Der griechische Held Herakles begab sich in einen Kampf mit der neunköpfigen Wasserschlange Hydra, die das Land verwüstet hatte. Er riskierte dabei, getötet zu werden.

Sein weiser Lehrer hatte Herakles vor dem Kampf folgenden verschlüsselten paradox anmutenden Rat gegeben:

Wir erheben uns im Knien,
wir erobern durch Hingabe,
wir gewinnen durch Aufgabe.

Herakles' blindwütendes Abschießen von Pfeilen in die Höhle der Hydra lockte die Riesenschlange nicht ins Freie. Seine Deckung gab das Ungeheuer erst auf, als der griechische Held sie mit brennenden Pfeilen befeuerte, denen er Keulengeschosse folgen ließ. Kaum bekam er die Wasserschlange zu fassen, schlug Herakles siegesgewiss die Köpfe der Hydra ab. An den frischen Schnittstellen wuchsen sogleich jeweils zwei neue Köpfe nach. Hydra schien im Verlauf des Kampfs zu erstarken.

Am Ende seiner Kräfte und seiner Einfälle für weitere herkömmliche Unterwerfungsstrategien, und überwältigt von der Hydra, kniete sich Herakles im Sumpf nieder, womit er sich dem Element der Hydra hingab.
(Er begab sich auf seine eigene niedrig schwingende, erniedrigte Schattenebene.)

Waffenlos und ohne Schutzschild, auf gleicher Augenhöhe, wühlte er unterirdisch einen der neun Köpfe der Hydra hervor und hob ihn über die Wasseroberfläche. Er betrachtete, wie der Kopf im Sonnenlicht vertrocknete und abfiel, als der Wind darauf blies.
Nacheinander hob er mit bloßen Händen die anderen Köpfe der Hydra ans Licht des Tages. Bewusst geworden und angenommen, schwand die Zerstörungsmacht der Wasserschlange zusehends.

Acht der sichtbar gewordenen Köpfe waren abgetrennt und ausgebrannt, ohne dass sie wieder nachwuchsen. Der neunte Kopf der Schlange des Bösen war unsterblich. Obwohl abgefallen, lebte er weiter. Diesen anerkannte Herakles als Juwel und begrub ihn unter einem Stein am Wegrand.

Moral
Herakles hat seinen Schatten im Spiegel der Hydra gesehen und angenommen. Waffenlos und überwältigt hat er, im Sumpf kniend, gelernt, dass das, was im Licht bestehen kann, kostbar ist. Er schätzte und schützte es.

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Englische Texte – English section on Hercules and Hydra

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The reconciliation between Hercules and Hydra – a healing story

How the hero Hercules and the multi-headed Hydra of Lerna solved their conflict

Before embarking on his mission to terminate the terrorizing nine-headed water snake Hydra, the Greek hero Hercules consulted with his mentor, the centaur Chiron. He had advised him:

Not common means will serve here; destroy one head, two grow apace. So be aware:
We rise by kneeling,
we conquer by surrendering,
we gain by giving up.

Hercules' linear mindset was puzzled. Unfamiliar with such a counterintuitive paradoxical approach he first dismissed this counsel at hand.

Heracles and the Hydra, Paestan black-figure hydra
6th BC, J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu

He invested into traditional war making by sending a flood of arrows into Hydra's cavern. This strategy had failed, since the sea-snake did not emerge.
Next Hercules dipped his arrows in burning pitch, to rain them into the cavern of perpetual night, the entrance to the Underworld. The monster furiously appeared with nine angry heads breathing flame.
Whenever the hero, wearing a rag over his mouth to protect him from the fuming breath – coming from above and from outside – cut off one of its heads with his sword two new heads instantly grew from the bleeding stump.

Confronted by the known means of sheer violent force, willpower, or intellect, Hydra had grown stronger. It could not be terminated with self-righteous supremacy or the mindset of 'We against Them'.

Only when Hercules started to faint from exhaustion, he was finally willing to change his approach following Chiron's advice.
He knelt right into the mud with Hydra. From a level headed position he grasped one of Hydra's heads under the mud with his bare hands and pulled it out above him. Suspended in mid-air and plain daylight it withered away and dropped off by the wind. And so he continued with exposing the other heads following the humble path. Made conscious and owned by both sides the Hydra's heads were not dangerous any longer. His nephew Iolaus lit a torch and burned the stumps after the heads were gone, which prevented them from growing back. Hydra's destructive force was defeated, when the ninth head, still fiercely hissing, was severed.

Hercules estimated this mystically immortal head as a jewel and sheltered it beneath a rock. So the victory was won. The sea-monster had taught him a lesson and he had taken it well.

We can say that the hydra can mean many things: jealousy, vengeance, resentment, anger, frustrated sexuality, violence. Scorpio is a sign of intense desire; and the hydra's many heads can mean the many desires of the uncivilized human heart. Left to grow in the darkness, they can become poisonous, and begin to destroy others. But they cannot be dealt with by repression. They must be understood, held up to the light, respected as part of oneself. And although vanquished, it is a good idea to remember that one immortal head. For Scorpio, all human beings carry within them the seeds of good and evil. Evil is not an abstract thing, or somebody else's fault; it is in everyone. Human brutality cannot be blamed on society, but ultimately only on oneself. […] the deepest meaning of Scorpio's myth: come to terms with the hydra in yourself, and you redeem the world. The Scorpio Myth, cited from: Liz Greene (*1946) US American-British astrologer, psychologist, author who combines Jungian archetypes with astrology, Astrology for Lovers, Weiser Books, September 1990

The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must per force act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves. Carl Gustav Jung [LoC 540] (1875-1961) Swiss psychiatrist, psychoanalytist, depth psychologist, Collected Works, Christ, A Symbol of the Self, 9ii, par. 126

You can't end rankism with rankism.
To actually end rankism, you have to preserve the dignity of perpetrators while offering correction. You have to protect other people's dignity as you would have them protect yours. It's like the golden rule. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D. dignityforall.org breakingranks.net (*1936) US American professor in physics, college president, dignity and rankism researcher, author, lecturer, Standing Up to RANKISM, Pamela Gerloff, Project on Civic Reflection, More Than Money Archive, issue 35