Celestial Gifts
Today is Thursday. Thor’s Day. If we put aside Stan Lee’s version of Thor in the Avengers comic books and movies and dig back to the origin of the story in the Norse Myths, we might find a clearer version of Thor. Here’s how the story has unraveled in my mind: Thor to the Norse Myths became Zeus to the Greek Myths and Jupiter/Jove to the Roman Myths. Thunder power, gift-giver, wisdom, expansion, space. Zeus killed his father Kronos (Chronos/Time) in order to give expansion, space. The oneness of time (The Void/Chaos to the Alchemists) had to be broken to pieces, into hours and minutes so space could unfurl and so all that we know as matter could exist. Jupiter, in esoteric literature is the domain of the Kyriotetes/Dominions or the Spirits of Wisdom. To me this meant the wisdom poured into all of matter—that which allows atoms to form into specific arrangements that make cells and then molecules. The intricate design embedded is all that we perceive in the world.
I kept reading and I kept seeing and I saw what other artists saw. Michelangelo’s Leda and the Swan portrays Zeus as a swan: divine wisdom penetrating sleeping/semi-conscious matter. In Ancient paintings Zeus holds lightning in one hand and has an eagle by his feet. Gifts in the elements of air.
When I faced the blank canvas to paint my Jupiter, I didn’t carry all this data in me. I chewed it up and ate it and digested it so I can let it take a new form within myself. I had to eat all that Jupiter data the way Kronos ate his children. My painting is us. My painting is each one of us as Jupiter himself. In it, my Jupiter connects both Swan and Eagle. It is a vision of human consciousness awakening subconscious wisdom and uniting it with star wisdom. This is us striding to the future with our gifts.
And here we are in this time and space. The forces of time and space (Saturn and Jupiter) allow us to examine what gifts we bring to the table this lifetime, in this age. Each of us, as individuals with our very specific concoction of cells and molecules and DNA and experiences is given a specific set of capacities , a specific combination of power and force. May we stride forward from this day awake to our own power and wisdom. Today is Thursday, Thor’s Day. Jueves (In Spanish) Jove’s Day. May we move forward with joy. Come gift-givers. we have much to give.
