Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Thief Of Secrets

Hermes

(Blogger's note: I had a picture of Hermes Logios and an explanation that it was a photo of a 5th century Roman copy of a Greek statue 600 years older. I was informed that it was objectionable because of exposed male genitalia. This got me to recall that it theoretically violates both Blogger and facebook, though it does not violate the integrity of Wikipedia, where I found it for anyone to see and copy as part of the Hermes information. The Wiki information gave me the lead I needed to find a better presentation of the same basic picture on another site, which I chose to present here and have subsequently removed.

Mostly I was thinking of the art, the amazing attention to accuracy and the fact that this incredible work of art was once an expression of the Divine, and to my mind and heart still is. I removed the photo of that statue because it is not my intention to offend nor even remotely did I think to circumvent policy. This self censorship may be appropriate to Blogger and facebook but is so not in the spirit of Hermes, nor his son, Pan, nor his younger brother, Dionysus.)


Wiki says: Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and additionally a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics and sports, of weights and measures, of invention, and of commerce in general. His symbols include the tortoise, the rooster, the winged sandals, the winged hat, and the caduceus.

The Homeric hymn to Hermes invokes him as the one "of many shifts (polytropos), blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless gods."

He protects and takes care of all the travelers, miscreants, harlots, old crones and thieves that pray to him or cross his path. He is athletic and is always looking out for runners, or any athletes with injuries who need his help.

Hermes is a messenger from the gods to humans, sharing this role with Iris. An interpreter who bridges the boundaries with strangers is a hermeneus. Hermes gives us our word "hermeneutics", the study and theory of interpretation. In Greek a lucky find was a hermaion. Hermes delivered messages from Olympus to the mortal world. He wears shoes with wings on them and uses them to fly freely between the mortal and immortal world. Hermes was the second youngest of the Olympian gods, being born before Dionysus.

Hermes, as an inventor of fire, is a parallel of the Titan, Prometheus. In addition to the lyre, Hermes was believed to have invented many types of racing and the sports of wrestling and boxing, and therefore was a patron of athletes.

According to prominent folklorist Yeleazar Meletinsky, Hermes is a deified trickster*. Hermes also served as a psychopomp, or an escort for the dead to help them find their way to the afterlife (the Underworld in the Greek myths). In many Greek myths, Hermes was depicted as the only god besides Hades, Persephone, Hecate, and Thanatos who could enter and leave the Underworld without hindrance.


*Thus Hermes is Coyote. Also Hermes is the God of esoteric wisdom, the hidden wisdom, and therefore of the European Hermetic disciplines, such as certain forms of Astrology, Alchemy, the mysteries of magic and certain strains of the Gnostic rites.

If you need your boundaries protected, pray to Hermes, for He appreciates them more than the other Gods.

Thief Of Secrets

If I stole secrets
anymore I would steal yours
and leave behind small
round pebbles in trade
hoping you would accept them
as someone's good gift.
I would not admit
to you I took your secrets
even though I weep.

September 26, 2009 10:54 AM

9 comments:

  1. hermes-- from whence cometh hermeneutics and semiotics....lies,yarns and spins,
    signs and misdirects and sometimes, perhaps a breath or a whisper of truth, just to keep it interesting...
    i like how you have used the stones, and the weeping.

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  2. thank you.....
    perfect for this moment in
    time...........

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  3. Uh,
    you forgot the pairing of Hermes and Aphrodite.
    Lov eyou!

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  4. I "forgot" many things. Here is a list of some of them...all to be found on Wikipedia.

    For example, the Caduceus is his symbol first and then the symbol of the medical community because their knowledge of the insides of a human body (that is within the boundaries of it) is hermetic knowledge.

    Not only is Pan (the lustily erotic nature of the wild world) his son but so also is Hermaphroditus, and thus the blurring of boundaries in bisexuality.

    Aphrodite is only one of his consorts. She is second to Merope but which Merope is left to us, probably the Merope who is one of the Pleiades, as Maia, daughter of Atlas and mother to Hermes shares her name with another of the Pleiades.

    Messenger of the gods
    God of commerce, thieves, travelers, sports, and border crossings
    Abode: Mount Olympus
    Symbol: Caduceus, Talaria, Tortoise, Lyre, Rooster,
    Consort: Merope, Aphrodite, Dryope, Peitho
    Parents: Zeus and Maia
    Children: Pan, Hermaphroditus, Tyche, Abderus, Autolycus, and Angelia

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  5. He's my patron Greek fellow. I approve of this; it's just his style. :)

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  6. Thanks Christopher!
    I didn't know all this.
    And i gladly pray to Hermes, when stealing sectrets and revealing mine.

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  7. Censorship? I'm none too keen on censorship or obeying. Somehow, for me, I allow certain things to fall with intention. If intention is fair then censorship is out the window. If intention is mean spirited, well, then the stamp can fall. But I laugh at myself. Intention is a tricky thing to discern.

    I'm wondering on the nature of secrets just now after reading this. I'm wondering if all secrets are because of the nature of spirits, laced with weight? Seems so.

    xo
    erin

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  8. Merry Christmas, all you long time blogging friends of mine. I am glad for your comments, glad you are here.

    Joseph, I have been meaning to have some contact with you lately, just because, and there you are!

    Ghost, thank you. I agree with you. The devil is certainly an angel with an attitude.

    Katrin, you are a good friend to me. Loving you.

    Erin, I live in the ideal of no secrets, which does not mean tell all to everyone, just to be able to if necessary for some reason. I like to think my life is an open book with nothing to hide in it any more. As far as censorship goes, it matters very much why. I like it to be voluntary and compassionate, a matter of diplomacy. I might be okay censoring myself for your sake or the sake of someone if I knew I might cause grief somehow but I am rarely happy with any imposed censorship. Both Blogger and Facebook have censorship rules. On blogger if you do not put the adult warning page up as our friend does, then they can block your blog. I think that is okay. I didn't get any warning from anyone but a friend on Facebook about showing the statue of naked Hermes. I might not have had any bad press from it either, in which case all would have been fine. The Greek gods were often shown in human form nude and perfect. It was important to show them thus, the principle connection between god and man being ideal form.

    However, I did not want to risk offending anyone and receiving bad press anywhere. I go to considerable lengths to fly low in the radar on Facebook and elsewhere, being very picky who I trade with and all that. Especially on Facebook, there are all these applications which ask you for permission to access your stuff in trade for your participation. Notwithstanding that these apps are mostly not what I prefer to connect to, I really hate that they can trade on my info and my friends like that. I am censoring myself on Facebook all the time.

    Facebook is a problem for me. It is a deeply social site with all these ways to connect. All the games and other stuff are mainly social. However they are not free even when they are money cheap. The trade is in information collection. Facebook keeps track of the demographics for advertising and *other* purposes. It is a close thing for me. I want to have the connection with my local community, but I really don't like being in the spotlight. They really put you there, and can easily notice you specifically if they want to. Your only protection that way on Facebook being that there are so many and so little reason to single any one of us out.

    On the other hand, publishing is spotlighting in its nature. Both ?Facebook and Blogger are new forms of publishing. Censorship is always an issue in the public eye. It cannot be removed because the public is so diverse.

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The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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