Medusa - The Gaze That Holds

There are stories that refuse to stay still.

Medusa has been carried through centuries as a monster, a warning, a figure placed at the edge of fear - and yet her story has never settled there.

In this episode of Hex & Muse, we return to Medusa with care, tracing her origins in ancient Greek mythology, her transformation through the writings of Ovid, and the way her image has moved through art, power, and culture across time.

We explore the meaning of her gaze; how it shifts the act of seeing itself and how her story has been reclaimed in the present, where Medusa has become a powerful symbol for survival, autonomy, and living within a body that has been changed.

This is an episode about myth, but also about what myth holds.

About who gets to tell a story.

And what happens when that story is taken back.

• Ovid - Metamorphoses, Book IV
  https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Metamorphoses4.php
• Hesiod - Theogony (Gorgons + early myth references)
  https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Theog.+270
• Apollodorus - The Library, Book II (Perseus myth)
  https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+2.4
• Theoi Greek Mythology - Medusa & Gorgons
  https://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Gorgones.html
• Caravaggio - Medusa (c. 1597)
  https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/medusa
• Benvenuto Cellini - Perseus with the Head of Medusa
  https://www.museumsinflorence.com/musei/perseus.html
  
  

Further Reading

• Marina Warner - Monuments & Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form
• Mary Beard - Women & Power: A Manifesto
• Natalie Haynes - Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths
• Jess Zimmerman -Women and Other Monsters
• Emily Wilson (trans.) - The Odyssey (for broader myth context and gender reading)

Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land.

Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings:
Instagram: @hexandmuse
Website: www.hexandmuse.com

Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories.
From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.