Greece and the mind of God
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded... Leonard Cohen
I’m off to Greece tomorrow to do a little recce for my Creative Flow retreat next year (May 21-28 in case you’re interested!).
Despite being surrounded by all that water, Greece is quite masculine in nature. It’s where we get our stories of legendary male heroes, like Odysseus, Perseus, and Achilles… men who overcame outrageous odds in their battle to prove their worth to the Gods.
The Gods in the Christian Bible are God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Greek mythology has a similar trinity – Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades… God of the Sky, Sea, and Underworld.
Both Greek and Christian Gods had their agendas…The Christian Gods wanted their subjects to be “good”. The Greek Gods wanted their subjects to be “impressive”. They weren’t too interested in the behaviour of humans, unless there was a competition going on, at which point they got involved and started taking sides – hence the Trojan War.
Competition is the main theme of Greek mythology. The Gods competed to outdo each other, and they created challenges for humans – just to see how they’d perform. The Gods loved a bit of drama, which is probably why the Greeks went on to build amphitheatres and write so many tragedies.
It's interesting to look at old belief systems because, while we’ve outgrown them, the unconscious (far larger) mind hasn’t.
Our inherited pattern from the Biblical God is the need for obedience and humility and our belief that everything is either “good” or “bad”. Fear of making a mistake is kryptonite for Flow and Creativity. (Best not take any chances if there’s a 50% risk of landing in hell for eternity.)
Our inherited pattern from the Greek Gods, is the need to be heroic or sexually desirable and our belief in “winning” and “losing”. Fear of failure or rejection keeps us stuck in a quagmire of procrastination and perfectionism. (Best to sit on the bleachers rather than risk being a loser).
Though we no longer consciously believe these patterns, they are now firmly rooted in our unconscious, meaning we “police” ourselves without any help from the Gods… though the internet helps!
We may laugh at the way villagers ostracized or burned anyone whose opinions they didn’t like (Witch!) but self-professed “enlightened” people burn or cancel people on the internet every day.
Athens is often cited as one of the “cradles of civilization”. These nurseries in which our intellect was first developed, could also be called “cradles of conditioning” – places we learned to follow the rules of masculine Gods.
Humans have always behaved in the same way as their imagined Gods… they favour hierarchical structures. In the Bible, we ascend to heaven. In Greek mythology, we scale Mount Olympus. In modern times, we climb the ladder of success.
Perhaps it’s time to change this linear geometry so that we can participate more in the circle of life… a circle is a feminine shape.
The mind of God has been masculine for a really long time… perhaps since the invention of language itself. Mother Nature has no language of words, yet contains a vast network of communication across millions of species, all getting along famously.
Nature perfectly encapsulates the Flow state. Forests have no notion of right or wrong. Lions are unconcerned by how impressive they look. Nature needs no external validation for its creativity, it’s just going about the business of being alive.
If you’ve forgotten how to feel truly alive, join me in Greece :)