What Hades feels like to me
It’s been roughly a year since I started working with His Highness. Since then I’ve reflected a lot on Hades’ energy, His character, His archetype, the sort of things He represents and corresponds to in the physical, metaphorical, and psychological. Although there are still many more things for me to learn about the Lord of Shades, I’ve decided to mark this milestone with a post on how I experience this frequently misunderstood god.
What stands out to me the most about Hades is that He is efficient. This to me is the core of His character. He is all about resourcefulness and necessity, and we see this when we observe the process of decay. Death is indeed resourceful, for it recycles all matter eventually for another purpose. It is the dead that feed the living, and death that balances life. Death transforms matter into something that can be used by the living. It is Death’s nature to be efficient.
And so I’ve found efficiency to underpin many aspects of Hades’ character. He can be serious and stern, cold and unyielding, but He can also be kind, caring, sensitive, understanding, supportive. As a god of justice and necessity, Hades is what the situation requires, and He will address you in a manner that you need and/or deserve. That said, I believe that many of those who interact with Hades, can agree that He is habitually calm, grounded, and sober, and that these earthy traits are what many tend to recognise in Him.
One of my favourite epithets of Hades is Eubuleus, meaning “Good Counsellor”. The impression I have of Hades is that He processes most things on an intellectual level. This is not to say He lacks emotions – He feels as much as any god, and He can certainly be moved by the sentimental. Rather I am suggesting that Hades is emotionally intelligent, that as a king, He is guided by emotions but not ruled by them. You can see this in the Orpheus myth where Hades is touched by Orpheus’ music and agrees to let Eurydice go, yet nonetheless places a prudent condition on their escape.
There are various opinions of Hades that say He is greedy, or angry, or grim. Some say the opposite, that He is actually a gentle, non-violent, and benevolent god, even to the extent of claiming that He is harmless. I have seen some decidedly disreputable words being used to describe Him (though I think He is not much bothered by it either way).
I would personally disagree with all those descriptions. For Hades to be any of those things, He would have to be primarily driven by emotions rather than intellect. Efficiency, necessity and justice – the traits I sense most from Him – these things transcend greed, anger, and benevolence.
Another way I experience Hades is through quiet and solitude. The sort of energy I feel on a dull rainy day, or in a hospital, or in my bedroom at midnight. I’ve felt Him strongly in libraries, filled with history and seamless thoughts on paper. There’s something very Hadesian about libraries. I imagine every book to be a shade that enters His realm, waiting to be read, to be acknowledged. To me, Hades is a historian, and I find him in the pages of books old and new, in the cup of hot tea or coffee I keep beside me, and in the pages of my own journals where I record my life.
Hades urges me to keep my planner up to date, to record and add up my spending, to track my plans and habits and any errands I have to run. I find His presence when I organise my life. He is a king, after all. He is concerned with the day-to-day running of His world, and so I make sure than I have sovereignty over mine.
I also interact with Hades through shadow work. He wants me to face my shadow selves; my fears, hates, flaws, mistakes. He would see me take control of my life, own it, and rule it with a level head. Not necessarily to become a great person, but a peaceful one. I can trust Him to hold space for me, to sit with me, to let me cry and complain and release all my messy emotions without judgement.
Hades is earth to me in that He is a strong and stable presence. He hasn’t just been here for me; He’s stayed through all of it to ground and focus me. He is also air and water to me because he represents mastery over one’s thoughts and emotions. His energy is that of a broad stone pillar, or a sturdy tree that’s deeply rooted and can’t be knocked over.
He rarely says much to me in the form of words, but His presence speaks volumes, and I’ve not felt another deity’s energy as strongly and consistently as I’ve felt His.
The above sums up the most prominent impressions I’ve had of Hades so far. Your experiences might be similar or completely different. There is currently not a lot of information on interactions with Hades compared to some other deities of the Hellenic pantheon, so I hope this proves useful to anyone who wants to get to know Him.
