How Prometheus stole the Fire from the the Gods / My little Fire Elemental

Hello lovely Steemians !

20200114_004624.jpg

The Fire Elemental. Next to Water, Air, Earth and later also the Aether, it belongs to the five fundamental elements which form, according to nearly all ancient cultures, the pillars on which all creation is based on. I know, it's s not 100% accurate ^^, but I am a huge fan of mythology and those old tales fascinated me since my childhood ^^ All ancient cultures stated the Fire Elemental as the most important one any many even thought of it as the one with gave rise to the others. Fire was not only essential for survival and evolution of humankind, but also has this divine and mystical touch.

20200110_182028.jpg

While sitting at the fireplace a couple of weeks ago, during a cold and dark night out in the forrest, I luckily picture this little fire elemental here. I'm sure it was a nature spirit revealed its presence while blessing me with light and warmth. Just look for yourself ^^ That night my favorite tale regarding fire came to my mind .. It's from Greek Mythology and about a Titan called Prometheus :)

20200110_181344.jpg

How Prometheus stole the Fire from the Gods

Prometheus was one of the 12 Titans, the first beings ever and children of Uranus "Sky" and Gaia "Earth". You can picture Titans as the personified Elements itself ^^ .. They were also the ancestors of the Olympians, Zeus and his five sibling.

One day it happened that Prometheus was fighting alongside Zeus in the most epic battle ever, the Titanomachy. It was a 10 years lasting war between the Titans, the old Greek gods under Cronus, and the Olympians, the new Greek gods under Zeus. The war resulted in the replacement of the old pantheon on Mount Othrys by a new one on Mount Olympus.

Jan_Cossiers__Prometheus_Carrying_Fire.jpg
Prometheus Carrying Fire, painting by Jan Cossiers from 1630

Ohh Wow, where did this nice painting come from? Anyway, after Prometheus helped Zeus out to win his battle over the Titans, which were treated really shitty by Zeus afterwards, humankind appeared. After a while Prometheus noticed how unfair the new gods treated those. Like tyrants who rule over their "inferior creatures", not even deserving any power over the slightest element. So what do you think Prometheus did? A risky move of course ^^ He secretly stole the fire from the gods and gave it to humanity as a gift. Can you imagine how outrageous Zeus was about it? He was so pissed that he directly chained Prometheus onto a giant bolder. Then he send an eagle to him to prey upon his liver, which regenerated continously. This he repeated day for day for centuries, until Heracles, Zeus son, shot the eagle in the head and finally freed Prometheus .. Hmm .. Hmmmmmm .. Writing this up for you kind of let's me rethink why I liked those stories as a child, they are brutal .. but beautiful, maybe kind of .. brutiful!.. Please give me another painting!.. Oh, here it comes, thank you ^^

0_Prométhée_supplicié__Rubens__Snyders__Philadelphia_Museum_of_Art_W195031.JPG
Prometheus Bound, oil painting by Peter Paul Reubens from 1612

Prometheus is the Hero of Humankind

In Greek language the name Prometheus means the "Forethinker" derived from "pro"="before" and "manthano"="to learn”. This way Prometheus is imaged as a hero, even a bit like a Martyr for the better sake. Contrary to this Zeus looks like a self claimed ruler of all gods and men, treating humankind like a tyrant does. It's the Thunderer versus the Forethinker ^^

And reflecting on the evolution of mankind reveals great things. We learned how to assample fireplaces, were able to cook our food and to create warm places as our homes, and much more. As said earlier, Prometheus gift of the fire was essential for survival and evolution of humankind as we know her now. In Prometheus honor the Athenians even instituted a special race using real flaming torches. The winning team had the privilege to kindle the sacrificial fire on the altar of Athena on the Acropolis. Even nowadays this is still celebrated with the Olympic Torch Ceremony and the Relay Race during the Olympic Games.. OK, Whoever you are, do you have a picture for this too by any chance?

featureimagee1517949758518.jpg
PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Torch Relay

Is Prometheus really the Hero of Humankind?

Hmm, why did the title change suddenly? It must be an error I suppose .. Over the last thousand of years humankind used its given power to invent so many amazing things. We learned to handle the fire to forge countless tools and equipment which helped us to tackle the environment around us more efficiently.

otto_albert_koch_varusschlacht_1909crop.jpg
Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, oil painting by Otto Albert Koch from 1909

Ups, what happened here? Just a moment please.. Oh my..

11146280_405211596316975_2482545687537535382_n.jpg
Children and the War, Worldwide, All the Time

OK,.. Ehhh.. I would like to say at this point that there is absolutely no reason to worry about! Humankind was always known for its wise, sensible, reasonable, environmentally and future oriented decisions, right?

shutterstock_1083546056.jpg
First drop the an Atomic Bomb in 1945

Really! .. are you kidding me? .. By the way, the last counting in 2019 listed only as few as 13,865 "registered" nuclear weapons, whereby 90% are owned by trustworthy Russia and the United States of America. And only 2087 actual nuclear weapons were brought to explosion so far. There are even more innocent people killed as colleteral damage per year in warlike conflicts.

.. OK, it is even not possible for myself to pretend to not to worry. But what would be the alerternative? A life without the power of Titans and the Gods, also it is abused maybe a tiny tiny .. tiny little bit? Wouldn't it be a horrible distopia? It would look like this everywhere!!.. Come on, show me !!

7714310unusualanimalfriendshipfoxdog66__7000198898001541674707728e04bd4b2891542966968.jpg
Love and peace instead of Hatred and War

1812CZ_R6_ruanda_main600_1046x570_1533749643618.jpg
Trees and Greens instead of utterly destroyed forrests. Tree trunk bridges instead of SUV stuffed streets

Hmm.. This is ridiculous! Something is really wrong her. I just wanted to show you my nice Fire Elemental and talk a bit about Prometheus.. Let me just.. Would you please stop this Horror now! .. Hey, where did this button suddenly came from? I didn't meant to .. piep .. WHAT THE FUCK ?!

explodingplanet.jpg


All Pictures using my name tag, @adalger, were taken by myself with a Samsung Galaxy Mobile Phone. All others are linked in the corresponding captions.


Zach_TDP_Footer.png


3W72119s5BjVs3Hye1oHX44R9EcpQD5C9xXzj68nJaq3Ce.jpg


SteemTerminalBanner4.jpg


websiteTemplate.png


RGgukq5E6HBM2jscFu6Z9C45vAtaj46fHKRytJMev17ocs.jpg


If you want to know more about me, just look up my Introduceyourself post or follow my blog ^^

Learn more about @adalger here !


Best wishes,
Adalger



0
0
0.000
24 comments
avatar

Very interesting and thoughtful post. Thanks for sharing!

War is indeed a disgrace in human History. So we have the power of intelligence... to be able to kill each other in more creative way than the monkeys? Doesn't seem like a sign of intelligence to me. 🤔

0
0
0.000
avatar

It is really a pitty sometimes, but I still have hope left.. We are in the age of the internet now and contrary to past years, where only a few had the power for all decisions, due to this new way of communication we may be able to create the change all together for the first time.. But we just have this one chance now.. So let's use this new power a bit more intelligent to make the change ^^ thank you for stopping by @trincowski and your nice comment :) .. Since I am occupied with the contest most of the time, my inter-feed interaction shrinked a bit.. I am sorry for that, but I hope it will increase again this year ^^

0
0
0.000
avatar

Don't worry, I know it's impossible to answer to everything. Every time I reply a post, I have 3 more to reply to. 😂

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

I must say, this has been a direction I haven't seen for my #thoughtfuldailypost but it certainly makes you think... yes?

"OK,.. Ehhh.. I would like to say at this point that there is absolutely no reason to worry about! Humankind was always known for its wise, sensible, reasonable, environmentally and future oriented decisions, right?"

It's been said... "The best of intentions can have the worst of results" and you have certainly helped to remind us that this is true. It was refreshing to see a comical yet all too true account of how things are sometimes. I wonder... the person changing your images did a good job... did you give them a raise? Thank you for joining in on my #thoughtfuldailypost my friend... and kudos for using the banner my son made in your signature... thank you!

@alliedforces curate

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

Hey there @wesphilbin ^^

I have to admit that this is not the #thoughtful-daily-post that one would imagine. But as the point I wanted to state in this post is a rather sad one, especially the part with the children at war, I wanted to wrap it in a comedically package somehow. I kind of wanted to sound naiv, like from my perspective most of us humans tackle those problems, with an "imaginary" third person just questioning my naivety.

As a scientist, I feel this sting in my heart, whenever I am thinking about our politicians world wide are driving this car of humanity into the abyss steadily, also regarding other topics apart from this one here. How could they even dare to ignore what happens to the worlds and just go on, even complaining that we are mocking them? All they do is to just slowing down the speed of the car instead of just stopping it. What are they afraid of? Even if they crash the car it is better to rebuild it from the scratch and drive somewhere else than to drive into the abyss and just die, isn't it? Every reasonable person would just to a full stop without thinking and then look what can be done next. There are even several people sitting in this car screaming "STOOOOP". This is something I could not understand, its nonsense somehow for me .. I never was the best with words, but I hope you now what I wanted to state here somehow ^^ .. I could write an endless article about my concerns. hehe

By the way, nearly all pictures that this "imaginary person" was sending here, were from Wikipedia. Not the one with the child, it is from an educational TV episode in germany about this topic that is nearly 5 years old. The link leads to a site, unfortunately only in german language, that is is dedicated to address several of those topics in the world. They like to tell the truth and belong to those who are the "mocking ones" .. I am sooooo happy that such organizations and minded people really exist. The one with the apes, unfortunately also in german in this link, is from an initiative in Ruanda, Africa, that dedicated its existence to saving gorillas from disappearing from this world .. their government even killed the initiator :( .. that makes me want to cry .. RIP Dian Fossey .. I browse sites like this sometime. This "imaginary person" is somehow also a "mocking person", hehe

By the way, thank you for all this support here from you to this post. I really appreciate it. Luckily there are also people around here on the blockchain that belong to those "mock folk" too .. if only all of them were stand up and simultaneously leave a dump in front of their corresponding home countries governmental places, hehe .. Ok, I am loosing in imagination now, sorry .. It is our time now, having this new gift of the internet, to all jump out the car, stand in front of it, and force it to stop .. I would like that ;)

Best wishes,
Adalger

ps: sorry for that toooo long reply @wesphilbin ;)

0
0
0.000
avatar

!trdo

!giphy Prometheus

0
0
0.000
avatar

Amazing fire photos @adalger! I saw the little fire elemental in your photo.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thank you @redheadpei :) .. This is kind of my nature spirit post, hehe .. Thank you for stopping by ^^ .. When I was saw this picture I couldn't belive what I pictured there .. This night it was very cold out there and I am happy he watched over me with his warmth :)

0
0
0.000
avatar

Fire is neither a destroyer nor a creator. He is just a fire.
We are not the first civilization on this Earth. Those who are no longer have not learned to use the gift of Prometheus. )

0
0
0.000
avatar

It is a troublesome for sure to use such a powerful gift .. I hope we are still somehow capable of rethinking and then learn how to use this gift for a better good .. Otherwise who knows who will be the next after our civilization

0
0
0.000
avatar

Hope our time is not over yet... ))

0
0
0.000
avatar

Congratulations @adalger! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You distributed more than 20000 upvotes. Your next target is to reach 21000 upvotes.

You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

You can upvote this notification to help all Steem users. Learn how here!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Children and war that part really caught me I hate that war is even a thing in our world

0
0
0.000
avatar

Really great post! I've been doing a load of Greek history blogs myself, welcome to have a look :)

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thank you ^^ .. I already found your blog and followed it. I am greatly interested in history too!.. Although its mostly the early medieval times in my case. I am looking into your post in more detail later ;) .. History is just so much better then any reality show you can possibly watch in tv. So many intrigues, wars, empires rising and falling, revolutionary new techniques, like the super canons from the conquer of constantinopel, maybe more your interest, or epic peasant archery vs elite knight fights between england and france, I loved those, and .. and .. and .. I think you understand what I mean 🤣

0
0
0.000