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In der Mythologie zeigen seine Konflikte mit den weiblichen chtonischen Gottheiten der Unterwelt, wie der Riesenschlange Python und den schrecklichen Eryinen oder den Furien, ihn als Sieger über das, was frei ist, und über das, was von den Mächten des Schicksals gefangen und den Zwängen der Vorfahren ausgeliefert ist.
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Just as the Sun itself was perceived in the ancient world as the giver of light, Apollo as the representative of the Sun was perceived as the giver of inner light. "Know thyself" was the dictum carved in stone at his shrine at Delphi, and this emphasises the importance of Apollo as a symbol of consciousness. The god was not understood as the physical Sun in the heavens; he was the carrier of the Sun, bearing it from East to West each day in his golden chariot. The physical Sun was remote and untouchable; it was the One, the essence of life itself, impossible to approach or fully comprehend. Apollo's human form tells us he is a reflection of something within the human psyche - a vessel or carrier for the ineffable. It is not surprising that Pythagoras and Plato both favoured Apollo, for philosophy in its most profound sense - the love of wisdom - is related to this process of acquiring consciousness in order to reconnect with what Plato called the "eternal realities". Apollo's role as breaker of family curses and slayer of the darkness was pre-eminent, and it was to him that those tormented by guilt from the past turned. In myth, his conflicts with female chthonic underworld deities such as the giant serpent Python and the terrible Erinyes or "Furies" mark him as the champion of that which is free over that which is bound by the forces of fate and ancestral compulsion. Yet although he is the conqueror of these forces, he also incorporates them into his worship; the Python becomes one of his chief symbols, not only in its serpent form in Greco-Roman iconography, but also through the priestess called Pythoness who communicated the god's oracle. These chthonic mother-deities were also honoured at Delphi through the presence of the omphalos or navel-stone, the centre of the earth, where the light of the Sun incarnated on earth. On coins issued at Delphi we may see the image of the omphalos or navel-stone as a point at the centre of a circle; the circle was associated with Apollo because of the great round of the Sun through the heavens, and because the circle is without beginning and without end and therefore suggests divinity and eternity. While there is no direct documentary evidence to suggest that the use of this image - the point in the circle - later gave rise to our astrological glyph for the Sun, first used during the Renaissance, the connection is impossible to ignore.
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Tandis que le lointain et inaccessible astre solaire (Hélios) reflétait l'hermétisme du principe de vie, l'apparence humaine d'Apollon nous indique que, véhiculant l'inexprimable, 'il personnifie un aspect de notre psyché. Si Pythagore et Platon vouaient tous deux un culte à Apollon, c'est que la philosophie dans son acception la plus profonde - l'amour de la sagesse - est associé à un cheminement vers la conscience permettant de renouer avec ce que Platon appelait "les réalités extérieures". Parmi les principaux pouvoirs attribués à Apollon comptaient celui de lever les malédictions familiales et de vaincre les ténèbres, et de rendre la paix aux êtres hantés par le remords de leurs actions passées. Racontant ses luttes contre les divinités infernales qu'étaient le serpent Python et les terribles Erinyes aussi appelées Furies, la théogonie apollinienne gréco-romaine présente Apollon comme le champion des êtres soumis au Fatum et aux forces obscures archaïques. Il est intéressant de relever qu'après avoir maîtrisé ces principes, il en a intégré les symboles à son propre culte, tel le Python auquel l'art gréco-romain donne tour à tour l'aspect d'un serpent et les traits de la Pythie (Pythonisse) qui transmettait son oracle aux humains. La présence à Delphes de l'"Omphalos", pierre sacrée représentant l'ombilic de la terre où s'incarne la lumière solaire, rendait hommage aux déesses mères chtoniennes. Les pièces de monnaie frappées à Delphes à son effigie sont entourées du cercle symbolisant le périple du soleil à travers le ciel, et rappelant que l'infini mathématique évoque celui du principe divin. En l'absence même de preuves formelles, il s'impose à l'esprit que ce point symbolique au milieu d'un cercle a inspiré le glyphe utilisé depuis la Renaissance pour représenter le Soleil astrologique.
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