So, since I have moved into this phase in which I am making realizations about what my life needs rather than just what my life is, and since Hermes seems to be the Patron of this part of my life, at least in so much as my own focus is now on him, where am I willing to let Hermes take me?

It is one thing to realize that you need something, want something, yearn for something, it is another to actually open yourself up to all the dangers involved in getting those things, even if you actually figure out what they are. If I find that what I need is to start dating more seriously, maybe establish myself in a new relationship, how open am I willing to be to being hurt gain? If I decide what my life really needs is a move to a new city, how willing am I to leave this city behind, dull as it is, with all the people I have come to know and really like here? If what I need is to make physical changes, how much of my will power am I willing to grant to the effort, and are any of these things really going to help me with my inner self?

I don’t know.

What is interesting is that Hermes, as a force that moves, that forces movement, that causes us to stumble that we might learn, doesn’t care one way or the other. There are paths, and Hermes walks them all, and as a result, should I? Walk all the paths of opportunity that come my way, even if I know they might not be good for me so that I can hopefully find myself at a better place, a new plateau, in the future?

Sitting here, the laundry machines doing their thing, I am made both hopeful and hopeless by the mundane qualities of my life. Don't mistake this with a sense of futility, rather with a realization that my life is in desperate need of something new. What, of course is the question.

It is appropriate that I am currently in the Hermes phase of my meditations, because he is bound to put some interesting choices in my path, but I need to be careful, because I do often find myself falling into things that often end up hurting me instead of helping me move forward.

I have recently found myself bringing some old feelings to the surface. This is not odd when dealing with hermes. I have, after all, invited the god of communications into my life, and emotions, like thoughts, need to be expressed, communicated, whether it be to another or to yourself.

Things are not always what they seem.

It is a common enough theme in the way people converse with each other. People are always hiding a part of themselves, it is natural, right? But there is the hiding of private parts of oneself from the general public, and then there is the purposeful putting forth of a false image in order to maniple people, or resent to them what the want to see rather than what you actually are, and that becomes something else, it becomes a lie.

Hermes is the god of lies, and it is important that we try to remember that this does not mean that he is by nature a liar, but rather that he, as the god of communication, is also the god of false communication, of manipulation, of subversion, and of trickery through words.

We all do it. We all lie, and when we present ourselves to others as purely honest, that is in itself a lie.

But can a lie be a good thing. Note that I am not talking about lying to a criminal to protect someone, or keeping the secrets of a friend or loved one to preserve their dignity, rather, can the act of manipulation, or presenting a false image, be part of a healthy life?

The answer, of course, is yes, but let me explore that a little bit.

Hermes the Liar

According to the myth of his birth, Hermes, even as a small child, stole the cattle of Apollo (or Helios, the translations sometimes infer him) and then sacrificed them to the Gods in a fitting way. The theft was designed in such a way as to hide it utterly from the God, and when caught, his story was beguiling and made the Apollo laugh so merrily that he took the boy to Zeus, who then claims him as his son. (Hermes is the son of Zeus and Maia)

In this theft, it is often inferred that Hermes is hat God of thieves and liars, and it is not untrue from a mythological perspective, but lying, cheating, and theft were no less looked down upon by the ancient Greeks than they are to us. Theft and lying are not now nor have they ever been things that the Gods have encouraged, yet when people do these things, for ill or for good, they often seek the aid of the Gods, and it seems, Hermes is the God that hears and answers that prayer.

But what exactly is it that the God gives us when he answers such a prayer? Does he make us liars, or does he simply instill in us the capacity to embellish, to tell tales, and yes, to completely make up a story. In other words, he gives us creativity. An amazing gift. And a lie is, in a sense, a misuse of the gift of creativity. The gift without which Homer would never have written his epics.

But what I am trying to get to here, to explore here, is whether a more overarching lie, one in which we create a whole new image of ourselves in order to be perceived as that thing. So, let me take this into a different arena, the arena of adults and the games they play.

Men and women, when engaged in flirting, the merry chase, sex play, etc., often create elaborate images of themselves that are intended to win over, titillate, or even subvert the other's ability to make an informed decision. But, the question is, can a lie, an image created of oneself, be a good thing?

It can when the reason that image is created is to enhance life, love, and the over all experience of both for everyone involved. Putting on leather and creating an image of domination, even though deep inside you are a sweet heart, is a form of this, and it is created to enhance sex. It is a lie that hurts no one, unless they want it to hurt a little, and it is in a situation like this that we find the creativity of Hermes living and breathing in us.

But it also lives in the lie of art, of writing works of fiction, and in the protecting of the self from the world around us.

In the darkness of night, when you can’t seem to get to sleep, what is it that is happening in the air around you? What are you putting out in your frustration, and what are you getting back?

It is an interesting question, and one that came to me as I lay myself down to sleep and thought of Hermes for a second. Interchange, between you and the universe around you, it is at the core of what we are s thinking creatures. What the non thinking creatures, and what our carnal, physical natures give unto the world is something physical, something necessary to the maintenance to the biosphere, but as thinking creatures, as spiritual beings, we provide the cosmos with something else. Creativity, thought, and even evil, and it is up to us to do what we can to make sure we communicate the right things. That we do not release into the world the most horrible of aspects into the aether, but the best of us.

It never occurred to me before that part of what Hermes does is transmit our inner turmoil, our inner thoughts, and our inner emotional states outward into the cosmos. I’m not talking about witchy new agey stuff here, I am talking about exploring the nature of what we thinking creatures are from a standpoint of how much we are part of the universe around us and how thought and emotion are part of the universe as well, for if it was not, could it exist at all?

So, in Hermes we must learn to see something of what it is to be human, thinking, philosophizing, not in its detail, but in the ability to be so, which all starts with the ability to communicate. Hermes’ domain. Will is the true gift of the Gods, but not to us, it is a gift to the cosmos itself, and we partake of it through our ability to communicate, the gift to us from Hermes.

Hermes. The very name seems almost flimsy. Almost sounds like something you hear in the wind as you walk through the woods, like a conversation between the trees and the breeze. Yet Hermes, the God, is one of the most pervasive of all the powers of the cosmos from our mortal perspective.

The ever-moving son of the high king. The ever vigilant, all seeing, all hearing, all experiencing lord of communication and the mysteries of music. He is not the lord of music, but the force that causes that music comes from within us. He does not play the music, but creates the instrument that allows it to be played. A fine distinction? Not really.

You see, Hermes is the doer. He who brings about the means to accomplish something, yet is not the thing accomplished itself. He is not thievery, but with his help a thief might succeed. He is not the sheep-herder, but with his help the sheep-herder is successful. He is the messenger of ideas, bringing them forth and allowing us that beautiful gift of communication, but what we communicate, what we create from those ideas, how we succeed or fail with them is up to us.

But all ideas come with something else. Boundaries. What are boundaries, and are boundaries merely to be respected in his honor, or are they to be examined and the means to surpass them explored and exploited?

Hermes himself is a god of boundaries. His posts, the Herms, are set up as a means of marking boundaries, yet he is also the God who crashes through those boundaries, or to say it in a better way, the God who cleverly makes the boundaries meaningless by easily getting through them. This makes Hermes not just a God of communication and boundaries, but a god of excellence, and by that I mean a God who wishes us to excel at all things. To see the boundaries and jump over them rather then letting us stop us.

But is the boundaries are not to be respected in this way, how are they to be respected, since he is the God of those boundaries?

The answer, it seems, is quite simple. The boundaries are not walls to stop us, they are the walls that show us what others have accomplished and then taunt us to do them one better. They are our expectations and, yes, sometimes they are our own self limitations, labels, and laziness, all taunting us to do one better and follow the God of Boundaries across that boundary into new and wonderful things.

Strangely, once I started to see these things that Hermes seems to have been doing to me, the misfortunes that were hitting me in the face every day, as Hermes' own boundaries, I was forced to see them as things to get over in order to move to a better place, and they stopped.

Never been a superstitious type, but maybe this time I have to just accept that maybe the traveller was sticking his foot out as I ran for a reason, and it wasn't to break my leg, it was to teach me to fall without breaking it.

Bursting forth
Like light through the clouds
The divine souls of the Primal Gods emanate into the cosmos.

Mingling
The blessed Gods merge
More divine light emanating into the dark universe.

Stirring
The Titans shake and rattle the firmament
And the chaos of the universe is divided and given form.

Joining
The king and queen bring forth life
The father of time grows jealous of his powerful offspring.

Battling
Father and son rage against one another
The children of the King shake the cosmos in revolt

Settling
Olympus is claimed
And Zeus lays claim to the heavenly realm.

Watching
From on high the Gods do work
Their holy miracles refining the form of the universe.

Evolving
The form of man emerges
And the light of thought is stolen by an ally of the Gods.

Learning
Man reaches for the sky
His life of misery the doctrine by which he strives forward.

Building
The Gods are brought in
Their images created by man that they may be part of mortal life.

Forgetting
The world moves on
And the rites of the Gods give way to a false faith.

Assimilating
Man is made to bend
Bend to the will of politics at the hands of flawed sovereigns.

Remembering
The Light of Olympus returns
And in small numbers they remember the divine light that will set them free.

Still here, but am having a hard time grasping what it is Hermes wants of me right now.

Stay your hand

Bright Hermes

Do not come for him yet

His own hand should not be the means by which he passes

He should pass in a blaze of glory

With the laughter of multitudes in his ears

And the inner sense of happiness

We all dream for as we live

Stay your hand

Dark dressed Hades

As you did for me

Please do for him

He should live to see his first born

With the love of his wife at his side

And the knowledge that he is loved forever

By all who have ever known him

Stay your hand

Ever helpful Hecate

Shine a light on a new path

A path of dwindling fear and doubt

He should know confidence

In his own talent and power

And the abilities he bears inside

That we may know his shining talent for many years to come.

So, I really thought that of all the Gods, Aphrodite would be the one who slapped me hard in the face. After all, I am not really the marriage and relationship minded kind of guy. I like to have a boyfriend, but I don’t actively seek it out or get obsessive about needing to have a boyfriend to complete me. And as much as I like a good spank, poke, and tickle, I am not really the sex addict type. If I have it, I am great, if I don’t, I am ok with that too. So, I thought that when my time with Aphrodite came I would be faced with a severe mistress who would kick my ass until I realized how wrong I was to not be more into her.

But Aphrodite proved to be kind. She proved to be loving and gentle, if a bit harsh with her criticisms.

But Hermes, as I mentioned, has been having his way with me since I turned to him. And my mind and body have been feeling the pain of it as I try to combat my tendency to turn to overreaction as these things happen to me.

The Gods so far have taught me a measure of patience, and have even given me a greater capacity for silence than I ever had before. Meditation is partly the cause of this, and turning to them as I work through my own inner issues has completed that cycle. Well, it is working to complete that cycle, after all, we are none of us complete till the day we die and are swept into oblivion.

As Hermes has his way with me, I am going to have to search deep and wide, because Hermes is not, apparently, one to remain still for long, and it is hard to tell from this moment to the next where he will be going, or what he will do. But, more importantly, this is just the beginning, and if I am being astonished by what he is doing to me now, how will I react to what he will be doing to me a few weeks from now when he escalates as I hopefully learn.

This week, however, I have also seen another affect of what Hermes is doing to me, and that is physical damage due to the little accidents and troubles his presence is causing, and the way in which my no longer young body may deal with it. I have to start taking better care of myself.

We’ve kinda gone through this already, but I want to talk about an aspect of this God that is often referred to by people in the modern world but which was not really one you saw mentioned in ancient writings. It is an aspect referred to in archetypal psychology as The Trickster.

The trickster is that aspect of our psychology that plays tricks on us. It beats around the bush, it places obstacles in our way, it sabotages us as we work out our thought processes. It is that voice in you that seems to not care how you feel, but tries to force you to feel new things at the most inappropriate times. The part of you that maybe thinks your friend falling flat on his face is funny, but which doesn’t necessarily think it is funny when it happens to you.

I would wager it was part of your sense of humor, but in reality it seems to be part of your ability to think speculatively. To imagine, to make of fantasy situations a reality in your own mind as you think, allowing you to, perhaps, see possibilities that might not otherwise come to mind through purely logical thought.

In other words, the trickster in your own psychology shows you many paths, and often places them there as obstacles to be overcome. Why?

Hermes, like Loki in the Nordic mythos, is seen as a trickster. Representing partly that aspect of our own personalities and thought processes that are unpredictable and which seem to us to be a distraction. But unlike Loki, who was seen as an adversary to the Gods, perhaps even evil in some ways, Hermes was beloved. Hermes is not seen in myth as an adversarial figure, rather as a messenger and a traveller on the many many, infinite perhaps, paths of probability.

The many obstacles I have found in my way over the last couple of weeks since I said good bye to Aphrodite and took up Hermes as my guide have brought to mind my need to be under the care of a therapist, but that is not something I can afford, and thus this meditations blog. This sharing of my thoughts on many things relating to the Gods so that I can also see the issues in my own life and mind that are troubling me.

It has been working wonders for me. I have managed to make of myself a much more accepting person, a much more calm person, and a person with a lot more empathy.

But now Hermes is throwing shit at me, and I guess it is all part of a test. Have I really improved? We shall see when things start going wonky.

We shall see indeed, Hermes. I accept your challenge.