5 Comments
Learning How to Navigate Reality

Thank You Grian for responding to my post So who is this Cernunnos dude? (A to Z).

This post was originally a comment in response to Griane’s comment, but as is often the case it evolved into something worthy of posting status. Griane (Lee Hutchings of Panthea: All Things Are Goddess) has also posted her comment on her blog:

What follows is my interpretation of Cernunnos based on the image on the Gundestrup Cauldron - which I have looked at many times seeking answers about this God.

Panthea: Interpreting Cernunnos

It looks like Grian has stared as intently at this scene on the cauldron, as I have .

Iconic representations such this one can be just as revealing as the mythic tales that accompany them. Every detail counts and means something. Nothing should be dismissed or overlooked. And there is so much here! Yeah, I’ve stared and pondered and wondered about this scene quite a bit! Still much of it eludes me, as do the images on the other panels of the cauldron.

The Antlered God Cernunnos depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron.

Because of his antlers I have come to see him as a bridge between humanity and nature/the Divine and nature, and also the immanent force of Divinity in all life. He is a symbol for everything wild or untamed in us - a direct connection to the natural world.

Panthea: Interpreting Cernunnos

I’ve heard Orthodox Christian icons referred to as “windows to heaven,” and I think they are. They are also sacred mirrors reflecting back at us the divinity within: “the immanent force of Divinity in all life,” that Grian calls the All Goddess, and I call… well, I’m still working on a name .

While reading an introduction to the Bacchae by Paul Woodruff, I came across an adage, originally found somewhere in the works of Plato, regarding a person who has developed self-control having both a little man inside of him and wild beasts, and that this little man (or inner-self) has complete mastery over the beasts (thoughts, passions, ego related stuff), kind of like the example found in the Upanishads of one who has control over his senses being like a warrior in total control of his chariot.

Plato’s saying was mentioned in contrast to the unbridled animal-like practices of the bacchic revealers, that (according to the introduction to the play and certainly reflected in the play itself) scared the shit out of the City-Dwelling Greeks. In this representation of the Antlered God I think we have a representation of both the wildness of nature as a manifestation of the divine and the divine’s absolute control over nature (both its wild and tamer aspects, darkness and light “illustrated by the animals surrounding him,” as Grian observes: “Most of the prey animals are on his right while the predators, much more violent in appearance, are on his left.” ). The cosmic realm emanates from/is the divine mind, it’s the divine living nightmare-dream.

This divine emanation I would say, is also symbolized by the antlers sprouting from Cernunnos’ head. They are symbols of seasonal (ultimately cosmic) decay and regeneration, and due to their branch-like appearance (world trees and the like, sometimes sprout from the body of a sacred being, or divine-vital head) also invoke the image of the Cosmic World Tree (that in Norse myth was also in a constant state of ecological flux, heavily populated by all kinds of creatures, Like those surrounding Cernunnos, the two most prominent being the Stag situated at the top of the Cosmic Ash munching away constantly at the leaves of the tree, while below a dragon-serpent gnawed on the roots below (near the wisdom well belonging to the decapitated Mimir). Both were prime threats to the tree’s existence.

Compare the symbolism of cosmic sustenance with the the stag and serpent flanking Cernnunos on the cauldron. The Stag who could be interpreted as feeding from the upraised torc, and the serpent’s head, it’s tongue, we can imagine, almost licking against Cernunnos’ lips, in a cosmic kiss generating both deadly poison and divine ambrosia (like in the Hindu myth of the churning of the cosmic ocean). The scene (for me) is about cosmic sustenance and, as revealed elsewhere in the iconography of the God, being himself both Stag and serpent, he also feeds, as it were, from himself.

The underlying theme is that of cosmic chaos (Wild nature). The serpent is deadly, but Cernunnos restrains it with minimal effort (or becomes/is the serpent incarnate: the serpentine world soul). The single cosmic coil of the serpent, like the torc, upraised in the deity’s other hand (I also see “the torque as representing cycles”), represents the ever-regenerating manifestation of our existence (along with the wisdom that must accompany it). And, despite the hazardous realities of Cosmic existence, the God indeed offers it (like Griane said) to us.

Cernunnos has achieved mastery over it all (After a lifetime of hunting stag, I presume). Now, as a Cosmic Master, probably not as much in the sense of the supreme effort or brute force of The Charioteer (one of the Major Arcana in the Tarot) or the warrior myth of the dragon-slayer, such as Marduk’s defeat over Tiamat and her chaos army, but more like one of the representations of another Major Arcana called The Strength, which depicts a woman effortlessly prying apart the ravenous jaws of a lion. To achieve mastery (or enlightenment) over reality and the elements, like The Magician), is no small task. But here, Cernunnos (who has already navigated the cosmic circle and is therefore entitled to spend a great deal of time just sitting around), like Yu the Great in Chinese myth and philosophical and practice, has every atom, every particle under his control, yet we still, like The Fool, are in danger of walking mindlessly of the edge of the cliff.

Dangers surround and permeates us, but (and this is my desire and prayer for myself and everyone): “Let us seek the guidance of the divine, however you may perceive it.” The divine alone holds a map (and we but fragments) and is ever-willing to unfold it for us, so we may also ourselves learn how to navigate reality (understand the order and chaos both within us and around us and accept the necessity of it) and become what we are truly meant to be: beings who live in a state of complete awareness that is known as “the Living Freedom.”

Yu himself (who surely and paradoxically learned effortlessness through much effort), while journeying throughout the land, transforming chaos into order, took note of everything around him, not only what was good but also the bad, which manifests itself in myth in many monstrous chaotic forms, such as the Norse World Serpent or Typhon in the mythology of the Greeks. The Chinese Yu had fashioned nine bronze vessels (nine symbolic of the nine provinces of the Chinese world), and decorated it with all he had seen on his painstaking journey (of death and self/cosmic transformation) to the ends of the earth, including the chaos monsters, so that the people would be aware and ready in each and every situation as they, in imitation of Yu, made journeys of their own. It was this gift of Freedom, I believe, that was the grand purpose of the ancient and classical Mystery Cults. To quote Plutarch (according to “Stobaeus, Anthology [Anthologion] 4.52.49″ [Meyer: 1999]), who may or may not of been referring to the Eleusinian Mysteries:

At first there is a wandering, and wearisome roaming, and fearful travelling through darkness with no end to be found. Then, just before the consummation (telos), there is every sort of terror, shuddering and trembling and perspiring and being alarmed. But after this marvellous light (phos) appears, and open places and meadows await, with voices and dances and the solemnities of sacred utterances and holy visions. In that place one walks about at will, now perfect and initiated (memuemenos) and free, and wearing a crown, one celebrates religious rites, and joins with pure and pious people. such a person looks over the uninitiated and unpurified crowd of people living here, who are packed together and trample each other in deep mud and murk, but who hold onto their evil things on account of their fear of death, because they do not believe in the good things that are in the other world.

Meyer, Marvin W, 1999, ‘The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Sacred Texts‘, p.8-9 (University of Pennsylvania Press)

…or indeed this one.

Thank You Grian for inspiring me to write this post

« So who is this Cernunnos dude? (A to Z) | Introducing Mythology Synchroblog Four »