Paleothea: the Ancient Goddess

As I mentioned in the last post, I am doing a bit of introspection about why I bother to write here (this blog and this site more generally).

The answer is that I wanted to know about women in Greek myths. Duh. But, really, that’s it. I mean, I wanted to know, not just their names, but why they were interesting.

I wanted to understand why some Goddesses, like Hemera, Gaia,  and Amphictyonis were relatively simple personifications of their names when others, like say, Persephone, have names, backgrounds, and myths so deeply ensconced in the past that we may never know what the deities represented.

I wanted to understand why the Greeks, so very long ago, had Great Goddesses like Demeter when we modern people, so much further along towards enlightenment (yes, I was a Hegelian youngster), didn’t even write spunky heroines that weren’t relying on men into movies!

And, perhaps most of all, I was hungry for stories of women that I could be proud to tell. Stories imbued with the rich respect of our mythical ancestors, but stories that I could make mine, that could make me stronger, that could root me.

I realize, now, that, although I still long for such things, I have given up on finding them in ancient Greek myth.

The first blow came when I fully appreciated that, in fact, things weren’t as feminist as they appeared. I learned that, while visibility is definitely a powerful thing, being visibly powerless isn’t nearly so exciting. I also discovered, somewhere along the way, to reject a progressive history and with that I lost the need to rely on the authority of our mythical ancestors in Classical civilization.

My interests changed, and I began to find more stories I could be proud of today (go see my Goodreads shelf to find some) and saw ancient Greek myths interesting primarily as a cross-culture comparison. And, for a few years there, I was allowed to read these myths in exquisite detail. But now that I do not, and now that I am surrounded by so many more cultures with rich mythologies to learn from, I am not sure what my new connection to this will be.

So I’m TAing a class this semester called “Many Ways of Being Human,” and on the first day of class I mentioned the blog Savage Minds as a place they might be interested in heading. But then I asked how many of them read blogs; for that matter, how many of them even checked news online; how many, I asked, use the internet for anything other than email (and porn, but I didn’t know them well enough to ask them that yet).

Like one person.

So, even though I care (really, I do) about the people who have found there way here, my total lack of time to commit to this project has just been horribly reinforced by de-motivation.

In my imagination, when I am not feeling so pressed by other concerns (like, say, funding, trying to start my research, being unable to keep up with my classes, and sleeping), I will be back. But the fact that I’ve said that in the last three entries DOES NOT BODE WELL.

Suggestions? Comments? All welcome.