Understanding the Theogony by Hesiod, Part 2: The Primordials

After praising the Muses, Hesiod asked them to help him understand where the gods come from. Where did all of existence come from? He asked this because he wants to understand his own place in the world. He wants to understand why people think the way they do. Why are they trapped in their situations? And how can they escape? Our thoughts can confuse us, which increases our suffering and make us feel miserable. In moments of calm, we wonder what leads us to this suffering. Why do we get confused? Why do we forget? Why do we sleep for so long? Why do we dream, only to forget about them when we wake up? Why do we get depressed, even when we have things that should make us happy? When we want to be happy, we stay sad. When we are happy, we feel guilty for not remembering our grief. Even though we remember being happy, and can almost cross over to be happy again, instantly, there is a barrier that makes our happiness feel like another dimension. Our confusion and clarity, our depression and joy, all coexist at the same time. But we are forced on one state of mind, and lose our connection with other states we have experienced before. We live in a continuous state of confusion, which is why we experience the world the way that we do. This far-reaching and ever-present confusion is our direct experience of chaos. In it are contained the structures, sequences, patterns, and sets of the world, but they remain hidden. We experience reality like we are going through a void. There is something missing. We know it every time we wake up. This is something affecting everyone. When we wake up, we can't remember our dreams. We know we experience something powerful, but the feeling seems to escape us. We can't even remember our previous thoughts and actions, although we are sure to have done them. We know we did something earlier, or the day before, but even simple actions like eating a meal, talking to someone, will appear strange in our recollection, as if the person doing these actions was not us. It's like we are spectators in someone else's movie or story. We have to force ourselves to focus, and only then do we escape confusion, and things become familiar again. This confusion is what the muses will help Hesiod understand. Through their inspiration and revelation, we can be sure that knowledge exists, and the fundamental part of this knowledge is our direct experience with the world. The source of all knowledge is, of course, the muses. Everyone from every religion and culture has access to them. We can instantly recognize and confirm the wisdom of the muses by direct experience. The revelation of the muses connects us with what we experience every day. Their explanations of where the gods come from is a direct answer to our confusions, so that we may recognize the truth from what we have already experienced. The question of where gods come from can also be confusing, because if thinking of a world without the gods, for them to suddenly appear, is confusing, this is because we live inside a made-up but useful concept of time, to measure the changes that we experience moment by moment. But time is from our perspective, while the me in my memory and the me in the present experience time differently. What we experience as time is something that has always existed. Time is actually a fragment of eternity. Time appears to us to be linear, but only because we experience what is eternal as parts in a sequence. Minutes lead to hours, hours to days, days to weeks, and so on. It doesn't seem possible for us to go back to what has passed us, but we can actually revisit the past in our minds, although it seems unreal and all over the place in our memory. The reality is that time is relative to our experience, and so time is not an absolute path that all beings are subject to in the same way. The muses reveal to Hesiod which gods came first and who followed, but this is so that we can understand the relationship between ideas and concepts that depend on other ideas and concepts. The poem presents a collection of different concepts that appear to be unrelated, but they actually combine together so we can understand the whole through the parts, the set through the sequence. The poem focuses on a group of gods, named quickly together, to direct our attention to a greater concept, which is the nature of chaos. The muses reveal to Hesiod that before everything there was chaos, or chaos. What is chaos? It is what we experience when we forget, and what confuses us when we think about it. Chaos can only be understood by understanding the gods. The identity of the gods is developed in the poem with relationships. We understand the children by recognizing their father in them. We understand the wife by understanding her family and friends. One being can be known by their context, especially other beings who have a relationship with them. The description of chaos, then, is tied in with the primordials, or protogony. To understand chaos, we are presented then to the first-born gods. They are first because they are the foundation that tie in all other beings, events, and circumstances. The notion of time for Hesiod is not linear, in that one thing definitely happened before another thing must follow it. Instead, Hesiod's understanding of time is like branches. Many things happen because they depend on other things to exist at the same time, and yet that dependence is mutual. There is an interdependence in the gods. We see the dependence going only in one direction, because for that specific thing, that dependence is how that thing happens to exist. But that very same thing is in fact necessary for other things to exist. This reflects chaos, where things appear confusing only if we don't focus on the bigger picture. Hesiod's understanding of time branches out into other branches, where many lines are coming from similar sources at the same time. We can follow the branches back and forth without being distracted by what was there before other things. Ultimately, this interdependence works with a plurality of necessities that have to exist at the same time. On one branch, we encounter the first foundations of existence, earth, Tartarus, and love. It may surprise us to see that the earth was there before the universe, but that is because we have to first understand what earth represents. It is not about the planet itself existing before space. From our experience, we can see that everything is grounded firmly in the earth. Giant mountains and tall trees, countless flowers and plants, they are all dependent on the solid ground beneath them. Earth, then, is the grounding of all things. All things need a foundation, and that is the quality of earth. This goddess called Gaia, or Geia, is focused on foundations, from which all other things come, and on which all others depend. This is what later philosophers would discuss as the first principle, or Archi. At the same time that earth exists, Tartarus exists as well. Tartaros is described by Hesiod as being under the earth. This mysterious reality represents the secret things that we don't see, and even though we cannot ground them physically, we know they exist. This dimension is about the unseen powers. This is where the laws and mechanisms of the physical world exist, guiding and manipulating the forces that control all of reality, while remaining invisible to our eyes. Tartaros, this primordial god that is hidden inside Gaia, focuses on the unseen reality, the realm that is experienced through the mind. This level of existence that is unseen, but affecting the physical world, is what later philosophers would discuss as causation, or Eteia, or the noetic, or the conceptual world, or Nous. At the same time that earth and Tartaros exist, love, or Eros, also exists. This god who is the most attractive, has the power of chaos to do two contradictory things at the same time. It is a power that confuses the mind, tame our courage and understanding, but also lead to union and joy. Love is very confusing. On the one hand, it is the reason why things hold together, and why they don't continuously break apart or vanish from existence. Love is the reason why we find ourselves stuck in one experience, and then see our situation as being inescapable. On the other hand, love leads to destruction, because love sets paths to attachment and also detachment. One has to love something less when another thing calls all of his attention. We fall into irresistible attraction of beings, ideas, places and situations, especially when they are forbidden or strange, because Eros is forever focused on joining things together. Sometimes, a pattern is formed by joining different parts together, and then it breaks these parts to be separate so that other patterns can be created. This joining of parts into pre-existing patterns is what later philosophers would discuss as form or idea or idea. So according to the Muses, chaos is made from foundations, unseen forces, and the inescapable mutual attraction of individual things. Chaos was first of all, but next appeared broad bosomed earth, sure standing place for all, the gods who live on snowy Olympus' peak, in misty Tartarus, in Eresus, a broad path earth, and love, most beautiful of all the deathless gods. He makes men weak, he overpowers the clever mind, and tames the spirit and the breasts of men and gods. At the same time as earth, Tartarus and Eros, there are other gods that exist. There is also the night, or Nyx, and darkness, or Erevos, each of these branches out as well, and yet each of them was there with earth, Tartarus, and Eros. In our experience, the night contains many things visible to us, the large moon and all of its faces, the rising and disappearing planets, and millions of shining moving stars. The night is what contains all things, visible and invisible, because Nyx is focused on inclusion. All forms of inclusion exist because of her. She represents how chaos is made up of every possible thing that coexists at the same time, because chaos includes all things. It is just a matter of time to see those things change and develop, so that we can recognize what was already there. What, in our experience, does the night actually do to us? It makes us come closer together because of fear. This fear is because we can't see what is near or far. This darkness, this inability to see what is really truly out there, is another quality of night. It is part of it, but it is also not night itself. There is a quality that is there, that defines something, but this definition is also separate from what it defines. For example, the word fire is not the same thing as the fire itself. This other quality of night, that is the darkness, is the focus of an essence of a thing. This is what is in the mind of the god Erebus. Its focus is what defines all of what is contained in the night. Each thing that can exist has a defining essence, a center that holds all of its parts in the pattern, as a set. Some of these things remain abstract, like the concept of shape or change, and what is concrete derives from the abstract concepts. For example, a triangle is a shape. With the mixing of the direct offshoot and the original abstract, we get another level of patterns and sets. For example, a triangle is a shape, which can be drawn in different ways, even though its essence remains a triangle and a shape. This defining of all things is what later philosophers would discuss as essence, or usia. Each god that exists has such an essence. For example, the gods are immortal, they are the measure of things that exist, and have power to enforce their will. Each of the gods has also uniquely defining qualities. The qualities of all things exist because Erebus is focused on the qualities of all things, even eternal and immortal qualities that are found in the gods. This is what philosophers would later define as quality, or peoti. Things are defined by their essence because they participate in the qualities that make up a specific essence. Erebus and Nyx are forever together, like darkness is part of the night, because this is the origin of all existence. Everything exists, and everything that exists can be defined by concepts and qualities. So the muses reveal that chaos is made up of all essences and qualities that all things depend on. Everything that we experience, moment by moment, from experiences like clarity and confusion, to physical things like softness and hardness, always existed, but we experience one thing at a time, as part of sequences, because of attraction and attachment. When we become aware of these patterns, we become aware of their presence, or parousia. We know something exists because it occupies a presence that forces us to pay attention to it. The space of this presence is connected to the presence of other things, and all of this is the focus of the god known as space, or ethere. The whole of existence occupies a physical substance that gives rise to offshoots, to many different versions of itself, like the different levels of the atmosphere and the different states of matter. Later philosophers would discuss this substance as matter, or ile, as the foundation of what is physically real, and as ileomorphie, or hylomorphism, and also as the elements, or stichion. The recognition of this isolating presence is the focus of day, or emera. Although each presence is connected with others, each one is still distinct and separate. This separation of thoughts and beings comes from the separation and uniqueness that is the focus of emera. Day must be the opposite of the night. So if night was inclusion, then day is separation. Day must be the opposite of night, and yet the day is the daughter of the night. What is separate can only exist if it was united before it became separate. It is through this separation that we get numbers from what is infinite. This separation from the whole to form distinction is what later philosophers would discuss as classification, or dieresis. From chaos came black night and erevos, and night in turn gave birth to day and space, whom she conceived and loved to erevos. The origins of our existence are the gods Gaia, Tartaros, Eros, Nix, and Erevos. From these branch out other beings focused on what affects all other things. Earth gave birth to heaven, or Ouranos. It seems contrary to what we now know that earth comes after heaven. If the goddess earth represents what grounds all things, Tartaros, the unseen realm, night, the inclusion, and day, the separation, then the heaven should also be grounded in something. In our experience, what we notice about the heaven is that it changes constantly, but everything that changes does so to reach a goal. The sun rises, the day changes colors, because of the sun's movement, but eventually the sun has to set. The sun doesn't change for the sake of changing, but for becoming something definite. There is a completion of a pattern to form a pre-existing set. Later philosophers would discuss this change from non-being, or myon, and myontology, becoming hygneste, and being, or on, as topics of ontology, or ontologia, which is the science of being. The Muses revealed that Ouranos is the recollection of all changes for a purpose. The focus of Ouranos is the end of such sequences. This is what later philosophers would discuss as the end purpose of all things, or teleology, the science of ends, based on the Greek word telos, the end. And earth bore starry heaven first to be unequal to herself, to cover her all over, and to be a resting place, always secure for all the blessed gods. This revelation about chaos and the primordials by the Muses is to help us navigate our confusion. We shouldn't feel guilty for being happy in a moment while forgetting our worries. We shouldn't be overwhelmed by grief and think we can never be happy again. We shouldn't be misguided also by future experiences that have not yet happened, in which we hope and fear and not pay attention to the present moment. By contemplating on the primordials as qualities, we can find a quiet place inside chaos, and see how incredible our existence is. Life is full of patterns, changes, movements, and moments. Our thoughts and emotions will lead to somewhere better. We can connect to its wonderful ways, but also find the private moment to be with our thoughts, so we can think of the gods and feel their presence all around us.