Mt. Olympus
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Traditionally regarded as the abode of the Greek gods, Olympos seems to have originally existed as an idealized mountain which only later came to be associated with a specific peak. The early epics, the Illiad and Odyssey composed by Homer around 700BC, offer little information regarding the geographic location of the heavenly mountain and there are several peaks in Greece, Turkey and Cyprus with the name Olympos. The most favored mythological choice is the tallest mountain in Greece, Olympus at 9570 feet (2918 meters). The deities believed to have dwelled upon the mythic mount were Zeus, and his wife, brothers, sisters and children. Zeus was the god of the mind and a protector of strangers; Hera was a goddess of fertility, the stages of a woman's life and marriage; Apollo represented law and order; Aphrodite was a goddess of love; Hermes was the god of travelers and prophecy; Athena of spiritual wisdom; Hephaestus of the arts; and Ares represented the dark aspects of human nature. These deities did not actually live upon Mt. Olympus, rather the ancient myth may be understood as a metaphor describing the powers of the sacred mountain. In ancient times, the Olympian gods and goddesses were understood as archetypes representing specific aspects of the human psyche. Worship of the deities was a method of invoking those aspects in the personality of the human worshipper. These spiritual powers had drawn hermits to live in the caves and forests of the mountain since long before the dawn of the Christian era. With the coming of Christianity the myths and legends of the old Greeks were suppressed and forgotten, and the holy mountain was seldom visited. The author has lived for a month in the forests of the sacred peak and experienced that the spirits of the old gods and goddesses are still powerfully present. More on Mt. Olympus from Sacred Sites
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Photo by Photography: Martin Gray
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