OOdinism

Odinism refers to the modern reconstruction and revivalof pre-Christian Germanic heathenism centered on thepantheon of ancient northern deities in which the godOdin (variously called dinn, Woden, Wodan, etc., in thedifferent older Germanic languages) is a principal gure.Odinism is only one of a number of generic designationsthat might be used by practitioners to describe theirbeliefs; the term satr (loyalty to the gods, a moderncoinage derived from Old Norse) is in equally widespreaduse today. Odinism may in some instances refer to a lessritual-oriented and more philosophical variant of Germanicheathenism than satr, or one that places a markedimportance on racialism, but such distinctions are rarelyconsistent or precise within a sub-culture that generallyeschews dogmatism.

Odinism is a polytheistic religious system that alsoemphasizes the reverence of past ancestors, the acknow-ledgment of archaic wisdom contained in mythologicaltales, respect for ethnic heritage and the continuance offolk traditions, and the maintenance of a heroic bearingtoward lifes challenges. Some prominent practitionershave described Odinism as a nature religion; this is notsurprising given that in all its important aspects cos-mology, outlook, and practice strong connections to thenatural world and its forces are evident.

A central feature in Odinist cosmology is Yggdrasil, theWorld Tree (usually conceived of as an ash or yew), whichsymbolically connects the nine worlds that are variouslyinhabited by gods, giants, humans, and other beings. Anumber of animals also live within the tree; their activitiesseem mythically to represent the dynamic interactiveforces of what could be termed the greater multiverse. Itwas also on the tree of Yggdrasil that Odin hung himself ina ritual of self-sacrice, thereby gaining his powerfulunderstanding of the mysteries of the runes: primordialGermanic linguistic, cultural, and magical symbols, manyof which directly relate to aspects of the physical world(various rune names refer to trees, animals, and naturalphenomena). In Germanic creation mythology, the rsthuman beings were created when Odin and his brotherstook two trees, Askr and Embla, and bestowed conscious-ness upon them.

Odinism posits a cosmos full of divine and naturalenergies, operating both within Midgard (from Old Norse,Migarr), the world inhabited by humans, as well as intranscendent domains where the gods and other non-

human entities reside. The gods travel freely between theseworlds and thus can and do interact with humans. Godsand humans are also subject to their position within botha personal and a collective Wyrd (from Old Norse urdr), orfate; this does not predetermine every lesser action, butrather exerts inuence upon the overall course of life.Although it is believed that the distinctive essence or soulof a human being will depart for another realm after death(various specic possibilities are described in the mytho-logical literature), the primary emphasis of the religionis not other-worldly; instead it focuses upon right conductin the here-and-now. Virtues such as honor, courage,and hospitality are highly valued, and an awareness ofhumankinds place in the natural world is also cultivated.

While there are differing beliefs as to the exact natureof the gods, the latter are generally seen as real and know-able, and their mythological depictions simply as means toillustrate or understand various aspects of their characterand function. The primary deities fall into two clans orgroups, the sir and the Vanir. The sir consist of Odin,Frigga, Thor, Tyr, Balder, and others; they are often associ-ated with important societal functions such as war,sovereignty, and law. Certain atmospheric events may alsobe associated with these deities (e.g., the thunder and raincaused by Thor wielding his mighty hammer in theheavens, hence his importance to the peasantry as both adefensive protector and a fertility god). Of the Vanir gods,Frey and Freyja are the best known. These deities generallyexhibit stronger connections to earthly realms of fertil-ity and sensuality, both of which are important categoriesto many Odinists. Fertility is not only recognized inrelationship to agricultural crops and a healthy naturalenvironment, but also in the continuance of familiallineages which are central in a religion emphasizingancestral culture and ethnic heritage. Sensuality is wel-comed as a vital and stimulating ingredient for the fullenjoyment of human existence.

In addition to gods and humans, other entities such aselves, dwarves, and land-wights (from Old Norse land-vttir) receive important consideration. These beings maybe acknowledged in rituals, and in some cases offeringsof food or drink are made to ensure their good favor. Land-wights are the unseen residents of a given geographicallocation, capable of bestowing blessings or misfortune onthe humans who live in their proximity. In the Vikingperiod in Iceland their importance was such that an earlylaw ordered boats to remove the fearsome carved dragonheads from their prows as they approached shore, so as not

to frighten these spirits; a modern vestige of this traditionstill exists whereby ships entering Icelandic harbors areofcially requested briey to lower their ags as a gestureof respect to the land spirits.

In addition to living in harmony with the ethicalprinciples of the religion, organized rituals and feasts arecelebrated by Odinists at varying times throughout theyear. The primary religious festivals can be located atspecic points of the seasonal solar or agricultural calen-dar; these include mid-winter (Yule) and mid-summer, aswell as specialized occasions in the spring and fall. Otherformal rituals are performed for specic purposes, or tohonor specic deities. The general term blt (from the OldNorse word for sacrice) is used to refer to any one ofthe aforementioned ceremonies. Such a sacrice is fre-quently symbolic in nature, and usually features a libationin the form of mead or ale. The most appropriate locationfor major ceremonies is generally considered to be out-doors, a tendency that resonates with historical accountsof various ancient Germanic tribes practicing their rites insacred groves. The implements utilized in Odinist rituals drinking horns, hammers (potently connected to Thor;many Odinists also wear a talismanic hammer pendant toindicate their allegiance to the religion), carved woodenstaffs, wooden or metal bowls are fashioned fromnatural materials, ideally by the practitioners themselves.A small branch cut from a living tree is commonly usedto sprinkle mead as a blessing on the participants of aceremony, and at the conclusion of a ritual any remaininglibation will often be poured onto the ground as an offer-ing of respect for the land-wights. A further ceremony is asumbel, a structured session of ritualized drinking inwhich participants offer up toasts to deities, heroes,human ancestors, or spiritual principles. It might also bean occasion for making personal boasts or oaths. Whilethe formats of rituals vary between groups, generally theyare studiously reconstructed from archaic references inolder Germanic literature (usually Old Norse and Scandi-navian sources, as these contain the largest body ofpre-Christian lore), often combined with aspects of folktraditions that have survived into more recent times andappear to have a basis in older beliefs.

A balanced scholarly study of the emergence of Odin-ism in the modern era has yet to be written, but variousstages can be discerned. Although the revival of interestin ancient Germanic culture can already be seen in theseventeenth-century Swedish Storgoticist movement andthe gure of Johannes Bureus (15681652), more con-crete indications are evident in late eighteenth-centuryGermany, when specic efforts were made to stir popularinterest in the newly rediscovered religion of Odin and theelder Germanic deities. Among Sturm und Drang intel-lectuals, the philosopher J.G. Herder (17441803) extolledthe legacy of the pre-Christian Germanic north as animportant ingredient for building an organic national

culture. A 1775 book called Wodan, der Sachsen Held undGott (Wodan, the Hero and God of the Saxons) byH.W. Behrisch (17441825) declared Odin the light of theworld and loftiest exemplar for the modern Germans ofSaxony, and urged them to rediscover the true nature oftheir beginnings in the sacred darkness of the northerlyforests. A century later, the burgeoning Germanicnational romanticism coalesced into pan-Germanist andvlkisch movements with visible alternative religiouselements. By the early 1900s, overtly neo-heathen groupshad established themselves. These included the Armanen-shaft, led by the Austrian mystic and author Guido vonList (18481919), and the Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft, led by the German painter LudwigFahrenkrog (18671952). This owering was relativelyshort-lived, however, as the incipient National Socialistregime would eventually curtail or forbid nearly all suchgroups, forcing them to go underground or disband.

An Australian lawyer and writer, Alexander Rud Mills(18851964), appears to have been the rst person pub-licly to promote Odinism in the English-speaking world.By the 1930s Rud Mills was advocating a movementrmly opposed to Christianity and featuring a stridentanti-Jewish component, and in 1936 he published a sub-stantial handbook detailing the philosophy and ritualsof this highly idiosyncratic Anglecyn Church of Odin.Despite issuing publications over a period of threedecades, Rud Mills never found any signicant support forhis efforts, and his work has largely faded into obscurity.

In the aftermath of World War II, with lingering publicperceptions that National Socialism had been a paganmovement (an inaccurate perception, as ofcial ThirdReich policy endorsed positive Christianity), over twentyyears would pass before Germanic neo-heathenism beganto ourish again, and now in new areas. In the UnitedStates a number of small groups emerged unbeknown toone another, such as the Odinist Fellowship, formed byElse Christensen in 1971 (and inuenced to some degreeby the preceding efforts of Rud Mills), the Viking Brother-hood, formed by Stephen A. McNallen in 19711972, andthe Northernway, founded by Robert and Karen Taylorin 1974. The Viking Brotherhood would later developinto the satr Free Assembly, the rst national Odinistorganization to gain any momentum in America. Duringthe mid-1980s the A.F.A. went into a hiatus out of whichemerged two signicant and still active groups, the satrAlliance and the Ring of Troth before reconstitutingitself as the satr Folk Assembly. In England similar ini-tiatives had arisen independently, such as the Committeefor the Restoration of the Odinic Rite (later shortened tothe Odinic Rite) established in 1973 by John Yeowell; avariety of other groups have also sprung up there over thelast quarter-century. In Iceland, the home of the Old Norsesagas, Sveinbjrn Beinteinsson (19241993) formed thesatrarflag in 1973 and succeeded in having heathenism

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legally recognized. Other small groups have been activesince at least the 1970s in most Scandinavian countries.Beyond the growing list of national Odinist organizations,many smaller, localized independent associations exist, asdo untold numbers of solitary practitioners.

Odinism remains largely a sub-cultural phenomenon,although in recent decades it has gained increasing recog-nition in the wider landscape of neo-paganism and newreligious movements. In contrast to some other branchesof neo-paganism, Odinist groups may tend toward tradi-tionalist viewpoints, and in certain instances this caninclude strong racial beliefs. A number of organizationsbelieve that the religion is most suited for the descendantsof its original, ancient practitioners; this has beendescribed as ethnic or folkish Odinism or satr, anddoes not generally imply supremacist notions. Othergroups are vocally universalistic, and would not concedethe legitimacy of any ethnic criterion in regard to pro-spective members. Distanced from both views are thosewho interpret the religion foremost as a racial, or evenracist, vehicle. In order to draw a distinction from main-stream Odinist or satr groups, some racially motivatedpractitioners may refer to themselves as Wotanists(according to racialist ideologue David Lane, the nameWotan is an acronym for Will of the Aryan Nation).Groups associated with this hard-line position have aconstituency consisting primarily of incarcerated males,and tend to be volatile and incapable of maintainingsignicant longevity.

Most mainstream heathen groups avoid taking overtpolitical positions, and will tolerate a wide range ofpersonal beliefs among their membership. Libertarianvalues of personal freedom are commonly found amongpractitioners, and are often viewed as being in line witholder Germanic attitudes. Most groups promote ecologicalawareness; some have encouraged their members tobecome involved with environmental activities, or haveorganized campaigns to protest the destruction of historicsites in England and elsewhere. Although the religion issometimes viewed as heavily emphasizing masculinedeities and virtues, the importance of and lore concerningthe female goddesses is often underscored in contem-porary Odinist literature, and a number of women havetaken on leadership roles in both the U.S. and Iceland inrecent years. These developments, along with the diversityof socio-political beliefs found among its practitioners, allpoint toward the long-term viability of Odinism or satrin the postmodern age.

Michael Moynihan

Further ReadingBehrisch, Heinrich Wolfgang. Wodan, der Saxon Held und

Gott. Dresden: Hilscher, 1775. English edition: Water-bury Center, VT: Dominion, 2005.

Flowers, Stephen E. Revival of Germanic Religions inContemporary Anglo-American Culture. MankindQuarterly XXI: 3 (1981), 27994.

Gardell, Mattias. Gods of the Blood. Durham: DukeUniversity Press, 2003.

Harvey, Graham. Contemporary Paganism. New York: NewYork University Press, 1997.

Kaplan, Jeffrey. Radical Religion in America. Syracuse:Syracuse University Press, 1997.

McNallen, Stephen A. Rituals of satr, 3 vols. Brecken-ridge, TX: satr Free Assembly, 1985; Payson, AZ:World Tree, 1992.

Turville-Petre, E.O.G. Myth and Religion of the North. NewYork: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964.

See also: Elves and Land Spirits in Pagan Norse Religion;Fascism; Heathenry satr; Neo-paganism and EthnicNationalism in Eastern Europe; Paganism and Judaism;Paganism A Jewish Perspective; Paganism Contempor-ary; Trees (Northern and Middle Europe); Trees Sacred.

Oikos

Oikos is a Greek word used to describe a variety of oftenoverlapping structures and the basis for a number of com-pound words central to classical Western thinking. Itsbasic translation is house. In ancient texts it can refer toa physical dwelling, but also to a family, clan, a smallereconomic unit including land, owners, animals, slaves andservants, as well as products. Ancient Greek sources oftenoppose it to or distinguish it from the term polis, whichdescribes a more public, potentially urban relationalcivic structure. In most ancient sources, though genderroles could at times involve some slippage, the polis wasoften described as the designated realm for masculinecivic and legal activity and the oikos as the proper realmfor womens activity, dedicated to the production andmanagement of land, humans, animals, food. It is impor-tant to remember that oikos in those times did not refer toa one family nuclear household, but is better comparedto a small family business that was often overseen by awoman.

The compound oikonomos signies a steward or man-ager of the system of the oikos, who would often be a slave(see for example Jesus parables). This term has foundapplication both in the Christian notion of (creation)stewardship and in modern economic science. Oikonomiacan describe any kind of management structure or plan,on large and smaller scales. Thus it could refer to ancientstate management, the notion of a divine plan withincreation (oikonomia theou), as well as the managementof a variety of economic units. The terms application isclearly anthropocentric, centering on human structuresof organization of communal and civic life and anthropo-morphic concepts of divine agency.

1220 Oikos

Ecology, the anglicized version of a neo-Greek com-pound oikologia is not a classical Greek term and has comeinto its own only in the twentieth century. Though the ideaof relational being of natural systems is ancient, ecologyas a science or conceptual framework is a latecomer.

In some recent theological and ethical texts the termoikos, oikonomia, oikumene (the known inhabited world)and ecology have been redened so as to refer to thecommunity of all creation. Writers have employed it as atool for the necessary rethinking of what stewardship ofcreation in times of ecological crisis might mean. Counter-ing the narrowing of modern capitalist notions ofeconomy reduced to market dynamics, these textsattempt to recast oikonomia theou/divine economy (linkedto the notion of the kingdom of God) as congruent with theecology of the planet. If the household of Gods creationincludes all planetary life, it should be lived in with rever-ence. Though at bottom an anthropocentric theologicalconcept, authors employ it to urge humans to see them-selves less as the crown of creation than as parts of adivinely created whole that cannot be endangered withoutseriously compromising life as we know it on planet Earth.

Marion Grau

Further ReadingMcFague, Sallie. The Body of God: An Ecological Theology.

Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.Meeks, Douglas. God the Economist: The Doctrine of God

and Political Economy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press,1989.

Torjesen, Karen. When Women Were Priests: WomensLeadership in the Early Church and the Scandal oftheir Subordination in the Rise of Christianity. SanFrancisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.

See also: Christianity (2) Jesus; Haeckel, Ernst.

Olson, Sigurd F. (18991982)

Sigurd F. Olson was one of Americas most beloved naturewriters and most inuential conservationists of the twen-tieth century. Best known as the author of The SingingWilderness and eight other books, Olson also played animportant role in the preservation of a number of nationalparks, seashores, and wilderness areas.

Born in Chicago on 4 April 1899, Olson spent most ofhis childhood and youth in northern Wisconsin, where hediscovered a love of nature. He was the second of threesons raised by the Reverend Lawrence and Ida May Olson,Swedish immigrants who met and married in the UnitedStates. His parents were devout Swedish Baptists, andOlson was raised in a strict household. One time, forexample, Lawrence Olson discovered Sigurd and anotherson playing with a chess set, and he threw it into the re.

While attending college at the University of Wisconsinin Madison at the end of World War I, Olson nearly com-mitted himself to becoming a missionary. The night beforehe was publicly to declare his intent, however, he climbedthe roof of the YMCA building where he lived, stared outover Lake Mendota, and struggled with his decision. Herealized that his interest in becoming a missionary hadmore to do with exploring wild places than with savingsouls; in the morning he resigned from the churchorganization he had been chosen to lead, and in effectbroke from the faith of his parents.

For years afterward, Olson was obsessed with discover-ing a sense of meaning and mission to replace what he hadlost. Eventually, he found what he was looking for in thewilderness canoe country of northern Minnesota andOntario. He moved to Ely, Minnesota in 1923, and taughtin the local high school and junior college, eventuallybecoming dean of the college. During the summers heguided canoe parties through the wilderness, and henoticed that the wilderness often had as profound an effecton his clients as it did on him. They laughed more, sangsongs, played practical jokes. They watched the sunsetand the moonrise, and listened to the roar of rapids andthe soft sighs of wind in the trees. Like Olson, they becamere-connected to the grand, eternal mystery of creation.

Olson came to believe his mission in life was to sharewith others what he had found in the wilderness, and tohelp lead the ght to preserve it. Science, technology andmaterialism were turning many people away from thereligious truths and practices that had given spiritualsustenance, he argued, and offered nothing in their place.The result was a widespread, if often vague, discontent,partially hidden underneath fast-paced lives, yet alsonourished by that same fast pace that left little time forreection. Olson believed that the silence and solitude andnoncivilized surroundings of wilderness provide a physicalcontext in which people can more easily rediscover theirinner selves. Just as important, wilderness gives peoplea chance to feel the presence of a universal power thatscience can never explain, but that brings meaning to theirlives. Wilderness offers [a] sense of cosmic purpose if weopen our hearts and minds to its possibilities, he said at anational wilderness conference in 1965.

It may come in . . . burning instants of truth wheneverything stands clear. It may come as a slow reali-zation after long periods of waiting. Whenever itcomes, life is suddenly illumined, beautiful, andtranscendent, and we are lled with awe and happi-ness (Olson 1966: 218).

Olson spread his philosophy in nine books, in manymagazine and newspaper articles, and in countlessspeeches and conversations across the United States andCanada. He read and thought deeply about the works of

Olson, Sigurd F. 1221

others who were searching for meaning in the modernworld such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, LewisMumford, Aldous Huxley, Josef Pieper, and Pierre Lecomtedu Noy but was able to get across his deep messageabout the spiritual values of wilderness mostly by writingabout simple things: the sound of wings over a marsh, thesmell of a bog, the memories stirred by a campre, themovement of a canoe.

By the 1970s Olson was a beloved environmentalgurehead whose name and image invoked strongfeelings. Often photographed with a pipe in his hand and awarm, reective expression on his weathered face, he wasnot just a hero but an icon. His books were read on publicradio, his portrait was taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt forLife magazine, he received the John Burroughs award fornature writing, and earned the highest honors of fourof the major national environmental groups for his leader-ship role in preserving wilderness across the United Statesand Canada. He died of a heart attack on 13 January 1982,while snowshoeing near his home.

David Backes

Further ReadingBackes, David. A Wilderness Within: The Life of Sigurd F.

Olson. Minneapolis, MN: University of MinnesotaPress, 1997.

Olson, Sigurd F. The Spiritual Need. In Bruce M. Kilgore,ed. Wilderness in a Changing World. San Francisco:Sierra Club, 1966, 21219.

See also: Huxley, Aldous; National Parks and Monuments(United States); Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre; WildernessReligion.

Open Land Movement

Open land has been a dream of back-to-nature visionariesat least since the time of the Diggers and Levelers inEngland. Proponents of that dream have often envisioneda nature-oriented society far from the degradation ofurban life, one in which all would thrive in a state ofnature. Often the vision has taken form as an open-doorintentional community and in many cases that has led toinundations of problematic residents. One of the rstopen-land communities was Celestia, founded in SullivanCounty, Pennsylvania, in 1850 by Peter Armstrong, whoopened the land to all seeking refuge from the sinful worldin a place where they could await the Second Coming ofChrist, which was understood to be imminent. A half-century later the Christian Commonwealth Colony (18961900), in Georgia, ung its doors open to all; its founderssought to establish a perfect Christian socialist society onEarth in an agricultural setting, but the colony never couldrise out of poverty.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, dozens, perhapshundreds, of open-land communities appeared. GordaMountain, in the Big Sur region of California, was openedto all by its owner Amelia Newell in 1962 and grew to apopulation of around 200 before pressure from neighborsbrought it to a close in 1968. In the meantime, HuwWilliams and others had opened Tolstoy Farm in Washing-ton, and the amboyantly countercultural Drop City,founded outside Trinidad, Colorado, in 1965, welcomed allwho would share its egalitarian poverty. The followingyear Lou Gottlieb threw open his Morning Star Ranchin northern California, believing that people have aninherent deep spiritual relationship with the Earth andthus should live close to the land, to nature; it attractedhundreds of residents and became the focus of extendedbattles with the local authorities who nally succeeded inbulldozing its makeshift structures in the early 1970s,although Gottlieb preached the gospel of open land forthe rest of his life. Experiments in open land have endured,as many other 1960s-era and later communes have con-tinued to embrace all who would come.

Timothy Miller

Further ReadingFaireld, Richard. Communes USA: A Personal Tour.

Baltimore: Penguin, 1972.Miller, Timothy. The 60s Communes. Syracuse: Syracuse

University Press, 1999.See also: Back to the Land Movements; Diggers and Level-ers (and adjacent, Diggers Song); Hippies; New Age;New Religious Movements.

Ortiz, Simon J. (1941)

Simon J. Ortiz, Acoma Pueblo, was recognized in 1993with a Lifetime Achievement Award for literature at theReturning the Gift Festival of Native Writers. In additionto his own work as a poet, ction writer, and essayist, hehas edited books and journals devoted to promotingcontemporary native writing. Throughout his work, andin the course of promoting the work of others, Ortiz hasremained emphatic about the relationship of contem-porary native literature to oral tradition, dening it as aform of cultural and spiritual continuity. In 1981, inTowards a National Indian Literature, Ortiz denedcontemporary native writing as an element of nativeoral tradition, linking it with ceremony, song, and prayernarratives as cultural acts of bringing about meaning andmeaningfulness. Invariably, this linkage with tradition,ritual and ceremony, also requires for him a recognition ofan indigenous ecological worldview that sees the peopleand the land as a single entity. In his introduction toSpeaking for Generations he stated,

1222 Open Land Movement

The young are frequently reminded by their elders:these lands and waters and all elements of Creationare a part of you, and you are a part of them . . . Thisbelief is expressed time and time again in traditionalsong, ritual, prayer, and in contemporary writing(1998).

In 1976 and 1977, Ortiz published Going for the Rainand A Good Journey as two separate volumes of poetry,but actually they comprised parts of a 400-page manu-script of poems he had already written by that time.Another piece, Fight Back, combining poems and prosenarratives was published in 1980. Finally, in 1992, thesethree texts were united in Woven Stone with an extensiveintroduction by the author. This volume best representsOrtizs explicit themes outlined above, as well as the rangeof his poetics. The rst section contains numerous songs,coyote stories, and ceremonial poems celebrating birth,all life on the planet, and the relationship of a person toplace. The second section returns to coyote, as well asother animals treated as guides and spiritual brothers.Ortiz also includes poems specically designated asprayer. But perhaps most signicantly, Ortiz depicts thepoet-traveler as becoming increasingly unhealthy in bothbody and spirit the farther he journeys away from home,with a psychic, spiritual, and physical reintegrationoccurring not only for him but for other tribal people uponhomecoming. In the third section, Fight Back: For theSake of the People, for the Sake of the Land, Ortiz openswith Mid-American Prayer and then divides the poemsand prose narratives of this section into two parts: TooMany Sacrices and No More Sacrices. While recitingthe destruction of native peoples and their lands, Ortiz alsoemphasizes endurance and the possibility of change andrebirth based on the reintegration of all people with theliving land. Ortiz continued this lifes work theme in Afterand Before the Lightning in 1994, focusing on the land andthe people, not in the warm climate of the Pueblo region,but in the snow and ice of the Rosebud Reservation inSouth Dakota.

Patrick D. Murphy

Further ReadingOrtiz, Simon J., ed. Speaking for the Generations: Native

Writers on Writing. Tucson: The University of ArizonaPress, 1998.

Ortiz, Simon J. After and Before the Lightning. Tucson: TheUniversity of Arizona Press, 1994.

Ortiz, Simon J. Woven Stone. Tucson: The University ofArizona Press, 1992.

Ortiz, Simon J. Towards a National Indian Literature:Cultural Authenticity in Nationalism. MELUS 8:2(1981), 712.

See also: Lakota; Memoir and Nature Writing; Trickster.

Oshmarii-Chimarii (Mari El Republic, Russia)

A revival of indigenous nature religion in the Volga Riverregion in the 1990s was spearheaded by Mari religiousorganizations in the Mari El Republic (one of twenty-onerepublics within the Russian Federation). The Mari are aFinno-Ugric people who make up less than half of thepopulation of some 780,000 in this Central Volga basinrepublic. The neo-pagan community Oshmarii-Chimarii(White Mari Pure Mari) was established in 1991 with acenter in the republics capital, Yoshkar-Ola. Though itsfounders had intended it to become an All-Mari religiousorganization, the community has so far failed in thisambition, but it continues to sponsor and arrange variouspublic events, and a Council of Karts (Mari priests) holdsits meetings under its auspices.

The revival of Mari paganism developed hand in handwith the growing nationalist movement of the 1980s andearly 1990s. The largest Mari nationalist organization,the Mari Democratic Union (Marii Ushem), was formedwith the goal of reviving and promoting Mari languageand culture throughout Russia, but by 1992 the unionsleaders were advocating an enlargement of Mari represen-tation in republican and local power structures. In early1991, a radical faction of this movement, Kugeze Mlande(Ancestors Land), initiated a revival of Mari paganism.This faction was dissolved in March 1995 and replaced bySorta (Candle), an educational neo-pagan organizationled by academics and intellectuals. These urban activistshave tended to combine their religious goals with politicalaspirations aimed at national consolidation and resistanceto Russication. Some have tried to systematize and unifypagan teachings in order to develop a consistent nationalreligion, free of those elements (such as animal sacrice)that seem less attractive to the general public.

In contrast to the intellectual-led and politicallymotivated urban-centered paganism, the revival of Maripaganism in the countryside was led by local priests(karts), some of whom could claim to have maintained anunbroken connection to ancestral traditions. Large publicrituals had in fact been conducted by Maris as late as the1880s, and family and communal prayers were kept up insacred groves and ritual knowledge transmitted intorecent decades, despite persecution in the Soviet era.

Traditional Mari paganism comprises a mosaic oflocally based beliefs and practices. Mari paganism holdsenvironmental awareness and harmony with natureamong its central moral imperatives. A 1991 act of legisla-tion has resulted in the protection of some three hundredsacred groves and prayer sites by the republican authori-ties, and public prayers involving sacrice of horses,bulls, rams, and fowl, have been conducted at these grovessince that time. Prayers and rituals have been conducted inmany Mari villages and at the grave of the sixteenth-century Mari hero, prince, and priest Chimblat in Kirov

Oshmarii-Chimarii 1223

province. An All-Mari harvest festival gathering occursevery ve years. Nowadays, Maris pray for protectionof their culture, natural environment, health, and thepeoples spirit. A similar movement has been growingamong Maris outside the Mari El Republic, especially inneighboring Bashkortostan.

According to a 1994 sociological survey, pure pagansaccount for 7.9 percent of the Mari people in the Mari ElRepublic, while another 20.7 percent practice both pagan-ism and Christianity. The proportion of pagans amongMari in the Urals region, Bashkortostan, and Tatarstan,where they had ed from forcible Christianization, areeven higher. Women dominate among the pagans and thedual-believers (respectively, 69.2 and 63.6 percent). Manydual-believers also attend pagan services. By contrast,Mari intellectuals frequently view Christianity withhostility, seeing it as a religion of slaves. Yet both oldand new Mari pagan beliefs integrate certain Christianideas, such as apocalypticism and references to Christianprophets (such as Elias), apostles (Peter and Paul), andeven Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, in their prayers.

A restoration of pagan traditions in the Mari ElRepublic is patronized by both the republican and localauthorities. The republican Ministry of Educationapproves school textbooks which teach traditional Marifolklore. Certain Mari scholars represent the Mari ElRepublic as an oasis of pagan traditions. They advocatemaking the republic a culture-historical reserve, whichwould involve the establishment of a center for the studyof folk culture, the organization of folklore festivals,arrangement of scientic-practical conferences, promo-tion of traditional arts and crafts, support for ethnographicfolklore groups, and the like. Plans are underway to buildthe main All-Mari religious sanctuary in a suburb ofYoshkar-Ola, together with an ethnographic museum,educational center, and hotel. A guidebook published bythe republican authorities claims that the Maris are theonly people in Europe who maintained the pure faith oftheir ancestors and did not renounce their old gods. Itargues that devotion to the traditional spirituality hasbeen responsible for Mari national self-awareness and forthe maintenance of the Mari language and ethnic customs.

Victor A. ShnirelmanAdrian Ivakhiv

Further ReadingCordier, Bruno de. The Finno-Ugric peoples of Central

Russia: Opportunities for Emancipation or Condemnedto Assimilation? Central Asian Survey 16:4 (1997),587609.

See also: Neo-paganism and Ethnic Nationalism in EasternEurope; Paganism-Mari (Mari El Republic, Russia);Russian Mystical Philosophy.

Otherworlds

Religions are often understood to be concerned withrealms beyond everyday life. Spiritual, heavenly orsupernatural realities are sometimes considered centralto denitions and experiences of religion. The location ofmatters of central importance (perhaps ultimate reality)beyond everyday life is denitive for some theologicallyunderstood religions. Similarly, in translating otherpeoples religious language with words like spirit orsacred it is often implied, at least, that religion concernstranscendent realities and states. That is, according tosome religious and academic authorities, religion isabout spirituality not embodiment, heaven not Earth,divine will not human desire. Whether or not such sys-tematizations of religions reect the understanding,experience and motivations of ordinary religionists maybe debated. Certainly, however, all cosmologies indicateconcerns both about ultimate concerns and about natureor this world. For example, classical Christian teachingsabout heaven, purgatory, Earth and hell imply a rangeof daily and ceremonial interactions with the mundaneor secular world that are worthy of consideration,especially in our attempt to understand the meaning androle of nature in Christian and Western thought andexperience.

In a wide range of worldviews and lifeways, this worldand the relationships that take place here are of centralimportance. The terms otherworld and otherworlds(sometimes capitalized) might seem to similarly privilegethe extra-ordinary, supernatural, or transcendent abovethe ordinary, natural or daily. However, close explorationof discourses of other-worldly reality challenge suchunderstandings. Even if the otherworld is the home ofancestors, elves, fairy-folk or spirits, such locations areneither distant nor alien. Ancestors are neighbors, andsometimes more intimate than that: a wide variety ofindigenous peoples consider children to be ancestorsreborn. Even saints remain in communion with the faith-ful, but, unlike ancestors, seem less interested in familylife. The realm of faery and its various inhabitants (elves,gnomes, dwarves, boggarts as well as fairies themselves) are otherworlds contiguous with ordinary nature. Forexample, in W.B. Yeats evocative poem The StolenChild, the clear difference and opposition between humanand other-worldly realities, moralities and desires is rmlylocated in the recognizable geography of Irelands CountySligo. The otherworlds of Irish and Norse cosmologies arethe alterities of the everyday as inseparable and as near/far as ones own shadow. Perhaps the otherworld is alsolike those metaphorical or psychological shadowy partsof our own inner lives: necessary to a full understandingof ourselves but rarely referred to explicitly. It might alsocontribute to debates about cosmologies in which theworld is divided into human domains and elsewhere

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(e.g., the forest, bush, wilderness in which wild animalsand wilder spirits are in control). Indeed, wilderness isconstructed (not found) very differently in urban modern-ity than elsewhere, especially as a romantic location forawesome and/or holistic rather than demonic and purify-ing experiences.

The otherworld is part of the ecology of souls if thisphrase can be used as Terence McKenna intends (i.e.,without evoking a duality in which body is denigrated infavor of disembodiment). Instead it should suggest theinterdependent coexistence of all manner of living persons(e.g., trees, birds, animals, humans, the little people, andsometimes rocks and clouds). Irving Hallowells dialoguewith Ojibwe led him to refer to the relationships of humanand other-than-human persons. As the alterity of theordinary, of everyday nature, or of the taken-for-grantedworld, otherworlds dene the world as a richer place thanthe realm of daily life. They enchant, and requireresponses that maintain and even reinforce the boundariesbetween here and there. They also enable understand-ings of events as intentional acts rather than allegedlyimpersonal, mechanical or accidental processes. Thus theenchantment of otherworlds permits and generatesmagic and fate. That is, for example, seemingaccidents may be considered to result from insults tootherworld persons.

Some otherworlds are post-mortem destinations forhumanity. These include not only the various heavens orhells (or transcendent realms) but also those neighboringspaces, contiguous to this world, which might also behome to deities and others. The land of youth and theland of women are locations for particular after-lives,but can be visited by the living (heroes or fools at least).More generally, however, otherworlds are the specichomes of other-than-human persons such as elves, faeries,dwarves, giants, and so on. They too might visit this-world, sometimes for less than neighborly purposes. Eventhe rich and diverse ecologies of middle Earth do notexhaust the nations of living beings.

Academic discussion of otherworlds and their inhabit-ants often assumes the unreality of otherworlds and pro-ceeds to wonder why humans invent such places andinhabitants, such fantasies and fears. Sometimes theyinterpret alleged encounters with otherworld visitors asreferences to psychological process. More recently, how-ever, scholars such as Edith Turner have been willing toaccept the reality of encounters with spirits in healingrituals at face value, and then struggled to nd appro-priate ways to tell academic colleagues that native orinsiderly cosmologies and discourses have validity.

So what are faeries, dwarves and so on? Some peoplewill insist that they are exactly what they are said to be. Apopular contemporary understanding is that such beingswere once more widely encountered, but retreated intowildernesses in the face of either Christian demonization

or of more recent industrialization. In many culturesworldwide, reference is made (in narrative, ritual, icon-ography or conversation) to little people. Eschewingthe Victorian notion that such beings evidence memoriesof earlier races, and their literalist diminishmentinto childhood fantasies, it is clear that such beings aregenerally spoken of circumspectly. Little people avoidsnaming persons who might otherwise visit, and who mightbe far from cute and diminutive. Thus we are thinking offeared persons, or at least those who are less than welcomeeveryday. If nothing else, this indicates that the worldis not always encountered as a nurturing place. We areconfronted by much that challenges our own needs anddesires. Otherworlds are areas of life that resist humancontrol, even in imagination. Meanwhile, that offeringsare made to them suggests that respect is necessary andrewarded, indicating that otherworlds are enticing andseductive, and that life can be more than it seems.

Graham Harvey

Further ReadingHallowell, A. Irving. Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and

World View. In S. Diamond, ed. Culture in History.New York: Columbia University Press, 1960, 1952.Reprinted in Graham Harvey, ed. Readings in Indig-enous Religions. London: Continuum, 2002, chapter 1.

McKenna, Terence and Zuvaya McKenna. Dream MatrixTelemetry. Gerrards Cross: Delerium Records, 1993,DELEC CD2012.

Purkiss, Diane. At the Bottom of the Garden: A DarkHistory of Fairies, Hobgoblins and Other TroublesomeThings. New York: New York University Press, 2000.

Turner, Edith. A Visible Spirit from Zambia. In David E.Young and Jean-Guy Goulet, eds. Being Changed: TheAnthropology of Extraordinary Experience. Peter-borough: Broadview Press, 1994, 7195. Reprinted inGraham Harvey, ed. Readings in Indigenous Religions.London: Continuum, 2002, chapter 6.

See also: Faerie Faith in Scotland; Lost Worlds; Magic;Middle Earth; Polytheism.

Ouspensky, Pyotr Demianovich (18781947)

P.D. Ouspensky is known today chiey as the author of InSearch of the Miraculous, his denitive account of fellowRussian mystic and esoterist G.I. Gurdjieffs teaching whichhas subsequently become a classic of late twentieth-century mystical literature. In it Ouspensky documentshis rst meeting with Gurdjieff in Moscow 1915, theirrelationship through the years of war and revolutionwhich marked the period, to his break from Gurdjieff in1918, which began a process of separation as both edfrom Russia, becoming refugees in Turkey until Ouspensky

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came to London in 1921, where he stayed until the out-break of World War II, when he settled in the United States.

Although best known for this work, Ouspensky was inhis own right a leading Theosophist who was at the centerof the philosophical and occult subcultures that ourishedin pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg. His pre-Gurdjefanpublications, especially Tertium Organum, synthesizedand popularized late nineteenth-century Russian mysticaland literary traditions in early twentieth-century Russia.Written in 1911 and published in New York in 1922 itquickly became a bestseller and gave him a worldwidereputation. Outside Russian artistic circles, it also inu-enced many American writers, including Jean Toomer,Waldo Frank, Gorham Munson, and Kenneth Burke, andthrough them modern literature. Most signicantly, hisnotion of the living world is an entire organism shapedAldo Leopolds important ethical argument for conserva-tion (Ouspensky 1949: 299).

In Tertium Organum Ouspensky outlined a supra-rational logic that was meant to surpass the Organon ofAristotle and the Novum Organum of Francis Bacon, andhelp lead to mystical insights. The key to this effort was hiscontention that in mysticism there is a new method(Ouspensky 1949: 230) and his identication of mysticismwith knowledge received under conditions of expandedreceptivity (Ouspensky 1949: 251).

Indeed, Ouspensky later wrote that he believed he hadgained access to mystical states through experiments inyoga, prayer, fasting, and breathing nitrous oxide andether (Ouspenksy 1930: 315). It was during the period ofthese experiments that Tertium Organum was written(Ouspensky 1930: 3234). Central to his perception washis experience of a world in which everything is con-nected, in which nothing exists separately (Ouspensky1930: 31516), and where all things were dependent onone another, all things lived one another (Ouspensky1930: 323).

As a consequence, he believed, in this world, there isnothing dead, nothing inanimate, nothing that did notthink, nothing that did not feel, nothing unconscious.Everything was living, everything was conscious of itself(Ouspensky 1930: 323). Ouspensky concluded, our worldis merely our incorrect perception of the world: the worldseen by us through a narrow slit (Ouspensky 1949: 242).

Grounded on this perception, Ouspensky urged his con-temporaries to regard the different forms of conscious-ness in different divisions and strata of living nature asbelonging to one organism and performing different, butrelated functions, than as separate, and evolving from oneanother (Ouspensky 1949: 299). This led to an under-standing similar to that found in the more holistic eco-logical positions of today. Such ecological descriptions ofnatural systems (for example, a forest in which there aretrees of different kinds, grass owers, ants, beetles, birds,beasts this is a living thing too, living by the life of

everything composing it, thinking and feeling for all ofwhich it consists (Ouspensky 1949: 186)) is one of manyfound throughout Tertium Organum. While his under-standing has become common coin in later environmentalmovements through the agency of Leopold, for Ouspenskyit was only a small part of a more complex relationshipbetween two interdependent entities, Man and Nature.

He encapsulated his mystical perception in one of themost lyrical passages of Tertium Organum, a passagewhich exemplied Ouspenskys dictum that in all con-ditions of encompassing nature . . . lies . . . the sensation ofa compete oneness with nature (Ouspensky 1949: 275):

. . . in the procession of the year; in the iridescentleaves of the autumn, with their memory-ladensmell; in the rst snow, frosting the elds and com-municating a strange freshness and sensitiveness tothe air; in the spring freshets, in the warming sun,in the awakening but still naked branches throughwhich gleams the turquoise sky; in the white nightsof stars in all these are the thoughts, the emotions,the forms, peculiar to itself alone, of some great con-sciousness: or better, all this is the expression of theemotions, thoughts, and forms of consciousness of amysterious being Nature (Ouspensky 1949: 179).

However, Ouspensky argued that only in man thisunity is apparent (Ouspensky 1949: 298). In later publica-tions, he introduced a less-inuential image of naturewhich built upon and claried this earlier vision, that ofthe Great Laboratory which controls the whole of life(Ouspensky 1930: 44). Ouspensky argued that all thework of the Great Laboratory had in view one aim thecreation of Man (Ouspensky 1930: 51), and that out of thepreliminary experiments and the refuse of the productionthere were formed the animal and vegetable kingdoms.

What was meant in this instance was somethingother than a justication of anthropocentricism, forwhat Ouspensky meant by this was that the task of theLaboratory was to create a form evolving by itself(Ouspensky 1930: 50). Indeed, Nature made attempts atcreating self-evolving beings before man (Ouspensky1930: 59); Ouspensky thought that both ants and beescame from the Great Laboratory and were sent to Earthwith the privilege and the possibility of evolving(Ouspensky 1930: 60) but failed when they having begunto alter their being, their life and their form . . . severedtheir connection with the laws of Nature (Ouspensky1930: 62).

All this implied that our species too may fail and bedisposed of by nature unless the directive of evolutionwas pursued. All forms of consciousness in him can existsimultaneously (Ouspensky 1949: 298) to transformthis from a possibility to an actuality is what in a broadsense Ouspensky meant by evolution. Yet it was

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precisely because with us was everything from a mineralto a God (Ouspensky 1930: 118) that such self-evolvingbeings have failed, for in uniting in potential the singleorganism of living nature, self-evolving beings had tocontend with the eternal cycle of recurrence and the con-tinuation of being through which nature perpetuates itself.

Paradoxically, natures aim of the creation of self-evolving beings is underpinned by impeding that evo-lutionary effort, so that movement from potentiality toactuality must be in a sense anti-nature. Here, as in otherpublications after Tertium Organum, it is difcult to dis-tinguish where Gurdjieff ends and Ouspensky begins, andit could be argued that Ouspenskys greatest inuence liesin his popularization of Gurdjieffs teaching as he receivedit. Nevertheless, when Ouspensky wrote, the desire of Godin man . . . is based on his separating himself from theworld, on his opposing to the world his own I and on hisrecognizing as reality all apparent forms and divisions(Ouspensky 1930: 18), he outlined not only his own visionof the interdependent relationship between nature andman and their respective roles, but also sought to bringtogether his sometime contradictory imagery of nature.

David Pecotic

Further ReadingCarlson, Maria. No Religion Higher Than the Truth: A

History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia,18751922. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UniversityPress, 1993.

Ouspensky, P.D. Tertium Organum: The Third Canon ofThought A Key to the Enigmas of the World. NicholasBessarboroff and Claude Bragdon, trs. London:Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949 (1st edn, 1920).

Ouspensky, P.D. A New Model of the Universe: Principlesof the Psychological Method in its Application toProblems of Science, Religion, and Art. London:Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1930.

Reyner, J.H. Ouspensky: The Unsung Genius. London:George Allen & Unwin, 1981.

See also: Alchemy; Gurdjieff, Georges Ivanovitch;Leopold, Aldo; Russian Mystical Philosophy; WesternEsotericism.

Ovids Metamorphoses

Greek and Roman poets and philosophers shared a con-cern for the permeable boundaries that divide nature,humankind, and god. This theme can be found in Homer,where gods become human and humans are transformedinto animals, and in Plato, where the human task is toresolve the conict between animal and divine poten-tialities within the self. The interplay between nature,humankind, and god is seen most vividly in Ovids

masterpiece, The Metamorphoses (published in the year8). In these stories the Roman poet Ovid (43 B.C.E.17 C.E.)wove together a large number of Greco-Roman mythsaround the theme of change: All things are mutations Heaven and Earth and all that grows within it, and weamong the changes in creation (Ovid, Book XV: 4278).The Metamorphoses is a cosmological poem aiming totell the shifting story of the world from its beginningto the present hour (Ovid, Book I: 31). Stories fromOvids encyclopedia of transformation have becomestandard parts of Western culture, showing up in thevisual artists, in poetry, in psychology, and even in thenatural sciences.

The transformative power of nature was recognizedby Epicurean natural philosophy through observationof developmental processes in nature. However, Ovidexpanded the idea of transformation far beyond theboundaries of Epicurean empiricism. The stories he pre-sented include transformations across the differencesseparating god, humankind, and nature. Often these talesexplain natural phenomena by providing mythologicalstories about the origin of things.

In Ovid, metamorphoses often happen as punishmentsor rewards that t the deeds of the one transformed. Forexample, Semele, the lover of Jupiter, was burned to ashesby the power of Joves love; self-loving Narcissus wasturned into a plant; and the arrogant Niobe was turnedinto a stone. In addition to punishment or reward, thetransformative power of desire provides the motive forcefor Ovids stories of meddlesome gods and immodesthumans.

Like Euripides and the Athenian tragedians, Ovid wasfascinated by the destructive power of Dionysus. ButDionysus (or Bacchus), associated by Ovid with Liber, thegod of wine, is only one of the gods who had the powerto transform. Ovid also focused on the power of Jupiter(Jove), Juno, and Apollo. But Ovid was perhaps mostinterested in the transformative power of Venus, goddessof love. Venus is of further importance because she was themother of Aeneas, founder of Rome, whose story was mostfamously told by Ovids predecessor, Virgil.

Selected Myths Synopses:

Deucalion and the FloodJoves anger against the tyrant Lycaon led him to becomeangry with the whole human race. Jove and Neptunecovered the Earth with water, killing all humans exceptDeucalion and his bride, Pyrrha. Deucalion and Pyrrhathen created the new race of humans by transformingstones into esh.

Daphne and ApolloApollo, the archer, insulted Cupid, whose arrows were thecause of love. In retaliation, Cupid shot Apollo with an

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arrow of desire, while also causing Daphne to have nodesire for man or god. Apollo pursued Daphne, who vigor-ously resisted his advances. As Apollo chased her, Daphneprayed to her father, the river god Peneus, to be saved fromApollos ardor. Peneus transformed Daphne into a tree, thelaurel tree. Apollo still loved Daphne and ordained thatthe laurel leaf would be his symbol.

Io and JoveJove bewitched and raped Io, a young virgin. However,Juno, Joves consort, suspected Jove of philandering.To conceal Io, Jove transformed her into a cow. Junodemanded that the beautiful cow be given to her. She thenappointed Argos, who had 100 eyes, to guard the cow sothat Jove could not reclaim her. Jove dispatched Mercuryto put Argos to sleep with the enchanting sound of music.Mercury then killed Argos. Juno commemorated her heroby placing the image of his eyes on the tail-feathers of thepeacock. Io, the cow, now freed, ran all the way to the Nile.Jove managed to persuade Juno to forgive him and tocease punishing Io. Finally, Io was transformed back into ahuman and was then further transformed into Isis, theEgyptian goddess.

Europa and JoveIn order to possess the beautiful Europa, Jove transformedhimself into a bull. Europa fell in love with the beautifulbeast. She hung a garland of owers around his neck andeventually mounted him. Jove then took Europa out tosea.

Echo and NarcissusEveryone loved the beautiful boy Narcissus. But Narcissustempted and rejected everyone. Echo, a beautiful girl whohad been cursed by Juno for her dalliance with Jove, alsofell in love with Narcissus. Junos curse was that Echowas only able to repeat the last few words she had heard.Narcissus rejected Echos love and she faded away out ofsorrow, only leaving her voice behind. Meanwhile anotherspurned lover of Narcissus prayed that Narcissus wouldonly love himself and yet fail in that love. Nemesis agreedto punish Narcissus by creating a pond in which Narcissusfound his reection. He fell in love with his own imagebut was always unable to possess this image. Eventuallyhe died, was mourned by Echo, and was transformed into aower.

Apollo and HyacinthusApollo loved the boy Hyacinthus. They practiced discusthrowing together. Unfortunately, the discus thrown byApollo ricocheted off a rock and struck Hyacinthus in theface, killing him. To commemorate Hyacinthus, Apollowrote ai, ai, (syllables reminiscent of Hyacinthus name)on the petals of a purple ower.

PygmalionPygmalion was a clever artist who carved a beautifulwoman out of stone and fell in love with the statue. Heprayed to Venus that his creation would come to life.Venus granted his wish. Pygmalions sculpture came aliveand became his wife.

Cinyras and MyrrhaMyrrha was the daughter of Pygmalions grandson,Cinyras. She was in love with her father and tricked himinto sleeping with her by coming to his bed in the dark ofnight. When Cinyras nally discovered that he had sleptwith his own daughter he chased her out of his country.She prayed to become a thing that neither lives nor dies.Some nameless god granted her wish and transformed herinto the myrrh tree, whose tears are famous.

Venus and AdonisAdonis was the beautiful male offspring of Myrrha andCinyras. He gestated within the myrrh tree and upon hisbirth was adopted by Venus. His brother, Cupid, acci-dentally scratched their mother, Venus, with one of hisarrows and as a result Venus fell in love with Adonis.Venus consorted with Adonis, hunting with him in thewoods. In order to warn him of the dangers of the wildanimals in the wood, Venus told Adonis the story of howAtalanta and Hippomenes were transformed into lionsbecause they were ungrateful toward the gods. However,Adonis did not heed her warning and was killed by a wildboar. Venus commemorated Adonis with a fragile owerthe color of blood, the anemone.

Ovids InfluenceOvids Metamorphoses had a strong inuence on Romanculture of the rst and second centuries of the CommonEra among poets and writers such as Seneca and Lucan.However, with the rise of Christianity, Ovids text waseither suppressed along with other pagan literature or wasinterpreted allegorically in an attempt to align the Ovidianmyths with Christian stories and themes. Ovids mythswere eventually celebrated both for their Latin style andfor the psychological, moral, and cosmological value oftheir themes. Medieval romances and love poetry borrowedthemes from Ovid. Ovids importance can be seen inDantes Divine Comedy, where Ovid can be found in therst circle of Hell. By the time of the Renaissance, Ovidwas celebrated both for his imagery and for his basicmoral sentiment. Other authors who were inuenced byOvid include Petrarch, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton,Cervantes, Calderon, La Fontaine, and Corneille. In thevisual arts, themes from Ovids Metamorphoses weretaken up by artists such as Raphael, Corregio, Titian,Michelangelo, Bernini, Rubens, and Poussin. Almost anyvisual or literary artist of the last 500 years of Westernculture who took up a theme from ancient mythology

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derived this theme either directly or indirectly fromOvid.

Besides his inuence on art and literature, Ovidsmyths have found their way into other parts of Westernculture including common words such as narcissism,echo, and Adonis. Zoologists have utilized Ovids languagein naming creatures such as the Argus pheasant, thepython, the Icarus buttery, the Atalanta buttery,and the Io and Polyphemus moths. Flowers like theHyacinth bear Ovidian names. Astronomers make useof the language of ancient myths in naming celestialobjects. For example, the names Galileo gave to the moonsof Jupiter were derived from the characters describedby Ovid as consorts of the god Jupiter: Io, Europa,Ganymede, and Callisto. Psychologists such as Freudhave identied and discussed character traits such asnarcissism. And popular culture has adopted themessuch as Cupids arrows, Midas gold touch, and the story ofPygmalion.

Ovid is an important contributor to the set of mythsthat form the background of Western culture. His mythsdisplay a world of ux in which there is an open interfacebetween humans, gods, and nature. Ovids Metamorphosesprovides us with narratives about the origins of manynatural features that also serve as cautionary tales about

the disruptive power of desire, certainly one of naturesgreat transformational forces. Ovids universe is one inwhich natural objects such as owers and birds are givensignicance by acts of the gods. It is also one in whichdesire makes it possible for humans and gods to crossthe borders that separate them from each other and fromnatural objects.

Andrew Fiala

Further ReadingBrewer, Wilmon. Ovids Metamorphoses in European

Culture. Boston: Cornhill Publishing, 1933.Galinsky, Karl G. Ovids Metamorphoses: An Introduction

to the Basic Aspects. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1975.

Ovid. The Metamorphoses. Horace Gregory, tr. New York:Viking Press, 1958.

Tissol, Garth. The Face of Nature: Wit, Narrative, andCosmic Origins in Ovids Metamorphoses. Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.

See also: Delphic Oracle; Greco-Roman World; Greece Classical; Greek Landscape; Greek Paganism; Lake Pergusa(Sicily); Roman Natural Religion; Roman Religion andEmpire; Western Esotericism.

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