This episode is devoted to the Greek god Dionysus, whom Walter Otto aptly named “the epiphany god,” and his wife Ariadne.
Dionysus was called “the Loosener” or lysios in Greek, the loosener of limbs and of minds. The Greek word lysios comes from “lysis,” which means “setting free” or “unraveling.” I want to pick up this thread to reflect a bit more on the nature of Dionysian loosening and epiphanies, by spending some time with the myth of Ariadne.
Who was Ariadne, to be partner to this god? Ariadne like Dionysus, is likely an older deity than the Olympians, one with much more significance than her place in Greek mythology suggests.
Thanks for listening.
“If the horizon hadn’t swallowed you, I’d believe in it still,
let it hold me like a wall…”
—Ioanna-Veronika Warwick from “Ariadne Thanks Theseus for Abandoning Her”
Transcript of “Into the Labyrinth and Ariadne’s Thread”
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 want to talk some more about Dionysus, about the energies and experience personified by this ancient god, whom Walter Otto aptly named “the epiphany god.” Mainstream Western culture has been uneasy with what Dionysus represents for thousands of years, alternately repressing and denying it, relegating the Lord of Souls to the periphery. But there’s no escape from Dionysus because he is the energy of life itself– vulnerable, beautiful, profligate, and savage. Life in the body and the mystical meaning of mortality.
In the last podcast I said Dionysus was called “the Loosener” or lysios in Greek, the loosener of limbs and of minds. The one who loosens your grip on fantasies of certainty or egoic self-importance, loosens your grip on daily reality and perhaps on sanity. “The Loosener” refers to the experiences of dissolution of self and dismemberment of the body. Both are part of the history of the god and his rites continued to inspire them, literally and metaphorically, for hundreds of years.
The Greek word lysios comes from “lysis,” which means “setting free” or “unraveling.” I want to pick up this thread to reflect a bit more on the nature of Dionysian loosening and epiphanies, by spending some time with the myth of Ariadne, the god’s wife and intimate.
Who was Ariadne, to be partner to this god? Ariadne like Dionysus, is likely an older deity than the Olympians, one with much more significance than her place in Greek mythology suggests. If it weren’t for patriarchy, we might be asking the question in reverse: who is Dionysus, to be the partner of this goddess? Ariadne’s name, like that of Dionysus, is not Greek and present s bit of an etymological puzzle. Scholars suggest that her cult migrated from the Near East and was incorporated by the Greeks.
The Ariadne that we know and the one that appears in this story may be, probably is in my mind, a later, tamer,version of the Great Mother goddess Cybelle, the female face of the great round that we call life and death, birth and rebirth, death and birth again, theat is the divine spark immanent in the material world.
Ariadne is the yin to the yang of the god Dionysus. These ideas define and contain each other as the ancient black and white symbol suggest. These energies comprise the whole, a truth also found in the old symbol, which is in the form of a circle.
I see Dionysus and Ariadne as two faces of the central paradox of our mortal existence, namely, that each thing, whether idea, quality, or experience, is in some deep way, its own opposite. That we live in the contradictions is the mystical message found in our myths and this pair, Ariadne, the “Mistress of the Labyrinth” and Dionysus, the “Great Loosener,” personify the journey and the awareness.
Let me tell you the myth of Ariadne and we’ll see where that takes us. I invite you to relax and listen and let the story take you where you need to go. If a detail or moment in the story catches your attention, let that be significant. Make a mental note and allow yourself the space and time to reflect on it later, to see what it opens up.
The Myth of Ariadne
Ariadne was the daughter of King Minos, the powerful king of Crete, and Queen Pasiphaë, daughter of Helios, the Sun. Her story begins, as is commonly the case, with decisions made by her parents and the destiny they courted. Her story, like that of many Greek heroines, begins with the actions of men.
Her father Minos was one of several princes, and as a young man he competed with his brothers for the kingship of Crete. He won the confidence of the people and so took the throne with the aid of the god Poseidon. Poseidon, mighty god the sea, was especially important to an island kingdom like Crete, and Minos told the people that he was so close to the god, and enjoyed such favor, that Poseidon would answer his every prayer. Minos prayed to Poseidon and promised him all manner of honor and worship if he would send a sign of support to convince the people that Minos was near to his heart.
Poseidon sent a magnificent white bull up out of the sea on the condition that Minos would make a lavish public sacrifice of the animal, and thus return it to him. The people of Crete were duly impressed when Minos summoned this white bull out of the sea, and he was named king. But Minos didn’t want to return the white bull– it was such a fine animal– and he thought that he could trick Poseidon by sacrificing a member of his own herd instead.
You likely see the error here. Poseidon was not fooled and he took his revenge on Minos. He cursed Queen Pasiphaë was an unnatural love for the bull. She was obsessed to the point of madness.
Now, Minos had a genius in his employ, a man named Daedalus. Daedalus was a very clever man, an artist, architect, and inventor of many devices. When there was a problem at court, he came up with a solution. He constructed a wooden cow for the queen and had it delivered to the meadow where the great white bull was pastured. Pasiphaë was inside. She mated with the bull and subsequently gave birth to a child with a human body and bull head, a monster. She named him Asterion, which means “little star,” but he was better known as the Minotaur, a being with great strength who developed an insatiable appetite for human flesh. This Minotaur was Ariadne’s half-brother.
Now, Daedalus was called upon to solve the problem of how to imprison the Minotaur, as neither Pasiphaë nor Minos would kill it. Daedalus built a labyrinth to house this monster.
What happened to the great white bull, you might wonder? Known as the Cretan Bull, it rampaged around the island of Crete until Heracles was commanded to capture it as one of his Twelve Labors. Heracles took it to the mainland where it continued to trouble people. During this time, Ariadne’s brother sailed to Athens to compete in the local games. Androgeus was an excellent athlete. When he arrived in Athens, he decided to kill the bull and make a hero’s name for himself. Alas, he was killed.
When his father King Minos heard the news, he was a bit suspicious about the circumstances. Or perhaps he simply seized upon an excuse to go to war. These things happen, right? In any event, he sailed off to attack Athens. The gods had a grudge or two against Athens, and Minos was a son of Zeus, so the war did not go well for the Athenians. In the end they negotiated a truce with Minos. He required them to pay him a tribute of seven young men and seven young women, every year. These he fed to the flesh-hungry Minotaur.
When the Athenians learned of the fate of their young people, they despaired. But what choice did they have? Then Theseus, a beloved prince who was the favorite of King Aegeus, king of Athens, volunteered to be one of the seven young men. “I will kill the monster father” he said, “and free our people from this grievous obligation.” The king argued but acquiesced in the end. After all, Theseus had killed the Cretan Bull after many others had failed. And there weren’t many such volunteers. Theseus sailed with the other young men and women to the isle of Crete and the Minotaur, that year.
Ariadne saw the ship and watched the young Athenians disembark. The hero Theseus stood out from the rest, tall and fair and bold, and she immediately fell in love with him. To betray her father was a very heavy crime and yet, she could not bear to see Theseus led away to the labyrinth, never to return. And her association with her father’s crimes and the Minotaur was a bit heavy, too.
She stole away in secret to mee the prince and pledged to help him kill the Minotaur. Then she went to Daedalus. Between them, they made a plan.
Ariadne gave Theseus a skein of thread. “Unwind this thread as you walk the dark corridors,” she told him. “You may kill the Minotaur but that is only half the battle. Then you must find your way out. Follow the thread back to the sunlight.” Theseus took the advice, and the thread, and he pledged his love to Ariadne. “Fair princess,” he said, “you are wise as well as beautiful. When your father discovers what we have done, you won’t be safe from his wrath. Come away with me and be my wife.”
And so, the lovers parted. Theseus went first into the gloom of the labyrinth and bid the others stay close to entrance. He unwound the thread, killed the Minotaur, and followed it back again just as planned. The young Athenians ran for their ship, bringing the princess Ariadne with them. She left her family and her home to begin a new life. She would be an exile but she had Theseus. By the time word got to King Minos, their ships had alreadydisappeared from view.
Most agree on the details of this story, as I’ve told it thus far. But what happened next is a bit unclear. For some reason, perhaps for fresh water or a rest, the ship stopped at the island called Naxos and the group remained there overnight. In the morning, Ariadne awoke with the sun in her eyes. She was alone. The beach was deserted and the ship was gone, carrying Theseus and the others away. He left her. Abandoned her on a lonely little island.
Some say that Theseus had a change of heart. Some say that he was never true. Some say that the god Dionysus compelled him with his deep magic, to leave the princess behind. Who knows the truth?
Ariadne was beside herself with grief. One day, maybe several days, passed in despair and tears. Then a small boat appeared, gliding over the water so smoothly that it seemed to barely touch the waves. It was Dionysus, wearing a panther skin over his shoulder and a smile on his lips.
Dionysus came to Naxos for Ariadne, and she became his wife on Mt Olympus. Ariadne, who as a young girl led the Cretan dancers round their polished floors, became the intimate companion of the Lord of the Dance, of the vine, of souls. To Ariadne, Mistress of the Labyrinth, Dionysus pledged his heart and she gave hers, to him.
The image of the labyrinth is a good portal into understanding the mystery and experience of this Ariadne/Dionysus pairing. The form of the spiral and the meander appears in seashells, spider webs, and galaxies and many other natural forms. It’s evidence of connections beyond our comprehension.People and cultures around the world have equated this image with the links between the visible and the visible world. The labyrinth itself is a map and the journey.
A map and a journey. The image of passage through life to death, from this material plane to the mystery beyond. This is the truth of the body for all mortal beings, and it’s a journey in consciousness. I’m reminded that Joseph Campbell said that the primary impetus to myth, the motivation or catalyst for our mythmaking, is our consciousness of death and the challenge that that poses. Our myths then, are meant to assist us. Cults like that of Dionysus and Ariadne (and there were variations, many variations on these forms under all kinds of names connected with the names of other deities) was meant to provide some relief or release or freedom from that conscious awareness of death. From that ending that could also be the opening into great mysteries.
The ancient Romans called Dionysus Liber Pater, “the father who frees,” and Ariadne, Libera, or Prosperina, and like the Greek Persephone, she was associated with the underworld. What is this freedom that they would offer? Was it freedom from the fear of death?
Labyrinth is a circuitous path to an invisible center. A circuitous path to an invisible center. I think if you let that image rest in your psyche, you will intuit a great deal from it.
The labyrinth is a paradox. It presents us with a series of paradoxes. It is both circular in form, and linear. There are only two directions to move. If you’ve ever walked a labyrinth you know– in or out! The path then is defined and circumscribed and yet, it is a route to liberation. The traveler gropes his or her or their way through the unknown and perhaps the dark, for clarity.
Dionysus and Ariadne, as the yin/yang, of life force, reveal unity in contradictions: wholeness through dissolution, life in the underworld, reason in the irrational, peace in the frenzy, and mental power in the physicality of the body. They suggest to us that to fully live, you must embrace the contradictions. And they suggest that this requires recognition of the Other, of the Others, because the Other is a portal into the mystery.
The others around us, human and non-human, no matter how familiar, are also always the unknown and the unknowable, aren’t they? Containing depths that we can’t plumb, a logic that we can understand meanings that we can’t decipher. All of this unknown and unknowing might be unbearable, but for the fact that this same mystery is in each of us, in you.
The teeming, surging energy of the living world, and the relationships, and multitude of connections between all of those beings and pieces, the seen and the unseen, is a move away from the empty loneliness of the titanic.
Now, I’ve been talking about the titanic in the last few episodes so, I want to take a minute to think about how the denial of Ariadne and Dionysus, how keeping them on the periphery, contributes to the titanic propensity in human nature, and in our culture. A brief recap on what is the titanic. We’re talking about that thing in us that denies our limitations, that longs for the huge, for the overwhelming, for the excessive, for the boundless. That attempts to do and be beyond our human scale.
And this is possible in a world of abstractions and generalizations, in the empty space of a titanic imagination, which is empty of individuals, of the unique particulars and the specific details of the world. And it is therefore then devoid of mystery, my friends, for that mystery is found in the others, the mystery and the value.
I wonder if the tension between the titanic and Dionysus/Ariadne weaves through Ariadne’s myth, in hubris of Minos who lays claim to the power of the gods and tries to trick Poseidon, for example. And I wonder about the monster, that little star, renamed the Minotaur. Minotaur, his father’s machine for terror and death, wandering alone in the dark maze of a labyrinth that is home and trap.
Ariadne’s thread is a surprising device to guarantee the success of a hero, isn’t it? you know, tancient Greek word for a skein of thread is “clew,” spelled c-l-e-w. This is the root, for the word “clue,” as in the hints and signs that you follow to a discovery. This evolution of meaning in this word is a reference to the myth of Ariadne’s thread.
The “thread” is an old and powerful metaphor, for the binding element of a story and the link between, the essential guide. In the Upanishads, for example, the sutra or “thread” links this world to the other, and the One to all beings.
When I first heard Ariadne’s story years ago, I was going through a difficult time. I was walking in that labyrinth. I suddenly had this sense that no matter how dark it might be, no matter how many twists and turns there might be, no matter how many unexpected and unpleasant surprises, that actually maybe there was a thread that I followed. Maybe there was a purpose to what was happening. Maybe some continuity in my life, that brought me into that maze and would move me back out again.
I further imagined that there was someone or something else at the other end of that thread.
Honestly, I don’t think that’s in the story as it’s been recorded and yet I always imagine Ariadne on the other end holding that thread. That gave me comfort too. I thought, okay, I’m not alone in this process. There is a presence in my life. I think of this as an aspect of self, the deep self or perhaps my daimon, as James Hillman and the ancient Greeks and Romans would say, that understands my destiny. That is the thread.
At this stage in my life, the labyrinth is ever present, as an image for the journey into soul, and the realities of life and mortality. It takes more than conventional reason and logic to comprehend this, don’t you know?
I have a poem or two for you before I close but first I want to give a big welcome to new subscribers: Gil, Tammy, Mark, Gloria, Lori, AL, Leanna, Elena, Ian, and Scott. Welcome! and thanks for subscribing for email announcements about the podcast and my other programs.
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Now for two poems that I hope will amplify this story for you, in honor of the mystery that permeates all and each of us. This first one is titled “Ariadne Thanks Theseus for Abandoning Her,” by Ioanna-Veronika Warwick, from the anthology “Orpheus and Company,” edited by Deborah deNicola.
“Ariadne Thanks Theseus for Abandoning Her,” by Ioanna-Veronika Warwick
I hear you married my sister, the one
famous for her blue eyes.
You think you can control her.
no one is harder to control
than a woman who spends her life
before the closed door of mirrors.
She fingers her necklaces,
combs her endless hair,
and gets what she wants:
a man, a child.
We with more mind are in love
with the shadows everything casts,
the watery color of doubt.
I was the path home
that unwound behind you.
I held you by the thread of breath,
hollowed out slim foothold.
Who could endure such love?
Your ship growing smaller
against the flawless blue,
the tapering black sail,
tried to teach me the essential
stone, but I only cried.
I cried until star-blind sleep,
I cried bruised by the sun.
Then among the voices
of silence I heard
an overlay of sound
preparing for its meaning.
If you hadn’t left me
I’d never hear,
talking and laughing,
serving heated wine.
If the horizon
hadn’t swallowed you,
I’d believe in it still,
let it hold me in like a wall.
Deceiver, I thank you.
Betrayer, I bless you.
You can’t imagine
the labyrinths I travel.
I am entering into such music,
you seem no longer a giant.
Time pares you down
to a roadside post,
a place I had to pass.
“If the horizon hadn’t swallowed you, I’d believe in it still….” and now, “Awaiting Dionysus” by Deborah DeNicola
“Awaiting Dionysus” by Deborah DeNicola
Ariadne awoke as the sun spilled
over the east wing of the island.
She stretched and reached for him
in the roomy bed.
But Theseus had left her,
the ball of thread
tied to her heart like a block of ice.
Stone in her throat, swollen moon
that refuses to fade with sunrise.
She swallows it over and over.
She walks the beach.
Her face in the shell-shaped mirror is whiter
and thinner, more blemished and freckled,
older than she remembered.
What did he dread in her deep-set eyes?
The bleached waste of the ocean’s bottom?
Debt of treachery to her father
and beast of a brother?
Or was it the reckless liquor of her heights?
The mind that could slice through the labyrinth
breathing passion with manic foresight?
What did he run from?
What claws in her nest of privates?
Was it the mire of her odor after love?
Did her tire of her
inattentive sighs, evenings, her Chopin,
the nocturne in E flat which always moved her
to pour cognac and stare through the picture
window into the black sky–Gravity of stars
drawing her to her own thoughts.
Was it the fact that she had her thoughts?
Was it the sway and stemming of those thoughts
like the waves repetitions that washed him away?
Or was he like her brother, a bull at heart,
snorting for new conquests, larger breasts,
firmer ass, tighter dress–What did he want?
Never mind. Never mind.
She stirs tea, chops an onion, arranges
beach glass in the ash tray to catch what’s left
of morning light.
Frozen moon. Frozen chest.
Frozen heart inly a God of Ecstasy
with a killer’s rod could release
clasping and pumping the splashy
yeast of the red aorta—
her aftershocks
like lightening in his bare hands.
And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for listening. Feel free to contact me if you have questions or comments about today’s program and until next time, happy mythmaking and keep the mystery in your life alive.
One more thing-
The Joseph Campbell Myth and Meaning Book Club at Literati will read a new, mythpoesis of the Ariadne myth in October 2021. The book is “Ariadne” by Jennifer Saint, and I will be hosting the discussion. Click the links if this sounds interesting.
