The Greek myth of Hermes stealing Apollo’s cattle explicates the dilemmas we humans face in relating to each other and to the environment. The secret is in the symbol of his wand: a figure 8 with a gap at the top. Hermes is about the transactions in the gap between opposites (the two upper arms on the 8). As such, Hermes is the god of ecopsychology because he is the god of businessmen, psychologists, diplomats, the advertising that sustains our consumer culture, and the human-environment relationship. Hermes’ association with the originating source, what happens between non-existence and existence—is symbolically associated with the Tao and with complexity theory—the mathematics of what happens between stability and chaos when change occurs.
Related Lecture: Ecopsychology and the Environmental Catastrophe