Poseidon, Lord of the Second Cosmic Domain... continued

...Like the fluid nature of Poseidon himself, the universe is fluid. It is always changing. Perpetually flowing, like time, from one state to the next, never to repeat. Every point in the cosmos is unique. This is not so much to do with fluidity, but to a simple aspect of the universe’s eternal nature (Yes, another contradiction, but I will try to remember to go into it later) the fluidity brought to the universe by the power of Poseidon is in the ability of a point in the universe to move. The universe itself is flowing, moving, morphing into whatever it is it will be once it has passed from divine view.

Life, that is us, partakes of the fluid nature of the cosmos in an immediate way. We are short lived things, we living creatures. Even the most long lived organisms on Earth exist for only a blink of an eye in the eyes of the Gods. Yet we are also privy to the fundamental and divine forces at work around us because of that short life. We take notice of the constant changes around us because, from a cosmic perspective, the happen so quickly, suddenly, and sometimes painfully.

Poseidon’s ultimate gift to man kind is the very fluidity that he also imparts to all things. That we can change, at the drop of a hat sometimes, is a gift beyond price. That we can learn something and change ourselves. That we can experience something new, and delve into it to enjoy the essence of it, is simply too powerful a gift to ignore. And, if Poseidon has taught me anything these last weeks, it is that I am not set in stone, because even the stone changes. Because no matter how well I think I know myself, I may be and feel very differently tomorrow, and I should not fear that, rather I should rejoice in that.

The water domain is simply fluid, and we are as well. Our mental processes, our emotions, our sexualities, our perceptions, and even our very genes are fluid. No two human beings, even identical twins, are identical, and yet we all flow and change to be more alike, to share, and to connect.

Poseidon, Lord of the Second Cosmic Domain

My essential theology is based on the idea that the universe, while a single cohesive thing, is also divided into domains. There are the Cosmic domains, which are ruled over by the primordial aspects of the Gods, which means the Gods as creators or molders of nature. These are essentially transcendent domains. Then there are the immanent domains, ruled over by the “Olympian” aspects of the Gods.

All the Gods have primordial and Olympian aspects (as well as Titanic, but that we will have to go into later, if I remember) and they each take on a domain of nature, and in so doing, they permeate that domain with their essence, their being, their very nature. These are not domains that are locked away one from the other, but rather they overlap, they form a whole, and in so doing they give the universe something of an onion look. One layer, or dimension, over another, each partaking of the nature of the others, yet seemingly limited by our perception, by our perspective.

I see the Cosmic domains as further divided into four great domains, the domains of the Sky, the Sea, the Earth, and the Underworld. These equate to many different traditional interpretations, such as the elemental interpretation of Air, Water, Earth, and Fire or Birth, Growth, Decay, and Death. These four fundamental domains give the universe its essential character. It begins, it grows, eventually grows cold, and then dies. It is mortal.

The primordial aspect of Poseidon, call it Pontus, is Lord of the Second Domain, the domain of the Sea. This is the domain of growth and change (the third domain is also a domain of change, but not of growth in the essential sense, but of decay, but that too we will have to leave to another discussion) and in this, it is fluid and ever changing yet always the same. This contradiction comes from the idea that the sea while always changing, always flowing, is also always there. Its essential nature remains, and it is that essential nature that causes the change and flow I identify with Poseidon and his fluid nature.

To be continued...

The Trident: Creator, continued

Creation is an ongoing process in nature, not a fait accompli. The power of the sea in all of worldly creation is paramount. The very nature of the Earth and the life that inhabits it are tied so closely to it that we cannot separate ourselves. Weather, land erosion, tsunamis, all are part of every day life. We accept that the sea, with it’s immense store of energy, drives the fundamental forces of the world in ways that are both apart from us and part of us at the same time.

Poseidon, the Lord of the Sea, of its fluid power for both creation and destruction, is in all ways the architect of the natural world as we know it. All things change, he is master of fluidity. All living things require water, he is master of the oceans. The Earth is ever changing, and he molds it little by little. The cyclones churn and release energy, and his trident stirs the waters.

Poseidon as creator, however, is not just a matter of creationism and natural science, but of spirituality. All the Gods have a creative aspect. This cannot be denied, for whether tied to the fertility of the earth, of the animals that roam its wilds, or of humanity, they all have some boon to grant. This creative aspect, however, must be examined as a source of spiritual awareness and spiritual power.

The soul is something I define differently from most people. The soul is that spark of life that is the gift to life from the primordial gods, especially the sky father. But with that said, the gods all contribute to what we call the soul because we have come to identify the soul with our personalities. With the core of us that is a spontaneous generator of thoughts and feelings. One thing that is true of those spontaneous thoughts and feelings is that they are malleable and ever changing.

In other words, fluid.

So, if the foundation of life lies in the particles of the earth, the medium of the sea, and the spark of the sky, then that which we so often refer to as the soul must also partake of these three natures. Poseidon, then, must be present in all explorations of the soul (the inner self) because understanding how malleability affects you is to begin to understand that you are not a being of singular form, but an ever changing process. Always becoming something new. Always flowing.

To Poseidon (The Waters)

Rain rain, from above.
Gathered into streams.
Streams streams, ever flowing.
Gathered into mighty rivers.
Rivers rivers, gouging the earth.
Gathered into oceans.
Oceans oceans, broadly encircling.
Gathered around the Earth.
Mist mist, rising skyward.
Gathered into clouds.
Clouds clouds, moving Eastward.
Gathered into storms.
Storms storms, violently raging.
Gathered into rain.
Rain rain, from above.

The Trident: Creator

Unlike Judaeo Christian creationism, Graeco-Roman creationism is actually fairly complex and laced with symbolism which, when examined with an open mind, can be related to modern theories of both cosmology and evolution. In the Hellenic mythic cycle, the most well known forms of which come from Hesiod, Homer, and some Roman writers such as Ovid, the creation of the world and the creation of humanity are two distinct and different things.

According to these myths, the acts of creation at a cosmological level are manifestations of a divine reality. The primordial Gods are said to emerge from Chaos, a word which means gap, or perhaps even void (a gap is a void in a continuum, after all), and then proceed to multiply. But unlike us, their coming forth or reproducing is also manifest in the physical aspects of the Gods themselves. When Ge emerges, we also speak of solid matter (Earth, for example) emerging. When Ouranos is born, we speak of the starry sky, when the Pontus is born, we speak of the waters of the sea. It is through such symbolic language that we express the reality of nature as being not only a physical thing, but a manifestation of divinity. Turned around, we also relate nature to the Gods themselves, referring to the Earth as Gaea and the Sea as Poseidon, etc.

But what does creation mean? Did the Gods purposely create the cosmos and all that is within or outside it?

The answer appears to be both yes and no. All of nature is a manifestation of the greater reality of divinity, but unlike divinity, it is temporary. It is mortal. But our physical world is also separate, even if stemming from, the divine world, and while the basic foundation and influences of the world may be of divine origin, the universe and all life within it fallows its own path within the construct of universal reality. life is influenced by divinity, but it evolves and changes in accord with its environment. Thought and emotion may spawn from a divine paradigm, but they manifest and are altered by the life that manifest them into reality.

But if we are to look at Poseidon as a creator God, we must conclude that his was a great portion indeed, for all life, from the lowliest to the most advanced partakes of the element of water, which is his. Poseidon imbues us both with the water that is his element and the fluid nature of reality, that ability that is not simply change, but change from one into another along a continuum, along a medium.

As Sea God, Poseidon is creator of all sea life, but as all life evolved from sea life, he must also be the father of all life, or, it should be said, just one of the fathers of life, for life is not like you and me, it did not have one father and one mother, but several fathers and a mother.

Ge is the mother, of course, but the fathers are Eros, the facilitator. Poseidon, the medium of creation. Zeus, the air and spark. And finally, Hades, who ends the cycle.

The Trident: Sea God: The All-Surrounding

Poseidon as sea God is also a God that surrounds. He surrounds the Earth. Embraces it. Even holds it up, by ancient ideas about how the world was formed. The sea was itself like an enormous basin of water on which the land rested, thus the water surrounded it in all directions.

This all encompassing aspect was seen as one of the primal deities that are called Titans in Greek mythos. His name in that aspect was Okeanos, which becomes the root word for the word Ocean. In our times, of course, we know that the Ocean does indeed encompass the whole of the land masses of the Earth, but unlike our ancient ancestors we also know that the Earth itself is that upon which the ocean sits.

Still, the image of the Sea God as the all-encompassing power, the power that surrounds all things upon the Earth, is one that offers a kind of reassuring strength to his worshippers. He is a power that is strength through patronage, which like a father, reassures with a hug.

It is difficult to see Poseidon this way sometimes, because he is indeed a God who is most often quite severe and even prone to rash punishments, but in this sense he is also like a father, who is often feared by his children. Not in a dark evil way, but in a strict way that many fathers have of imposing their rules and the rules of society on their unruly children.

Is that, perhaps, how he sees us?