The Sixth Labor – Defeating the Stymphalian Birds (revised
version, spring 2016)
In
his fifth labor, Hercules learned to channel his spiritual energies to rapidly
overcome impossible obstacles. Hercules’ next task was to rid Greece of the
diabolical Stymphalian birds. These were man-eating creatures made of brass,
with sharp bronze feathers that could be shot at their victims, and poisonous
dung. Moreover, they were sacred to Ares, the god of war. They had settled in a
swamp near Lake Stymphalus and were terrorizing the surrounding countryside,
destroying crops, orchards, and even buildings. Nesting deep in a dark forest,
they were breeding like crazy and threatening to lay waste to the entire
region.
Hercules
first thought this labor would be a walk in the park, but when he arrived where
the birds were gathered he found that the ground was too swampy to support his
weight, and the forest was so thick he couldn’t see anything anyway. As he
stood wondering what to do, he was approached by the goddess Athena with a
solution. She instructed Hephaestus, the divine blacksmith, to forge a
stupendous set of bronze clappers. When Hercules smashed them together with his
supernatural strength, it startled the birds, and they flew up out of the
forest where he could shoot them down. Hercules picked off a number of the
birds with his deadly arrows, and the rest flew to an island sacred to Ares in
the Black Sea, never to return.
Well,
I have news for those ancient Greeks: the Stymphalian birds have returned at
last, and their flock is bigger than ever. The Stymphalian brass is now called
the military brass.
It
is quite plain that these birds represent warriors run amok, or what we
nowadays call the military/industrial or military/corporate complex. That they
are sacred to the god of war makes this patently clear. They even bear an
uncanny resemblance to the latest evil invention, the unmanned killer drone,
which has lately trumped the long and painful struggle to establish legal
justice within a violent and bloodthirsty species. Now anonymous murderers
execute people at will, without the least fear of being called to account by
any judicial system.
We
live in a time when the military mindset has essentially conquered civilization,
where the clever birds have even usurped the honorific of “heroic” for
themselves. Masters of propaganda, they readily convince young humans that they
are the true heroes, and recruit many to join them in the fight against the
enemy, which happens to be the very humanity they are laying waste to and that
the children are members of. At least the ancient mythographers knew who the
real heroes were in this tale: the local citizens, not the birds.
From
the dawn of time, warriors have posed a threat to their own side as well as the
enemy. They seek to prolong war to preserve their jobs, and in the process they
use up scarce resources. They hide their murderous motivations behind secrecy
and patriotic propaganda.
Like
the fast multiplying flock of birds, the “defense” industry has swollen to huge
proportions and is busily laying waste to vast areas of the planet. The
composer of the myth probably anticipated this, as Hercules was unable to kill
off the birds, but merely drove them away. It may be that they cannot be
eradicated short of divine intervention, and here’s why.
Once
a military clique has detached itself from civilian control, it takes on a life
of its own, like a macro version of a super bacteria. Veiled in secrecy, humans
become mere pawns within its incomprehensible structure, with no one having
either the will or the ability to rein it in. Anyone proposing to curtail its
excesses is simply excreted: fired or moved to a position of no power or even
executed, while enthusiasts of continued lucrative adventures are rapidly
promoted. When you think of the Kremlin or the Pentagon and their ilk, they are
for all the world like the Stymphalian forest, dark and impenetrable. If you
try to enter you will sink in the bureaucratic muck before you go ten feet.
Inside it is so dense that you cannot see any of the “rare birds” who thrive
there; much less can you “pick one off” by exposing their evil deeds. If you do
flush one out you might be able to bring it to justice, but the birds can
reproduce it immediately. It’s all perfectly legal and perfectly well insulated
from outside interference.
Athena
is the goddess of civilization, wisdom, strategy and skill, among other things,
but primarily of civilization, of a healthy social web. Civilization is
eternally opposed to warfare, which tears it to shreds in a jiffy, flouting its
every aspiration. Its primary reason for even existing is to control the mayhem
that prevails when humans aren’t governed by law. The modern military actually
arose as a fatally flawed method by civilized people to put an end to war and
wholesale thievery. Sadly, humanity never seems to anticipate the paradoxical
results of its half-baked efforts, which often boomerang to produce their exact
opposite.
Athena—the
civilizing impulse—must teach Hercules how to defeat the evil birds.
Unfortunately, his is a temporary victory at best, with only a handful of
sacrificial lambs shot down. The remaining lovers of violent power are only
driven out of sight and out of mind, where they take delight in plotting their
ever more explosive return.
The
use of the clappers to startle the birds into flight is an interesting image. A
tremendous blast of sound, reminiscent of the opening salvo of the Kurukshetra
War in the Bhagavad Gita, forces the creatures out of hiding. It is curious
that a loud noise symbolizes a wakeup call, or a jolt of clarity. Dr. Mees
notes that Hercules’ clapper is related to Thunder, and is wielded by the Guru.
Hercules
had to make a lot of noise to dispel the cloak of secrecy and bring the
malefactors out into the open. It takes a courageous effort to stand up to
warmongers and drive them out of their breeding grounds, so that peace can be
restored. Civilization occasionally mounts such a concerted effort also. The
Nuremburg trials after World War II come to mind, when for a brief period the
idealism of a healthy society held the upper hand over the pestilential
minions. Sadly, as with Hercules, a few bad actors were picked off but the
majority escaped. In the case of the Nazis, many were actually brought into the
United States and promoted to key posts in the military and covert
intelligence, all with top secret clearance. That’s like Athena adopting the
Stymphalian birds after they were flushed from the forest and taking them back
to Mount Olympus to keep it “safe” and stand guard. What can you say about such
a magnitude of stunning stupidity?
A
good myth is true on many levels, and we always want to address the personal
implications. Even this highly “external” seeming myth has important lessons
for seekers. Most of us probably won’t be curing military madness in the public
arena, but we can root out its homologue in ourselves, where there is certainly
a correlative impulse.
We
all have our secrets and veiled motivations, which may not all be benign
regarding other people’s interests. Of course the birds feast on human flesh,
since that’s the prime delight of the whole business of war. Like that, we each
have a vicious streak deep in our psyche that preys on the feelings of others,
that likes nothing better than to tear them apart and watch them squirm. If we
don’t acknowledge that side of our total makeup, we are only deluding
ourselves.
It’s
not uncommon to associate with people who wittingly or otherwise can help
further our objectives, enshrined in the adage “birds of a feather flock
together.” But here the feathers are sharp, metallic and deadly. A spiritually
alert person should always question their own impulses to be sure they are
aboveboard and legitimate, if not harmonious. Hercules picking off some of the
birds with his arrows symbolizes using a sharply honed intelligence to negate
our evil tendencies. We must fire our most clearheaded understanding right into
the center of the problem, or it will escape and regroup.
It
is no accident that nearly every great saint and all the grand masters of the
spirit extol peace and compassion. Yet in their name it is still far too easy
to whip up their followers into a lethal frenzy. We must never be that type of
deluded imitator.
Ahimsa,
non-hurting, is such an important concept, because we humans are innately
primed to respond to provocations—real or imaginary—with violence. Especially
in groups or flocks, ruthless behavior is almost irresistible. We know we will
be evicted from the group if we don’t acquiesce to its dictates, so we
compromise and rationalize about it. The Narayana Gurukula and similar
spiritual outposts proudly proclaim the central tenet of ahimsa, so that all
participants can rest assured that those institutions will never issue a call
for any kind of injurious activity.
The
occult booklet Sacred Mythoi of Demigods
and Heroes doesn’t have too much of interest regarding this labor, though
it does tangentially note the military connection. As each labor is associated with
an astrological sign, this one is Scorpio. The booklet tells us, “Some
perverted Scorpio aspects are such as pertain to uncontrolled impulses,
unbridled passions, destructiveness, callousness, tyranny, vindictiveness,
intolerance, secretiveness, and pessimism.” Seems to me like every sign has
these negative qualities,
but never mind. It’s all about the metal birds. So that Scorpios don’t feel too
badly, their good side is also presented: “But the pure influences of Scorpio
are controlled forcefulness, energy, penetration, skill, resourcefulness,
thoroughness, determination, devotion to the ideal, strength, courage, and
potent regenerative capacity.” Ditto for their ubiquity throughout the zodiac.
Which is fine.
Just
as the birds only retreat to a distant island and are never defeated, our own
militant instincts cannot be completely eradicated, but only kept under
control. Given the right stimulus they will flare up again. We have to remain
on guard lest they return to wreak more havoc. Within us are archetypes of both
Hercules and the Stymphalian birds, and although we would prefer to identify
with the hero, we should acknowledge that the entire myth is cradled deep in
our unconscious. That will keep us from getting an inflated sense of our own
wonderfulness, and keep us honest in preparation for the complex labors yet to
come.
