Monthly Archives: March 2014

In 2014, long before the 2020 economic collapse, a friend forwarded this BBC News article: “American Dream Breeds Shame and Blame for Job Seekers”,which cited statistics claiming that 10.5 million Americans were unemployed. But in practical terms she was quite … Continue reading →

Conclusion The story of Dionysus getting Hephaestus drunk (in Part Seven) symbolizes not literal inebriation but male initiation into a psychology where the feminine is welcome and the mother complex no longer threatens the marriage bond. Dionysus, says Murray Stein, … Continue reading →

Dionysus and Hephaestus Dionysus Dionysus, like Heracles, was born of Zeus and a mortal woman. Initiation motifs occur throughout his life: in his suffering, his dismemberment by the Titans, his double birth and the wound in Zeus’s thigh from which … Continue reading →

Telemachus and Heracles Telemachus The story of Telemachus takes place within the broader context of the Odyssey, in which Odysseus experiences a series of initiations (all of them, curiously, by female figures) and evolves from a one-dimensional, heroic figure into … Continue reading →

Pentheus …nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent – Yeats Orestes killed his mother, but Pentheus’ mother killed him. Dionysus drove the women of Thebes mad because they hadn’t respected him. His cousin, the adolescent King … Continue reading →