Eros Born of Tartarus

Kindled in the depths of the Abyss

I have been thinking lately about my life. From one perspective, and that would be the one Robin used to have during the process itself, it is a highly tragic and sad life. The emotional neglect, the bullying and scapegoating by peers, at this point 11 people dead, 15 more dead in a flood, the divorce in 2020, losing everything, stating ones truth to family and being met with gaslighting, or denial. The family does it to protect its fragile self-image as good of course. That is sadly how such things go. You get told to move on, to just push it in the past. Yet what these people do not know is that their pushing away habit will not make it go away. It just stacks up, gets stored in the soul, in the mind, and the body. Then when they die, their moment of reckoning comes, as much as their body slowly crumbling from it. Think also various psycho-somatic health issues. Perhaps their ego structure when they get old starts to slowly crumble too, and the repressed material starts to slowly flood, whilst their mind deteriorates from the denial. The repression of all what happened, which they moved on from.

Yet that is not something for me to worry much about. They have set the stage for their own death to become a hellish experience, akin to Tartarus. The fact is that everyone has the chance to transform it. To feel through all what happened, to feel all the emotions, the sadness, grief, anger, fear, helplessness. You name it. As it is through this processing that one moves from Tartarus, to Hades, and if you dissolve the ego structure entirely, especially also the super-ego, then for sure Elysium. These are not places, one goes to, but states of being upon death. All depending on the relationship one has to the shadow, and all what is repressed. Now one does not have to feel through everything till becoming a Nyktelioi. The personal shadow and unconscious is enough. Then one becomes like Bacchus, and one has been given the title child of the moon. As one is forgiven by Persephone (she is the anima as a representation of the unconscious). Which really translates to allowing one to feel emotions, and to no longer trauma project onto others. To relate to oneself and others with compassion.

Yet when it now comes to another perspective on all what I have been through. Well, despite the obvious sad nature of it, and the symbolic wilderness exile for most my life, where I lacked many things people take for granted, it is akin to being forged in the depths of Tartarus oneself. The slayer of the Titans, the personal complexes and trauma defences, next to cultural complexes in my case. It is why I see myself as a child of Nyx, and of Lucia and Hermes, as adoptive spiritual parents. I am the being that was born in the abyss, and crawled out of it. Eros, so life and love itself, in the form of Phanes, the creator and destroyer, of the dream of humanity, think also Morpheus, having been cast into darkness. Yet returning to the world in this symbolic manner, as I now have. As even Phanes is not just an archetype, but a state of being.

And yes, this does make my lived experience far removed from most people. This is really a fact. Yet such a difference is just really what it is. For my friends I generally show my more feminine and sensitive side more. So to the people I really care about. Though I have this entire other side too. Its just kept at bay. Mostly as it is intense. And I care about the balance of Quirinus (soft and gentle, peaceful) with Mars (strong, assertive and warrior like). Mars is for outside in the wilderness. Artemis being like balance between them. She is the my Anima. The wild, free and sovereign feminine.

The Wounded Masculine

In a way, I am both this soft and gentle being, that can cry and feel deeply. That is soft, kind, gentle and very deeply loving and caring. Yet I am also John Wick meets Koryos wolf warrior. I just prefer the more gentle and Artemisian feminine side. As well, it is exhausting to be in the other intense mode all the time. Which is a wisdom that most men have forgotten. They do not integrate their Artemisian feminine side, so instead they become insecure, like a wounded wolf growling and acting macho.

So they repress this feminine and more vulnerable side, not seeing how Artemis is both vulnerable and very strong. I have had that people who actually emotionally open and present, gave me anxiety in the past, due to this repression of vulnerability and the trauma tied to it. But not people who distant, as those safe, and not give me anxiety. Like I had that anxiety some friends of mine also. But that was because I let myself be vulnerable. Then I had good cry about it after.

If you have been hurt long time, it very scary and anxiety inducing to be vulnerable. As one feels like shit I can get hurt. So many people push the person away. Even if deep down the feelings are real. Weirdly enough the emotionally distant people then feel familiar, even "safe". So it does not trigger the nervous system much. As it a familiar thing to be neglected. But the actual feeling of “oh shit they love me and care about me”. That makes one anxious. Though of course abusive people also in their own way can make one anxious too. It takes time to be able to tell the difference. To discern based on their behaviours. Is it because I am avoiding being vulnerable, or because they are actually being toxic. Which is why working on being vulnerable with oneself, with ones feelings, is a key part in overcoming the dynamic. Both for relationships, but also to embody a more healthy masculinity.

Kindled from the Fires of the Abyss

In the end, yes, I am Eros born from the chaos of Tartarus, in a mythological and symbolic sense. A being forged in hell, yet not something that became bitter, but actually vulnerable yet strong. The purest essence of love, life and primal fury. Love not as sentimentality, but as something primordial, fierce, and luminous. This is not just my truth alone, anyone can be forged in the darkness of the abyss, to transmute their own hell into heaven.

It is the ability to take every piece of darkness and not just survive it, but alchemize it into sacred fire. This is the wisdom of wolf-Apollo and the Korybantes. The synthesis of masculine and feminine in its healed form. Quirinus and Mars. Artemis and Eros. Apollo as the wolf-god is the god of the destructive forces of nature, but also the god who is merciful when it comes to those forces. His role is thus not just of death and destruction, but also creation and renewal. Which is necessary for preserving life. The wolf is at the same time synonymous with light in his cult, in which he bears forth the light. The wolf thus is associated with the very kindling of light, and a hazardous time, the new beginnings and also the last hours.

This is the kindling of the fire of the soul, in the deepest pits of Tartarus. The walking Eros returned from the underworld, gentle and wild, soft and wrathful, both Artemis and Phanes, loving and terrifying in my completeness.