The Great God Pan is Alive

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Born in Arcadia in the remote valleys and highlands where shepherds tended their flocks, Pan was the son of the nymph Penelope (not the wife of Odysseus, but a different Penelope). His father may have been no less a figure than Zeus, although in some accounts both Apollo and Hermes are contenders as well. In fact, it is rumored that all of Penelope’s various suitors managed to introduce some genetic material into this decidedly earthy god. Though the Greek word pan means 'all,' his name is more likely a contraction of the root word paon, which means herdsman and is the source of the English word pasture.

He is associated with wild nature and inhabits that untamed zone of forest and rock just beyond the village boundary. You go out to some wild place, some remote, rocky hillside, a rushing falls, and you stand there in awe, and then it hits you, a sense that something terrifying could happen here in this god-haunted site. That is Pan.

There is a Christian legend about Pan. In some versions it takes place at the birth of Christ, in others it occurs during his crucifixion, but all involve travelers, usually sailors on the Mediterranean Sea. As they approach the coast, the wind suddenly drops, the air thickens, the vessel is becalmed, and an odd stillness descends. All day the sailors wait, and then, toward evening, a great thundering voice rings out: 'The Great God Pan is dead!' Suddenly, from all the hills and streams, from the little hidden valleys, from temples and sacred groves, from mountain pastures and ferny cliffs, there rises a cry of lament, a vast outpouring of wailing and weeping and shrieking that echoes across the hills and valleys and spreads all across the land. Pan is dead.

After this event, the Greek oracles no longer prophesy accurately. The old gods of the classical world, the genies of all the old sacred sites, the nymphs of the wild places, the fauns and satyrs and centaurs, and all wild things fall silent. The Lord of the Wood is dead, and the new king’s domain is not earth but heaven. The old order dies with Pan, giving way to a heaven-inspired mystic religion spread by the followers of Christ.

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