Zeus is the youngest of the children of the Titan Cronos. He is the highest power of the overmind that embodies the aspiration to grow, the expansion of consciousness, the crossing of boundaries.
See Family Tree 17
Zeus. Cabinet des Médailles. Detail.
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Zeus’ grandfather is Uranus, the infinite sky, Space, and symbol of the Spirit, and his grandmother is Gaia, Earth, representing Matter and Nature. They loved one another infinitely and enjoyed each other eternally; Eros, Ecstasy, was their indissociable companion at play. They had numerous children, amongst them the six couples of Titans and Titanides, the forces of creation.
But Uranus “used to hide them all away in a secret place of Earth as soon as each was born” (Hesiod, Theogony); the powers of creation could not be active as long as infinite Space remained unlimited, as long as Spirit did not accept any boundaries. Through its structuring characters, the name Cronos (Κρονος) evokes the concept of “projection of consciousness (Κ) in agreement with the right movement (Ρ) in an evolutionary process in accordance with Nature (Ν)”. His union with his sister Rhea (ΡΗ) introduces the inversion of this movement, and with this return towards the origin appears a cyclical movement, itself the source of rhythm, which will become the origin of time (Χρονος). This explains why there is at times some confusion between the Titan Cronos (Κρονος) and the word associated with time, Chronos (Χρονος). It is paradoxical to evoke a succession of events when they occur prior to the appearance of time, but this seems to be the only way for our minds to approach such concepts. For the time of Χρονος lies outside of time, is of an extreme rapidity within perfect immobility in accordance with the rhythm of the Absolute.
Weary of holding all of her children within herself, Gaia asked them to come to her aid to put an end to her torment. Pondering on a way of avenging herself she created a sickle, and revealed her intention to her children. Her youngest son Cronos, who amongst his siblings was the one who hated his father the most, put himself forward to carry out the sinister deed. Taking the sickle given by his mother, he seized the virile member of his father, and severing it flung it far out at sea.
In the following chapter dedicated to the Genesis of the world, we will see in the succession of generations that Gaia (Existence) will first give birth to Uranus (Consciousness), Pontos (Life), and the mountains (the link between Existence and Consciousness or Matter/Nature and Spirit). Then, she will unite with Uranus to engender the twelve Titans and Titanides (forces of creation, themselves at the origin of the genealogical branches of gods and heroes), the Cyclopes (Divine omniscience), and the Hundred-Handed Giants (Divine omnipotence and omnipresence). Here let us just note that a principle of limitation, Cronos, intervenes to limit the free play of the infinite power of the Spirit, Uranus, imposing limits so as to make creation possible. This seems to echo the present theory about a boundless universe curved by the force of time. (Refer, for instance, to A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking).
As soon as he became Lord of the Sky Cronos wed his sister Rhea. That time on earth was the Golden Age of mankind, the childhood of humanity taking place several hundreds of thousands of years ago when the forming powers of the mind were still too weak to impose their laws. That is why Cronos, warned by an oracle that one of his children would depose him, decided to devour his just-born children one after the other. It then seemed to man that the period of gestation of the mind was infinite, reflecting a similar feeling of eternity that we experience during childhood. At this age, instincts, impulses, and emotions dominate; the Titans, the archetypes of the forces of creation, exist also in relation to the powerful energies of life which slumber in our depths and sometimes emerge under the forms of predation or destruction. Plutarch recalls that in ancient times the word T