The Protogonoi
My beliefs on the origins of the universe are two fold. On the one hand there is science, which tells us that the universe began in something called the Big Bang. Whether this was a cataclysmic explosion or something a bit less dramatic, it is still a moment sometime in the past that triggered the universe as we know it.
On the other hand are my religious beliefs on cosmogenesis, and for this I turn to Hesiod as my main inspiration, though what Hesiod tells us about is more the origins of the gods than of the mechanical processes that started it all. It is, however, possible to see the scientific and the mythological as linked, for Hesiod has Chaos as the beginning, and this Chaos is not the Chaos of mathematicians, but a yawning void that is, I think, a kind of perfect stillness and unmoving darkness that is not really darkness, just stillness. Into this, or of this, he says are born the gods. But these Gods are old and not the gods as generally worshipped in his time. He names several names, Eros, Nyx, Gaea, Tartaros, Erebus, Aether, and Hemera are memorable for their aspects of creative power. Of these, we have four first Gods, Nyx, Gaea, Tartaros, and Erebus.
Nyx (the night) and Erebus (darkness) who together bring forth Aether (the ether) and Hemera (the day) are the foundations of a second, and abstract, domain of existence. There is a domain that is not embodied or truly physical in the sense of solid matter and form, but rather their's is the domain of such forces as entropy, for Nyx is mother of Thanatos (death,) and absence. The abstracted nature of this domain is again reinforced when one remembers that Nyx is mother of Hypnos (sleep) and Morpheus (dream.)
Gaea, or Ge (the earth,) is the foundation of the world in physical existence (again, solid matter, life, and the divine interaction with life) Gaea brings forth the mountains, the Pontus, etc, and she brings forth her own mate, Ouranos (starry heaven) with whome Hesiod tells us she begins the generations of the Gods who will rule the cosmos.
Eros (attraction and eroticism) is a power that draws the domains together. Eros is a power that is subtle, yet at the same time ever present. He can be analogous to gravity, which translates in life to attractions between beings, be they human or animal, and how these can be analogous to the idea that all things in the universe that have mass also have gravity.
So, what is the analogy between the scientific ideas on cosmogenesis and the theogenesis of the Greeks?
There is Chaos, the stillness, that primordial and natural state of the universe that was constant and eternal. It has no boundaries, no beginning, no end. The big bang occurs as a result of a stirring, the birth of the gods, or better said, the entering of the gods into this stillness. Their coalescing into forms that the universe did not at first contain, forms that were not still but energetic and unpredictable. In this chaotic mess we see the sudden ripple that is time push forth into the stillness of Chaos, and the fabric of the primordial universe is suddenly pushed and twisted and rippled to make room for what was now coming into being, solid matter and form.
The Goddess Nyx, then, is here analogous with space, for Gaea is born, and after her Nyx who forces the universe to bend and fold to make room for them, and Eros is born with them to assure that all that is does not simply disperse, and with him the gravitic force. Time is not a deity, or the domain of a deity, but rather the effect of the ripple and bending of space by the presence of matter in a universe to which it is not natural.
But as is only natural for a man of his time, Hesiod does not think of theogenesis in cosmic terms, he thinks of it from a terrestrial perspective, and to be fair, he warns us of the errors and possibilities of inherent falsehood in his own theology when he tells us that the Muses know to tell false things as well as truth, because inspiration of this type is as much divine as it is flawed human perception.
Yet, of Ge is born Ouranos, the starry heaven. The clearing of the skies of the earth mean the coming of the starry sky, and and its mating to the earth, just as the atmosphere is trapped by the gravity of the earth (Eros' power mating the two together) so too is Ouranos gathered around Gaea, enveloping her every night and mating with her to produce the world we see around us. The sea, the rivers, the cyclopes who are brutal of strength, and of course, the Titans, those gods that are the second generation of deities.
For the Greeks, these Titans were worshipped in another time, long long ago, by a race not really their own. The different races of man were separate from their own, and even the Mycenaeans, as we call them today, were a different race to them, the heroic race, though we know today that they were indeed Greeks.
For me, the Titans, like the primordial gods before them, are the same deities as the Olympians, but in these aspects, the primordial and the titanic, they are creative forces (primordial) and forces of order.
In their primordial aspects, the effects of the movements of the gods on the cosmos are chaotic and perhaps even cataclysmic, but as Titans, they begin to use their power, in a far more brutal and forceful way then we know them today, to mold the universe and bring order to the chaos that is their own fault to begin with. The gods are both forces of chaos and forces of order. The aspect theory is one I will discuss liberally here and there in different sections, but allow me to define it here so that we can go forward from here.
An aspect of a god, or some may call it an avatar, is a form of a god revealed to man that can, and is, worshipped on its own as a deity but which is in truth a piece of a much larger deity. This is a concept familiar to those who follow or have studied Hinduism, and it is one that is not unknown to those who have studied ancient Greek sources because the Greeks often looked at the gods they encountered in foreign lands as their own in different forms.
For me, this concept does not just apply to the deities of other cultures, but to this one as well. Unlike the Hindu system, however, I do not believe these aspects all reduce to a single deity. I believe they reduce to the deities you see listed to the left, and all others are essentially aspects or avatars of them. But further, I believe that the deities to the left are the greatest aspects of the deities which for all we know have no names as we understand it, but that crosses into the unknown and perhaps unknowable.
The Titan Gods took over the world from the primordial ones, but it was not both domains that were taken, just the light one, for you see, I believe the universe to be two great domains, the dark domain that is headed by Nyx, which is one of entropy, death, stillness, and abstraction, and the light domain, which is headed by the great Sky Father, who we call Zeus (Jupiter, Odin, Jehova, etc...) and the Queen of Heaven, who we call Hera.
The domain of light is energetic, wild, chaotic, and thus the mythos of the Greeks tells us that the changes in the dynasties of the gods is always a violent one. Ouranos is fearful of his children, the Titans, for he fears that one of them will take his throne, so when the children of the earth are prepared to emerge, he prevents it and they are left within, entombed in the earth. Gaea, burdened by this, calls upon he children for help and the youngest of her children, the wily Kronos, takes up the challenge.
He waits for Ouranos to once more visit Gaea, as he does every night, and when the sky once more envelopes the earth (remember, this is starry heaven, not day) Kronos grabs hold of his testicles and with the iron scythe provided him by Gaea, cuts them off and tosses them into the sea (the primordial sea, known as Pontus) and in time, the foam that forms around the testes gives rise to Aphrodite, the great Goddess Love.
Kronos takes his place as king of the cosmos, and takes Rhea to wife. The Titans are born into the light, and the world takes on a much more familiar form. The creation process that brought it to this point is over, the cosmos is calming down, but now the forces that shape the earth we know go to work.
Kronos leads the universe in a golden age, it is an age of formation and preparation. It is the age of dinosaurs and cataclysmic changes, of ice ages and the rising of a beast unlike any others. In form he is beautiful, in potential he is amazing, and the world is ready, for the gods will no longer simply act upon the universe, the world, and the life thriving upon it, but the gods will now be recognized and acknowledged by this sadly mortal being, and the gods rejoice.
But man is not simply a smart animal. Man is fiercely independant, and man is, as all life is, agressive and stubborn. Man will not simply remain in a golden age, but chooses instead to forge his own destiny in the world, and th golden age of Kronos comes to an end.
Kronos, like his father, fears for his throne, and Rhea, like her mother, must bear a terrible burden, for Kronos is said to swallow his own children upon their birth, assimilating them into himself. Rhea, in her sixth pregnancy, calls upon her mother and father for hep, and they offer her a plan that she follows.
When the time to deliver arrives, she goes to the island of Crete, and there in a cave, she gives birth to her last child, calling up from the earth a chorus of warrior beings that beat their shields and do a war dance around her to conceal her cries of pain. Zeus is born, and the nymph Amalthea is given the child to care for, feeding it milk from her goat. Rhea then hides a stone of an appropriate size in swaddling cloths and presents it to Kronos, who swallows it whole.
The young Zeus grows quickly, and soon he is a youth. The young god makes his way to Olympus and endears himself to Kronos, becoming his cup bearer (there are actually some homoerotic connotations here that are almost always glossed over. Did Zeus become the boy toy of his own father?) and one day he puts certain herbs in Kronos' drink which cause him to vomit up his children. They run away and soon launch an assault on Olympus, with the help of other creatures, including the Cyclopes who forge for Zeus his trademark weapons, thunder and lightning.
The Olympians, of course, win this battle, and on earth, things are proceeding. Man is changing, becoming civilized, and myth tells us that the fifth, or is it sixth, race of man arises, this is us. The civilizations of man after the heroic age. After the pre-literate civilizations have given way to literate culture that will soon sprout and spread all over the world.
The Olympian order established, and other deities becoming known, some as children of Zeus, others as children of Titans, the age of Greek Civilization that the poets Homer and Hesiod mark the beginning of is well on its way, and the temples and shrines, rituals and sacrifices that are to mark man's recognition of the divine in this part of the world is in honor of the Olympian Gods and their aspects.
The First Ones, or Primordial Gods live on. Their forms refined and changed over billions of years, our recognition of them set into a system of beliefs and practices we call religions all over the earth, and the race of man has interpreted what they perceived of the gods in many ways, with many philosophies, and with many creative and beautiful stories.