A Temple Wild Podcast

Episode 1: Narcissus and Echo https://atemplewild.com/podcast/narcissus-and-echo

Transcript

You're listening to A Temple Wild: Episode 1: Narcissus and Echo

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 Ekstasy and today we're going to be talking about the myth of Narcissus and Echo.

Most people know the myth of Narcissus, the beautiful youth who falls in love with his own reﬂection in a pool of water and wastes away, pining for the love he cannot touch. His tale is often shared as a warning against egoism, pride, and self-obsession, an admonition against staring too long at one’s own reﬂection. His name has woven itself into our everyday language: “narcissism,” “narcissist,” and “narcissistic” these are words we use to insult someone who is too in love with themselves.

But few people have heard of his counterpart, the nature spirit Echo, whose own obsession with Narcissus leads to her own dissolution.

I absolutely love this myth, not because Narcissus suffers for his ego or pride, but because I think there is a deeper message in this story, a message about numbness and obsession and human desire, a message that I think that most people miss.

So we're going to be talking about that myth today. And of course, because this is A Temple Wild we also look to the plants and the landscapes that inform the story. So Narcissus is actually the namesake for that plant that we call Narcissus; it is a perennial bulb in the amaryllis and daffodil family with six white tepals, or what the average person would probably just call petals, around a golden corona, which is a golden center that looks like a crown. In Greece, this is the Narcissus poeticus or N. tazetta, those are the two botanical names for the two speciﬁc Narcissus plants that you'll ﬁnd growing in Greece.

The flower blooms in late winter and early spring, reminding us of its connection to youthfulness and that awakening of desire after the numbness of winter. It prefers damp meadows and the banks of streams and rivers, where it can lean close to watch its own reflection in the waters, just like its namesake, Narcissus. Although all parts of the flower are toxic to ingest, the Narcissus can be used in ceremony to awaken desire and bring awareness to our capacity for self-love.

So I'm going to tell you a little bit about the story and then we're going to circle back around to talk about the plant and inviting it into our homes and our ceremonies.

I also want to start, before we get into the myth, by placing the story. Because something that a lot of people don't realize or think about is that the myths of ancient Greece actually take place in a speciﬁc location or they come from a speciﬁc region of Greece. I think because the stories are so timeless sometimes we forget that they're actually located in the landscape of the Mediterranean.

So looking to this story, Narcissus was the beautiful son of the naiad Liriope, a nymph of Phokis, which is a region in central Greece, in Sterea Ellada. And his father was the river god Kiﬁsos, and Kiﬁsos is a river that runs through the region of Boeotia, another region in central Greece. Narcissus himself was from the ancient city of Thespiae, which is a city from that region. And so Narcissus himself, his father was a river, his mother was a nymph, and so his story is grounded in the landscape.

According to Aristophanes, Echo was a conifer nymph of Mount Kithairon in southern Boeotia, and it is possible that Narcissus fell in love with himself in a pool in her mountain grove.

So looking at a map of Greece, which you can see over at atemplewild.com, you can actually place this story in the landscape of Greece. I always like to look at a map and feel where these stories are coming from, of course if you can go visit in person, that's even better. But to just have an awareness that these stories, people, and energies actually exist in the Greek landscape.

Often the myths act as origin stories for different pieces of the landscape or different plants, and you could say that this is a way of explaining or describing where the Narcissus flower came from and also because Echo, obviously her voice, you can understand a little bit about her story before I even tell you, because she was a nymph and her body eventually dissolves and she becomes just an echo of her voice or other people's voices, this story acts as a way of explaining how the mountains act as an echo chamber sending back your own voice to yourself. There's definitely a physical, located, place-based experience of these stories. The figures in them are plants or pieces of the land, they are mountains, they are flowers.

With that we'll turn our attention to the story itself and I hope that you enjoy. “Echo, the nymph of Cithaeron, returns thy words, which resound beneath the dark vaults of the thick foliage and in the midst of the rocks of the forest.” — Aristophanes, Women at the Thesmophoria

Echo was a talkative nymph of a conifer grove on Mount Kithairon (Κιθαιρών), a mountain in central Greece. The god Zeus frequently visited her evergreen grove in order to cheat on his wife, the goddess Hera, with the nymphs of the mountain.

One day, when Hera came looking for Zeus in the grove, Echo, “who never held her tongue when others spoke, who never spoke till others had begun,” distracted the goddess Hera so that Zeus could escape unnoticed (Ovid).

But Hera discovered Echo’s deceit and in punishment for protecting Zeus’ adultery, Hera cursed Echo so that she could no longer speak her own thoughts, but could only repeat (or echo) the ﬁnal words spoken to her by another.

“Your tongue, so freely wagged at my expense, shall be of little use; your endless voice, much shorter than your tongue.” — Hera's curse, according to Ovid

Some time passed, and Echo came across the beautiful youth Narcissus while he was hunting in her grove. Echo immediately fell in love with him, burning desperately for his love. But Echo, who could only repeat the ﬁnal words of another, was unable to express her feelings. So instead, she lay in hiding, hoping that Narcissus would utter any word just so that she could echo it back to him.

When Narcissus ﬁnally called out while looking for his friends, Echo took the chance to respond. But unable to declare her love, she only repeated the ﬁnal words of each sentence he spoke. This, understandably, confused Narcissus, who looked around frantically trying to understand who mocked him.

After some time of repeating his words, Echo ﬁnally took the chance to reveal herself and tried to embrace him. But Narcissus was uninterested in love and numb to the advances of anyone who wanted him, male or female. So he pushed Echo away with disdain, just as he had refused every other admirer, and turned toward a spring in the grove to drink.

But one particular suitor that Narcissus had rejected was Ameinias, and Ameinias had been so devastated by Narcissus's rejection that he took his own life, calling out to the gods as he died that Narcissus should be cursed to know the pain of unrequited love. The goddess Nemesis heard Ameinias' plea, so that when Narcissus knelt to take a drink from the crystal clear pool of Echo’s grove, Narcissus had the ill fortune of falling in love with his own reﬂection. Consumed by desire for himself, Narcissus was unable to pull himself away. He ached and pined and burned in unrequited love for himself, ignoring his need for food or rest. Slowly, his body wasted away beside the pool, while Echo watched, heartbroken from a distance, mimicking his cries of longing for himself.

“And how he kisses the deceitful fount; and how he thrusts his arms to catch the neck that’s pictured in the middle of the stream! Yet never may he wreathe his arms around that image of himself. He knows not what he there beholds, but what he sees inﬂames his longing, and the error that deceives allures his eyes.” — Ovid, Metamorphoses

Some say Narcissus eventually fell into the pool and drowned, others say that his body disintegrated and transformed into a white ﬂower with a golden center, the ﬂower we now call Narcissus.

Echo, devastated by his death, became nothing but a sound: her own body dissolving, her bones transforming to stone, her voice forever echoing the ﬁnal words of her only love.

So what are we to make of this story? Is it about the dangers of self-obsession? A testament to the devastating pain of unrequited love? Or is it something else entirely?

Personally, I think this is actually a deep lesson in the need for self-awareness. It reminds us to ﬁnd the middle ground between numbness and obsession. And it warns against the seduction of looking without seeing, of speaking without truth, and of loving without knowing ourselves.

In Greek, Narcissus is pronounced Νάρκισσος (NAR-kee-soas), and as a word, it shares the same root as the Greek word “narcotic”- narke, which means “to numb.” And while this probably refers to the numbing nature of the plant itself, it is also symbolic of Narcissus’s own numbness to his own capacity for sexual desire. He rejected his human need for physical connection, and by wishing only to live in youthful solitude, he denied a core aspect of his humanity: the need to want and be wanted.

Because Narcissus failed to see this essential aspect of his own nature, he was cursed for his arrogance. In symbolic Greek fashion, he was doomed to stare into a mirrored surface - a tool that is supposed to reflect reality - as punishment for his ignorance. His eyes are wide open and staring, but he doesn't know or recognize himself, and so he can't see that he is actually the source of love that he craves. In the end, his body and human identity disintegrate and only a flower remain. But unlike Narcissus, who is punished for his numbness and his withholding, Echo suffers for the opposite: she is obsessive and careless with desire. She first puts her desire above her own safety by distracting Hera to protect the passion of Zeus and the other nymphs. She overwhelms the goddess with her rambling stories and her nonstop speech, speaking out of turn and even with lies, to keep Hera occupied while Zeus escapes.

Echo’s reckless manipulation leads to her curse and, like Narcissus’s watery mirror, she is doomed to forever be a reﬂection, echoing the words of those around her, unable to speak the truth of her own feelings.

And then, when Echo meets Narcissus, she hides herself, not revealing her face or her true nature, even when she pines and obsesses over his beauty. When Echo does ﬁnally reveal herself to him, he rejects her - just like he has rejected every other person. And if she had been able to communicate, instead of cursed by mimicry, perhaps she would have understood that Narcissus was incapable of loving her before she even tried to embrace him. Her unrequited obsession doomed her to lonely craving, until her body, like Narcissus, disintegrated, and she became nothing but a cavernous echo of her compulsion to love someone that she cannot even speak with.

Echo mirrors Narcissus, who mirrors himself. They are both stuck in mimicry and both unable to grasp the reality of each other or themselves. Narcissus looks without truly seeing, Echo speaks without truly communicating. And they both lose their identity and transform into something wholly other than themselves.

I think the message in the myth is clear: it is dangerous to be like Narcissus, to numb oneself to desire. But it is also equally as perilous to lose oneself to desire like Echo and become reckless with your voice. In both extremes, we lose touch with vital pieces of our humanity. I think the myth is a sad and honest reminder of our need for clarity, self-awareness, communication, and honesty. It's an invitation to open ourselves to feeling, to look our desires in the eye, and to voice our needs with integrity, not mimicry or lies.

So I've also written a poem, inspired by Narcissus, written from the perspective of Echo. And I think for any of us who've been in relationships with people who seemed to maybe be incapable of loving other people or even loving themselves, I think this story really speaks to that human ache that we sometimes feel towards other people. So this poem is inspired by the myth and I wanted to share that with you.

A Poem for Narcissus I met you after a long winter. I was frost-bitten and numb. You were springtime, milk white and gold. Sweet Narcissus, I wanted to be beautiful like you.

And I thought: I know how to do this. I have years of experience. I am a master of reﬂection. Afterall, my mother named me Echo And I was raised a dancer, Mimicking my teachers in the mirror.

Yes, I know how to do this. I will keep myself hollow and hard So that when you kiss me, your breath will ﬁll me Your voice will become my voice. You will echo off the chambers of my mouth, my throat The space between my thighs.

Shimmering Narcissus, You would lounge with a drink in your hand, To watch the surfaces blur and fade, Like a hand disturbing the water.

Boys. Girls. Everyone else wanted you, too. But you got so used to rejecting them all That even when you reached for me, You were pushing me away.

What was it you were saying? I love you. No matter how many times I echoed it back to you You could not hear me.

Did you ever really see me? When you looked at me, I was just another reﬂection A mirage of the love you could not ﬁnd in yourself. The love you kept reaching for in the glass.

I don’t blame you. Remember?

I grew up looking for myself in mirrors, too. So turning our attention back to the Narcissus ﬂower, as I mentioned before, it grows in early spring, reminding us of youthfulness and the beauty of new growth after a long, cold winter. Its heady fragrance is sensuous, almost like an aphrodisiac, awakening desire and thawing our hearts to love.

And because of its association with the beautiful youth Narcissus, the flower can be a reminder to let go of our numbness, to awaken to our desire, and to stay open to the power of human connection. This doesn't mean just sexual desire, but could also apply to the desire to be truly seen and understood by another person. Especially in these difficult times, instead of rejecting other people or turning a cold heart against the world, the flower invites us to stay soft and wanting. We are encouraged to reach out for one another and to the earth, even when our fierce independence may want to keep us numb and alone, like Narcissus.

The Narcissus ﬂower also encourages us to look upon ourselves with love. And while the myth may seem like a warning against loving ourselves too much, it was actually Narcissus’s inability to recognize himself as the source of love that he craved that led to his demise. The myth teaches us to regard our own reﬂection with honesty, humility, and tenderness, not with obsession and not with loathing. In a society that is bent on convincing us of our worthlessness and our lack, to look upon ourselves with acceptance - especially our bodies, especially when looking in a mirror, is actually a radical act.

By breathing in the scent of the Narcissus ﬂower, growing the ﬂower in our garden, or adorning our altars with its intoxicating fragrance, we awaken our senses and celebrate the amazing capacity of our bodies to feel.

I think it's also interesting to note that some stories say that Persephone was actually lured away from her retinue by a beautiful patch of narcissus ﬂowers when the god Hades came and abducted her to the underworld. I see this as symbolic of Persephone's youthfulness and her beauty, and also her own numbness to her sexual nature: she is preoccupied with youthful freedom and doesn't notice the consuming force of desire in the form of Hades sneaking up on her until it is too late.

So you can include Narcissus in any ceremonies for celebrating youth or beauty or the awakening of desire. This can be especially powerful for rights of passage for youth transitioning from childhood into young adulthood and coming into a deeper understanding of their sexuality. You could also include the flower in any ceremonies for reawakening the senses or encouraging self-love, especially after a long period of numbness or depression or disconnection from the world. Although both Hippocrates and Dioscorides both mention Narcissus oil as a cure for uterine tumors, and Pliny the Elder writes of using its roots topically, it's important to remember that all narcissi are toxic when ingested. So today they are not typically used by herbalists as medicine and the flowers are more commonly used for floral arrangements, garden adornment, or as a popular ingredient in perfume.

In springtime, here in Greece, you can usually ﬁnd the fragrant Narcissus tazetta sold in bunches at local farmers markets and garden shops all around the country. In the US, usually people “force” paperwhites (N. tazetta) to bloom indoors during winter for holiday festivities.

So the Narcissus is one of my favorite flowers to grow in the garden. It tends ot bloom here in Greece in late January or early February, one of the first bulbs you see popping up out of the ground after our cold, wet, rainy winters. Sometimes I like to cut the flowers and put them in vases or strewn the blossoms on my altar. And include a shallow bowl of water as something that connects me to the watery nature of Narcissus, as well as a small mirror where I can look at my own reflection with clarity and even adoration.

And whether I'm sitting before my altar or even kneeling in front of the living ﬂower out in my garden or out in the wild, I like to inhale the scent of Narcissus and then, while gazing into a mirror or imagining my own reﬂection, I like to read a little devotion or say a small prayer. You can even imagine yourself saying this to a friend or a lover or anyone else you’d like to shower with adoration and love.

Sweet One, I see you. You are a source of love, a fount of beauty. I see you. I see you. I see you.

So thank you so much for listening today. If you'd like to download a transcript of this episode, or subscribe to the monthly Parchments, which is a newsletter that I send out once a month, just so you're the ﬁrst to know about any upcoming projects or new happenings over at A Temple Wild, I invite you to go visit atemplewild.com. I hope you have a wonderful day and I'll see you next time.

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