The children of Ouranos are known as the Ouranides and include principally the Titans, while the children of Pontos, younger brother of Ouranos, are known as the Pontides. The descendants of Pontos represent the five stages of evolution of life and the active forces at this level: Nereus ‘the old man of the sea’, Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto and Eurybie. Among his grandchildren can be found the Nereids, Iris and the Harpies, the Graeae, the Gorgons among which Medusa, Echidna and the winged horse Pegasus.
See Family tree 2
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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Harpyes – Archaeological Museum of Rhodes – Detail
Hesiod thus describes the appearance of life: «She bare also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontos, without sweet union of love” (Theogony verse 116) . The sea “of fruitless depth” and the absence of “the sweet union of love” express a principle which cannot be divided in any way and which is generated prior to the appearance of any kind of duality. The process of separation can therefore not be active in life as it is in the mind, because life is one and indivisible. However the force of separation will be expressed in life by a “polarisation”.
The children of Pontos retrace the maturation of life from the cellular form up till the more evolved animal forms, till the “I” or the animal “ego” existing just prior to the appearance of the capacities characteristic to man such as the spoken of speech, a vertical stance and a reflective mental consciousness. While modern science has brought to light numerous evolutionary stages, the initiates of ancient times only defined five stages which they demarcated by different experiences of consciousness. Each therefore includes several levels of the modern classification so that we cannot establish very precise limits.
It would have been more logical to address them in the more advanced phases of yoga as their symbolism concerns archaic levels of consciousness which still act upon man, but which only advanced seekers can allow into the conscious plane. To become conscious of these primitive processes, one must in fact be able to withstand the forces which were at work during their formation. This is indispensable for being able to operate the transformations necessary for the purification and liberation process till the physical level.
But as many figures from this lineage appear in the myths we are discussing, a study of these in the first chapters was indispensable.
Any spiritual undertaking which aims not only at a liberation in the heights of the Spirit realm – which is the case of the quest narrated through the Greek myths – must face the primordial memories of life. Those which imprinted themselves on the unconscious of the body well before the