The Dissolution of All Things

The other night I had a dream that I was led by a small animal to the edge of a lake where I might find a golden ring. Wading in to just the tops of my feet, I peered through the greyish water around the various rocks and stones lying on the lake floor. At first I found nothing, but then with a certain movement of the head, I saw something glimmer beneath the water’s surface, reflecting the light of the sun and catching my eye. I saw the glimmer once more before reaching my hand into the cool water to pick up the ring. It was very large and quite heavy. While I felt certain that I was meant to find the ring, I also had the feeling that it was not mine and that the one to whom it belonged might be standing behind me, and so I did my best to catch a glimpse of it while trying to keep it hidden.

Seeing dreams as I do, I believe they may, of course, serve as a commentary on the life of the individual having the dream, but also perhaps on the broader themes that are taking place in the world at large; and, because we are psychologically and spiritually connected to the greater collective, it’s very possible for a dream to be both at the same time.

As far as my own life was concerned, because rings in fairytales are often endowed with great and magical powers, I wondered if the dream was saying something about the responsible use of new-found power – inner psychological power, mostly – that I had recently felt myself coming into. But with a closer look at the archetypal significance of the Ring, I quickly saw how the dream might have something to say about the state of affairs in the world, as well.

Being circular, rings are seen as symbols of divine wholeness and oneness (and gold, too, suggests purity and truth). Used to represent the bond of marriage, rings can also suggest the bondage of slavery; in Greek mythology, Prometheus was the first to wear a ring as a way of signifying his submission to Zeus after his early release from being bound to a rock as punishment for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humankind. Finally, as an expression of the shadow side of the magic rings in fairytales, recent stories by Richard Wagner and J.R.R. Tolkien connect the ring to a destructive lust for power and control.

Given that the ring in the dream had on its inside a lengthy flowing inscription, the association to Tolkien’s Ring of Power in The Lord of the Rings came as no surprise to me. It also happens to be the case, that I am currently reading the first book of Tolkien’s trilogy to my older son. In an oft-quoted scene near to the book’s beginning, the hobbit Frodo and the wise wizard Gandalf are discussing how Frodo’s once-comfortable corner of the world, the Shire, has been getting stranger, with a growing sense of conflict and bad-doings in the air. Gandalf provides Frodo with a lengthy explanation regarding the origin, history, and potential fates of the One Ring; and after reflecting on all that is happening and is to happen, Frodo admits he wishes it all could have happened some other time, not during his time on Earth.

A part of me can relate to Frodo’s sentiment, and perhaps Tolkien did as well, as he (of course) began writing the tale in 1937 as the specter of fascism was sweeping across Europe and the seeds of World War II had undoubtedly already been planted. Today, as a father raising two sons in a time of what seems to be increasing social discord and environmental crisis, I wonder how their lives will be marked by war overseas, political outrage at home, and years of quarantine and collective anxiety fueled by an unseen but deadly virus. And like the symbolism surrounding the image of the Ring, we can see themes of power, control, and responsibility as we gaze at each of the stages upon which massive change is playing out. It’s clear; the ways in which we once related to one another and to our planet are breaking down, but it is not totally clear yet what ways-of-being will replace them.

While part of me relates to Frodo (and I am sure I’m not alone in feeling that way), another part of me recognizes the inherent wisdom in how Gandalf responds to him. Gandalf confirms that, indeed, all people who come to live in such times wish it were not so, but it is not for us to decide in what times we live. “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” Here, Gandalf captures the essence of the relationship between fate and destiny, the latter being a function of how we choose to respond to the hand we’ve been dealt.

The set of significations for the archetypal Ring that I listed before also remind me of another story, or set of stories, specifically the collection of Greek myths involving Kore, Persephone, and Hades… especially as they are presented and interpreted by author Caroline Elliott. While Kore and Persephone are often seen as the same figure, there is a story of Kore that predates the Greek stories of Persephone’s abduction by Hades. In the earlier story, Kore was the lone Queen of the underworld; her name means “maiden”, “core”, and “heart”, and as Kore she was whole and complete unto herself… like the divine circle represented by the Ring. Elliott suggests, as a mythic parallel to Carl Jung’s psychological concept of the shadow, the Kore splits herself in two so as to experience the drama of otherness; she becomes the captive, victimized Persephone (with a connection to the Ring’s aspect of bondage) and the dark, sadistic Hades (whose character we might see in the Ring of Tolkien).

In the better-known story of Persephone – the one in which she is abducted by Hades and held against her will – her mother Demeter manages to rescue her from the Underworld. When she does, she immediately asks if Persephone ate anything while there. Because Persephone had eaten pomegranate seeds that were given to her – food of the Underworld – she was fated to live part of the year in the Underworld and in the rest with her mother on Mount Olympus; by this token, the coming of spring every year was associated with Persephone’s emergence from the Underworld. Within the context of a patriarchal society in which the feminine has been abused, neglected, violated, and suppressed, the pomegranate seeds are an allegory for manipulation and tyranny; however, Elliott’s interpretation offers that the consumption of the seeds can be seen as a reintegration of the shadow back into the self, thereby giving Persephone full access to her power and agency… after all, even in the later myths, Persephone becomes Queen.

In Tolkien’s story, the Ring of Power was created (and eventually destroyed) in the foreboding volcano of Mount Doom, and the spot to which Frodo carries the Ring in order to cast it into the volcano is called the “Cracks of Doom”. The name Persephone happens to mean “bringer of doom.” At one point in history, doom was a more neutral word than it is now and synonymous with the idea of fate. The etymology of the word doom traces it back to words meaning “judgement”, and in the biblical Day of Judgement, the “crack of doom” is a moment associated with the dissolution of all things by God. This moment of judgment is also called the last trump, and while much could be said about it, I will mention as a sidenote the coincidence that a man by the name of Trump has in recent years been at the symbolic center of so much of what is dissolving around us.

In the ancient symbol system of the tarot, there is an image called “Judgement” that depicts this moment, with an angel bearing the trumpet upon which the last trump is played as the bodies of those once dead are resurrected. This image of rebirth and renewal finally brings us back to the other signification of Persephone as the bringer of spring, and the resurrection of the natural world that had previously been given to death during the winter.

In a recent episode of the Living Myth podcast, Michael Meade explains how the old ideas of fate and destiny are paradoxically intertwined; specifically, that when we recognize and willingly step into that which has been fated, we gain access to the personal genius that is our true destiny. Facing and embracing fate is how we unlock our potential; here we see that the word potential is related to the word potency, and we understand that the power represented by the Ring is only truly available to us when we carry it back to its place of origin and the fate to which we agreed when our lives first began.

So just like Persephone eating the pomegranate seeds, the casting of the Ring into the Cracks of Doom represents not the destruction of evil, but the reintegration of the shadow of power back into the wholeness of being; because, as we might imagine, it is the same molten earth within the volcano of Doom that also flows beneath the Shire and every other corner of Tolkien’s Middle-earth; and it is, of course, in the moment that the Ring dissolves that the King of Tolkien’s story regains the power that he himself had disowned.

Earth Day was just a few days ago; and it seems fair to say that we have reached a moment of judgement when it comes to the future of our planet. When it comes to fate, we might be tempted to ask ourselves, “What if Frodo’s cousin Bilbo had simply passed by the Ring of Power? What if Prometheus had passed on the idea of giving fire to humankind? And what if humankind had passed on the notion that we were separate from Nature?” And yet, it was fate that all these things should happen. Presently, the structures of culture and the balance of Nature seem to be part of a great dissolution, like leaves that have been blown from the trees by the force of winter’s winds so as to decompose and return to the Earth. Spring will follow winter, but as Gandalf suggests, what will rise up and grow in the season to come relies heavily on what we choose to do with the lot we’ve pulled. We have picked up the Ring, but it’s yet to be seen what we do with the power we hold.

In my dream, I wanted to hide the ring I found, so that I could keep it for myself; but just as we see in Tolkien’s tale, when we conceal the power we’ve received, strange and troublesome things tend to grow in the shadows. In the dream, I found the ring in a lake, and the Lake is a symbol of the realm of imagination, with its tranquil surface reflecting an upside-down version of our world and concealing unseen life in its depths. As Meade has often suggested, rather than wish the troubles we face to have occurred at some other time, we might choose to see them as an invitation to awaken the personal genius, because it is the imagination and creativity of the genius (in other words, the realization of our soul’s purpose) that will serve as midwife to the new world that will coalesce after (and out of) the dissolution of what has been. Perhaps the dream is saying that, if we are to pick up our truest power, we must first walk into the waters of imagination and then turn to face the fate of our world with open hands.

NOTES

Symbolism of the Ring and the Lake: https://www.amazon.com/Book-Symbols-Reflections-Archetypal-Images/dp/3836514486

Caroline Elliot’s take on Kore: https://www.amazon.com/Existential-Kink-audiobook/dp/B081QVG9LW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1A4P79RAZR65K&keywords=existential+kink&qid=1651067924&s=books&sprefix=existential+kink%2Cstripbooks%2C48&sr=1-1

LIVING MYTH, Episode 275: https://www.mosaicvoices.org/episode-275-the-weight-of-the-world