ARES Divine Descent
https://ionamiller2017.weebly.com/ares.html
We are born into a family which we share with more and more contemporary people as we look further back in time. But when we are gathered to the ancestors are we met by the gods? Shall we move Ares from our archetypal altar to the family shrine? Perhaps some of us can.
We know there is power in naming. What is it to name something, to name someone, to name someone an ancestor, or even name a god as direct ancestor? It all comes down to our own name. Genealogy is a heritage-led regeneration. Tracing our lines back from our parents, we move deeper into the realm of the ancestors who gave us the substance of life and soul's self-expression. A sense of soul gives us a sense of history.
Our sacred and mythic roots inform our primordial human behavior and the timeless soul-world. They act on us through meaning as well as the world stage. This natural unconscious process doesn't need to be driven by a therapeutic or self-development agenda. In a complex and fragmented world, genealogy helps us revision the present. We look back for a context of meaning using our most personal history of being. We also recognize cultural ancestors, collective ancestors, ancestors of our land, and animal ancestors.
We don't carry ancestral DNA from all our direct ancestors. But we remain entangled with them in the ancestral field, consciously, or unconsciously. In real, imaginary, and symbolic ways they are meaningful to our wholeness. We reflect as we find our way back. The inner life exerts its manifest influence. Emotions shape our sense of self and relationships.
Ares aggression, might and energy have controlled all of history from behind the scenes. History is written by the competitive winners who then self-describe their glorious descent from the gods, insuring their renown and divine right to rule with genealogical propaganda. It is enforced with constant wars and worldview warfare, a battle for minds.
The dragon or serpent guards the treasures of the deep unconscious, the unwritten history of mankind, and its myth-spinning capacity. The serpentine path, which is an image for our descent and return, is a way to find our instinct that has no conflicts, because conflicts belong to the discriminating conscious mind.
Archetypal Ancestors
We can leverage our genealogy to inform our spiritual development and religious practice. Our biography begins with our progenitors and Ares appears in that context. An archetypal approach to genealogy is polytheistic. Each god appears with a divine family.
We recognize spiritual and psychological ancestors, as well as genetic ones. Their influence stays with us and helps us. The gods personify soul's need for spiritual ancestors. Our sense of identity expands to one of symbolic identification.
Genealogical methods trace ancestries back to gods, dynastic animal totems, and legendary heroes. Ancestral souls resided in sacred animals, such as the wolf, serpent, or dragon totems of Ares. Oral narratives became tribal history.
Divine right to rule was traced through genealogy in Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, India and China. Biblical begats culminate in the House of David, a royal bloodline. It has been connected to Trojan and Roman lines for prestige, propaganda and power reasons.
The Greeks and Romans linked their heritage to the gods with their ancestral blessings and curses. It was first recorded in Homer’s The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Virgil’s The Aeniad. They are all stories of a quest to answer a deeper call. They fought to become immortal, to be remembered through the centuries.
The same characters described in classical literature still show up in genealogy -- in mine, and perhaps in yours, too. Dreams are catalysts for ancestral phenomena. Our ancestors dream of us unceasingly. When we dream of them, they dream of us right back. When we actively engage, they engage.
Dreams help us work with archetypal ancestors in transgenerational integration and trauma, combining traditional wisdom with contemporary practices (Gaillard). Transgenerational legacies shape our early life, and Ares is among them. This approach to self knowledge deals with our connection to our origin. The past still influences us in the present through integration of familial, social and cultural issues, and reclaiming our true self.
Descent from the Gods
Ares is our forebear, and archetype of the Blade, as Aphrodite is the Chalice. This aggressive and muscular warrior is the psychic background of an incendiary historical drama that is still unfolding in us and the world, a specific manifestation of dynamic energy. We can only meet Ares on his own ground, but it is not always the battlefield. Ares illuminates soul's special relationship to violence and death. Such an ancestor can be a loyal protective spirit, soul-guide, or mentor.
A secret unrest gnaws at our roots, an instinct for expansion. Such urges are expressed in our emotional and sensorimotor patterns. The less we are conscious of it, the more it influences us. Carl Jung thought that inclinations, moods, and decisions are influenced by the dark forces of psyche, and they could be dangerous or helpful in shaping destiny. (CW 10, Para 332)
We take our ancient lineage as metaphorical and symbolic, not just literal. Yes, Ares’ fiery nature has been with us from Greek Fire to the Hydrogen bomb. But the ancestral approach shows us that trans-subjective facts made of our own psychophysical substance, still reside in and work on us inside as they did outside. For Jung they were part of our inherited instinct and preformed patterns.
With a bit of insight, we can read the epic story of the Trojan War and Founding of Rome from the top down in our genealogy. The collective genealogy of the World Tree is a symbol of the collective unconscious. In Book 20 of The Iliad, Aeneas recites sixty lines of ancestral history back to Zeus as the beginning of his family line. Modern genealogies may compact that descent. In the descent from antiquity the kings of England, Scotland, France, and ancient Rome all claimed lines back to Trojan ancestors.
