from a neighboring city. They invited the Sabines and Latins to a festival of Cronus at the Circus Maximus, and while the men of these cities were distracted, the Roman men carried off their women into Rome. Many of these women were persuaded to marry; however, in response to this rape or abduction of women, the Sabine and Latin men went to war against Rome. Romulus was the definitive winner of this war and his victory was Rome's first triumph.
The twin founders of Rome raised by a wolf are the mythical offspring of Ares and Rhea Silvia, Princess of Alba Longa (b. circa 808), the wife of Ascanius.
Romulus and Remus are my 94th great uncles.
Romulus was husband of Hersilia of Alba Longa, an abducted Sabine;
Remus was father of Pompilia of Rome, my 1st cousin 95x removed
the name of Gaius was linked to Ares (Mars
"Aeneas was the father of Ascanius with Creusa, and of Silvius with Lavinia. The former, also known as Iulus (or Julius), founded Alba Longa and was the first in a long series of kings. According to the mythology outlined by Virgil in the Aeneid, Romulus and Remus were both descendants of Aeneas through their mother Rhea Silvia, making Aeneas progenitor of the Roman people. Some early sources call him their father or grandfather,[1] but considering the commonly accepted dates of the fall of Troy (1184 BC) and the founding of Rome (753 BC), this seems unlikely. The Julian family of Rome, most notably Julius Cæsar and Augustus, traced their lineage to Ascanius and Aeneas, thus to the goddess Venus. The legendary kings of Britain also trace their family through a grandson of Aeneas, Brutus."
In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (/ᵻˈniːəs/;[1] Greek: Αἰνείας, Aineías, possibly derived from Greek αἰνή meaning "praised") was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Venus (Aphrodite). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons of Ilus, founder of Troy), making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children (such as Hector and Paris). He is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome. [wiki]
Roman emperors were always priests of Ares/Mars.
Mars and Rhea Silvia is a 1617 painting by Peter Paul Rubens, now in the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna. It shows Mars's rape of Rhea Silvia, which resulted in the birth of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome.
Descent From Antiquity
Genealogy was used to support the claims to nobility of individual families, both to differentiate them from commoners and in rivalry with other families either within the same national group or outside it.
Always when such genealogies are recorded by Christian writers (e.g. Bede, Historia EcclesiasticaI 15), the gods that appear in them will have been interpreted euhemeristically, i.e. as great kings or heroes who came to be worshipped as gods after their deaths. Descent from such great and successful men would have been regarded as a claim to nobility, while heathen gods themselves could hardly have been regarded with anything but abhorrence. Since the gods in genealogies were considered to have been really mortals, there was moreover felt to be no inappropriateness in continuing the genealogical lists back beyond them, sometimes even as far as Noah and Adam.
Biblical genealogy encouraged medieval scholars to compile genealogies stretching back to the remote past. If genealogies were taken back to the gods in heathen times, they were presumably closely associated with the kind of legend that survives in the Eddic poems quoted above, and may have implied that those who could claim such descent were different from ordinary mortals. But if the gods were only introduced into genealogies after the coming of Christianity, then the euhemeristic interpretation of the gods must have preceded the construction of the genealogies. This latter view makes it easier to explain certain aspects of the extant genealogies, for instance the fact that many of them conflict with each other, so that there appears to have been no fixed tradition about the relationships of the gods and their human sons, and the even more striking fact that the family relationships of the gods in genealogies are very different from those they have in mythology.
It must be regarded as uncertain how common it was for genealogies in heathen times to go back to the gods, in Christian times it became almost universal. Some juxtapositions make for uncomfortable conflict both with the mythological tradition and historical plausibility. (Descent from the Gods)
Medieval Europe
Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Benedictine monk living in the 12th century AD, wrote a fabricated history of the kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae). In this history Britain is said to receive its name from Brutus, the first of its kings. According to him, Brutus was the son of Silvius and the grandson of Aeneas. While on a hunting trip with his father he accidentally shoots him and so flees Italy. First, Brutus goes to Greece and gathers Trojan companions who join him on his journey to Britain, where he takes the island from a race of giants.[58]
Benoît de Saint-Maure names Charlemagne as a descendant of the mythical Francus, thus linking the Plantagenet family to Aeneas.[59] Francus, like Aeneas, survived the destruction of Troy and traveled to find a new home. He installed a territory with other Trojans comprising the entire Rhine and the Danube and founded a powerful village named Sicambri.[60]
The ancient historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus is believed to have invented the Alban chronology to fill the gap of centuries between the fall of Troy and the founding of Rome. This could have been achieved by him taking the Roman history as it was, comparing it with the Greek, and inserting Greek Olympiads or Athenian archons.[61] This method would have made the Greek histories seem contemporary with the people and events in the Roman history of his time.
The names of the kings are often based on places around Rome, such as Tiberinus, Aventinus, Alba, and Capetus. Others are rationalizations of mythical figures, or pure inventions to provide notable ancestors for status-seeking families.[10] In the Aeneid, Virgil invents characters into living beings not unlike the heroes of Homer. The events described toward the end of the Aeneid were a nationalistic interpretation of perceived historical events in Roman history.[62] However, despite being a later invention, the Silvian house or gens Silvia, likely did exist.[63]
The pagan content of mythology was codified in the mid-fourteenth century Latin text by Giovanni Boccassio -- Genealogia deorum gentilium (1360), or, On the Genealogy of the Gods of the Gentiles. This is a mythography or encyclopedic compilation of the tangled family relationships of the classical pantheons of Ancient Greece and Rome.
In 1548 it was followed by another compilation of mythical genealogy by Giglio Gregorio Giraldi, De deis gentium, The Gods of the Nations, widely read in England and France. Such genealogies were linked to those of prospective medieval royals to justify their potency and divine right to rule. Reliability is irrelevant in this "as if" reality, but we need not take it literally to find meaning there.
When the Europeans converted to Christianity, a problem arose. Their royal families were only a few generations removed from the old gods. Further, exposed to Roman arts and sciences, they discovered the idea of “historical time.” The world was older than they had ever thought.
Their royal pedigrees weren’t long enough to go back to the creation of the world, so monks struggled to formulate lines to the gods, and back to Biblical Adam and Eve to legitimize their rulers. They would appeal to their ancient past for the right to rule.
The Franks
Later monks, perhaps competing for prestige with the Franks, decided to dump Noah and take Woden’s ancestry back to Troy, then connect the Trojans to the Jewish scriptures. The Grandes Chroniques de France (13th - 15th centuries), a vast compilation of historic material, refers to the Trojan origins of the French dynasty, but modern DNA testing shows no Middle Eastern ethnicity in the Merovingians.
Frankish monks linked Francus to the kings of Troy. The Chronicle of Fredegar (7th century) mentions the legend. It was elaborated in the Liber historiae Francorum (probably 727). Successive generations continued adding new details.
The Franks claimed to be the distant cousins of the Romans, who claimed descent from the Trojan, Aeneas. This political propaganda fit nicely with two things the Franks needed to emphasize: (1) their equality as cousins of the Romans, and (2) their legitimate succession to the Roman empire through that bloodline connection.
In 1541, Johannes Trithemius compiled De origine gentis Francorum. describing the Frankish ancestors as originally Trojans. They were called "Sicambers" or "Sicambrians" after the fall of Troy. They were forced into Gaul after being expelled from the mouth of the Danube by the Goth invasion in 439 BCE (1:33). He recounts each of these kings and their battles with Gauls, Goths and Saxons—including Francus (43:76), the Franks' namesake.
To have soul is the whole venture of life, for soul is a life-giving daemon who plays his elfin game above and be low human existence, for which reason—in the realm of dogma—he is threatened and propitiated with superhuman punishments and blessings that go far beyond the possible deserts of human beings. Heaven and hell are the fates meted out to the soul and not to civilized man, who in his nakedness and timidity would have no idea of what to do with himself in a heavenly Jerusalem. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 56
British Royal Descent from Woden
One of the earliest British attempts to create genealogy linked to antiquity is the Historia Brittonum by the 9th century Welsh monk Nennius, who recorded the following Biblical genealogy root:
(1) Noah, his son (2) Japheth, his son (3) Joham, his son (4) Jobath, his son (5) Bath, his son (6) Hisrau, his son (7) Esraa, his son (8) Ra, his son (9) Aber, his son (10) Ooth, his son (11) Ethec, his son (12) Aurthack, his son (13) Ecthactur, his son (14) Ecthactur, his son (15) Mair, his son (16) Semion, his son (17) Boibus, his son (18) Thoi, his son (19) Ogomuin, his son (20) Fethuir, and his son (21) Alanus.
Nennius then tied Alanus to Rome by making him a husband of Rhea Silvia, whose twin sons Romulus and Remus are said to have founded Rome in 753 BCE. The spurious connection is historically inaccurate, but allowed grafting ancestors of the northern Europeans onto classical tradition by making them brothers of Romulus, the alleged ancestor of the Romans.
Though problematical, the commonly used list for the descent of British kings from Woden through the Hebrews and Trojan kings is the following:
(1) Judah, ancestor of the tribe of Judah, his son (2) Zara, his son (3) Darda, his son (4) Erichthonious, his son (5) Tros, his son (6) Ilus, his son (7) Laomedon, his son (8) Tithonius, his son (9) Memnon, his son (10) Thor, his son (11) Einridi, his son (12) Vingethor, his son (13) Vingener, his son (14) Móda, his son (15) Magi [Noe], his son (16) Sceaf [Seskef], his son (17) Bedwig [Bedvig], his son (18) Hwala, his son (19) Hrathra [Annarr], his son (20) Itermon [Ítermann], his son (21) Heremod [Heremód], his son (22) Heremod [Heremód], his son (23) Beaw [Bjárr], his son (24) Tætwa, his son (25) Geat [Ját], his son (26) Godwulf [Gudólfr], his son (27) Finn, his son (28) Frithuwulf, his son (29) Frealaf [Fridleifr], his son Frealaf [Fridleifr], his son (30) Freawine, his son (31) Frithuwald, and his son (32) Woden, descent through Vikings to William "Longsword."
Psyche and History
There are, indeed, psychic powers within us that correspond to the divine -- and Ares/Mars is pre-eminent among them. The immortal soul in us surpasses the perishable individual significance.
We are links in the great chain of being, which is sometimes more like chainmail armor in its interconnections with ancestors and the gods. There remains a destructive impulse in ourselves and others that adds fire, vitality, passion, and power to life.
It is the mystery of brinksmanship -- the art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, typically in politics -- power vs. empowerment. Personal sovereignty is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict to secure an advantage. But Mars will gladly bring the hammer down, too.
We have many possibilities for embracing power and genealogy remains a symbol of that human struggle, not only in war, but in class struggle, business competition, and love or sport. Genealogy gives the subject substance, "by showing us a broad experience of power, rooted in the body, the nind, and the emotions, rather than the customary narrow interpretation that simply equates power with strength." (Hillman)
In The Terrible Love of War, James Hillman noted that, "During the 5,600 years of recorded history, 14,600 wars have been fought -- 2 to 3 for every year of human history. War is a constant thing. And yet no one really understands why that is." He described his antidotes in Kinds of Power: A Guide to its Intelligent Uses (1997).
It is no accident we find Ares and the other gods at the roots of our genealogical lines. Hillman prefers to move vertically, down into myth, into religion, and into the soul’s basement in order to discover the most basic impulses to war, which, he believes, is a constant and even normal in the history of humanity. He suggests we, "listen to the language of the media, with its lexicon of war, battle, fight, compete, win, loser—all of these words pointing to conquest."
We have not, he claims towards the end of his shocking study, even begun to wake up to the complex and nuanced power of the god of war. We continue as nations to feel better wandering in the fog of war’s purpose and presence than to deepen our understanding of the values we hold, consciously or not, that invite war’s presence as a normal occurrence. He claims, we have an undeniable moral duty to pay attention to its deeper mythic and religious intentions.
In our imaginative engagement with conflict, we need to maintain the place of psyche in genealogical interpretations, not cutting off the mythic past from our narrative with the sword of rationality and evidence or proof. Equivalent images remain dormant in our psyches if we do not recognize and establish the sacred connection between the sacred figures and our own psyche.
There is an irrational reality beyond the radical honesty of rationalism. It preserves even as it deconstructs our cherished notions about the past and self. It makes our lines no less 'real,' but it deliteralizes them, emphasizing soul's meaning is deeper connection, with or without metaphysical assertions.
We suffer collectively if we cut off those connections and psychological truths from our conscious and spiritual lives. Myth remains the key to 'the art of seeing.' Psyche remains full of obscurities and unsolvable riddles which press against our weak and often dull comprehensions.
As Jung claims, "We do not devalue statements that originally were intended to be metaphysical when we demonstrate their psychic nature; on the contrary, we confirm their factual character.
"But, by treating them as psychic phenomena, we remove them from the inaccessible realm of metaphysics, about which nothing verifiable can be said, and this disposes of the impossible question as to whether they are "true" or not.
"We take our stand simply and solely on the facts, recognizing that the archetypal structure of the unconscious will produce, over and over again and irrespective of tradition, those figures which reappear in the history of all epochs and all peoples, and will endow them with the same significance and numinosity that have been theirs from the beginning." (CW 14, Para 558)
Genealogy opens us to emotional experience, often of both sides of any historical conflict, suggesting we have a personal connection or stake in them all, which as humans we naturally do. Genealogy -- real, confabulated, or imaginal -- is the basis of the whole western world, or at least its public face and rulership.
We always remain both perpetrators and victims of forces eternally greater than ourselves. The interaction of the divine and the soul remains an over-arching theme of humanity. The religious function itself is archetypal, and we continue to sacrifice at the altar of Ares in global conflict.
International quarrels are personified as the 'usual suspects', the characters and kings in the conflicting dramas of nation states, and identity, ethnicity, and power-struggle. Throughout most of European history, rulers battled with their own extended family members.
Whether we call that Ares/Mars, or not, it remains a living reality in international politics, as surely as anything passed to us all through the persistent legacy of the Roman Empire. Mars casts a very long shadow across individual and collective history. Only now, through the body and DNA itself, are we realizing we are multi-ethnic at the deepest level, and even contain other species of human, and less than human DNA.
Genealogy recognizes the malleability of history, marriage, and generation. It is a way of interacting and imagining beyond therapy or history, while maintaining the traceable and plausible family histories documented after the Domesday Book (William the Conqueror in 1086) through the 1500's when surnames were introduced. Genealogy marks the points where mythic thought ran headlong into religion and fundamentalism, and other systems of social control and engineering...Ares again. The conqueror still suggests, "I am in control because I am divine."
The Domesday Book marks the starting point of recorded history for most English villages and towns as organized by county. It is the first English census and provides a Middle Ages record of English social organization in the Anglo-Norman period. We still rely on census and civil records as the most reliable 'proofs' of descent, yet we often find family errors there, even in recent ancestry. Names and dates are shuffled according to the hearing and transcribing of census takers. Experts remind us, as a genealogical tool, even the Domesday Book's usefulness is limited.
The Domesday Book (or, colloquially, Domesday) is the expression used since the late twelfth century to refer to the record of the "Great Inquisition or Survey of the lands of England, their extent, value, ownership, and liabilities, made by order of William the Conqueror in 1086".[1] Two volumes survive in The National Archives: "Great Domesday" covers parts of Wales and most of modern England except for northern areas then under control of the then Kingdom of Scotland and "Little Domesday" which covers in more detail Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk.[2]
The Domesday Book is the starting point of recorded history for the majority of English villages and towns which are organized by county. This first English census, considered by some as the most remarkable administrative accomplishment of the Middle Ages, provides a record of English social organization in the Anglo-Norman period. As a genealogical tool, however, the Domesday Book's usefulness is limited.
All of history has been controlled behind the scenes by Ares might and energy. History is written by the winners who then self-describe their glorious descent from the gods, their divine right to rule. It is enforced with constant wars and worldview warfare, a battle for minds using contrivances and memes that suit the current powers that be. The dragon or serpent that guards the treasures of the deep remains the unconscious and its myth-spinning capacity.
consciousness is menaced by an almighty unconscious: hence his fear of magical influences which may cross his path at any moment; and for this reason, too, he is surrounded by unknown forces and must adjust himself to them as best he can.
Owing to the chronic twilight state of his consciousness, it is often next to impossible to find out whether he merely dreamed something or whether he really experienced it.
The spontaneous manifestation of the unconscious and its archetypes intrudes everywhere into his conscious mind, and the mythical world of his ancestors -- a reality equal if not superior to the material world.
It is not the world as we know it that speaks out of his unconscious, but the unknown world of the psyche, of which we know that it mirrors out empirical world only in part, and that, for the
other part, it moulds this empirical world in accordance with its own psychic assumptions.
The archetype does not proceed from physical facts but describes how the psyche experiences the physical fact, and in so doing the psyche often behaves so autocratically that it denies tangible reality
or makes statements that fly in the face of it. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 260
To illustrate the multiple personifications of psyche Hillman made reference to gods, goddesses, demigods and other imaginal figures which he referred to as sounding boards "for echoing life today or as bass chords giving resonance to the little melodies of daily life"[4] although he insisted that these figures should not be used as a 'master matrix' against which we should measure today and thereby decry modern loss of richness.[4]
Hillman’s Archetypal psychology relativizes and deliteralizes the ego and focuses on psyche, or soul, and the archai, the deepest patterns of psychic functioning, "the fundamental fantasies that animate all life" (Moore, in Hillman, 1991).
The doctrine that all evil thoughts come from the heart and that the human soul is a sink of iniquity must lie deep in the marrow of their bones.
Were it so, then God had made a sorry job of creation, and it were high time for us to go over to Marcion the Gnostic and depose the incompetent demiurge.
Ethically, of course, it is infinitely more convenient to leave God the sole responsibility for such a Home for Idiot Children, where no one is capable of putting a spoon into his own mouth.
But it is worth man's while to take pains with himself, and he has something in his own soul that can grow.
It is rewarding to watch patiently the silent happenings in the soul, and the most and the best happens when it is not regulated from outside and from above. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 126
Whoever speaks of the reality of the soul or psyche is accused of "psychologism."
Psychology is spoken of as if it were "only" psychology and nothing else.
The notion that there can be psychic factors which correspond to the divine
figures is regarded as a devaluation o£ the latter.
It smacks of blasphemy to think that a religious experience is a psychic process; for, so it is argued, a religious experience "is not only psychological."
Anything psychic is only Nature and therefore, people think, nothing religious can come out of it.
At the same time such critics never hesitate to derive all religions—with the exception of their own — from the nature of the psyche. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 9
Remembering a wonderful study of Prof. Franco Livorsi of the 90's, "Psyche and history", I return the exact words of Hillman:
" without a sense of the soul, we don't have the sense of history. Don't we go down in history. [...] nothing can be revealed by a newspaper, from the ' Cronique Scandaleuse's of the world, if you don't grab the essence from within through an archetypal model. The Archetype provides the basis for reuniting done and meaning, immeasurable in itself. The historical facts are external archetipicamente ordered in order to uncover the psychological meanings are essential. These settings of the historical facts are the eternally applicants mitologemi of history and of our souls. Through the meanings the story acts on our psyche, and at the same time, it is the theater where we stage the mitologemi of our soul ".
Image: Jacopo Zucchi,'s psyche discovers love's, particular, Galleria Borghese, Rome
I feel the pangs of separation, but I force myself to find a moment of clarity to interact with what is being perceived and what is real. Heartache is a momentary giving into the illusion. If we give in, we close ourselves off by the pain, when in reality we should be opening our petals if we want to receive.
Metaphysical assertions are statements of the psyche, and are therefore psychological.
To the Western mind, which compensates its well-known feelings of resentment by a slavish regard for "rational" explanations, this obvious truth seems all too obvious, or else it is seen as an inadmissible negation of metaphysical "truth."
Whenever the Westerner hears the word "psychological," it always sounds to him like "only psychological."
For him the "soul" is something pitifully small, unworthy, personal, subjective, and a lot more besides.
He therefore prefers to use the word "mind" instead, though he likes to pretend at the same time that a statement which may in fact be very subjective indeed is made by the "mind," naturally by the "Universal Mind," or even—at a pinch—by the "Absolute" itself.
This rather ridiculous presumption is probably a compensation for the regrettable smallness of the soul.
It almost seems as if Anatole France had uttered a truth which were valid for the whole Western world when, in his Penguin Island, Catherine d'Alexandrie offers this advice to God: "Donnezleur une ame, mais une petite!" ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 835
We know there is power in naming. What is it to name something, to name someone, to name someone an ancestor, or even name a god as direct ancestor? It all comes down to our own name, genealogy as a heritage led regeneration.
Descent From the Gods
Ares is our forebear. He is the psychic background of a historical drama that is still unfolding in us, a specific manifestation of energy. A secret unrest gnaws at our roots, an instinct for expansion. The less we are conscious of it, the more it influences us. Carl Jung thought that inclinations, moods, and decisions are influenced by the dark forces of psyche, and they could be dangerous or helpful in shaping destiny. (CW 10, Para 332)
We take our ancient lineage as metaphorical and symbolic, not just literal. Ancestors are trans-subjective facts made of our own psychophysical substance, still residing and working on us inside as they did outside. For Jung they were part of our inherited instinct and preformed patterns. With a bit of insight, we can read the epic story of the Trojan War and Founding of Rome from the top down in our genealogy.
Archetypes direct fantasy activity and inherited potential for ideas and action. We see with the soul's eye through the web of reality. In the case of Ares, Jung thought conflict, war, and conquest is about the failure of a myth to contain personal and collective dark energies projected onto real or imagined enemies.
War goes with the territory. We must endure it as we do the conflict between the sexes, and between the ego and unconscious. Ancient myths, their archetypes, heroes, and monsters still animate our anxieties.
Myth explains the unexplainable, especially when history is unreliable. Myths repeat again and again, hence the totem serpent/dragon of Ares is endless time. Everything that was outside is also inside the mythic unconscious, including the fiery warrior who 'sticks to his guns', perhaps far too long. Ares is an organ of our pre-rational psyche. If character is our genius, some have a terrible genius for war and make a career of it.
“Although the opposites flee from one another they nevertheless strive for balance, since a state of conflict is too inimical to life to be endured indefinitely. They do this by wearing each other out, like the two dragons or the other ravenous beasts of alchemical symbolism.” (Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, Pp. 230)
Relying on physical power, intensity, intimidation, and direct action, how often do we act and react unmindfully? When are we too primitive, too present, too strong? We all have to cope with violence, struggle, and death. What happens to the feminine, especially the dark feminine, in a society saturated by masculine war, or blood-soaked atrocities? Can conflict become the avenue to hope and self-worth?
The secret doctrine of antiquity survives in our bloodlines. Our genes pulse down the lines with us as temporary custodians. Separated across the face of time, we have the same genetic material. We go down in history, descending from the most remote and divine characters imaginable at the edge of reality.
In genealogy, inherent meaning unites with experience; historical facts help us uncover psychological meaning. Historical facts are set in and rooted in myth. The story acts on our psyche as much as it acted in the world. Even when non- or pre-historical, genealogy is a symbol of an unbroken relationship with the others and divine forces and our mortality.
My story, rooted in Ares, may be your story, too, if Ares is in your lineage or a spirit in your blood. It doesn't have to manifest in coercion, extreme rage, blood lust, or combativeness. We might be dauntless in our aspirations, inspired and sacrificing beyond ourselves, challenging our own personal best, courage and daring.
The first written words of Greek epic poetry were about the war with Troy in Asia and the return from it. We now know that all wounds in war are not visible and that soul-searing post-traumatic stress persists throughout a lifetime as a disease of the soul -- shell shock.
Odysseus failed in his long voyage home for many years, because the true voyage home is an inner journey to heal the deadness and stuckness that comes from visceral horror and atrocities.
"But this much I would claim to know: that a man cannot go to war in quest of power and wealth without doing mortal harm to some portion of his soul, and once the soul is damaged and impaired then all kinds of madness follow." (The War at Troy, by Lindsay Clarke, p. 272, 2004)
Not necessarily aggressive with primitive brutality, Ares is also chivalry, protection and self-protection, repressed action. We needn't be raiders, military or militant, do martial arts, collect weapons, or be sports or sex addicts. We don't need forceful exercise of the power drive to commune with Ares of the mighty heart and emotional wounds.
Courage, empowerment, assertiveness and other qualities shine when not confounded with shadow ferocity, violence, might, and impulse. Sometimes, we may be headstrong, rash, self-gratifying. We will risk, lose reason and restraint again; we will play tough; we will quarrel; we will be impetuous. We will be tense; we will overreact; we may surrender to despair or vengeance. Someone will press our buttons. We feel Ares as the surge of emotion, loyalty, or the urge to retaliate, but also the light generated by fiery emotions.
Soul Retrieval
Indigenous people equate ancestor loss with soul loss that can be retrieved by reintegrating our ancestral generations. Since soul is the living thing in us, soul loss is depression, loss of vitality or passion about life, or feeling that something is missing in life. Body-language betrays feelings. We define ourselves by interaction. When you put human names to it, perception shifts.
Genealogy is about re-connection. It helps heal loss of meaning, direction, vitality, mission, purpose, identity, and deep unhappiness. We need to know who we are and where we come from beyond the recent past. We can follow the lines of our genealogical descent like a path, our particular path into existence. In this case it is the path of Ares, through Aeneas, to the Roman Emperors.
The ancestors, including the divine roots create the form of all our experience. By facing our soul, we face our ancestors and the gods in a circumambulation of the self. Our devotion to Ares echoes how that archetype informs our lives. There is a caution warning, an object lesson in his frenzy, irrationality, and uncontrolled lust.
Ares harks back through the Mycenaen Greeks to the prehistoric Dragon lineages of the Hittites, Sumerians, and beyond. His character matches Teshub, another Asianic god. Ares fought on the side of the Trojans at the siege of Ilium. Hesiod and Aeschylus said he was the father of the race of Kadmos, who married his daughter Hermione. The warriors of Kadmos sprang from the teeth of the dragon of Ares, which Kadmos sowed.
The wolf is the totem animal of Ares, but the dragon is also his sacred animal. The nymph Telphousa bore the sacred dragon Ares begat on her. This Ismenian dragon was a giant serpent which guarded the sacred spring of Ares near Thebes.
We will be following this martial thread as a lead. Reading the line we "see through" the collective portion of a classical line of descent from Ares/Mars. It descends through Troy to the rise and fall of Rome, into the Middle Ages, and the modern world. Revisioning Ares (birth: circa -1680) as a direct ancestor forges an emotional connection with the root archetypes, the Olympians.
We realize what Ares means from deep inside as more than an unconscious psychic factor. Giving voice to the ancestors is giving voice to the gods so their images can live and ground our being. Our lonely hearts open fully to loving reciprocity.
Recognition
One of the most important things an ancient person could do was ceremonially recite their ancestors. In Scotland declaring lineage was part of the battle-rattle preceding war, designed to strike terror into the heart of the enemy. We can welcome them hospitably back into our lives. Their images impress us in a way beyond the physical facts, restoring form to the formless.
Recognition is a great mystery of the psyche. The inner wealth of the soul resides in our hearts. Jung calls the unconscious, "the unwritten history of mankind from time unrecorded." (CW 11, Para 280) And he notes, "The unconscious mind of man sees correctly even when conscious reason is blind and impotent." (CW 11, Para 608). Our genealogical lines certainly express this concept.
Our family tree helps us learn the family history and the stories behind the pedigrees which trail off into the mists of pre-history. Matters stuck in limbo are lured back into life by genealogical soul retrieval and emotional reconnection to the ancestors, gods, and primordial womb of nature.
When that is part of 'what we know' we don't have to merely believe. The ancestors and divine root permeate us through the dark borderland of body and soul and unify our archetypal essence. Everything in the psychic world is real.
In Scotland, oral traditions of genealogy marked the structure and evolution of the clan -- by blood descent, marriage and territorial holding. Oral recitation of genealogy was passed on to children round the fireside. The Highlanders did not use the form of a tree, but used the track of a wheel or the imprint of fingers tracing intricate relations in the dust.
Old seanchaidhean could recite the sinnsearachd, the Gaelic term used for the descent or genealogical track. So, pardon me while I idly trace the relationships and genealogical tracks left in the dusts of time, legend, and memory in the line of Ares/Mars.
What if God Was [more than] One of Us?
Myth is the DNA of the human psyche. Genes are memories, primordial and otherwise. Living myths give story and experience meaning. Genealogy is not always simple, being full of alternate matings, shared ancestry, inter-family marriages, natural and disputed offspring.
Because of the genetic shuffle in chromosomes at conception, such revelations come mostly through genealogy, not genetic tests which reveal ethnic identity but few if any individual ancestors.
In his archaic form, Ares was a fertility god. If the lines are to be believed, his descendants proliferate in the flesh to this day. The psychic fact is that he is in us all, and remains in us and our progeny through certain royal lines of descent. The soul becomes the arbiter of truth or error.
We embody the survival of the pagan gods. Psyche cannot be distinguished from its manifestations. The historical tradition is conflated with the mythic tradition through genealogy. The implication is that if we were engendered by them, they continue through us. They persist in our spirit, psyche and psychology, emotions, as well as physical bodies that create our reality every day.
The gods' misty pre-historical origin is our own origin. Thus, Ares/Mars is archetype and ancestor, an instinct for physical survival. Questionable empirical reality has a transcendent aspect, including dark and mysterious areas of our experience. We are informed by his Being. Umberto Eco says, wryly, in Foucault's Pendulum that we cannot betray an ancestor who never existed nor fail that old-time religion.
The general premise of The Survival of the Pagan Gods, by Jean Seznec (1981) is that "the ancient gods survive during the Middle Ages by virtue of interpretations of their origin and nature propounded by antiquity itself."
The gods are civilizers, who founded dynasties as well as legends. They hide in astrology, science, and magic as 'astral' planetary forces. The Renaissance reduced them to mythological allegory, but the bloodlines went silently on as testimony to the right to rule. Our genealogy informs our understanding of history and even the unleashed terror of a god. What happens when the warrior god culture goes too far?
Archetypal Genealogy
We still have to find the point where the evidence fails and search for reliable sources. Traditional genealogy is an archetypal activity, recapitulating and extending humanity's oldest activities, including the imaginal root. The aesthetic response is an ethical response -- a response of the heart -- that values the ancestors and the genealogical history.
Genealogy is thus an archetypal order, an aesthetic construction, and a virtual map of the personal and collective unconscious, reflecting a principle of totality and primordial origins. Traditional genealogy considered these mythological inclusions best-practice, yet it may be more of a psychic than historical "fact."
This does not mean we need to take that literally – historically as fact -- but the connections seem implicit by their nature. Genealogy is another way for us to connect with the gods, and if we are connected to one, we are therefore related to others, as well. Jung claimed, “There is no form of human tragedy that does not in some measure proceed from this conflict between the ego and the unconscious.”
Only a Jungian approach to traditional genealogy keeps the historic/mythic gestalt of The World Tree alive as a symbol of wholeness -- a holistic resonant field pattern. According to Jung, trees are a symbolic reference to the self, so family tree is self-defining. As well as our lineage, our ancestors also form a vast symbol chain, rooted in the mythic unconscious and pre-history.
The symbolic function is beyond innate impulse and ideological bias. Through introversion, we are fertilized, inspired, regenerated, and reborn. Self-incubation, self-castigation, and introversion are closely related ideas. Immersion in oneself (introversion) is a penetration into the unconscious, the imaginal world of psyche.
The World Tree is the Axis Mundi of genealogy, a worldwide database of genealogical connectivity. At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms. Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones and be disseminated to all. The spot functions as the omphalos (navel), the world's point of beginning.
The earliest mythologies are of the World-Tree, or Tree of Life. Aspects of the same image, sacred trees are the most common motif from the ancient world. The Tree connects our psychophysical aspects from sub-nuclear to macrocosmic scales. The trunk is the axis of psychic growth that unites Heaven and Earth, spirit and matter.
Indigenous societies insist that lack of connection to our ancestors is one of our greatest shortcomings, so reclaiming them takes on importance. It gives us a model of ‘how’ precisely we are connected, and just how many generations lie between. The further back in time they are, the more we can be certain we share them with most of humanity.
The mythology of our ancestors is as important as their cosmology. We can explore the mystic in ourselves and in our ancestors. Our worldview is the root of our identity and relationship to Nature and our own deep nature. Researching the cosmologies of our direct ancestors in the historical era provides a quick path into dream shamanism, as these ways are still half-remembered. Our common destiny lies beyond any worldview.
Divine Ancestry
Hesiod writes in Theogony 921 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or 7th B.C.) : "Zeus took Hera to be his fresh consort, and she, lying in the arms of the father of gods and mortals, conceived and bore Hebe to him, and Ares, and Eileithyia."
There are a number of ways in which the idea of descent from the gods is used in ancient medieval writings. In some legends individual heroes are said to be sons of gods or descended from a god, like Ares. Rather than literal divine ancestry and divine descent we can approach the god as a symbolic and metaphorical reality… a lived and living connection to the Olympians as close as our skin.
Homer's story of Troy is the first written in Greek, allegedly 500 years after the events. It is a foundation of western tradition and archetypes of all sorts of behaviors and legendary heroes. Before that stories were sung about heroes and battles. In the 13th century BCE, Trojan and Greek warriors fought a long bloody battle that became an epic that still resonates through history.
The defeat of Troy was the end of the Bronze Age. It ushered in the Greek Dark Ages. More legends were born. But there are real people behind many of the legends. Trojan refugees were led West by Aeneas, who Julius Caesar claimed as his ancestor. As Romans they later returned and conquered Greece. In between pre-history became history and empire.
Aeschylus says in Fragment 282 of Papyri Oxyrhynchus, (trans. Lloyd-Jones):
"[Dike the goddess of justice speaks: ...And I will tell you a proof which gives you this clearly. Hera has reared a violent son [Ares] whom she has borne to Zeus, a god irascible, hard to govern, an one whose mind knew no respect for others. He shot wayfarers with deadly arrows, and ruthless hacked . . ((lacuna)) with hooked spears . . he rejoiced and laughed . . evil . . scent of blood."
As the gods do not appear in isolation, a relationship with Ares, implies one with his extended and immediate family – Aphrodite, Zeus and Hera, and other Olympians. Their drop lines, include the divine Hermaphrodite that unites the opposites, and Rome's founders Romulus and Remus, listed as gr-uncles of today's descendants. We are reminded again of Ares and his totem wolf.
Yet, clearly, “No one can 'prove' a descent from Julius Caesar,” [my 59th].
The dynasty Aeneas Gens Iulia includes Iulus, my 81st → Ascanius, King of Alba Longa, his father → Aeneas, King of Lavinium, his father, my 83rd]
This family which spawned Julius Caesar claimed descent from the Roman goddess Venus-Aphrodite (my 84th gr-gr) through Aeneas, her son by her lover Anchises, who was a Trojan prince. My genealogy shows this in the profile of Aeneas, closely braiding the Aphrodite and Ares dual-divinity generation of this line. Aphrodite as anima mundi binds all states of being together, the totality of the psyche.
Legend says Aeneas escaped the Fall of Troy (about 1200 BCE) and journeyed to Italy. This tale from the 5th century BCE reveals that by 400 BCE, Aeneas was venerated in Italy as the god Iuppiter Indiges, the tribal ancestor of Latins and the Etruscans. This acknowledges Zeus is his ancestor.
In some Roman traditions, Iulus, the semi-divine ancestor of gens Iulia, was identical with Aeneas’ son Ascanius (Vergil). In other traditions, Iulus was the son of Aeneas by his Trojan wife, Creusa, while Ascanius was the son of Aeneas' Latin wife Lavinia, daughter of Latinus (Livy). And, in still another tradition, Iulus was son of Ascanius. My genealogy lists Iulus as son of Ascanius and Lavinia.
Aeneas was a popular figure in medieval genealogical inventions. In the Norse saga, the Deluding of Gylfe, he is called Anea. Medieval Welsh genealogies called him Annyn Tro. In one Welsh source he is called a son of Brydain, giving name to Britain) and a grandson of Aedd Mawr (Edward the Great), c. 1300 BCE. These chronologies are too confused to be credible.
But, the further back in history we go, the more sure it becomes most people are genetically related, even if the genealogy cannot be traced. The story becomes one not of our own family, but the collective family of man. Still, it is one thing to read history in a book, and quite another to read it in the lines of one's own direct descent.
The historian Strabo has Poseidon prophetically declare in Iliad XX, “But, now I know, the lineage of Aeneas will rule over all, and so too will his son, and his son's sons, who will be born thereafter." And so seemed, throughout the rise and fall of Rome, including some of the most famous names in global history.
The city of Alba Longa was an indigenous Latin iron age settlement in the mountains near Rome today. In Roman mythology, Alba was founded by Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, as a new colony of Trojan refugees and native Latins. In some accounts Ascanius was the son of Lavinia, and grandson of Latinus. (Livy); in other versions, Ascanius was the son of Creusa (Dionysius,Virgil). Vergil claims Ascanius and Iulus were the same. Dionysius makes Iulus the son of Ascanius, the founder and first king of Alba Longa, Iulus was claimed as the ancestor of the Julian gens.
Eratosthenes places the sack of Troy around 1184 BC, more than four centuries before the traditional founding of Rome, in 753. The Alban kings history neatly closed the gap from Aeneas to Romulus. It is a mythical justification for the close ties between Rome and the indigenous Latin families descended from the Trojan immigrants or their Alban descendants.
Fifteen Trojan pedigrees of the Alban kings from Aeneas to Romulus survive. In the Aeniad, Virgil claimed that Latinus was the son of Faunus, and grandson of Picus, the first king of Latium, who was in turn the son of Saturn. But Picus was also said to be the son of Mars, rather than Saturn.
The Latins attacked the intruding Trojans, were defeated, and peace was cemented with the marriage of Aeneas and Lavinia, daughter of the Latin king. Aeneas founded a town of both Trojans and Latins, named Lavinium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_of_Alba_Longa
Founding Rome
Following the Ares descent line down through time, we come to the era and people associated with the founding and legends of Rome. Ares insinuated himself actively into the founding of Rome. His character defined that of the Empire -- its conquering and martial nature. The Romans considered Mars second only to Zeus or Jupiter, his father, and my 95th gr-grandfather.
In the Iliad, the god Poseidon prophesied that the descendants of Aeneas (the Aeneadae), would survive the Trojan War and rule their people forever,[42] but also that the rule of the Aeneadae would never happen in Troy.[43] Virgil provided the imperial legacy of the Aeneadae by making Iulus the divine ancestor of Augustus in the Aeneid. From this divine connection the line of Aeneas stretched through Romulus, Augustus, and the Julio-Claudian emperors down to Nero.[44]
the silvian dynasty Dionysius makes the four hundred and thirty-second since the fall of Troy (i.e. 751 BC, only two years later than the era of Varro), Romulus and Remus set out to establish an Alban colony, which ultimately became the city of Rome.
The first literary suggestions that the Romans were descended from survivors of the Trojan War are found among the Greek writers, many of whom considered the Romans descendants of the Achaeans, rather than the Trojans.[32] At the conclusion of the Theogony, Hesiod mentions Latinus and Agrius as sons of Odysseus and Circe; Agrius ruled over the Tyrrhenians, originally a somewhat vague term for the inhabitants of central Italy, which in later times was applied specifically to the Etruscans. This passage reveals Hellenic interest in the peoples of Italy dating to at least the eighth century BC. In this account, the Romans are descended from Odysseus, one of the Achaeans, rather than his contemporary, the Trojan prince Aeneas.[33][34] Writing in the fourth century BC, Heraclides Ponticus, a pupil of Plato, referred to Rome as a "Greek city".[35] About the same time, Aristotle related a tradition that Achaean warriors returning home after the Trojan War were driven to Italy by a storm. Stranded on the Italian shores with a number of captive Trojan women, they built a settlement called "Latinium".[36]
Romulus and Remus were the direct descendants of Ares, through Aeneas, whose fate-driven adventures to discover Italy are described by Virgil in The Aeneid.
Romulus and Remus were related to Aeneas through their mother's father, Numitor. He was a king of Alba Longa, an ancient city of Latium in central Italy, Numitor was father to Rhea Silvia. Rubens depicts the Roman god Mars, identifiable with his war helmet and shield. raping the vestal virgin Rhea Silvia.
There is much debate and variation as to whom was the father of Romulus and Remus. Some myths claim that Mars appeared and lay with Rhea Silvia; other myths attest that the demi-god hero Hercules was her partner.
However, the author Livy claims that Rhea Silvia was in fact raped by an unknown man, but blamed her pregnancy on divine conception. In either case, Rhea Silvia was discovered to be pregnant and gave birth to her sons. It was custom that any Vestal Virgin betraying her vows of celibacy was condemned to death; the most common death sentence was to be buried alive.
However, King Amulius, fearing the wrath of the paternal god (Mars or Hercules) did not wish to directly stain his hands with the mother's and children's blood. So, King Amulius imprisoned Rhea Silvia and ordered the twins' death by means of live burial, exposure, or being thrown into the Tiber River.
He reasoned that if the twins were to die not by the sword but by the elements, he and his city would be saved from punishment by the gods. He ordered a servant to carry out the death sentence, but in every scenario of this myth, the servant takes pity on the twins and spares their lives. The servant, then, places the twins into a basket onto the River Tiber, and the river carries the boys to safety.
Romulus named his city Roma after himself. Following the foundation of his city, Romulus instated a government system which implemented senators and patricians. As the popularity of his city and government system grew, so did the population. Rome's initial population was supplied by fugitives, exiles, run away slaves, and criminals and other cast offs. Due to the inflation of the male population, Rome was unable to produce any generations of their own. As a result of the low ratio of women to men, the newly Roman men decided to abduct women from a neighboring city. They invited the Sabines and Latins to a festival of Cronus at the Circus Maximus, and while the men of these cities were distracted, the Roman men carried off their women into Rome. Many of these women were persuaded to marry; however, in response to this rape or abduction of women, the Sabine and Latin men went to war against Rome. Romulus was the definitive winner of this war and his victory was Rome's first triumph.
The twin founders of Rome raised by a wolf are the mythical offspring of Ares and Rhea Silvia, Princess of Alba Longa (b. circa 808), the wife of Ascanius.
Romulus and Remus are my 94th great uncles.
Romulus was husband of Hersilia of Alba Longa, an abducted Sabine;
Remus was father of Pompilia of Rome, my 1st cousin 95x removed
the name of Gaius was linked to Ares (Mars
"Aeneas was the father of Ascanius with Creusa, and of Silvius with Lavinia. The former, also known as Iulus (or Julius), founded Alba Longa and was the first in a long series of kings. According to the mythology outlined by Virgil in the Aeneid, Romulus and Remus were both descendants of Aeneas through their mother Rhea Silvia, making Aeneas progenitor of the Roman people. Some early sources call him their father or grandfather,[1] but considering the commonly accepted dates of the fall of Troy (1184 BC) and the founding of Rome (753 BC), this seems unlikely. The Julian family of Rome, most notably Julius Cæsar and Augustus, traced their lineage to Ascanius and Aeneas, thus to the goddess Venus. The legendary kings of Britain also trace their family through a grandson of Aeneas, Brutus."
In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (/ᵻˈniːəs/;[1] Greek: Αἰνείας, Aineías, possibly derived from Greek αἰνή meaning "praised") was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Venus (Aphrodite). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons of Ilus, founder of Troy), making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children (such as Hector and Paris). He is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome. [wiki]
Roman emperors were always priests of Ares/Mars.
Mars and Rhea Silvia is a 1617 painting by Peter Paul Rubens, now in the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna. It shows Mars's rape of Rhea Silvia, which resulted in the birth of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome.
Descent From Antiquity
Genealogy was used to support the claims to nobility of individual families, both to differentiate them from commoners and in rivalry with other families either within the same national group or outside it.
Always when such genealogies are recorded by Christian writers (e.g. Bede, Historia EcclesiasticaI 15), the gods that appear in them will have been interpreted euhemeristically, i.e. as great kings or heroes who came to be worshipped as gods after their deaths. Descent from such great and successful men would have been regarded as a claim to nobility, while heathen gods themselves could hardly have been regarded with anything but abhorrence. Since the gods in genealogies were considered to have been really mortals, there was moreover felt to be no inappropriateness in continuing the genealogical lists back beyond them, sometimes even as far as Noah and Adam.
Biblical genealogy encouraged medieval scholars to compile genealogies stretching back to the remote past. If genealogies were taken back to the gods in heathen times, they were presumably closely associated with the kind of legend that survives in the Eddic poems quoted above, and may have implied that those who could claim such descent were different from ordinary mortals. But if the gods were only introduced into genealogies after the coming of Christianity, then the euhemeristic interpretation of the gods must have preceded the construction of the genealogies. This latter view makes it easier to explain certain aspects of the extant genealogies, for instance the fact that many of them conflict with each other, so that there appears to have been no fixed tradition about the relationships of the gods and their human sons, and the even more striking fact that the family relationships of the gods in genealogies are very different from those they have in mythology.
It must be regarded as uncertain how common it was for genealogies in heathen times to go back to the gods, in Christian times it became almost universal. Some juxtapositions make for uncomfortable conflict both with the mythological tradition and historical plausibility. (Descent from the Gods)
Medieval Europe
Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Benedictine monk living in the 12th century AD, wrote a fabricated history of the kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae). In this history Britain is said to receive its name from Brutus, the first of its kings. According to him, Brutus was the son of Silvius and the grandson of Aeneas. While on a hunting trip with his father he accidentally shoots him and so flees Italy. First, Brutus goes to Greece and gathers Trojan companions who join him on his journey to Britain, where he takes the island from a race of giants.[58]
Benoît de Saint-Maure names Charlemagne as a descendant of the mythical Francus, thus linking the Plantagenet family to Aeneas.[59] Francus, like Aeneas, survived the destruction of Troy and traveled to find a new home. He installed a territory with other Trojans comprising the entire Rhine and the Danube and founded a powerful village named Sicambri.[60]
The ancient historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus is believed to have invented the Alban chronology to fill the gap of centuries between the fall of Troy and the founding of Rome. This could have been achieved by him taking the Roman history as it was, comparing it with the Greek, and inserting Greek Olympiads or Athenian archons.[61] This method would have made the Greek histories seem contemporary with the people and events in the Roman history of his time.
The names of the kings are often based on places around Rome, such as Tiberinus, Aventinus, Alba, and Capetus. Others are rationalizations of mythical figures, or pure inventions to provide notable ancestors for status-seeking families.[10] In the Aeneid, Virgil invents characters into living beings not unlike the heroes of Homer. The events described toward the end of the Aeneid were a nationalistic interpretation of perceived historical events in Roman history.[62] However, despite being a later invention, the Silvian house or gens Silvia, likely did exist.[63]
The pagan content of mythology was codified in the mid-fourteenth century Latin text by Giovanni Boccassio -- Genealogia deorum gentilium (1360), or, On the Genealogy of the Gods of the Gentiles. This is a mythography or encyclopedic compilation of the tangled family relationships of the classical pantheons of Ancient Greece and Rome.
In 1548 it was followed by another compilation of mythical genealogy by Giglio Gregorio Giraldi, De deis gentium, The Gods of the Nations, widely read in England and France. Such genealogies were linked to those of prospective medieval royals to justify their potency and divine right to rule. Reliability is irrelevant in this "as if" reality, but we need not take it literally to find meaning there.
When the Europeans converted to Christianity, a problem arose. Their royal families were only a few generations removed from the old gods. Further, exposed to Roman arts and sciences, they discovered the idea of “historical time.” The world was older than they had ever thought.
Their royal pedigrees weren’t long enough to go back to the creation of the world, so monks struggled to formulate lines to the gods, and back to Biblical Adam and Eve to legitimize their rulers. They would appeal to their ancient past for the right to rule.
The Franks
Later monks, perhaps competing for prestige with the Franks, decided to dump Noah and take Woden’s ancestry back to Troy, then connect the Trojans to the Jewish scriptures. The Grandes Chroniques de France (13th - 15th centuries), a vast compilation of historic material, refers to the Trojan origins of the French dynasty, but modern DNA testing shows no Middle Eastern ethnicity in the Merovingians.
Frankish monks linked Francus to the kings of Troy. The Chronicle of Fredegar (7th century) mentions the legend. It was elaborated in the Liber historiae Francorum (probably 727). Successive generations continued adding new details.
The Franks claimed to be the distant cousins of the Romans, who claimed descent from the Trojan, Aeneas. This political propaganda fit nicely with two things the Franks needed to emphasize: (1) their equality as cousins of the Romans, and (2) their legitimate succession to the Roman empire through that bloodline connection.
In 1541, Johannes Trithemius compiled De origine gentis Francorum. describing the Frankish ancestors as originally Trojans. They were called "Sicambers" or "Sicambrians" after the fall of Troy. They were forced into Gaul after being expelled from the mouth of the Danube by the Goth invasion in 439 BCE (1:33). He recounts each of these kings and their battles with Gauls, Goths and Saxons—including Francus (43:76), the Franks' namesake.
To have soul is the whole venture of life, for soul is a life-giving daemon who plays his elfin game above and be low human existence, for which reason—in the realm of dogma—he is threatened and propitiated with superhuman punishments and blessings that go far beyond the possible deserts of human beings. Heaven and hell are the fates meted out to the soul and not to civilized man, who in his nakedness and timidity would have no idea of what to do with himself in a heavenly Jerusalem. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 56
British Royal Descent from Woden
One of the earliest British attempts to create genealogy linked to antiquity is the Historia Brittonum by the 9th century Welsh monk Nennius, who recorded the following Biblical genealogy root:
(1) Noah, his son (2) Japheth, his son (3) Joham, his son (4) Jobath, his son (5) Bath, his son (6) Hisrau, his son (7) Esraa, his son (8) Ra, his son (9) Aber, his son (10) Ooth, his son (11) Ethec, his son (12) Aurthack, his son (13) Ecthactur, his son (14) Ecthactur, his son (15) Mair, his son (16) Semion, his son (17) Boibus, his son (18) Thoi, his son (19) Ogomuin, his son (20) Fethuir, and his son (21) Alanus.
Nennius then tied Alanus to Rome by making him a husband of Rhea Silvia, whose twin sons Romulus and Remus are said to have founded Rome in 753 BCE. The spurious connection is historically inaccurate, but allowed grafting ancestors of the northern Europeans onto classical tradition by making them brothers of Romulus, the alleged ancestor of the Romans.
Though problematical, the commonly used list for the descent of British kings from Woden through the Hebrews and Trojan kings is the following:
(1) Judah, ancestor of the tribe of Judah, his son (2) Zara, his son (3) Darda, his son (4) Erichthonious, his son (5) Tros, his son (6) Ilus, his son (7) Laomedon, his son (8) Tithonius, his son (9) Memnon, his son (10) Thor, his son (11) Einridi, his son (12) Vingethor, his son (13) Vingener, his son (14) Móda, his son (15) Magi [Noe], his son (16) Sceaf [Seskef], his son (17) Bedwig [Bedvig], his son (18) Hwala, his son (19) Hrathra [Annarr], his son (20) Itermon [Ítermann], his son (21) Heremod [Heremód], his son (22) Heremod [Heremód], his son (23) Beaw [Bjárr], his son (24) Tætwa, his son (25) Geat [Ját], his son (26) Godwulf [Gudólfr], his son (27) Finn, his son (28) Frithuwulf, his son (29) Frealaf [Fridleifr], his son Frealaf [Fridleifr], his son (30) Freawine, his son (31) Frithuwald, and his son (32) Woden, descent through Vikings to William "Longsword."
Psyche and History
There are, indeed, psychic powers within us that correspond to the divine -- and Ares/Mars is pre-eminent among them. The immortal soul in us surpasses the perishable individual significance.
We are links in the great chain of being, which is sometimes more like chainmail armor in its interconnections with ancestors and the gods. There remains a destructive impulse in ourselves and others that adds fire, vitality, passion, and power to life.
It is the mystery of brinksmanship -- the art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, typically in politics -- power vs. empowerment. Personal sovereignty is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict to secure an advantage. But Mars will gladly bring the hammer down, too.
We have many possibilities for embracing power and genealogy remains a symbol of that human struggle, not only in war, but in class struggle, business competition, and love or sport. Genealogy gives the subject substance, "by showing us a broad experience of power, rooted in the body, the nind, and the emotions, rather than the customary narrow interpretation that simply equates power with strength." (Hillman)
In The Terrible Love of War, James Hillman noted that, "During the 5,600 years of recorded history, 14,600 wars have been fought -- 2 to 3 for every year of human history. War is a constant thing. And yet no one really understands why that is." He described his antidotes in Kinds of Power: A Guide to its Intelligent Uses (1997).
It is no accident we find Ares and the other gods at the roots of our genealogical lines. Hillman prefers to move vertically, down into myth, into religion, and into the soul’s basement in order to discover the most basic impulses to war, which, he believes, is a constant and even normal in the history of humanity. He suggests we, "listen to the language of the media, with its lexicon of war, battle, fight, compete, win, loser—all of these words pointing to conquest."
We have not, he claims towards the end of his shocking study, even begun to wake up to the complex and nuanced power of the god of war. We continue as nations to feel better wandering in the fog of war’s purpose and presence than to deepen our understanding of the values we hold, consciously or not, that invite war’s presence as a normal occurrence. He claims, we have an undeniable moral duty to pay attention to its deeper mythic and religious intentions.
In our imaginative engagement with conflict, we need to maintain the place of psyche in genealogical interpretations, not cutting off the mythic past from our narrative with the sword of rationality and evidence or proof. Equivalent images remain dormant in our psyches if we do not recognize and establish the sacred connection between the sacred figures and our own psyche.
There is an irrational reality beyond the radical honesty of rationalism. It preserves even as it deconstructs our cherished notions about the past and self. It makes our lines no less 'real,' but it deliteralizes them, emphasizing soul's meaning is deeper connection, with or without metaphysical assertions.
We suffer collectively if we cut off those connections and psychological truths from our conscious and spiritual lives. Myth remains the key to 'the art of seeing.' Psyche remains full of obscurities and unsolvable riddles which press against our weak and often dull comprehensions.
As Jung claims, "We do not devalue statements that originally were intended to be metaphysical when we demonstrate their psychic nature; on the contrary, we confirm their factual character.
"But, by treating them as psychic phenomena, we remove them from the inaccessible realm of metaphysics, about which nothing verifiable can be said, and this disposes of the impossible question as to whether they are "true" or not.
"We take our stand simply and solely on the facts, recognizing that the archetypal structure of the unconscious will produce, over and over again and irrespective of tradition, those figures which reappear in the history of all epochs and all peoples, and will endow them with the same significance and numinosity that have been theirs from the beginning." (CW 14, Para 558)
Genealogy opens us to emotional experience, often of both sides of any historical conflict, suggesting we have a personal connection or stake in them all, which as humans we naturally do. Genealogy -- real, confabulated, or imaginal -- is the basis of the whole western world, or at least its public face and rulership.
We always remain both perpetrators and victims of forces eternally greater than ourselves. The interaction of the divine and the soul remains an over-arching theme of humanity. The religious function itself is archetypal, and we continue to sacrifice at the altar of Ares in global conflict.
International quarrels are personified as the 'usual suspects', the characters and kings in the conflicting dramas of nation states, and identity, ethnicity, and power-struggle. Throughout most of European history, rulers battled with their own extended family members.
Whether we call that Ares/Mars, or not, it remains a living reality in international politics, as surely as anything passed to us all through the persistent legacy of the Roman Empire. Mars casts a very long shadow across individual and collective history. Only now, through the body and DNA itself, are we realizing we are multi-ethnic at the deepest level, and even contain other species of human, and less than human DNA.
Genealogy recognizes the malleability of history, marriage, and generation. It is a way of interacting and imagining beyond therapy or history, while maintaining the traceable and plausible family histories documented after the Domesday Book (William the Conqueror in 1086) through the 1500's when surnames were introduced. Genealogy marks the points where mythic thought ran headlong into religion and fundamentalism, and other systems of social control and engineering...Ares again. The conqueror still suggests, "I am in control because I am divine."
The Domesday Book marks the starting point of recorded history for most English villages and towns as organized by county. It is the first English census and provides a Middle Ages record of English social organization in the Anglo-Norman period. We still rely on census and civil records as the most reliable 'proofs' of descent, yet we often find family errors there, even in recent ancestry. Names and dates are shuffled according to the hearing and transcribing of census takers. Experts remind us, as a genealogical tool, even the Domesday Book's usefulness is limited.
The Domesday Book (or, colloquially, Domesday) is the expression used since the late twelfth century to refer to the record of the "Great Inquisition or Survey of the lands of England, their extent, value, ownership, and liabilities, made by order of William the Conqueror in 1086".[1] Two volumes survive in The National Archives: "Great Domesday" covers parts of Wales and most of modern England except for northern areas then under control of the then Kingdom of Scotland and "Little Domesday" which covers in more detail Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk.[2]
The Domesday Book is the starting point of recorded history for the majority of English villages and towns which are organized by county. This first English census, considered by some as the most remarkable administrative accomplishment of the Middle Ages, provides a record of English social organization in the Anglo-Norman period. As a genealogical tool, however, the Domesday Book's usefulness is limited.
All of history has been controlled behind the scenes by Ares might and energy. History is written by the winners who then self-describe their glorious descent from the gods, their divine right to rule. It is enforced with constant wars and worldview warfare, a battle for minds using contrivances and memes that suit the current powers that be. The dragon or serpent that guards the treasures of the deep remains the unconscious and its myth-spinning capacity.
consciousness is menaced by an almighty unconscious: hence his fear of magical influences which may cross his path at any moment; and for this reason, too, he is surrounded by unknown forces and must adjust himself to them as best he can.
Owing to the chronic twilight state of his consciousness, it is often next to impossible to find out whether he merely dreamed something or whether he really experienced it.
The spontaneous manifestation of the unconscious and its archetypes intrudes everywhere into his conscious mind, and the mythical world of his ancestors -- a reality equal if not superior to the material world.
It is not the world as we know it that speaks out of his unconscious, but the unknown world of the psyche, of which we know that it mirrors out empirical world only in part, and that, for the
other part, it moulds this empirical world in accordance with its own psychic assumptions.
The archetype does not proceed from physical facts but describes how the psyche experiences the physical fact, and in so doing the psyche often behaves so autocratically that it denies tangible reality
or makes statements that fly in the face of it. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 260
To illustrate the multiple personifications of psyche Hillman made reference to gods, goddesses, demigods and other imaginal figures which he referred to as sounding boards "for echoing life today or as bass chords giving resonance to the little melodies of daily life"[4] although he insisted that these figures should not be used as a 'master matrix' against which we should measure today and thereby decry modern loss of richness.[4]
Hillman’s Archetypal psychology relativizes and deliteralizes the ego and focuses on psyche, or soul, and the archai, the deepest patterns of psychic functioning, "the fundamental fantasies that animate all life" (Moore, in Hillman, 1991).
The doctrine that all evil thoughts come from the heart and that the human soul is a sink of iniquity must lie deep in the marrow of their bones.
Were it so, then God had made a sorry job of creation, and it were high time for us to go over to Marcion the Gnostic and depose the incompetent demiurge.
Ethically, of course, it is infinitely more convenient to leave God the sole responsibility for such a Home for Idiot Children, where no one is capable of putting a spoon into his own mouth.
But it is worth man's while to take pains with himself, and he has something in his own soul that can grow.
It is rewarding to watch patiently the silent happenings in the soul, and the most and the best happens when it is not regulated from outside and from above. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 126
Whoever speaks of the reality of the soul or psyche is accused of "psychologism."
Psychology is spoken of as if it were "only" psychology and nothing else.
The notion that there can be psychic factors which correspond to the divine
figures is regarded as a devaluation o£ the latter.
It smacks of blasphemy to think that a religious experience is a psychic process; for, so it is argued, a religious experience "is not only psychological."
Anything psychic is only Nature and therefore, people think, nothing religious can come out of it.
At the same time such critics never hesitate to derive all religions—with the exception of their own — from the nature of the psyche. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 9
Remembering a wonderful study of Prof. Franco Livorsi of the 90's, "Psyche and history", I return the exact words of Hillman:
" without a sense of the soul, we don't have the sense of history. Don't we go down in history. [...] nothing can be revealed by a newspaper, from the ' Cronique Scandaleuse's of the world, if you don't grab the essence from within through an archetypal model. The Archetype provides the basis for reuniting done and meaning, immeasurable in itself. The historical facts are external archetipicamente ordered in order to uncover the psychological meanings are essential. These settings of the historical facts are the eternally applicants mitologemi of history and of our souls. Through the meanings the story acts on our psyche, and at the same time, it is the theater where we stage the mitologemi of our soul ".
Image: Jacopo Zucchi,'s psyche discovers love's, particular, Galleria Borghese, Rome
I feel the pangs of separation, but I force myself to find a moment of clarity to interact with what is being perceived and what is real. Heartache is a momentary giving into the illusion. If we give in, we close ourselves off by the pain, when in reality we should be opening our petals if we want to receive.
Metaphysical assertions are statements of the psyche, and are therefore psychological.
To the Western mind, which compensates its well-known feelings of resentment by a slavish regard for "rational" explanations, this obvious truth seems all too obvious, or else it is seen as an inadmissible negation of metaphysical "truth."
Whenever the Westerner hears the word "psychological," it always sounds to him like "only psychological."
For him the "soul" is something pitifully small, unworthy, personal, subjective, and a lot more besides.
He therefore prefers to use the word "mind" instead, though he likes to pretend at the same time that a statement which may in fact be very subjective indeed is made by the "mind," naturally by the "Universal Mind," or even—at a pinch—by the "Absolute" itself.
This rather ridiculous presumption is probably a compensation for the regrettable smallness of the soul.
It almost seems as if Anatole France had uttered a truth which were valid for the whole Western world when, in his Penguin Island, Catherine d'Alexandrie offers this advice to God: "Donnezleur une ame, mais une petite!" ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 835
"Mythology––and therefore civilization––is a poetic, supernormal image, conceived, like all poetry, in depth, but susceptible of interpretation on various levels. The shallowest minds see in it the local scenery; the deepest, the foreground of the void; and between are the stages of the Way from the ethnic to the elementary idea, the local to the universal being, which is Everyman, as he both knows and is afraid to know. For the human mind in its polarity of the male and female modes of experience, in its passages from infancy to adulthood, in its toughness and tenderness, and in its continuing dialog with the world, is the ultimate mythogenetic zone––the creator and the destroyer, the slave and yet the master, of all the gods." --Joseph Campbell, "The Masks of God, Vol. I: Primitive Mythology," © Joseph Campbell 1959, 1969, renewed 1987), p. 472
Worship of "Scythian Ares"
Although Tabiti was apparently the most important deity in the Scythian pantheon, the worship accorded to the deity Herodotus refers to as "Ares" was unique. He notes that "it is not their custom [...] to make images, altars or temples to any except Ares, but to him it is their custom to make them".[4] He describes the construction of the altar and the subsequent sacrifice as follows:
In each district of the several governments they have a temple of Ares set up in this way: bundles of brushwood are heaped up for about three furlongs in length and in breadth, but less in height; and on the top of this there is a level square made, and three of the sides rise sheer but by the remaining one side the pile may be ascended. Every year they pile on a hundred and fifty wagon-loads of brushwood, for it is constantly settling down by reason of the weather. Upon this pile of which I speak each people has an ancient iron sword set up, and this is the sacred symbol of Ares. To this sword they bring yearly offerings of cattle and of horses; and they have the following sacrifice in addition, beyond what they make to the other gods, that is to say, of all the enemies whom they take captive in war they sacrifice one man in every hundred, not in the same manner as they sacrifice cattle, but in a different manner: for they first pour wine over their heads, and after that they cut the throats of the men, so that the blood runs into a bowl; and then they carry this up to the top of the pile of brushwood and pour the blood over the sword. This, I say, they carry up; and meanwhile below by the side of the temple they are doing thus: they cut off all the right arms of the slaughtered men with the hands and throw them up into the air, and then when they have finished offering the other victims, they go away; and the arm lies wheresoever it has chanced to fall, and the corpse apart from it.[3]
According to Tadeusz Sulimirski, this form of worship continued among the descendants of the Scythians, the Alans, through to the 4th century CE.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythian_religion
"It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back. In fact, it may well be that the very high incidence of neuroticism among ourselves follows from the decline among us of such effective spiritual aid." --Joseph Campbell, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", 2008. Joseph Campbell Foundation, p.7
"It is a great mistake in practice to treat an archetype as if it were a mere name, word, or concept. It is far more than that: it is a piece of life, an image connected with the living individual by the bridge of emotion." ~Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols, Page 96
"Genealogy reveals the importance of ancestry to soul. The weight of human history is in the voices of the dead, in opening the mouth of the dead and hearing what they have to say. It's the actual living presence of history in the soul, the past in the soul, not just the deeply repressed or forgotten." ~James Hillman
"Over the course of the millennia, all these ancestors in your tree, generation upon generation, have come down to this moment in time--to give birth to you. There has never been, nor will ever be, another like you. You have been given a tremendous responsibility. You carry the hopes and dreams of all those who have gone before. Hopes and dreams for a better world. What will you do with your time on this Earth? How will you contribute to the ongoing story of humankind? History remembers only the celebrated, genealogy remembers them all." --Laurence Overmire
"Soul rootedness and rootedness of a medicine lineage can only happen by being rooted to source, original fire, as well as deeply in the earth. When we understand our place in the vastness of the cosmos, our deep connection with that which gave birth to all, and are able root this connection to the earth plane for the good of our communities, only then are we truly rooted." ~Theresa C. Dintino, * The Akan of Ghana, Eva Meyerowitz, Faber & Faber, London, 1958
"The Reality of War: Of course, war and the large military establishments are the greatest sources of violence in the world. Whether their purpose is defensive or offensive, these vast powerful organizations exist solely to kill human beings. We should think carefully about the reality of war. Most of us have been conditioned to regard military combat as exciting and glamorous - an opportunity for men to prove their competence and courage. Since armies are legal, we feel that war is acceptable; in general, nobody feels that war is criminal or that accepting it is criminal attitude. In fact, we have been brainwashed. War is neither glamorous nor attractive. It is monstrous. Its very nature is one of tragedy and suffering.
"War is like a fire in the human community, one whose fuel is living beings. I find this analogy especially appropriate and useful. Modern warfare waged primarily with different forms of fire, but we are so conditioned to see it as thrilling that we talk about this or that marvelous weapon as a remarkable piece of technology without remembering that, if it is actually used, it will burn living people. War also strongly resembles a fire in the way it spreads. If one area gets weak, the commanding officer sends in reinforcements. This is throwing live people onto a fire. But because we have been brainwashed to think this way, we do not consider the suffering of individual soldiers. No soldiers want to be wounded or die. None of his loved ones wants any harm to come to him. If one soldier is killed, or maimed for life, at least another five or ten people - his relatives and friends - suffer as well. We should all be horrified by the extent of this tragedy, but we are too confused." --Dalai Lama, http://www.dalailama.com/messages/world-peace/the-reality-of-war
Founding Rome: Ares Becomes Mars
No matter which of the ancient writers or genealogies we follow for the backstory of Rome, we encounter the same names over and over -- renown warriors, kings, and queens, and mythic beings -- even if their links and marriages are juggled around. No one argues about their descent from Ares and Aphrodite, whether in the same or different lines.
Following the Ares descent line down through time, we come to the era and people associated with the founding and legends of Rome. Ares insinuated himself actively into the founding of Rome. His character defined that of the Empire -- its conquering and martial nature.
Founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus are my 94th great uncles.
Romulus was husband of Hersilia of Alba Longa, an abducted Sabine;
Remus was father of Pompilia of Rome, my 1st cousin 95x removed
The Romans considered Mars second only to Zeus or Jupiter, his father, and my 95th gr-grandfather. The twin founders of Rome raised by a wolf are the mythical offspring of Ares and Rhea Silvia, Princess of Alba Longa (b. circa 808), the wife of Ascanius.Roman emperors were always priests of Ares/Mars.
Romulus and Remus were the direct descendants of Ares, through Aeneas, whose fate-driven adventures in Italy are described in The Aeneid by Vergil. The Julian family, including Julius Cæsar and Augustus, traced their lineage to Ascanius and Aeneas, thus to the goddess Venus. The legendary kings of Britain also trace their family through Brutus, a grandson of Aeneas.
In the Iliad, the god Poseidon prophesied that the descendants of Aeneas (the Aeneadae), would survive the Trojan War and rule their people forever . Virgil traced the divine connection down the line of Aeneas stretched through Romulus, Augustus, and the Julio-Claudian emperors down to Nero. Some Greek writers considered the Romans descendants of the Achaeans, rather than the Trojans. Or, the Romans are descended from Odysseus, one of the Achaeans, rather than his contemporary, the Trojan prince Aeneas.
Romulus and Remus were related to Aeneas through their mother's father, Numitor. He was a king of Alba Longa, an ancient city of Latium in central Italy, Numitor was father to Rhea Silvia. Rubens depicts the Roman god Mars, identifiable with his war helmet and shield. raping the vestal virgin Rhea Silvia.
There is much debate and variation as to whom was the father of Romulus and Remus. Some myths claim that Mars appeared and lay with Rhea Silvia; other myths attest that the demi-god hero Hercules was her partner.
However, the author Livy claims that Rhea Silvia was in fact raped by an unknown man, but blamed her pregnancy on divine conception. In either case, Rhea Silvia was discovered to be pregnant and gave birth to her sons. It was custom that any Vestal Virgin betraying her vows of celibacy was condemned to death; the most common death sentence was to be buried alive.
However, King Amulius, fearing the wrath of the paternal god (Mars or Hercules) did not wish to directly stain his hands with the mother's and children's blood. So, King Amulius imprisoned Rhea Silvia and ordered the twins' death by means of live burial, exposure, or being thrown into the Tiber River.
He reasoned that if the twins were to die not by the sword but by the elements, he and his city would be saved from punishment by the gods. He ordered a servant to carry out the death sentence, but in every scenario of this myth, the servant takes pity on the twins and spares their lives. The servant, then, places the twins into a basket onto the River Tiber, and the river carries the boys to safety.
Romulus named his city Roma after himself and instated a government system of senators and patricians. When the male population exploded the Roman men abducted women from the Sabines and Latins. In response to this rape or abduction of women, the Sabine and Latin men went to war against Rome. Romulus was the definitive winner of this war and his victory was Rome's first triumph.
"Aeneas was the father of Ascanius with Creusa, and of Silvius with Lavinia. The former, also known as Iulus (or Julius), founded Alba Longa and was the first in a long series of kings. According to the mythology outlined by Virgil in the Aeneid, Romulus and Remus were both descendants of Aeneas through their mother Rhea Silvia, making Aeneas progenitor of the Roman people. Some early sources call him their father or grandfather,[1] but considering the commonly accepted dates of the fall of Troy (1184 BC) and the founding of Rome (753 BC), this seems unlikely.
In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (/ᵻˈniːəs/;[1] Greek: Αἰνείας, Aineías, possibly derived from Greek αἰνή meaning "praised") was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Venus (Aphrodite). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons of Ilus, founder of Troy), making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children (such as Hector and Paris). He is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome. [wiki]
Mars and Rhea Silvia is a 1617 painting by Peter Paul Rubens, now in the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna. It shows Mars's rape of Rhea Silvia, which resulted in the birth of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome.
Psyche and History
There are, indeed, psychic powers within us that correspond to the divine -- and Ares/Mars is pre-eminent among them. The immortal soul in us surpasses the perishable individual significance.
We are links in the great chain of being, which is sometimes more like chainmail armor in its interconnections with ancestors and the gods. There remains a destructive impulse in ourselves and others that adds fire, vitality, passion, and power to life.
It is the mystery of brinksmanship -- the art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, typically in politics -- power vs. empowerment. Personal sovereignty is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict to secure an advantage. But Mars will gladly bring the hammer down, too.
We have many possibilities for embracing power and genealogy remains a symbol of that human struggle, not only in war, but in class struggle, business competition, and love or sport. Genealogy gives the subject substance, "by showing us a broad experience of power, rooted in the body, the nind, and the emotions, rather than the customary narrow interpretation that simply equates power with strength." (Hillman)
In The Terrible Love of War, James Hillman noted that, "During the 5,600 years of recorded history, 14,600 wars have been fought -- 2 to 3 for every year of human history. War is a constant thing. And yet no one really understands why that is." He described his antidotes in Kinds of Power: A Guide to its Intelligent Uses (1997).
It is no accident we find Ares and the other gods at the roots of our genealogical lines. Hillman drills down into myth, into religion, and into the soul’s basement where the most basic impulses to war is seething. He suggests we, "listen to the language of the media, with its lexicon of war, battle, fight, compete, win, loser—all of these words pointing to conquest."
We have not even begun to wake up to the complex and nuanced power of the god of war. Nation-states find war a normal presence. But there is a deeper mythic and religious intention behind the fog of war and its purpose. It deepens the values we hold.
In our imaginative engagement with conflict, we need to maintain the place of psyche in genealogical interpretations, not cutting off the mythic past from our narrative with the sword of rationality and evidence or proof. Equivalent images remain dormant in our psyches if we do not recognize and establish the sacred connection between the sacred figures and our own psyche.
There is an irrational reality beyond the radical honesty of rationalism. It preserves even as it deconstructs our cherished notions about the past and self. It makes our lines no less 'real,' but it deliteralizes them, emphasizing soul's meaning is deeper connection, with or without metaphysical assertions.
We suffer collectively if we cut off those connections and psychological truths from our conscious and spiritual lives. Myth remains the key to 'the art of seeing.' Psyche remains full of obscurities and unsolvable riddles which press against our weak and often dull comprehensions.
As Jung claims, "We do not devalue statements that originally were intended to be metaphysical when we demonstrate their psychic nature; on the contrary, we confirm their factual character.
"But, by treating them as psychic phenomena, we remove them from the inaccessible realm of metaphysics, about which nothing verifiable can be said, and this disposes of the impossible question as to whether they are "true" or not.
"We take our stand simply and solely on the facts, recognizing that the archetypal structure of the unconscious will produce, over and over again and irrespective of tradition, those figures which reappear in the history of all epochs and all peoples, and will endow them with the same significance and numinosity that have been theirs from the beginning." (CW 14, Para 558)
Genealogy opens us to emotional experience, often of both sides of any historical conflict, suggesting we have a personal connection or stake in them all, which as humans we naturally do. Genealogy -- real, confabulated, or imaginal -- is the basis of the whole western world, or at least its public face and rulership.
We always remain both perpetrators and victims of forces eternally greater than ourselves. The interaction of the divine and the soul remains an over-arching theme of humanity. The religious function itself is archetypal, and we continue to sacrifice at the altar of Ares in global conflict.
International quarrels are personified as the 'usual suspects', the characters and kings in the conflicting dramas of nation states, and identity, ethnicity, and power-struggle. Throughout most of European history, rulers battled with their own extended family members.
Whether we call that Ares/Mars, or not, it remains a living reality in international politics, as surely as anything passed to us all through the persistent legacy of the Roman Empire. Mars casts a very long shadow across individual and collective history. Only now, through the body and DNA itself, are we realizing we are multi-ethnic at the deepest level, and even contain other species of human, and less than human DNA.
Genealogy recognizes the malleability of history, marriage, and generation. It is a way of interacting and imagining beyond therapy or history, while maintaining the traceable and plausible family histories documented after the Domesday Book (William the Conqueror in 1086) through the 1500's when surnames were introduced. Genealogy marks the points where mythic thought ran headlong into religion and fundamentalism, and other systems of social control and engineering...Ares again. The conqueror still suggests, "I am in control because I am divine."
The Domesday Book marks the starting point of recorded history for most English villages and towns as organized by county. It is the first English census and provides a Middle Ages record of English social organization in the Anglo-Norman period. We still rely on census and civil records as the most reliable 'proofs' of descent, yet we often find family errors there, even in recent ancestry. Names and dates are shuffled according to the hearing and transcribing of census takers. Experts remind us, as a genealogical tool, even the Domesday Book's usefulness is limited.
The Domesday Book (or, colloquially, Domesday) is the expression used since the late twelfth century to refer to the record of the "Great Inquisition or Survey of the lands of England, their extent, value, ownership, and liabilities, made by order of William the Conqueror in 1086".[1] Two volumes survive in The National Archives: "Great Domesday" covers parts of Wales and most of modern England except for northern areas then under control of the then Kingdom of Scotland and "Little Domesday" which covers in more detail Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk.[2]
The Domesday Book is the starting point of recorded history for the majority of English villages and towns which are organized by county. This first English census, considered by some as the most remarkable administrative accomplishment of the Middle Ages, provides a record of English social organization in the Anglo-Norman period. As a genealogical tool, however, the Domesday Book's usefulness is limited.
Descent From Antiquity
Genealogy was used to support the claims to nobility of individual families, both to differentiate them from commoners and in rivalry with other families either within the same national group or outside it.
Always when such genealogies are recorded by Christian writers (e.g. Bede, Historia EcclesiasticaI 15), the gods that appear in them will have been interpreted euhemeristically, i.e. as great kings or heroes who came to be worshipped as gods after their deaths. Descent from such great and successful men would have been regarded as a claim to nobility, while heathen gods themselves could hardly have been regarded with anything but abhorrence. Since the gods in genealogies were considered to have been really mortals, there was moreover felt to be no inappropriateness in continuing the genealogical lists back beyond them, sometimes even as far as Noah and Adam.
Biblical genealogy encouraged medieval scholars to compile genealogies stretching back to the remote past. If genealogies were taken back to the gods in heathen times, they were presumably closely associated with the kind of legend that survives in the Eddic poems quoted above, and may have implied that those who could claim such descent were different from ordinary mortals. But if the gods were only introduced into genealogies after the coming of Christianity, then the euhemeristic interpretation of the gods must have preceded the construction of the genealogies. This latter view makes it easier to explain certain aspects of the extant genealogies, for instance the fact that many of them conflict with each other, so that there appears to have been no fixed tradition about the relationships of the gods and their human sons, and the even more striking fact that the family relationships of the gods in genealogies are very different from those they have in mythology.
It must be regarded as uncertain how common it was for genealogies in heathen times to go back to the gods, in Christian times it became almost universal. Some juxtapositions make for uncomfortable conflict both with the mythological tradition and historical plausibility. (Descent from the Gods)
Medieval Europe
Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Benedictine monk living in the 12th century AD, wrote a fabricated history of the kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae). In this history Britain is said to receive its name from Brutus, the first of its kings. According to him, Brutus was the son of Silvius and the grandson of Aeneas. While on a hunting trip with his father he accidentally shoots him and so flees Italy. First, Brutus goes to Greece and gathers Trojan companions who join him on his journey to Britain, where he takes the island from a race of giants.[58]
Benoît de Saint-Maure names Charlemagne as a descendant of the mythical Francus, thus linking the Plantagenet family to Aeneas.[59] Francus, like Aeneas, survived the destruction of Troy and traveled to find a new home. He installed a territory with other Trojans comprising the entire Rhine and the Danube and founded a powerful village named Sicambri.[60]
The ancient historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus is believed to have invented the Alban chronology to fill the gap of centuries between the fall of Troy and the founding of Rome. This could have been achieved by him taking the Roman history as it was, comparing it with the Greek, and inserting Greek Olympiads or Athenian archons.[61] This method would have made the Greek histories seem contemporary with the people and events in the Roman history of his time.
The names of the kings are often based on places around Rome, such as Tiberinus, Aventinus, Alba, and Capetus. Others are rationalizations of mythical figures, or pure inventions to provide notable ancestors for status-seeking families.[10] In the Aeneid, Virgil invents characters into living beings not unlike the heroes of Homer. The events described toward the end of the Aeneid were a nationalistic interpretation of perceived historical events in Roman history.[62] However, despite being a later invention, the Silvian house or gens Silvia, likely did exist.[63]
The pagan content of mythology was codified in the mid-fourteenth century Latin text by Giovanni Boccassio -- Genealogia deorum gentilium (1360), or, On the Genealogy of the Gods of the Gentiles. This is a mythography or encyclopedic compilation of the tangled family relationships of the classical pantheons of Ancient Greece and Rome.
In 1548 it was followed by another compilation of mythical genealogy by Giglio Gregorio Giraldi, De deis gentium, The Gods of the Nations, widely read in England and France. Such genealogies were linked to those of prospective medieval royals to justify their potency and divine right to rule. Reliability is irrelevant in this "as if" reality, but we need not take it literally to find meaning there.
When the Europeans converted to Christianity, a problem arose. Their royal families were only a few generations removed from the old gods. Further, exposed to Roman arts and sciences, they discovered the idea of “historical time.” The world was older than they had ever thought.
Their royal pedigrees weren’t long enough to go back to the creation of the world, so monks struggled to formulate lines to the gods, and back to Biblical Adam and Eve to legitimize their rulers. They would appeal to their ancient past for the right to rule.
The Franks
Later monks, perhaps competing for prestige with the Franks, decided to dump Noah and take Woden’s ancestry back to Troy, then connect the Trojans to the Jewish scriptures. The Grandes Chroniques de France (13th - 15th centuries), a vast compilation of historic material, refers to the Trojan origins of the French dynasty, but modern DNA testing shows no Middle Eastern ethnicity in the Merovingians.
Frankish monks linked Francus to the kings of Troy. The Chronicle of Fredegar (7th century) mentions the legend. It was elaborated in the Liber historiae Francorum (probably 727). Successive generations continued adding new details.
The Franks claimed to be the distant cousins of the Romans, who claimed descent from the Trojan, Aeneas. This political propaganda fit nicely with two things the Franks needed to emphasize: (1) their equality as cousins of the Romans, and (2) their legitimate succession to the Roman empire through that bloodline connection.
In 1541, Johannes Trithemius compiled De origine gentis Francorum. describing the Frankish ancestors as originally Trojans. They were called "Sicambers" or "Sicambrians" after the fall of Troy. They were forced into Gaul after being expelled from the mouth of the Danube by the Goth invasion in 439 BCE (1:33). He recounts each of these kings and their battles with Gauls, Goths and Saxons—including Francus (43:76), the Franks' namesake.
To have soul is the whole venture of life, for soul is a life-giving daemon who plays his elfin game above and be low human existence, for which reason—in the realm of dogma—he is threatened and propitiated with superhuman punishments and blessings that go far beyond the possible deserts of human beings. Heaven and hell are the fates meted out to the soul and not to civilized man, who in his nakedness and timidity would have no idea of what to do with himself in a heavenly Jerusalem. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 56
British Royal Descent from Woden
One of the earliest British attempts to create genealogy linked to antiquity is the Historia Brittonum by the 9th century Welsh monk Nennius, who recorded the following Biblical genealogy root:
(1) Noah, his son (2) Japheth, his son (3) Joham, his son (4) Jobath, his son (5) Bath, his son (6) Hisrau, his son (7) Esraa, his son (8) Ra, his son (9) Aber, his son (10) Ooth, his son (11) Ethec, his son (12) Aurthack, his son (13) Ecthactur, his son (14) Ecthactur, his son (15) Mair, his son (16) Semion, his son (17) Boibus, his son (18) Thoi, his son (19) Ogomuin, his son (20) Fethuir, and his son (21) Alanus.
Nennius then tied Alanus to Rome by making him a husband of Rhea Silvia, whose twin sons Romulus and Remus are said to have founded Rome in 753 BCE. The spurious connection is historically inaccurate, but allowed grafting ancestors of the northern Europeans onto classical tradition by making them brothers of Romulus, the alleged ancestor of the Romans.
Though problematical, the commonly used list for the descent of British kings from Woden through the Hebrews and Trojan kings is the following:
(1) Judah, ancestor of the tribe of Judah, his son (2) Zara, his son (3) Darda, his son (4) Erichthonious, his son (5) Tros, his son (6) Ilus, his son (7) Laomedon, his son (8) Tithonius, his son (9) Memnon, his son (10) Thor, his son (11) Einridi, his son (12) Vingethor, his son (13) Vingener, his son (14) Móda, his son (15) Magi [Noe], his son (16) Sceaf [Seskef], his son (17) Bedwig [Bedvig], his son (18) Hwala, his son (19) Hrathra [Annarr], his son (20) Itermon [Ítermann], his son (21) Heremod [Heremód], his son (22) Heremod [Heremód], his son (23) Beaw [Bjárr], his son (24) Tætwa, his son (25) Geat [Ját], his son (26) Godwulf [Gudólfr], his son (27) Finn, his son (28) Frithuwulf, his son (29) Frealaf [Fridleifr], his son Frealaf [Fridleifr], his son (30) Freawine, his son (31) Frithuwald, and his son (32) Woden, descent through Vikings to William "Longsword."
Roma, Museo d. civiltà romana - Sarcofago Mattei Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 12-Apr-2008.jpg Museo della civiltà romana a Roma (Eur) - Room 6 (Origins of Rome) # 6 - Cast of the "Sarcofago Mattei" (dating from around 220 AD), whose relief shows Mars about to rape Rhea Silvia. The original artwork is divided between the Vatican Museums (flanks) and Palazzo Mattei Palace (front).
Picture by Giovanni Dall'Orto, April 12 2008.
The copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:0453_-_Roma,_Museo_d._civilt%C3%A0_romana_-_Sarcofago_Mattei_Foto_Giovanni_Dall%27Orto,_12-Apr-2008.jpg
REFERENCES
Ancelin Schützenberger A., (1998). The Ancestor Syndrome: Transgenerational Psychotherapy and the Hidden Links in the Family Tree. London: Routledge.
Dalai Lama, The Reality of War, http://www.dalailama.com/messages/world-peace/the-reality-of-war
Faulkes, Anthony, Descent From the Gods
http://www.vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Descent-from-the-gods.pdf
Homer, (1999), The Iliad & The Odyssey, Barnes & Noble Books
Prof. Franco Livorsi, "Psyche and history"
Miller, Iona, (2016), Ancestors & Archetypes, http://ancestorsandarchetypes.weebly.com/
Miller, Iona, (2015), Jungian Genealogy, http://jungiangenealogy.weebly.com/
Seznec, Jean The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in ..., Bollingen, https://books.google.com/books?id=YOISgWIQE7AC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Ares myths - http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/AresMyths.html
Rowland, Susan, PhD, Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies Vol.3, No. 1, 2007,
"Writing about War: Jung, Much Ado About Nothing, and the Troy novels of Lindsay Clarke"
Vergil, The Aeneid of Virgil, (Bantam Classics) Reissue Edition,
Iona Miller is a nonfiction writer for the academic and popular press, clinical hypnotherapist (ACHE) and multimedia artist. Her work is an omni-sensory fusion of intelligence, science-art, new physics, symbolism, source mysticism, futuring, and emergent paradigm shift, creating a unique viewpoint. She is interested in extraordinary human potential and experience, and the EFFECTS of doctrines of religion, science, psychology, and the arts. She serves on the Advisory Boards of Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, DNA Decipher Journal, and Scientific God Journal, as well as the Board of Directors of Medigrace, Inc. & Calm Birth; a Miami-based Integral Medicine institute; and the Editorial Board of CRAFT (Community Resilience through Action for Future Transitions). She has served as a Dame and Senechal in heritage societies.
Ms. Miller is published by Phanes Press, Destiny Books (Inner Traditions), Autonomedia, Nexus Magazine, Paranoia Magazine, Alchemy Journal, Green Egg, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Jungian Analysis Journal (Moscow), ECODITION (Geneva), DNA Decipher Journal (DNADJ), Scientific God Journal (SGJ), Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research (JCER), Journal of Nonlocality & Remote Mental Interactions (JNLRMI), Science-Art Research Centre Australia (SARCA), Dream Network, Chaosophy Journal, OAK-Publishing, PM&E, DNA Monthly, Antibothis, Pop Occulture, and more.
Virgil stresses Aeneas' devotion to his purpose: the founding of Rome.
The Aeneid, then, like the Odyssey, is a quest book: Odysseus has to overcome obstacles in order to return home safely, and Aeneas is struggling to fulfill the command of the gods that he establish a home for the Trojans in Italy.
There are powerful and related similarities and differences between the two men: Odysseus, as we saw, had to be purged of his war spirit and turned again into a father and a husband; Aeneas has to be purged of all of his attributes as a man in order to be turned into a god, the divine ancestor of Augustus Caesar.
Odysseus chooses humanity; Aeneas chooses divinity.
Kalypso offers Odysseus eternal life if he stays with her on the island; when he leaves her, he is choosing humanity over a godlike condition. It is important to remember that in the early stages of Greek religion heroes became gods, hero-gods.
Aeneas must steer his own way to godhood, and no other human being can help him do this. The personal vision of Aeneas must be replaced by a spiritual vision, and the individual must be subordinate to the vision.
http://legacy.owensboro.kctcs.edu/crunyon/e261c/08-Virgil/QuestMission.html
- ARES: god of war, strife, fighting. His sister Eris was the goddess of discord.
- Ares principle is aggressive energy.
- Aphrodite’s lover.
- Psychological manifestations of the Ares principle would be aggression, dispute, combativeness enjoyed for their own sake.
- The Ares personality loves to fight for the sake of argument and feels most alive when engaged in battle or confrontation.
- Embodies courage, aggressive self-assertion. Professional soldiers, athletes, trial lawyers, etc. fall into identification with this principle.
- As an inner experience, the Ares principle emerges in situations where aggressive energy is required. This spirit can have its good side effects, in that a certain willingness to fight one’s way out of original containment or out of original collective identity is a requirement for psychological development.
- In Homer, Ares is prayed to as bringer of peace, which is archetypally sound. Unless we have relation to the principle, we will fall victim to its negative manifestation. If we could not summon up aggressive energy when appropriate, we will succumb to it in other ways, such as falling victim to others’ aggression or to our own autonomous assertive energy that can destroy by emerging at an inappropriate time. (See Fight Club)
Ares /ˈɛəriːz/ (Ancient Greek: Ἄρης [árɛːs], literally "battle") is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera.[1] In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent and untamed aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and generalship.[2] The Greeks were ambivalent toward Ares: although he embodied the physical valor necessary for success in war, he was a dangerous force, "overwhelming, insatiable in battle, destructive, and man-slaughtering."[3] His sons Fear (Phobos) and Terror (Deimos) and his lover, or sister, Discord (Enyo) accompanied him on his war chariot.[4] In the Iliad, his father Zeus tells him that he is the god most hateful to him.[5] An association with Ares endows places and objects with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality.[6] His value as a war god is placed in doubt: during the Trojan War, Ares was on the losing side, while Athena, often depicted in Greek art as holding Nike (Victory) in her hand, favored the triumphant Greeks.[7]
Ares plays a relatively limited role in Greek mythology as represented in literary narratives, though his numerous love affairs and abundant offspring are often alluded to.[8] When Ares does appear in myths, he typically faces humiliation.[9] He is well known as the lover of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who was married to Hephaestus, god of craftsmanship.[10] The most famous story related to Ares and Aphrodite shows them exposed to ridicule through the wronged husband's clever device.[11]
The counterpart of Ares among the Roman gods is Mars,[12] who as a father of the Roman people was given a more important and dignified place in ancient Roman religion as a guardian deity. During the Hellenization of Latin literature, the myths of Ares were reinterpreted by Roman writers under the name of Mars. Greek writers under Roman rule also recorded cult practices and beliefs pertaining to Mars under the name of Ares. Thus in the classical tradition of later Western art and literature, the mythology of the two figures becomes virtually indistinguishable.
Ares plays a relatively limited role in Greek mythology as represented in literary narratives, though his numerous love affairs and abundant offspring are often alluded to.[8] When Ares does appear in myths, he typically faces humiliation.[9] He is well known as the lover of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who was married to Hephaestus, god of craftsmanship.[10] The most famous story related to Ares and Aphrodite shows them exposed to ridicule through the wronged husband's clever device.[11]
The counterpart of Ares among the Roman gods is Mars,[12] who as a father of the Roman people was given a more important and dignified place in ancient Roman religion as a guardian deity. During the Hellenization of Latin literature, the myths of Ares were reinterpreted by Roman writers under the name of Mars. Greek writers under Roman rule also recorded cult practices and beliefs pertaining to Mars under the name of Ares. Thus in the classical tradition of later Western art and literature, the mythology of the two figures becomes virtually indistinguishable.
"Ares and Rhea" Painting by Reubens
Athena tells of Ares (Mars) by David. Athena supported the Greeks in the Trojan War; Ares the Trojans.
Hillman, Terrible Love of War
War is a timeless force in the human imagination-and, indeed, in daily life. If recent events have taught us anything, it is that peacetime is not nearly so constant and attainable as wartime. During the 5,600 years of recorded history, 14,600 wars have been fought-2 to 3 for every year of human history. War is a constant thing. And yet no one really understands why that is.
In A Terrible Love of War, James Hillman, one of the central figures in psychology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, fills this great void and undertakes a groundbreaking examination of the origins, needs, and rewards of war. Moreover, in this brilliant inquiry, Hillman explores many other essential questions, such as:
€ Is war a necessary part of our human soul and, therefore, a necessary part of our lives?
€ Why do we need enemies?
€ What scars does warfare carve on the psyche of its soldiers? And why does it have such a permanent effect?
€ If war is such a "normal" part of our existence, why do we fear it so much? And alternately, how could we ever embrace a force so destructive, so wanton, and so inhuman?
€ Can the impulse to engage in war be tamed?
Hillman asserts that "if we want war's horror to be abated so that life may go on, it is necessary to understand and imagine." A Terrible Love of War is a crucial tool to understanding war-a crucial book for us all.
James Hillman prefers to move vertically, down into myth, into religion, and into the soul’s basement in order to discover the most basic impulses to war, which, he believes, is a constant and even normal in the history of humanity. Listen to the language of the media, with its lexicon of war, battle, fight, compete, win, loser—all of these words pointing to conquest. He begins by quoting Exodus in the book’s epigram: “The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is His name” (15:3). He then divides his exploration of war into four chapters: 1. War is Normal; 2. War is Inhuman; 3. War is Sublime; 4. Religion is War.
We have not, he claims towards the end of thisoften shocking and unsettling study, even begun to wake up to the complexand nuanced power of the god of war such that we continue as a nation tofeel better wandering in the fog of war’s purpose and presence than todeepen our understanding of the values we hold, consciously or not, thatinvite war’s presence as a normal occurrence. Not queer or quirky, butquotidian is war’s forceful face before us. How our leaders, even ourselvesunderstand war is most often through a failed imaginative engagement withit. Holding us back, holding us hostage to war’s might and presence stemsdirectly from our beliefs—religious, political, personal, persistent—thatprotect us from war with the same ferocity in which we foist this terribledestructive impulse on others.
Terrible Love of War 5that I felt, finally, some of the dark underbelly of our own innocence as apeople was roused from slumber with a splash of very cold water. We, eachof us is paying for this current war; we have a moral duty to pay attention toits deeper mythic and religious intentions.
War is a timeless force in the human imagination-and, indeed, in daily life. If recent events have taught us anything, it is that peacetime is not nearly so constant and attainable as wartime. During the 5,600 years of recorded history, 14,600 wars have been fought-2 to 3 for every year of human history. War is a constant thing. And yet no one really understands why that is.
In A Terrible Love of War, James Hillman, one of the central figures in psychology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, fills this great void and undertakes a groundbreaking examination of the origins, needs, and rewards of war. Moreover, in this brilliant inquiry, Hillman explores many other essential questions, such as:
€ Is war a necessary part of our human soul and, therefore, a necessary part of our lives?
€ Why do we need enemies?
€ What scars does warfare carve on the psyche of its soldiers? And why does it have such a permanent effect?
€ If war is such a "normal" part of our existence, why do we fear it so much? And alternately, how could we ever embrace a force so destructive, so wanton, and so inhuman?
€ Can the impulse to engage in war be tamed?
Hillman asserts that "if we want war's horror to be abated so that life may go on, it is necessary to understand and imagine." A Terrible Love of War is a crucial tool to understanding war-a crucial book for us all.
James Hillman prefers to move vertically, down into myth, into religion, and into the soul’s basement in order to discover the most basic impulses to war, which, he believes, is a constant and even normal in the history of humanity. Listen to the language of the media, with its lexicon of war, battle, fight, compete, win, loser—all of these words pointing to conquest. He begins by quoting Exodus in the book’s epigram: “The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is His name” (15:3). He then divides his exploration of war into four chapters: 1. War is Normal; 2. War is Inhuman; 3. War is Sublime; 4. Religion is War.
We have not, he claims towards the end of thisoften shocking and unsettling study, even begun to wake up to the complexand nuanced power of the god of war such that we continue as a nation tofeel better wandering in the fog of war’s purpose and presence than todeepen our understanding of the values we hold, consciously or not, thatinvite war’s presence as a normal occurrence. Not queer or quirky, butquotidian is war’s forceful face before us. How our leaders, even ourselvesunderstand war is most often through a failed imaginative engagement withit. Holding us back, holding us hostage to war’s might and presence stemsdirectly from our beliefs—religious, political, personal, persistent—thatprotect us from war with the same ferocity in which we foist this terribledestructive impulse on others.
Terrible Love of War 5that I felt, finally, some of the dark underbelly of our own innocence as apeople was roused from slumber with a splash of very cold water. We, eachof us is paying for this current war; we have a moral duty to pay attention toits deeper mythic and religious intentions.
Copyright © 2010-2015 Iona Miller, All Rights Reserved.
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FAIR USE NOTICE
This site may contains some copyrighted material which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.