Tears of the Sun: Helios, Phaethon, the Heliades, and Other Ancient Greek Solar Myths
Today, on the Winter Solstice, I introduce you to the Greek gods of the Sun — the Titans who gave birth to the radiance of the celestial bodies and the prophetic wisdom that the Greeks believed came from their light. We also learn about the Sun’s connection to the Underworld, grief, and mourning, and meet the plants sacred to the Sun god Helios.
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Mentioned in this Episode
Downloads
2024 Solar and Lunar Calendar (Alsos)
Other Episodes and Posts
Containing the Wild Flame: Ancient Greek Fire Myths
Hypnos and the Poppy: Ancient Greek Dream Incubation
Plant Profiles
* Poplar *
Quoted and Other Sources
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica: 4.598 ff
Ancient Carved Ambers in the J. Paul Getty Museum
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Transcript
You're listening to A Temple Wild Episode 15: Tears of the Sun
(Music)
Hello and welcome to A Temple Wild, where we rediscover the myths of the ancient Greeks through the plants and landscapes that shaped them.
My name is Mira and the cold has officially come to my small little village in northern Greece. The days have been getting shorter and I tend the fire all day and night, it’s my only source of heat, so if you hear any little clicks, pops, or sparks in the background of this episode, that is the flame keeping me warm and toasty as a windstorm rages outside. So I unfortunately do not have another place or time to record this episode, so I really hope that you’ll bear and this non-perfect audio scenario today.
But today is the Winter Solstice for those of us residing in Greece. It marks the longest night of the year and a time to celebrate the return of the Sun’s light, its radiance a promise that the days will now begin to grow in length again, even as the temperatures continue to drop. So in honor of the Sun, I’ll be sharing with you today some stories about the ancient Greek Solar deities, and their sacred plants.
But before we get there, I have created a new downloadable solar and lunar calendar to use as a reference for the solstices, equinoxes, and moon cycles of the coming year. So if you are a Patron, you can download yours for free inside of Alsos, which is the members-area of my website, and if you’re not yet a Patron, and would like to support the show and get a copy of that downloadable calendar, you can join at atemplewild.com/patron for as little as $3 a month.
And speaking of Patrons, this episode is a requested topic from a patron, Nathan, who asked me to speak on solar and lunar deities and their plants, so, thank you Nathan, first for being so engaged as a patron, and also for asking this really wonderful question, as it introduced me to some new plants — and stones — of the Greek landscape.
You know, I think when people hear about the Sun and Moon, most will immediately think of Apollo as the god of the Sun and Artemis as the goddess of the Moon. As twins, this seems intuitive, that the two of the most beloved gods of the Greek pantheon would be connected to the two most visible and important celestial bodies in our cosmos.
But, the connection between Apollo and the Sun, and Artemis and the Moon, that came relatively late in terms of ancient Greek religion. And so I want to introduce you first to the oldest gods of the Sun and the Moon, the Titans who gave birth to the radiance of the celestial bodies, and the prophetic wisdom that the Greeks believed came from their light. Now we’ll also learn about the Sun’s connection to the Underworld, grief, and mourning — which might surprise you — and of course, we’ll learn about the plants and a few stones sacred to all of them.
Now this episode was going to be about both Solar and Lunar myths, but it was getting to be a bit too long. So I’ve decided to divide it into two parts: so today we’ll discuss the Sun, and in the next episode, the Moon, so be sure to subscribe to the podcast — and my free newsletter at atemplewild.com — so you’ll be the first to know when the next episode goes live.
And so with that, let’s turn our faces to the Sun, bask in its radiance, and see what mythic stories it has to share with us today.
(MUSIC)
Our Solar stories begin today with two Titans: Hyperion and Theia.
Now Hyperion (or Ὑπεριων) was the god of cosmic light, and the roots of his name indicate his function as being one who watches or sees from above. And Theia (Θεία) was the goddess of sight, as well as the brilliance of the sky. Her name is also linked with a verb that means “to prophesy.” And although the spelling is different, if you were to say Theia’s name in modern Greek, it literally means view — as in, a beautiful view one might have by standing on a mountain and looking out at the horizon.
Another Titan worth mentioning in our discussion of cosmic light is Phoibe (or Φοίβη), whose name means bright or radiant, and is also connected to another word that means “to prophesy.” She is the grandmother of Apollo, and sometimes you might hear Apollo referred to as Phoebos Apollo, emphasizing his radiance and his connection with prophecy.
So from the very beginning, we find close connections between the light, sight, and prophecy: the radiant wisdom that shines out of the darkness.
Although I won’t be focusing on Apollo or on the prophetic powers of the Sun in today’s episode, I do find it interesting that the Greeks also drew parallels, at least in their stories and language, between the radiance of the Sun and the flashing light of Zeus’s thunderbolts, as well as the light of Hephaestus’s (Ἡφαιστος ) flames. In the episode, Containing the Wild Flame: Ancient Greek Fire Myths, I spoke at length about this connection between fire and sudden insight or wisdom, so I’ll link to that episode in the show notes if you’d like to listen to that episode next.
But returning to the Titans, when the celestial light (Hyperion) and brilliant sight (Theia) came together, they gave birth to the gods: Helios (the Sun), Eos (the Dawn), and Selene (the Moon). All three siblings (Helios, Eos, and Selene) are often depicted as winged or as riding in winged chariots as they make their way across the vaulted sky. I’ll be discussing Selene in the next episode, so for now, let’s focus our attention to Helios.
Helios (or Ηλιος as it’s pronounced in Greek), is often depicted with a halo and aura around him, indicating his radiance as the Sun. His palace is in the far East, at the very edge of the earth, where he begins his chariot ride each day. And after Sunset in the West, he floats down the earth-encircling river, Okeanos, underground in a golden cup or bowl crafted by Hephaestus. He makes this night voyage on the underground river until he returns to the East where his journey begins again.
Now I love this imagery of Helios traveling in a golden cup on an underground river as it tells us so much about the way the Greeks understood the cosmos through the lens of their landscape. It shouldn’t surprise you by now that I’m going to mention karst terrain as an influence on this underground, night journey. For those who haven’t yet listened to Plants of the Underworld, karst is a geological term used to describe a specific topography of water-soluble rock, such as limestone. Karst is often characterized by underground rivers and aquifers, and a river will just suddenly disappear into the ground, and often pop up again somewhere else after having traveled underground for quite a long distance.
And so we can imagine that Okeanos, that great earth-encircling river, would do just the same, carrying the celestial bodies underground while Nyx, the goddess of Night who we met in the previous episode on Dreaming, while she drives her chariot across the sky.
Then Eos (Ηως), the Dawn, would rise in the morning from Okeanos to banish the Night’s mist, and Helios would follow close behind her in his chariot guided by the 12 Horai, who were the goddesses of the “portions of time” (whether they be seasons or hours) and then again followed by Nyx in her chariot, in an endless cycle through the sky and beneath the earth.
Now I love this visual, this constant flow of light on water, of journeys across the vaulted sky and an underground river, the dance of radiance and darkness.
And the sunrise and sunset — being liminal times when Helios crosses a threshold — it’s not quite day, it’s not quite night, yet both at the same time — those can also be powerful moments of introspection and deep reflection on paradox. For anyone who has watched a sunrise, in particular, it seems to invite this inner silence that opens one up to divine insight.
As a side note, for those of you who enjoy working with animals, the Rooster, who greets the day, is an obvious animal to be associated with Helios, the Sun. And interestingly, though, the Rooster is also an animal sacred to Hades and Persephone. It seems me that it might have some interesting lessons to teach us about liminal states, bridging the night and day, darkness and light, the land of the dead with the land of the living.
As far as plants go, the plant I associate the most with this liminal energy – holding both radiant light and incubating darkness – would be the tree sacred to the daughters of Helios, the sentinel tree we met briefly in Plants of the Underworld, the tree believed by the ancients to be the source of radiant Amber — the Black Poplar.
(MUSIC)
Our story about the Black Poplar begins with Phaethon (Φαέθων) the child of the sun-god Helios and the water-nymph Klymene (Κλυμένη).
Now Phaethon’s name means “the radiant one,” but he was unsure of his parentage and so he journeyed to Helios’s palace in the East to question his father. Wanting to assure his son, Helios offered to grant Phaethon any request he might ask, and so Phaethon convinced Helios to let him drive his Sun-Chariot across the sky.
But Phaethon was young and inexperienced and could not control the horses. He would either drive too close to the earth — scorching its surface — or too far away — freezing the earth. The other celestial beings called out to Zeus to put a stop to Phaethon’s ride, and so Zeus, the God of the Sky, struck Phaethon in the chest with his thunderbolt and he died, tumbling from his father’s Sun-chariot and into the Eridanos (Ἠριδανός) River.
Phaethon’s sisters, the daughters of Helios called Ἡλιάδες or Heliades, grieved him deeply. Standing beside the Eridanos River where he fell, they mourned him and were transformed (either by time or by Zeus himself) into Black Poplar trees, and their tears became Amber, falling into the water.
Now the Black Poplar (Populus nigra) is a fast-growing, deciduous tree in the Willow family, with glossy, dark green, and gently triangular leaves and fissured dark brown, black, or grey bark. The buds of the Black Poplar are also resinous and aromatic, and it’s a tree is related to the American Cottonwood, so for you herbalists out there who are familiar with making Cottonwood salves, Black Poplar buds can be similarly harvested in the end of winter or early spring and then infused in oil for healing or ritual use.
As we’ve learned in Plants of the Underworld, the Poplar is a sentinel tree, often indicating an entrance to Hades’s realm as it is found near freshwater rivers and streams. It is a liminal tree, existing on the borders: a tree of both the Sun and the Underworld, of Nourishment and of Mourning.
As I mentioned, its tears were said to be the source of golden Amber, a precious stone carved, carried, or worn in Ancient Greece as a protective, healing, and funerary amulet.
But Amber is not a stone at all: it’s actually ancient tree sap, resin that has bled from a wounded tree and transformed over millions of years through heat and pressure. It’s still not completely understood from which species Amber is formed, but the ancient Greeks had many theories.
Amber was called ἤλεκτρον in Ancient Greek, which comes from a word which means “beaming sun”, and some thought that Amber was condensed, liquid sunshine, created by the sun’s rays producing a liquid that hardens and is washed into the sea. Others theorized that it was indeed actually a hardened tree resin, either from the Poplar or the Pine.
Dioscorides called amber “aigeiros,” which is the Greek word for Poplar, but other ancient naturalists, like Pliny the Elder, believed it to be sap from a Pine species because of its pine aroma when burned.
It is possible to burn Amber, and the ancients very likely did since burning incense - whether resins, gums, or other herbs - was a part of ancient medicine, ritual, and divination. However, when you purchase Amber incense today, it’s very unlikely to contain actual Amber; instead, it is probably a combination of other resins, herbs, or synthetic fragrances, combined to mimic a warm, resinous aroma. So if you’re specifiically wanting to burn incense in celebration or offering to the Sun, I would suggest to choose a different Solar resin — such as the aromatic tears of the Frankincense tree. But we’ll return to that tree, and its importance to the sun god Helios, in just a moment.
Amber came to Greece mostly by way of the so-called Amber Road, which was a trade route from the Baltic Sea in northern Europe where the Amber was harvested, then crossing the European peninsula, and ending in modern-day Italy. Interestingly, the Eridanos River, where Phaethon was said to have died and his sisters tears became Amber, it’s said to be either in modern-day Italy or in what the Greeks called Hyperborea, a region in the very far north of the known world.
In the Argonautica, the story of Jason and the Argonauts, the author says,
Phaethon half-consumed fell from the chariot of Helios into the opening of that deep lake; and even now it belcheth up heavy steam clouds from the smouldering wound. And no bird spreading its light wings can cross that water; but in mid-course it plunges into the flame, fluttering. And all around the maidens, the daughters of Helios, enclosed in tall poplars, wretchedly wail a piteous plaint; and from their eyes they shed on the ground bright drops of amber. These are dried by the sun upon the sand; but whenever the waters of the dark lake flow over the strand before the blast of the wailing wind, then they roll on in a mass into Eridanus with swelling tide. (Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica: 4.598 ff).
Now I wonder about this quote specifically, and also other stories that seem to indicate the body of water where Phaethon fell continues to smolder, creating steam and heat, creating a stench even from his body burning. And I wonder if this indicates that the body of water is in fact a hot spring and the stench maybe the smell of sulfur?
But regardless, in the very same passage, the author also shares that others say that Amber is in fact tears of Apollo, who spends his winters in Hyperborea.
Either way, the image is clear; the tears of amber are swept away and carried down the river and into the sea, where they are harvested and brought to the Mediterranean.
Amber was often inscribed, carved into animals and deities, crafted into jewelry, often buried with the dead, and carried or worn as amulets. If Amber as a ritual item or piece of jewelry interests you, I’ve found an incredible resource online for free via the J. Paul Getty Museum, which I will link in the show notes, that has some beautiful scholarship and images of Amber artifacts from the ancient world.
And in that article, they also point out that Amber itself is like a tomb or coffin: encasing that which is fossilized within it, whether it be insects, plant matter, or small bones. And to me, that truly heightens the beauty of Amber and these Solar myths, the way something so radiant and life-giving, like the Sun, can also be emblematic of mourning and death. Amber becomes like a tangible item that holds the contrast between the brilliance of the Sun and the potency of grief.
And that reminds me of another myth: the story of Icarus (Ίκαρος), another precocious youth who dies in connection to the Sun. In the myth, Ikaros is the son of Daedalus, the craftsman and architect who built the Minautor’s labyrinth.
After being imprisoned in a tower by King Minos, Daedalus creates two sets of wings from fabric, feathers, and beeswax so that he and his son can escape. But he warned Icarus not to fly too low in case the sea dampens the wings, nor fly too high in case the sun melts the beeswax. Unfortunately, Icarus ignores his father’s instruction, soaring higher and higher, getting too close to the Sun; his wings melt and he falls into the sea and drowns.
I can see parallels in this story with Phaethon, whose youthful hubris also results in his death. When Phaethon rode in his father’s chariot, he first drove too close to the earth and scorched its surface, then too far and froze the crops. His erratic driving threatened both fire and frost, and his death by thunderbolt restored the balance.
Both of these stories speak to me of the brief and flashing vulnerability of youth, their bright and shining lives cut short by an inability to stay balanced between flying too low or soaring too high.
I again look to the Poplar tree to teach this balance, as it’s able to survive both flood and drought. It reminds us to seek the Source: to reach deep to the flow of groundwater that nourishes the root of being, to honor the Underworld as the dark, fertile soil from which all life grows and to which all life returns, and also to reach to the Sun with its sturdy trunk and aromatic, golden resin. Holding paradox and opposites in balance.
(MUSIC)
There are two more plants I want to share with you today in our discussion of the Solar deities, and those are the Frankincense tree and the Heliotrope flower, both sacred to the god Helios and — like the Poplar and Amber — connected to mourning.
So first, Frankincense is the resin collected from a tree in the Boswellia genus, harvested by injuring the tree so that it will bleed its antimicrobial sap. The Frankincense tree does not grow in Greece; it grows mostly in the Arabian peninsula and was imported to the ancient Greek world. Other than Myrrh, I think this is perhaps the most well-known aromatic resin of the ancient Mediterranean still celebrated today and burned in religious ceremonies, even in the Greek Orthodox church.
In contrast to the tree, is the European Heliotrope is a lesser-known, annual wildflower of the Heliotropium genus. Its unique, curled flowering spike blooms from bottom to tip and it’s said that the flower turns toward the sun, following its path through the sky, much the same way as a Sunflower.
And so the origin stories of both the Frankincense tree and the Heliotrope flower are tied together, both as lovers of the sun, Helios.
As the story begins, Helios is in love with the nymph Klytie (Κλυτίη). Now Klytie may also be an alternate name for the nymph Klymene — who we learned earlier was the mother of Phaethon and the Heliades – as both their names Klytie and Klymene come from the same root meaning “renowned” or “glorious” one.
But Helios had enraged Aphrodite by telling her husband, Hephaestus, that she had cheated on him with Ares, and so the goddess of love punished Helios by making him fall in love with another woman, the Babylonian princess Leucothoe (Λευκοθόη). And so Helios abandoned Klytie, snuck into Leucothoe’s chambers, and seduced her.
Feeling betrayed by Helios and bitter with jealousy, Klytie told the princess Leucothoe’s father about the affair and the king buried Leucothoe alive in the sand. Helios tried to unbury her and revive her with his rays, but could not. And so, in mourning, he anointed her burial place with fragrant nectar so that her body would transform into the Frankincense tree, emerging from the sand to reach towards the sun’s rays.
And Klytie, still heartbroken over the loss of Helios’s love, languished and dissolved, laying on the ground in grief, only her head turning to follow the sun’s journey across the sky. And so she transformed into the Heliotrope flower.
What a heartbreaking story for everyone involved.
Like the Poplar and Amber, both the Frankincense and Heliotrope are plants of the Sun, but they also speak to us of the transformative power of devotion — as Helios uses fragrant nectar to transmute Leucothoe’s body into a tree – as well as the equally destructive force of obsession — as Klytie dissolves into a Sun-tracking flower.
I really feel that so many of the Greek myths teach us about balance: the eternal dance between polarities. In the case of the Solar myths, the Sun is a brilliant source of life and nourishment, vital to growth of all living things on earth. But it also burns and scorches, melts and destroys.
Ultimately, it transforms, like fire, Solar energy is an agent of metamorphosis, burning us with passion, incinerating our hubris, illuminating the dark, reminding us, again and again, of this dance between mortality and perenniality — the cyclical rhythms of life and death.
(Music)
OK, so all this talk of Helios and his children, but what of his sister, Selene, the Moon? Who is she? What herbs or trees are connected to the goddess? And what other deities share an affinity with her Lunar energy?
Well that is the subject of our next episode, so until then, if you have enjoyed this episode, please consider dropping a tip in my virtual tip jar - there is a link in the show notes to do that - or if you would like to become a regular supporter of the show, I would love to have you join as a monthly patron.
I am currently a one-person show, which means that I do all of the researching, writing, recording, editing, publishing, and managing of my work. I pay for web hosting and the tools and editing software that's necessary for keeping all of this work live on the web. So your support, even just $3 a month, really makes a big difference in helping me to keep making episodes like this, as well as all the other free plant profiles, photography, essays, art, and more that I share on my website, atemplewild.com.
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So that’s it for today, next time we’ll be meeting the Moon. And I thank you so much for joining me in the mythic landscapes, I hope you have a wonderful day and I will see you next time.