The Fruits

“An archetypal experience does not reflect merely a primordial experience but an experience in which one obtains an absolute immediacy with the timeless fundamentals of life.  In this sense, love and death are also archetypal experiences.  It is the narration of an archetypal experience by means of the language of simile, i.e., metaphorical expression, which we call mythology.”  Karl Kerenyi, Apollo, pg. 15

As I’ve been sharing lately, my reading has taken my back to Kerenyi’s Apollo which in turn prompted a reading of the Ion by Euripides.  Both texts have been instructive with the notion of the complex reality of parentage as experienced through the archetypes.  Clearly these issues are central to the Christian myth.  What is a root with the dual titles son of god and son of man?  I find that taking one step back into the Greek world that preceded the Christian frame, we gain some insights that can open our minds to our own relationship to these themes of mother and the father, of the daughter and the son.

Central in the Ion is the paradox of dual parentage.  Through his oracular rite at Delphi, Apollo sets in motion a turbulent plot whereby within a day, Ion discovers that he is the son of Apollo and Creusa.  But not before the mother, not knowing Ion is her son, plots to assassinate him and he in turn intends to punish the discovery of her plot with her life.

A paradoxical tragedy in that it has a happy ending, Ion gains his true identity and assumes his proper position both in the world and in relationship to the realm of the Olympians.  At the height of confusion, Ion proclaims:

“My mind is prompt to entertain such thought;
But, entering at his shrine I will inquire
If from a mortal father I am sprung,
Or from Apollo.  -Ha! what may this be?
His radiant face that shines another sun?
Haste, let us fly: the presence of the gods
Tis’ not for mortals to behold and live?”

And the brightness that draws near is Athena who calls mother and son back and confirms the story for both, clarifying where it is needed, because,

“not without cause is my mind perplex’d”

Let me simply close with this quote from Jung:

“This is not surprising since even today most of us have not got round to understanding Christ as the psychic reality of an archetype, regardless of his historicity.”  Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, par. 146, pg. 124