It sometimes comes from nowhere, the realization of a deep seeded truth, and it is also sometimes surprising to realize that the God you were focussing on was not a God you expected this kind of realization from, but then you are reminded that, yes, you should have considered both, the God and the Truth from the get go.
In my current path of self discovery, I have taken it upon myself to try to focus my attentions on one deity at a time, not ignoring the others, mind you, but trying to focus, meditate, and write about that deity as a way to try to learn from it. To try and bring to mind the aspects of that God that are both relevant and revealing so as to grow and be made whole by the experience.
I cam to a realization today while at work, and it is one that was staring me in the face yet remained unrecognized all these many years. You see, I am an angry person. Tears of abuse as a child, abandonment by a father who I still believe never loved us, though he may regret that now, abuse by teachers, fellow students, and the obliteration of what was my self esteem and, worst of all, my ability to relate to others on a sympathetic level was part of what made me turn away from most people. What most of that left me with, however, was rage.
As a man, rage is a normal reaction to adversity. We men like to fight or argue our way through problems. We beat them up until they either give or defeat us. It is part of our nature. But often that rage, that anger, turns against us because we are not taught how to focus it in such a way that it becomes a useful weapon in our arsenal. We men go to war with life, you see, and in doing so we try to force life to conform to our will, but that seldom actually happens, so we are left with more rage.
While it is often the fact that as we grow we learn how to redirect it, too often the way we redirect it is at ourselves. And that is what I realized today. For all my anger at my Mother for the beatings, at my father for the same followed by abandonment, at teachers for failing me or not caring, for friends who never seemed capable of understanding me, or even current friends to whom I am simply a convenience available when nothing better is available, the person I am really most angry at is myself, and I have done everything in my power to destroy myself, and almost succeeded. Not until I found the Gods did I begin the slow healing process, and now, with this fallen into my lap, I am feeling as if the tables turn, only now I must start all over again, because I cannot continue to allow the past to rule me, but must learn to see the present with new eyes. Eyes intent on not hating myself, not for what I became at their hands, but because once it was done, I had the ability to move beyond it, but didn't. Because this, all of this, is now my own fault, not anyone else's, and so I must find a way to alleviate that anger, that rage, that self loathing and grow.
But why has Hephaestus been the one to bring this to my attention?
I thought about that earlier today, as I mentally chided myself in tones you would not use to a dog, and realized that the Myths of Hephaestus speak of a being who, by the standards of the people of those days, should have hated himself, should have felt shame, despair, and self loathing. He was ugly, lame, and rejected, yet he laid claim to his power, and once he did, he elevated himself to Olympus itself to reclaim his divine birthright.
It is a lesson I must now take to heart, and hopefully do so without torturing myself about it, because if I do that, I will only fail yet again.
