9 How do we deal with the darker sides and legacies of these traditions?

As mentioned in the FAQ concerning why the temple focuses on Hellenism and ancient Mediterranean traditions; one of the big reasons is because we have quite a bit of primary and secondary source material detailing not only spiritual and magickal practice, but also the culture itself. That is the positive, and at times it’s also the negative. With the amount of information available to us, we can’t hide from the fact that the ancients believed and practiced certain things that we would be horrified with today; sacrifice, slavery, and the subjugation of women to name just a few. We also see, through our sources, a picture of very real human feelings and emotions within the Goddesses and Gods that aren’t always high and mighty, but often petty and trivial. In the stories and hymns of poets like Homer and Hesiod, we see Goddesses and Gods acting vengefully, jealously, and at times almost arbitrarily.

Also as mentioned in the FAQ regarding our basic views of Hellenism, there are many great things that we can learn from the ancients and lessons we can incorporate into our current, modern practices. Nevertheless, the question becomes, how do we reconcile the two opposite energies that exist in the life experiences and teachings of the ancients?

So much of western religion and spiritual practice is concerned with a perfection on the part of one entity or another. In the monotheistic teachings of Christianity, we see a perfect God figure who grants us absolution for our inherent imperfections that we can never overcome without his benevolence. In some neo-pagan world views, we see an idealized partnership with deities wherein everyone and everything has an innate perfection bestowed by a greater power that we might call Goddess or Spirit or any number of other things. So often we find ourselves trying to live up to the ideals of our chosen or inherited traditions only to feel somehow betrayed because our real-world life experiences don’t match up completely with the idealized perceptions of what should be.

Let me start with the second, and arguably lesser of the issues we face when confronting the Goddesses and Gods; that of their seemingly fallible, human-like emotions and actions. For me, I don’t find this something to overcome in our perception of them, but rather something to embrace. Within the vast majority of western religion, we find ourselves trying to live up to a standard that is far from attainable. We are admonished to continually strive to achieve godliness, whilst knowing and feeling that we will never even come close. In the internal struggle that is inevitable, however, we try to ignore the realities of very real energies and emotions that exist in this world while continuing to hurt those close to us with those very same energies. Instead of relegating those energies to a place where they grow and fester, but remain untouched, we can look to the Goddesses and Gods as mirrors into our very real and very natural emotions and start the conversation within ourselves as well as in the world outside our own minds and hearts. We can identify with them. We can accept the existence of those energies. And we can strive to work towards understanding and healing instead of suppressing.

As for the other parts of the ancients, those parts that seem so utterly against our very fiber of being, we must do the following:

Accept that, within every culture and time, there exist both good and bad. Where we struggle is when we can only see the black and white but feel tortured by the seemingly unsolvable dichotomies and questions that exist in the grays. Black and white is easy; gray is often an uncomfortable place for the mind and heart to go because within the grays lie our vulnerabilities and fears. Nonetheless, we must face the uncomfortable questions if we are to avoid being consumed by the shadows.
Practice forgiveness. This holds true for the people in our current lives who have hurt us and disrespected our unique beings, but it also holds true for the ancestors who we will always be eternally linked to. We don’t have to condone what they did or even forget. We don’t have to open ourselves up to continue to feel the pain and suffering. But, we do need to strive to practice forgiveness for our own peace as much as for the peace of the ages.
Seek the glory in survival instead of the suffering in victimhood. It might be hard to believe that we have triumphed, but in every small act of courage and strength in the face of our unflinching look to our past, we can stand tall and know that we are every bit the victors and heroes that the ancients also taught us to be. We follow in the footsteps of our ancestors. At times we see in them the divine qualities of the Goddesses and Gods, and at other times we see in them the darker sides. In either case, however, the footsteps have led us to our own unique place in the cosmic story. The question becomes, what do we take from their journey, and what legacy do we leave behind for future generations? Do we continue the story of darkness, or do we become the heroes of a future time? To fight it, we must acknowledge it. To triumph, we must first know our foe.