Personal transformation.
Do we really want it?
What can inspire that deep change, and how far are we willing to go in courting those powers?
Transcript of Arachne and the mysteries of transformation
Hello, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology and why myth matters to your life today. I’m your host and personal mythologist Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, you are part of this story circle.
Today I turn once again to Greek mythology and the myth of Arachne. My telling is informed by Ovid, who included Arachne’s myth in his Metamorphoses. I have the translation by Allen Mandelbaum. My reflections on this myth have led me to see it as a kind of koan on the mystery of personal transformation.
We are entering a liminal time of year, a time when the old structures dissolve and the traditional rules are suspended. A time when things can change profoundly. When transformation can happen. We are in the energy of the Libra New Moon and this in combination with other astrological influences, reinforces this theme that this is a time of reinvention, and release. And I don’t need to outline for you all of the cultural and environmental shifts that have been underway now for some time. Deep changes that require more than adaptation. And for many of us, bring up our longings and our fears for one of the deepest mysteries in life, personal transformation.
I hope the questions that I raise will spark your own engagement with this possibility.
Invite you to relax and into the meditative space of this story with me. Notice what you notice, as these details are an opening into what this story holds for you right now.
The myth of Arachne
There once was a young woman named Arachne, who was born a very humble parents in the city of Lydia. Lydia was a humble village and the people who lived there rarely attracted much attention. And yet Arachne had a singular skill. She was an amazing weaver. Perhaps she was born into this talent, for her father was a dyer of wool and he supported her craft by dyeing wool in the most beautiful colors, the deepest purples and blues.
Arachne’s skill brought her much fame and renown and word of her creations, and her mastery of the craft of weaving, spread far beyond the reaches of her hometown. In fact, it is said that the nymphs themselves came down from the hillsides, left their vineyards and their streams, to watch her at work. For it’s not only what Arachne created that was singular in its beauty, but also her skill at every step in the process. Watching her with a rough ball of wool in her hand, or picking up the distaff and the spindle to tease out each thread with her agile fingers, was itself an enchanting experience.
Many said that Arachne was surely the finest pupil of the goddess Athena, patron of weaving and mistress of the craft. And yet, when this was mentioned to Arachne, she vigorously denied it. “My skill is my own” she said, “my talent belongs to me, and to my diligence and devotion to what I create, to my skillful hands and to my own wide and broad imagination.”
Arachne took great pride in what she was able to create and as word spread about her ability, the news, not only of her skill at weaving but also of her pride, reached the ears of the goddess Athena. Athena felt herself to be the true mentor of this mortal young woman. She decided to visit Arachne and encourage her to give proper honor to the goddess. Athena took the form of an old woman. She put false gray on her temples and took a staff to support her frail limbs. In this disguise, she approached Arachne to watch her work.
The tapestry that she was weaving was a marvel, and Athena was determined to get the honor that she was due. “Your work is quite beautiful Arachne,” she said to the young weaver, “you must be steeped in gratitude to the goddess Athena, who bestowed this talent upon you.” “Oh,” said Arachne, “Athena has nothing to do with my ability or what I create. These belong to me.” “I don’t know about that” the old woman said, “and I would be careful in making such claims. Take my advice. It is enough to be a mortal and to work so gracefully with your wool. But you can never compete with the goddess. Your work will never equal hers.”
Arachne took offense at this statement and she was starting to find the old woman just a little bit annoying. “Athena is no match for me,” she replied. “In fact, I would challenge her to a competition of skill. Let’s see who in fact, is the patron of weaving.” Athena, still in the disguise of an old woman, tried once more to reign in Arachne’s pride. “I am an old woman” she said. “I have been around many, many years, much longer than you, and have seen a great many things. I urge you once again, to beseech Athena’s pardon for your rash words and give the goddess the honor she is due.”
Arachne scowled. Her hands fell from the loom and she turned to face the old woman and said, “Be gone now, old woman. Old age brings wisdom to some but clearly it has addled your brain. I have more important things to do, than listen to you. You might be able to give your poor advice to your daughters if you have them, or your daughters-in-law, but as for advice, I can advise myself and I do not need your warnings. If Athena is such an amazing weaver, and if she is aggrieved as you claim, let her come to me herself. Perhaps she’ll propose a competition.”
At these words, Athena dropped her disguise and stood before Arachne. “Young woman” she said, “I have come.” The nymphs and all others who were present for this exchange bowed down. Only Arachne showed no fear. She sat at her loom unawed, and yet her cheeks were flushed with a sudden red, which then became a bit pale. But Arachne insisted, despite whatever fear she might have felt, upon the contest, and Athena agreed.
“Let us begin then” she said, “each at our loom without delay.” The goddess and the young woman were quick to take their places at their looms. There they stretched their warp’s fine threads and tied each onto a beam as one might tie a web, and they picked up their shuttles and with the help of their fingers began to weave the woof, notched teeth along the slay, and beat into place the weft threads that run between the fleece that forms the warp. Both women work quickly, their shoulders free. They moved their expert hands, each so intent upon her task that she ignored fatigue.
Into the web they wove purple threads of wool and colors so fine and so subtle that they blended together in the way a rainbow stains each color next to the other, the demarcations imperceptible. Each of the weavers, the goddess and the mortal young woman, wove pliant gold threads into their tapestry and traced an old story.
Athena chooses to tell the stories of the honor of the gods. She depicts Zeus sitting on his throne in all of his glory, and she shows the god Poseidon, lord of the sea, with his trident, striking a hard rock from which the fierce horse emerges. She shows herself then, with her helmet on her head, her shield and the lance, and the moment when she struck the earth with her sharp shaft and an olive tree sprang up, pale green and rich with fruit. It was this gift that made Athena the patron deity of the city of Athens. In the corners of her tapestry, Athena wove a story about hubris, and what befalls the humans who have the audacity to challenge the gods. Each picture in its own bright colors showed the downfall of a human being. In one corner, she shows the story of the Thracian Rhodope who had the presumption to take as their own names the names of the highest gods.
In the second corner is the fate of a Pygmaean queen who challenged Hera, and claimed that she was as beautiful. In another corner there was Antigone, who also set herself against Hera thinking that because she was the daughter of a Trojan Queen, she could evade her fate. Hera changed this girl into a stork. And in the final corner, there was a picture of King Cinyras, who claimed that his daughters were more beautiful than Hera herself. These the goddess changed into marble steps, leading up to her own temple. As a sign of peace, Athena weaves a border around her work, a wreath of olive leaves. And with that, she finishes her task.
Arachne chooses to tell a different story of the gods in her tapestry. She portrays the many rapes committed by Zeus and Poseidon. She shows the rape of Europa, who was fooled by Zeus in the shape of a bull and carried off across the waves. In Arachne’s picture the girl is shown as she looks back to land and calls on her companions, even as in fear of the spray of the waves, she timidly draws back her feet. Arachne shows us Leda, lying still beneath the swans wings. She shows us Danea, raped by Zeus, who came in the shape of a shower of gold, and she depicts Zeus in the form of a speckled snake, when he came to rape the goddess Persephone.
Arachne does not leave out Poseidon, who has committed similar crimes. In her stories of Poseidon she includes the story of his rape of the goddess Demeter, whom he took in the form of a stallion. This, she says through her skillful weave, is what you call on us to honor. To decorate her web’s thin border at the edge, Arachne fills it with flowers interlaced with ivy.
Not even Athena at her most jealous of could find a flaw in Arachne’s artistry. It was perfect. It was perfect and her success incensed the goddess. Athena tore the tapestry to pieces. She tore the tapestry to pieces and then she picked up Arachne’s shuttle which lay close by, and with that struck Arachne in the forehead, three, and then four times.
In the face of this wrath, Arachne crumbled. It was too much. She rushed, still bold in her actions, and took a noose and tied it around her neck. And when Athena saw her in this way, she took pity. “Live then” the goddess said to her, “but for your audacity and the dishonor you show the gods you will still hang, and this punishment will pursue you and all who descend from you.” The goddess then sprinkled the juices of the herbs of Hecate over Arachne. At the touch of that venom, Arachne’s hair, and her eyes and her ears fell off. All of her body sank and at her sides, her slender fingers clung to her as legs.
Arachne became a spider and still, she spins out a thread. She practices yet her weaver’s art, as once she fashioned webs upon the loom.
And so ends the Greek myth of Arachne.
Athena demands honor and it doesn’t seem to matter to the goddess, if it really springs from fear. Now Arachne, she says that her skill is her own. Is it? Who knows? Arachne herself might be unsure. But she was bold enough to challenge the goddess, and the stories that each of them weaves reveals to us what is at stake. The gods demand to be honored as powerful and as the source of all good things, despite the ways that they ruin human lives, especially the lives of women. Both of these things are true in these myths. Athena did give Athens and all people, the olive tree. Poseidon did give man, the horse. And yet Arachne is concerned with justice. She demands more from the gods. Better masters, if humans are to be the pawns.
The challenge that she makes to Athena goes beyond the test of her skill at weaving. Are we at the mercy of forces beyond our control? I think an honest evaluation of life reveals that we are and yet, we are co creators, or perhaps co conspirators in the outcomes, are we not?
Arachne made a choice. Was it from hubris, or truth? Her collapse at the end is not a recognition of Athena’s greater skill as a weaver, but rather the greater power of an immortal goddess against a mortal woman. And I’m struck by the fact that Athena turns her into a spider. Notice that Athena does not remove Arachne’s gift for weaving. Is that because Athena couldn’t deny it? Because she honored it? Or perhaps because it didn’t have its source in the goddess despite her claims?
And what might it mean to become a spider, a creature whose essence is weaving? Spiders make their threads from their own bodies. Now, I suspect that any sentient being fears becoming something else, the member of another species. To inhabit a foreign consciousness so completely that you lose your own, is a frightening possibility. And yet, is a spider afraid of being a spider? Did Arachne mourn what she lost? Did she lose?
Answers to these questions exist beyond the reach of the story, at least in the form that has been handed down to us. Ovid’s purpose, and likely that of the ancient Greeks before him, is to highlight the capricious power of the gods, and so the tenuousness of human life. To remind us of the risks and beauty inherent to living in this mortal form, conscious of what can be and will be lost. For myself, as a person easily inspired by our human impulse to find personal truth and self-realization through our inherent creativity, I admire Arachne. Maybe the lesson of hubris in this myth is lost on me. And yet, it’s the mystery that beckons beyond her transformation that intrigues me. Did Arachne lose herself or become herself, I wonder?
The Greek gods want entertainment. They want entertainment and a vicarious experience. I think the Greek view of the gods is an interesting commentary on the state of immortality. In those long, long, long days, where there is no consequence for anything that you do, what is of value? The nature of the gods and goddesses, their vanity and pettiness and greed, the complete absence of self-reflection, is hard to accept in a divinity, at least for those of us schooled in the myths of a benevolent, all loving, heavenly Father. Of course, if you look into the mythology of this God, you will also find the demands for honor and obedience, and the willingness to destroy the human who refuses to submit.
Our gods are all too human because they are our creations, a mirror that reflects our psychology.
If this is true of the gods “out there,” the God as a separate being with whom we must relate and co create each day, our world, what of the myths of the god within? What about Buddhism, for example, the mythology of a sacred mystery, of a truth called enlightenment, in which there is no separate god? There is no God at all, in the understanding of what is eternal and what is fleeting. Do we escape Arachne’s dilemma by setting aside her story of transformation and Athena’s wrath to enter into the Buddhist paradigm? Or is it possible to find, in the jataka stories about Buddha and his many reincarnations on the way to that bodhi tree, which includes by the way, lives lived in animal form, the same mystery of transformation? Of a change so complete and profound that it’s an irrevocable shift into a wholly different consciousness?
I’d like to share a poem with you that was written by a dear friend of mine, Noreen Lawler. It’s called “Arachne.”
“Arachne”
“Transformation is seldom what it seems.
That sly Minerva never held my fate.
I am Arachne weaving women’s dreams.
Hubris is one more patriarchal scheme.
My skill alone engenders fear and hate.
Transformation is seldom what it seems.
My web is woven of my sisters’ screams
and skins of work called second rate.
I am Arachne weaving women’s dreams.
Cut the lie that ties you pale Athene.
Frail threads bind you in that state.
Transformation is seldom what it seems.
My silver thread unravels as a skein
of women’s art that’s born too late.
I am Arachne weaving women’s dreams.
In spider self my inspiration gleams.
My poetry no longer has to wait.
Transformation is seldom what it seems.
I am a poet weaving women’s dreams.
-Noreen Lawlor, from the collection “tangled limbs and prayers”
I encourage you to consider your image of the gods, your imaginings about the forces that we can’t control, and to consider your dreams of transformation. Allow them to be informed by the questions posed by your fears. This is a good time for this soul work my friends, as fall unfolds here in the Northern Hemisphere and together we make our annual move into the fruitful darkness. I’ve offered you few answers and many questions in this episode. And yet it’s our questions that define our creative edge.
On the topic of soul work, I’m very much looking forward to the Joshua Tree Music Festival next weekend, where I’m going to be offering a story circle play shop the mornings of October 9th and 10th. If you are planning to be at the festival, I certainly hope that you’ll join me. And if a sojourn to the desert is not in your plans, I am opening enrollment for my online story course called Step Into the Fairy Glen. This course is designed to help you tap the power of your symbolic life. It will be taking place online from November 4th through the 19th, so we’ll be launching with a new moon and staying in that story space until the full moon. Links to details about Step Into the Fairy Glen are on my website.
I want to give a big welcome to new subscribers Janee, Kimberly and Cathy. Thank you so much for subscribing for email announcements about the podcast, and my other programs. If you’re new to Myth Matters, I invite you to head over to the Mythic Mojo website, where you will find information about Myth Matters, a variety of ways to subscribe to this podcast, and also information about the other work I do with people to use stories to gain insight into life, Step Into the Fairy Glen being one example.
A heartfelt shout out to the patrons and supporters of this podcast whose financial contributions keep it all going my friends. In particular, thank you to Fred and Mark and Amy, for their enduring support of Myth Matters and this mission, the examination of the role mythology plays in defining our world and shaping our lives. If you are finding something of value here in Myth Matters, and you can afford $5or $10 a month to help sustain this podcast, I hope that you’ll join me on Patreon too.
It’s time for deep change my friends. I imagine that you’re feeling that too.
And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself. And until next time, happy mythmaking and keep the mystery in your life.
Click to find the Mandelbaum translation of The Metamorphoses of Ovid
Click to Find Noreen Lawlor’s poetry collection, “tangled limbs and prayers“
