The lineage of the Asopos illustrates the purification of the deep layers of the vital achieved successively by Aeacus, Peleus and Achilles.The other major lineages involved in the Trojan War include: the Tantalum lineage, the Trojan royal lineage, the Spartan lineage, the Maia lineage and the Deion lineage.
Peleus wrestling Thetis (who shapeshifts in fire and big cat), between Chiron and a Nereid. – Staatliche Antikensammlungen
To fully understand this web page, it is recommended to follow the progression given in the tab Greek myths interpretation. This progression follows the spiritual journey.
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See Family tree 25
Although Apollodorus suggests other ancestries (Zeus and Poseidon), he first cites Oceanos as father of the river god Asopos, who like all other rivers, is a symbol of energy-consciousness striving for evolution.
The name Asopos, as that of his wife Metope, exists in relation with ‘vision’ (Οψ). It means ‘the marshy’, or ‘he who beholds sludge’. In this one could therefore see an indication of the yogic work plunging into the murky depths of the subconscient and the inconscient.
We have already come across some of the twenty daughters of Asopos, each of which represents an important movement of Yoga.
– Antiope, ‘a reversal or reorientation of consciousness’, who marks the entry into the process of purification. According to Homer she bore by a union with Zeus two sons named Amphion and Zethos who would become the founders of Thebes, the city in which is incarnated the process of purification and liberation. (However, in the earlier study of these two heroes we have also considered another genealogical progression through Nycteus).
– Thebe, ‘the process of incarnation of the inner consciousness’. She entered into a union with Zeus and had the city of Thebes named after her.
– Ismene, ‘personal will’, who united with Argos ‘the luminous’, symbol of the seeker of truth.
– Harpina, ‘a powerful evolution of the reversals of equilibrium’. She entered into a union with the god Ares, and by him bore Oenomaus, ‘he who truly desires divine intoxication’, and became the father of Hippodamia, ‘the mastery of vital energies’ (it has been previously discussed that other genealogical origins have been given for Oenomaus).
– Salamis, ‘a drive towards consecration’. She entered into a union with Poseidon, the god who rules over the subconscient, and by him bore Cychreus, ‘the opening of consciousness to the right movement of accomplishment’, who later fathered Chariclo, ‘a joy of great renown’. The latter entered into a union with the great physician Chiron, ‘he who handles energies in the appropriate manner (through his hands)’, and to whom were entrusted a number of the great heroes in their youth including Achilles.
– And the most important of all, Aegina, ‘the need for evolution’. Zeus abducted her to lead her to Oenone, ‘the structure for the evolution of joy’. It was Sisyphus, ‘intellect’, who revealed to Asopos the identity of the abductor. The river god strove to impede a union between his daughter and Zeus, but the latter halted his pursuit with a bolt of lightning.
This abduction perpetrated against the father’s will shows reticence on the part of the seeker who ‘beholds the deep human marsh or mire’ to commit himself further to the path of descent (he resists Zeus’ union to Aegina). The intellect supports this refusal (Sisyphus denounces Zeus and informs Asopos).
This abduction suggests a change in the direction of the yogic progress; the supraconscient brings its support to the ‘need for evolution’ to lead it towards ‘a structure meant for the evolution of joy’.
In continuing the story of Aeacus, son of Aegina and Zeus, one must bear in mind the union of Aegina with Actor ‘the guide’, or ‘the right movement of the opening of consciousness towards the spirit’.
The latter is either a son of Deion, ‘the union in consciousness’ (the son of Aeolus who we have discussed last), or a son of Myrmidon ‘the ant’ and Pisidice, ‘she who searches for the right mode of action’. He therefore represents the will to find what is right in the insignificant movements of daily life up to the deepest level of consciousness (at the level of the ant).
From Actor and Aegina was born Menoetius, ‘he who remains in the spirit’, who himself engendered Patroclus, ‘the glorious ancestors’, which is to say the past realisations to which the seeker clings so as not to carry on his yogic work beyond the liberati