I Married A Monster

the niki download

7/30/2021

For some reason, this week I am
thinking a lot about old Greek stuff.

Which of course, reminds me,
I married a monster.

Gorgon, carved marble mask of the early 6th century BCE,
Acropolis Museum, Athens

Or at the very least,
a mythic being, Cecilia Gorgon.

Cecilia Gorgon 20210719 5:42 PM

Gorgons, the snake-haired, “monsters” of greek myth, have had quite a range of pictorial representations and narratives over the years since their invention by Homer in or around 1194 BC.

An archaic Gorgon (around 580 BC), as depicted on a pediment from the temple of Artemis in Corfu, on display at the Archaeological Museum of Corfu.

In those days, “gorgons” (derived from the ancient Greek, gorgós a beautiful guttural growl meaning grim or dreadful), were depicted as powerful winged demons, with pig tusks, talons for feet, and of course their iconic snake hair, often with a short stubbly beards. They protected the Oracles (like gargoyles) and turned people into stone with their gaze. In the Greek myths they are essentially enforcers of devine will, not necessarily evil, but not always good for you.

As for Medusa, the most famous gorgon, there are (at least) two versions of how she came to be. One is that she had sex with Poseidon in Athena’s temple. Athena took offense and punished Medusa by turning her hair to snakes and cursing her looks. The other version holds that Poseidon raped Medusa in Athena’s temple and, since she couldn’t punish Poseidon (him being a god, and all) she cursed Medusa instead.

In classical mythology her head serves the purpose of helping Perseus defeat Cetus (a sea serpent) and saving his mother from being forcefully wed to an evil king (which would be interesting if you subscribe to Medusa’s rape origin). Perseus thanks Athena by giving her Medusa’s head, which she puts on her shield.

3000 years later, Medusa is depicted as a writhing-seductive-serpent-bodied villain after Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion creation for the 1981 version of Clash of the Titans.

More of a Lamia than a traditional Gorgon… That is Hollywood for you.

Ray Harryhausen sometime in the 1980s

As creatures of narrative, we tell ourselves stories of evil and darkness to dramatize and commune with the infinite unknowable well that underlies the base of our existence.

Staring into that shadow is not unlike holding the intense gaze of Medusa… How petrifying it is to lift the Veil of Isis.

Donna as Isis 20210718 12:23 PM

All of art is an alchemical process derived from conscious entities gazing into and considering the mysterious primordial abyss. If the universe is meaningless, attempting to reconcile that is an act of looking.

“I cannot help remembering a remark of De Casseres. It was over the wine in Mouquin's. Said he: ‘The profoundest instinct in man is to war against the truth; that is, against the Real. He shuns facts from his infancy. His life is a perpetual evasion. Miracle, chimera and to-morrow keep him alive. He lives on fiction and myth. It is the Lie that makes him free. Animals alone are given the privilege of lifting the veil of Isis; men dare not. The animal, awake, has no fictional escape from the Real because he has no imagination. Man, awake, is compelled to seek a perpetual escape into Hope, Belief, Fable, Art, God, Socialism, Immortality, Alcohol, Love. From Medusa-Truth he makes an appeal to Maya-Lie.’“

Jack London, The Mutiny of the Elsinore

Donna as Isis 20210718 12:24PM

Carl Jung’s idea that evil is simply the shadow projected from something good makes a lot of sense to me. Intuitively, it feels that any one thing can not exist without its opposite.

If this is the case, we contain multitudes of morality, all of this “life stuff” is essentially an opportunity to focus one’s gaze, or eye, on the aspects of life one finds good and satisfying.

In greek myth, the gorgon Medusa is beauty transformed by terror and ultimately used as a point of reflection when stripped of her body. After her death her head is transformed into an amulet for protection and healing from the evil eye.

The Evil Eye is thought of as a purely malevolent gaze, one that either exposes one to evil, or exposes the evil within one’s self. In myth, the head of gorgons turn man to stone unless viewed through a mirror.

An allegory for coming to terms with one’s shadow through simulacra?

Is being stoned in the simulation all that bad?

Here are some faces of the Gorgons I know…