ABSTRACT
The ninth chapter imagines our creativity through tales of Hephaistos, god of fire and craft. His first birth is by Hera who creates him in imitation of Zeus who created Athena without her. In an imaginal space dominated by Sky Father creativity, Hera’s connection to Earth Mother creativity is compromised. Hephaistos lives this symptomatically. In healing this, his creative calling rooted in the feminine is born. The creativity of the Wounded Healer and the matriarchal hero are explored.
The marriage of Hephaistos and Aphrodite offers a way to imagine the relationship of creativity and beauty. He courts her in exile. He marries as he works through and returns his symptomatic existence, becoming at home in his creative nature. Among the themes considered are the power of beauty to undo us, the driving force and imbalances of Dionysian desire for beauty, beauty as guide for the emergence of creative intent and the creative impulse’s desire for our fidelity.
Creativity is also imagined in the constellation of Hephaistos, Ares and Aphrodite. And in the myth of Hephaistos and Charis, creativity is imagined in the image of hospitality, the art of opening the way for the divine to reveal itself.
