The myth of Orion describes a searcher who “draws” excessively the divine ecstasy in his nature which is not yet ready to receive it.
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In keeping with Pherecydes’ text, it would have been logical to study this myth at the end of the chapter about the Minotaur, for this author writes that the parents of Orion were Poseidon and Euryale, a daughter of Minos. By this he had probably meant that in the lineage of Europa, ‘the extension of consciousness’, spiritual falls can occur till very advanced stages of the quest.
It seemed preferable for this study to discuss it at this point however along with Ixion and the Aloades, who represent all of the symbols of spiritual errors which can plague the most advanced seekers. The Molionids, who also represent major errors, will be discussed along with Heracles’ later labours.
Orion was a great and powerful hunter, gifted with prodigious strength. According to Homer, ‘the wheaten earth had never yet nourished men as large as the Aloades Otos and Ephialtes, and they were exceeded in beauty only by Orion’.
Pherecydes wrote that he was the son of Poseidon and Euryale, herself the daughter of Minos.
But a later version exists: Hyrieus, son of Poseidon and of the Pleiad Alcyone, welcomed into his home the gods Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes, who asked him to make a wish for them to fulfill in gratitude for his hospitality. Hyrieus answered that although he did not have a wife, he desired a son. The gods then lay out the skin of an animal and covered it with their semen, instructing Hyrieus to bury it in the earth for nine months. From this was born Orion.
From his father Poseidon he held the ability to walk upon water, or to pass through it as if he was walking upon the earth.
Later on Orion left for Chios, where he became intoxicated and raped Merope, the daughter of Oenopion. When the latter discovered the deed, he blinded Orion and turned him out of the country.
In a little-supported version of the myth he first wed Side, a woman of Boeotia who claimed to be Hera’s rival in beauty, and who was consequently cast into Tartarus by the goddess.
In another version of the myth, Orion had fallen in love with Merope and had asked for her hand in marriage. But her father Oenopion opposed this marriage and repeatedly postponed its date, although Orion had put great effort into freeing the island of wild beasts. Oenopion was the son of Dionysus and Ariadne, and had been born after the latter had been abandoned on the island of Dia by Theseus after his victory over the Minotaur. More and more impatient, Orion finally raped the young girl while he was intoxicated. Furious, her father blinded Orion and abandoned him on the shore.
Some sources say that Orion erred for long on the Aegean Sea, for he was able to walk on water.
Guided by the sound of the Cyclops’ hammer, he one day arrived on the island of Lemnos, on which Hephaestus had his forge. This god took pity on him, and offered his assistant Kedalion’s help in guiding Orion. Sitting on Orion’s shoulders, Kedalion guided him towards the rising sun, the light of which allowed Orion to regain his sight.
Orion then set off for Crete, where he spent his time hunting wild animals in the company of Leto and Artemis.
According to Homer, the goddess of dawn Eos fell in love with him and transported him to the island of Ortygia, later identified as Delos. But the gods did not approve of ties between goddesses and mortals, and Artemis slew Orion with one of her arrows.
In another version, Artemis herself fell in love with him, and Apollo conceived of a way in which he would be killed by one of her arrows; he challenged his sister to hit a distant dark point on the sea, which was nothing other than Orion’s head.
(According to Ovid, Orion’s boast that he was capable of slaying any animal on earth had angered Gaia, who sent a scorpion which stung Orion and brought about his death.)
According to Homer, Orion continued pursuing the very wild beasts which he had hunted down in his life in the kingdom of shadows.
Just as that of the Aloades Otos and Ephialtes and that of the Molionids Eurytus and Cteatus, the myth of Orion must be classified along with those which regard very advanced stages of the path. Numerous details confirm this: Orion was the son of Euryale, herself the daughter of Minos; he hunted in the company of Artemis and Leto; either Artemis or Leto fell in love with him; he made his way to Hephaestus’ forge, and so forth. In other words, he is associated with the gods in one way or the other, even if we do not consider the later source which claims that he hosted the gods in his home.
Finally, Homer claims that Orion was the most beautiful of mortals, which is to say the one who is most advanced on the path of truth (this would exclude Ulysses, who is the one recounting his passage into the kingdom of Hades).
According to the first genealogical account, he is like Theseus of divine ascendency through Poseidon, which indicates a manifestation of the subconscient.
In the second version, the insistence on his divine ascendency is even more marked by the mention of the three gods. He then represents the fruit of the association of the supraconscient, the subconscient and the overmind, an association which allows a work on the deepest layers of consciousness, the physical mind (according to Hyrieus, the son of the Pleiad Alcyone, he was conceived from the combined semen of Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes).
At this stage, the seeker does not know how to direct his progress (Hyrieus is unmarried), but despite this his work will continue under the impulse of the highest forces of consciousness.
The name Orion Ωριων (ΡΙ+Ν) suggests ‘the right movement of consciousness in incarnation’. His mother is Euryale, (Ευρυ +Λ) ‘a vast freedom’ originating from an enlargement of consciousness by discernment, and his father is Poseidon, indicating an opening of the highest subconscious.
The name Hyrieus evokes the meaning ‘a right movement of consciousness in a state of receptivity’.
Orion is a great hunter and the most noble