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Women's Legacy Project > Blog > BE > Women's Legacy > A to Z > A to Z - 2018 - Feminine Icons > Iconic I: Iris, Goddess of Information?

Iconic I: Iris, Goddess of Information?

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womenslegacy

6 Comments


Iris is a Messenger of the Gods of Olympus who travels on the rainbow. She is the Goddess of the Sky and Sea, and of communications She travels between Mount Olympus and the world of  mortals to dispense messages from the Gods.
She also carried water in a pitcher from the River Styx to people who perjured themselves and puts them to sleep.  She is often mentioned in the Iliad but not in the Odyssey.  I confess I had overwritten her with Hermes and Mercury, but that was ignorance.  I am so glad I rediscovered her.

A painting of the Goddess Iris looking very much like a fairy in this 1886 painting by John Atkinson Grimshaw.

Iris, 1886, by John Atkinson Grimshaw


 
Of course a Goddess who can travel between sea and sky, between Heaven and Earth, between the living and the world beyond the River Styx essentially travels between states of being.  Only information, which  Gregory Bateson defined as:  any difference that makes a difference can flow in this manner.
Iris Carrying the water of the River Styx, 1793, by Nelson Atkins

Iris Carrying the water of the River Styx, 1793, by Nelson Atkins


We need a Goddess of Information for this Age of Information.  Iris is perfect representation of this.  Information can flow anywhere and everywhere.  I have stated before that the internet is a woman.  Check out my Googling Gaia from 2015 and The Feminization of the Interwebs from 2012 for some of the basics about this assessment.
The distributed nature of the internet was created as a base layer of ARPAnet the decentralized communication backbone for military ground communications in the Post World War II era in the U.S.This is how women naturally communicate.  Linear communication is a male strategy.  Networked information provides multiple linkages to the same bit of data so no one linkage failure endangers access to critical communication.  This is essentially the village in the proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.”
 
At this time when the generation of data  is accelerating  exponentially and it is becoming increasingly feasible to encode dense context with the data, but we still need human interpretation to make it meaningful.  Meaning can be implied improperly when we allow sloppy out of context decoding and other intentional distortion of information.  But the ancient understanding of communication and messaging knew that it takes women’s communication methods to handle the important stuff, and when mortals perjured themselves, lied, the appropriate punishment was meted out by the same goddess that controlled the proper handling of information and messages.  This seems quite pertinent in today’s world. The complexity of women’s type of information storage and delivery systems, with built in redundancy, needs to be re-incorporated into society.  We need women, of a critical number, in governance and leadership positions.  A more integrated method of organizing and utilizing information in our culture could address many of the problems we currently face.  Prediction never works, but we do know that  single channel structures are not serving us well.
Iris approves.  It is time for her comeback.  Communication is iconically women’s business.
 
 

Categories: A to Z - 2018 - Feminine Icons, Change, Communication, CommunityTags: feminine communication style, Goddess of Messages, Goddess of sky and sea, information, iris, Rainbow

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Cathy Kennedy

    April 10, 2018 at 3:49 am

    Melinda (I’m presume),
    Thanks for making time to visit my little niche in Blogosphere yesterday. I know very little about mythology creatures and didn’t know there was a goddess named Iris. Last year I sketch the Iris, the flower, for the A2Z Challenge. I also hand drew and used watercolor pencils to make a Mother’s Day card for my mom. I need to revisit drawing an iris again soon. Thanks for sharing this information. It was an interesting read broadening my intellect just a wee bit. Have a good day and happy A2Zing! 😉
    Curious as a Cathy
    A2Z iPad Art Sketch ‘Indians’

    Reply
    • Nancy Hill

      April 10, 2018 at 11:38 am

      I’m not Melinda, but thank you for for commenting. A to Z is taxing isn’t it? 🙂 I would love to see what you draw if you choose to use the goddess Iris in your drawing!

      Reply
  2. Leanne | www.crestingthehill.com.au

    April 10, 2018 at 4:46 am

    That was really interesting and quite a different take on the subject of mythology and the internet! I didn’t even know Iris existed (one of the other AtoZers did Iris the flower today). The other thing I kept thinking was how clever JA Grimshaw was in creating that iridescent effect on her wings in the first picture – it was painted long before special effects!
    Leanne | http://www.crestingthehill.com.au
    I for If Opportunity….

    Reply
    • Nancy Hill

      April 10, 2018 at 11:41 am

      I love throwing in something unexpected, one of my favorite facts if possible, on occasion if I can work it in. Information is my thing (trained as an anthropological semiotician) and I remain convinced that women using communication well can change the world and save humanity.

      Reply
  3. JazzFeathers

    April 10, 2018 at 9:32 am

    Such an intersting idea. I have never really thought that male and female dealing ofinformation coudl bedifferent. But I should have, since we are different in so many ways.
    Great post.

    Reply
    • Nancy Hill

      April 10, 2018 at 11:42 am

      Thanks! As Mac/Apple says/or used to say: “Think different.”

      Reply

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