¶ Exploring the Myth of Hercules
The story of Hercules has had a hold on the collective imagination ever since he burst onto the mythic scene by the name of Heracles some 2,500 or so years ago . He's considered by mythologists to be an amalgamation of many heroes , both actual and mythic , from ancient Greece and beyond .
Beyond , his story follows the archetypal pattern of the solar hero , something that Joseph Campbell spent a big chunk of his career working on seeing common patterns in hero stories all over the world and compiling them in his book , the Hero with a Thousand Faces .
In this series on the soul's terms , I'll be exploring the many chapters of Hercules' story , from his birth into his childhood , through his 12 labours and his eventual death and resurrection as a constellation . Along the way , we'll be taking some time to dream into the images and letting them speak to us in our own heroic quest of individuation in this lifetime .
Now , as I mentioned , his name in Greekreek is heracles , meaning glory of hera . Throughout this series , I'll flip back and forth between the names hercules and heracles , as I consider them to be essentially the same name . Hercules was just the name given to him by the romans .
I'm not sure yet how many episodes I'll spend on hercules , but for this we'll go from his birth , through his childhood and into his 12 labours .
Just looking at the first three for today , the first three are a fascinating set as it gives us his solar task of wrestling the lion , who became the constellation of Leo , the lunar task of struggling against the hydra , the water snake with many heads , who was accompanied by a giant crab , who became cancer , and the hermetic task associated with Virgo that involves
a deer with golden antlers . Hercules has been reimagined countless times over the ages , including many over the last 60 years . The Italians , suitably , were the first to have a triad in the 60s , with a TV show and a series of movies . It sparked the Italian craze of the peplum or sword and sandal genre .
In the 70s and 80s he was played by the bodybuilders Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno . And if you were around in the 90s , you'd remember him from the less muscle-bound Kevin Sorbo in the Legendary Journeys series , as well as a string of B-grade movies .
He was animated by Disney , with a severe Christian overlay , in 1997 , played by a young Ryan Gosling in 1998 . And in 2014 , the Rock gave it a go , this time with a rational , materialist take on the character , complete with explaining away every moment of magic and monsters with a sensible and logical reveal .
At some point I'll definitely get into the Disney and the Rock versions , as I have a lot to say on those movies , as you can imagine , but for now I want to explore Hercules from within his own context as the great solar hero of ancient Greece , from the archetypal and astrological perspective .
These stories help us identify the challenges associated with our own heroic quest in this life . The challenges associated with our own heroic quest in this life , our wrestling match with our own angel or daemon or destiny , our sense of a greater calling in this lifetime , the tension between who we are and who we are meant to become .
Astrologically , it's good to keep in mind the sun in your chart , your planets in Leo and , more technically , any houses with Leo on the cusp , if you know those . Every protagonist needs an equal opposite antagonist too , and the hero wouldn't be much of a hero if he didn't come across a series of worthy foes along the way .
So also keep Saturn in mind as we go , and planets in Capricorn and Aquarius , as well as the houses that have those signs on the cusp . Essentially , the relationship between Saturn and the Sun in astrology is best described through alchemy , the main task within alchemy was to turn lead into gold .
Lead , in astrology , is the mineral associated with Saturn , and gold is associated with the Sun , and so , within our own alchemical experience , we're looking to get these two parts of our charts talking with each other .
Saturn , our blocks , limits , inner critics , heavy dross , energy , challenging times , our shut down places , our feelings of being stuck , and the Sun , our genius , the spirit , our resilience , self-belief , our gifts , the high dream , the ultimate vision and purpose for our lives .
This is laid out in the myth of Hercules by his Greek name , heracles , which , as I've said before on the podcast , means glory of Hera . The fact that his name refers to the mother goddess , hera , tells us that the two are forever linked to each other . They are two sides of the same coin .
Hera's name in Latin was Juno and , interestingly , juno was the female equivalent of the word genius . Whenever the Roman poet Ovid , who published his classic Metamorphoses in the year 8 CE , refers to Juno , he mentions Saturn in the same breath . Juno , daughter of Saturn . She therefore represents Saturn .
After the clash of the Titans , she attempts to bring order and sense into the world . She wants people to follow traditions , to uphold the sanctity of marriage and the institutions of society . She believes that the way forward in society is to honour the traditions of the past .
In a cruel irony , therefore , hera is married to none other than Zeus , whose name in Latin is Jupiter . Zeus also believes in the institutions of the past , but only in so much as it gets him his offerings from the humans . The main topic in which Zeus and Hera differ is the sanctity of marriage .
Hera believes that once two people are married , then they are with each other till death . Do they part , which , in the case of immortals like Zeus and Hera , is never ? Zeus , however , is perpetually taken in by the beauty of the world .
Although he is considered to be the most powerful of the gods , it's very clear that Eros and Aphrodite have his measure , whether it's a beautiful maiden or a young man or some other kind of creature altogether , once someone takes his attraction , he just can't help himself but to act on it , much to the ire of his faithful , devoted , rule-following wife .
On one such occasion , it was the beautiful Alcmene that caught his attention . With her husband away at war , alcmene had agreed to remain chaste until he returned , and so , as he was returning from war , zeus disguised himself as her husband , coming home triumphantly and ready to celebrate .
He really wanted to make the most of this encounter , so he sent Hermes to tell Helios , the son , to stay down in the river Oceanus for three times as long as a normal night 36 hours of love-filled night . Like I said , eros and Aphrodite are more powerful forces than Zeus could ever be , to quote Robert Graves .
Here I quote , for Hermes , at Zeus's command , had ordered Helios to quench the solar fires , have the hours on Yoki's team and spend the following day at home , because the procreation of so great a champion , as Zeus had in mind , could not be accomplished in haste .
Helios obeyed , grumbling about the good old times when the day was day and the night was night , and when Cronus , the then almighty god , did not leave his lawful wife to go off to Thebes on love adventures , almighty God did not leave his lawful wife to go off to Thebes on love adventures .
Hermes then ordered the moon to go slowly and sleep , to make mankind so drowsy that no one would notice what was happening . Nine months later , zeus began boasting that he had fathered a son who would be called Heracles , glory of Hera , and who would be a great king and rule the house of Perseus .
Hera then made him promise that any prince born before nightfall to the house of Perseus should be high king . And when Zeus swore this oath , she sped up the birth pangs of a woman named Nysipe and rushed back to Alcmene's door and sat cross-legged with her clothing tied in knots and her fingers locked together , delaying the birth of Heracles .
Eurystheus was born after only seven months in the womb , with Hercules making his way into the world just an hour later , and so it would be Eurystheus who would effectively steal Hercules' birthright as the new king , with the meddling assistance of Hera to thank . Now there's a little side story here that explains how the galaxy itself got its name .
Little Hercules , as a baby , was left in a field by his mother on a day where Hera was walking by with Athena . Athena , always on the side of the hero and therefore in on the ruse , encouraged Hera to pick the little guy up and share with him her milk , given that he was out here so alone and vulnerable to the elements .
Hera obliged , but when Hercules latched onto the nipple , he sucked so hard that Hera had to yank him off . Milk then flew from Hera's breast up and out into space , forming what we now know as the Milky Way . The ancient Greek word for milk is gala , and so this was their story of the forming of the galaxy .
Remember that next time you use the word galaxy , that you're referring to the milk of Hera sprayed by Hercules into deep space , that you're referring to the milk of Hera sprayed by Hercules into deep space . This was probably the sweetest of the interactions between Hera and her namesake , heracles .
Besides this , hera was consistently out to get him by sending all manner of monsters his way to take him out , such was her rage and frustration at her husband and his infidelity . The first such incident was when Hercules was still in his crib , just an infant , with his mortal twin brother by his side .
Hera sent two fierce , venomous snakes in the dead of night , slithering their way in as the children's parents were fast asleep , alcmene sensed something was off and woke up her husband . They rushed into the room of the infants , lighting a torch on the need to reveal Hercules with two strangled snakes in his fists .
This image of baby Hercules holding two dead snakes is a good one for describing his character . On the one hand , we see this as a great display of Hercules' strength and courage , his ability to face danger head-on and destroy that which is trying to destroy him , even in his most vulnerable state .
His instinct for facing adversity is online , something essential to the archetypal solar hero that he represents . On the other hand , we have this complex symbol of the two snakes that allows us to imagine what else gets strangled when he takes them out .
In ancient Greece , the snake was linked to the great mysteries , perhaps due to its ability to shed its skin and become reborn . Snakes were sacred to the healing god , asclepius . Those who went into the deep healing chamber of Epidaurus , called the Abboton , would be met with a room full of non-venomous snakes .
In this room , the seeker of healing would have to sleep or hallucinate so they could be met with the healing dreams of the god . Two snakes wrapped themselves around the caduceus , hermes' magic wand that could put people to sleep , wake people up and open doorways For Hermes .
These two snakes allowed him passage amongst the realms of consciousness , from the underworld to Olympus . The great seer Tiresias once saw two snakes entangled with each other and immediately changed from a man into a woman . Seven years later , he saw those same two snakes and was transformed back into a man .
Healing , magic metamorphosis are symbols associated with the snake . It represents the feminine mysteries and elements of life that are beyond conscious awareness . Of course , then it's fitting that our solar hero sees only a threat to be strangled out . It brings to us one of the key elements of the hero's MO control .
Nature is less of a mystery and more of a threat , and therefore it needs to be always under the control or the mastery of the heroic . Compare this solar hero mentality to the three mentioned above Asclepius moves with nature to find healing .
Hermes , with his caduceus , embraces the weird and wonderful things that chance brings forward and turns them into his stories . And Tiresias encounters nature's essential inexplicability in his interactions with it inexplicability in his interactions with it .
In fact , for Tiresias , who would later become the blind seer , it was through trusting nature that he would gain deep insights into the truth of reality as it is . Hercules is not so subtle . He sees the enemy , he strangles the enemy .
Like all of Greek mythology , it allows us to see that there's something right about that and there's also something wrong about it . I think we all have had that feeling of watching a movie and feeling satisfied when the solar hero vanquishes the evil enemy . They got what they deserved .
And yet if we try to apply this to our inner world , we often find that the force we use to vanquish those inner villains just ends up injuring ourselves further . How many times have we overcome the inner critic , only for it to come back bigger , louder and meaner another time ?
¶ The Tragedy of Hercules' Losses
As a son of Zeus , hercules' guardians consider it very important that he attain some level of wisdom , despite that being not exactly his strong suit , and so he has a series of teachers , one of whom is Linus , the brother of the music god , orpheus . Linus is tasked with teaching Hercules literature .
However , one day Hercules' music teacher goes away on a trip , and so Linus was tasked with the role of the substitute teacher for his music class . This is obviously something simple enough for Linus being the brother of Orpheus , but Hercules was quite stuck in his ways .
From his other tutor , linus wanted to help Hercules to learn a different way of working with music , but Hercules just kept reverting back to the way he knew .
Like the Zen master , linus gave him a tap with a stick to let him know he'd done the wrong thing , at which point Hercules , frustrated , took the instrument the lyre and smashed it over Linus's head , not fully aware of his strength at this time . The blow killed Linus .
Instantly After this incident , his tutors were no longer so keen to be Hercules' teachers , and so the decision was made to send him away to spend the rest of his youth with the cows as a cowherder until he had come of age . I discussed this moment in more length last year in the episode with James Mattingly .
We talked about the musical component of the masculine and how it can balance out the side that is more about brute strength and overpowering .
It's a worthy thought experiment to imagine Hercules' life if he'd been able to go ahead with his lessons from culture , if he'd learnt a more subtle way of being in the world and to think of the differences in his life's journey , if he'd been able to discover these things with the help of mentors .
There are many heroes that did receive such tutelage and led very different lives . Theseus , for example , had much strength but was able to think things through , as symbolized by his movement in and out of the labyrinth .
Achilles and Jason received guidance from the wise centaur Chiron , which meant they were able to contemplate the complexity of their existence as heroes , but Hercules was always out there on his own . He received help from the gods in critical moments , but was never really able to think deeply about what was happening around him as he grew up .
His favourite weapon by far was the club that was shaped out of cedar wood . He was offered , and indeed used , other , more sophisticated weapons , such as swords and bow and arrow , but in the end he would always come back to his trusty club . Thick , blunt and good for whacking things , that was more his style .
Hera continued to send monsters at him and Hercules continued to dispatch them without much trouble . His strength was beyond any hero or demigod and at times would even rival the strength of the gods themselves , but Hera never stopped imagining ways to get to him .
Eventually , she realized that each and every monster she sent from the world was truly no match for the great hero , so she decided instead to unleash a monster from the inside . She put him into a trance state and , quite tragically , in that state he ruthlessly murdered his wife , magara , and their six boys .
When he came to his senses and saw what had happened , his immediate thought , as an Avenger , was to get his revenge on whoever had done this to those he loved the most .
In his grief , agony and anger , he wanted answers , but then looked down and saw the blood on his own club , realising that the one he needed to avenge was in fact himself , and so he made his way towards the cliffs in order to throw himself off . On the way , however , he encountered Theseus , the thinking man's hero .
Theseus saw the look in his eyes and could see that something was off in his consciousness . He asked him what he was doing , and Hercules responded telling him that he was heading to the cliffs to give himself to the rocks and the sea .
Theseus argued the point that , because Hercules was not in his right mind , he couldn't be held responsible for what had happened . But Hercules didn't understand this at all . My club , my crime , that's all he could comprehend .
¶ The Labours of Hercules
So the two heroes went back and forth around this for quite some time , and it might be worth us entering their debate as well . Whose side of the argument are you on as the listener ? The blood is on Hercules' hands , and so he should be condemned . Or is it , as Theseus states , the fault of Hera , who sent down the curse on his mind ?
The two heroes reach a stalemate , and so they decide together to go seek counsel . Wiser than them both , they head to Apollo's oracle at Delphi , the Pythia . There was the keeper of the deepest wisdom in the land , she would know what to do . When the Pythia received the question , she sat silently and pondered for some time .
Eventually , when she spoke again , she ordered Hercules into the service of none other than Eurystheus , the king that had been granted Hercules' birthright . He must do whatever Eurystheus orders him to do in order that he might find redemption for what had happened . This is the beginning of the famous 12 labours , or tasks , of Hercules .
Originally , eurystheus gave him only 10 labours , but as two of them had disqualified , they became 12 . This number has obvious connotations to astrologers , as it can be aligned with the 12 signs of the zodiac . There are some astrologers who have associated each task with each of the 12 signs .
I recommend reading Dana Gerdhart's articles on astrocom if you'd like to go deeper into that . For me , however , as much as I'd love the tasks to be divided up so neatly as that , they don't quite fit that patterning .
Nonetheless , it's clear that each task has a deep astrological , archetypal and psychological value , and we will be exploring them here on the podcast over the next few episodes . For this episode , I'd like to look at the first three tasks . I see them as Leo or the solar task , cancer or the lunar task , and Virgo or the hermetic task .
The first labor given to Hercules is to kill the Nemean lion , an enormous , monstrous creature , three times the size of a regular lion . Some say it was the offspring of Typhon , the greatest of the Greek monsters .
Others claim that it was the son of Selina the moon , who , after not receiving adequate sacrifice , birthed it with a fearful shudder on a mountain with a two-mouthed cave near Nemea , so that it could prey upon the people for their insolence .
Still others say that , at Hera's desire , selina created the lion from sea foam , enclosed in a large ark , and that Iris carried it in her girdle to the Nemean mountains . As a side note here , iris was a goddess who served Hera and was associated with rainbows .
Like a feminine version of Hermes , she carried a caduceus or a picture of water from the river Styx . As a rainbow goddess , she was the link between the sea and the sky . On the way to Nemea , Hercules stopped in at the house of a shepherd named Malorcus , whose son had been killed by the lion .
Malorcus was about to offer up a ram as sacrifice to the gods , but Hercules stopped him . He told him to wait 30 days . If Hercules returned , he could sacrifice the ram to Zeus the saviour , as a celebration of the banishing of the monstrous lion . If he did not return , he should offer the ram to Hercules , the hero who died trying to save the land .
30 days is a lunar cycle . Given that the lion , a solar symbol , is the son of Selene the moon , we get the sense that our story is exploring this solar-lunar tension . Hercules is required to have a certain amount of patience for his task to watch and wait and observe before he acts . When Hercules first saw the lion , it had blood splattered around its mane .
Returning from a day of feasting on the locals of the land , hercules drew back an arrow and fired at the lion , but it was met with a mighty yawn as it bounced off his impenetrable skin . So Hercules got closer and took his club , striking him a fierce blow to the head .
The club , however , smashed into a thousand pieces and the lion took refuge in the double-mouthed cave , not because of pain but from the ringing in his ears . So Hercules used a boulder to block one side of the cave and made his way around the mountain to enter from the other side . In the darkness underneath the great mountain . He wrestled with the beast .
The lion bit off one of Hercules' fingers and took it as part of the bargain . And then Hercules found a stronger position , putting it in a chokehold and squeezing hard until he took the lion's life . He dragged the giant carcass back to Malorcus on the 30th day , just as he was about to sacrifice the ram to Hercules .
Instead , together they sacrificed it to Zeus the saviour , and a shrine was set up there in Nemea , with games held every four years to honour Hercules . Hercules then took the journey back to the kingdom of Eurytheus with the enormous carcass of the lion on his back , entered the castle and plonked it down in front of the king .
Euryceus was disgusted by the sight of it and clearly terrified of the strength of this demigod who he had expected would perish by the lion . He ordered him out of the castle immediately and to take the lion's body with him From now on . He said bring what you have only so far as the city walls and stay there . His servants would collect the prizes there .
Euryceus then had a giant bronze jar made for himself underground , and whenever he heard word that Hercules was coming back to the palace , he would hide himself in the safety of this jar and wait until the danger had passed . And so Hercules dragged the beast back outside the walls and stared back off into the forest .
This was not the reception he had hoped for after such an epic quest . In a moment of divine inspiration , he used the lion's own claws to remove its pelt and placed it upon his own head . The lion itself was sent up into the sky to be immortalized as a constellation of Leo .
The combination of sacrificing a finger to the lion and wearing its pelt on his own head symbolized his exchange with the archetypal hero . I find it significant that the man who stole his inheritance as the greatest of kings was then terrified of the lion , symbolic of king energy .
By placing the lion on his own head , it becomes his new crown and he fully inhabits the archetype of the hero . But now he's fully engulfed by that archetype and is no longer connected to the human element of his consciousness . Now hercules himself is impenetrable . Nothing enters , nothing gets out .
Perhaps it's like this with our own solar journey , as represented by our sun in our astrological charts and those planets and placements in Leo . It is our quest to become divine , but the risk along the way is the sacrifice of our own humanity .
This inner gold is glorious to discover and to become If we accept the of labor , we accept the sacrifices that come with it .
We suffer the losses and we learn to wear our lion crowns , but we must also learn how to remove the crown as well , how to remain human on our journey , how to live the regular life alongside the heroic one , unlike Hercules who , engulfed in the lion's jaw , has become nothing but a hero For his second labour , hercules was sent to Lerna and ordered to destroy
the monstrous Hydra . This many-headed snake monster with the body of a dog was said to be the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and was reared by Hera as a menace to Hercules . Lerna had strong ties to the underworld and was connected to Dionysus , demeter and Hecate .
It was where Dionysus descended to rescue his mother , semele , from the underworld , and is said also to be the place where Persephone and Hades descended . Aeolus , hercules' nephew , escorted his uncle there in a chariot . Athena , goddess of strategic warfare , instructed Hercules to fire flaming arrows into Hydra's cave so that the monster would reveal itself .
Hydra sprang forth from its hiding place with its nine heads , one of which being the immortal head . It wrapped its tail around Hercules' ankle so he couldn't get away , and breathed poisonous fumes into his face . Hercules held his breath and began smashing away at the heads with his club , but each time a head was removed , two more would grow back in its place .
Into this chaotic scene , hera sent a giant crab who nipped away at Hercules' heels . He crushed it immediately and Hera sent it up to the stars to become the constellation of Cancer . Overwhelmed , hercules called his nephew over , who set fire to a nearby forest . He took flaming pieces of wood .
As each head was removed , he cauterized the wound so none would grow back . Eventually , the immortal head was revealed and Hercules used a sword gifted to him by Hermes to remove it and bury it still hissing under a rock . He then opened up the body of the Hydra and dipped his arrows in the blood , making the slightest graze lethal to mortals .
From then on , eurystheus disqualifies this labour due to Hercules receiving help from his nephew , and later in this series we will see that the decision to dip his arrows in the blood of the Hydra would spark off a series of events that would lead to the wounding of Chiron , the death of two other centaurs and eventually to Hercules' own death .
To me , this labour is very much the Cancerian lunar labour , not just because of the presence of the giant crab , who would become the constellation itself . It's the issue of using giant crab , who would become the constellation itself . It's the issue of using solar tools for lunar problems .
The club , the sword , the flaming tree are all used with varying degrees of success , but ultimately the immortal head ends up like the ostrich buried in the sand . We couldn't truly call it a successful labour , which is perhaps the deeper layer of why it's not counted amongst the ten that Hercules is given .
The lunar world , corresponding to the night world , doesn't operate in the same way that the day world does . The lunar world is the deep , interior , introspective world . The monsters we find there are not so easily vanquished as the ones we find in the day world .
They are often complex and many-headed and cling to us despite , or maybe even because of our desire to get rid of them . Think of the looping mind , the haunting feelings of low self-worth , the low-level anxiety that doesn't fully go away .
These elements of the human experience can sometimes be mitigated with solar strategies such as positive thinking , taking on good advice or using pharmaceutical drugs to push them down . But if we want to get to that immortal head and truly vanquish that demon , there's not much that our heroic egos can do .
It's instructive here that Hercules is at the entrance to the underworld and that the Hydra has its home here , in a dark cave of the unconscious .
Perhaps , like Dionysus and Persephone , hercules is being asked to descend here , to drop down into the cave itself and to feel the grief , the loss , the pain often passed down through multiple generations , and come to terms with his interior monsters .
In Hercules' case , the blood of his family is on his hands and we get the sense that he hasn't known what to do with such pain .
He was also born into the conflict of Zeus and Hera , which is a dilemma that stretches back to the clash of the Titans and , through their ancestors , right back to the tension between the sky , father uranus , and the earth , mother gaia .
Hercules , however , with the lion's pelt on his head , can't see this far into the depth of the soul and thus does whatever he can as a hero . And still , despite not being able to get to the immortal side of this monster , he does leave us with some helpful hints of how to handle these dark , emotional places from the surface of the cave .
Rather than get overwhelmed by the heads pulling him in multiple directions , we need to slow down and pay attention to one head at a time . By focusing in on each of these heads and calling on the help of another , in this case his nephew , he can manage each emotion before moving on to the next .
This is helpful for the sensitive cancerian soul , who can easily go into a state of freeze when faced with two or more conflicting emotional states . From our shamanic standpoint , taking the poison with him is symbolic of integrating this monstrous side of himself and no longer operating out of the fear of these destructive emotions .
In this way , he carries a reminder of how dark it can get and that he is capable of handling himself in states of shock and freeze . And by burying the head he returns it to its place in the underworld , an acknowledgement of the long-term nature of some of these deeper inner processes .
Knowing where it is can be a reminder that it would do him good to come back here someday or perhaps set up some kind of a temple to the hydra as he slowly works through those intense inner states of consciousness that are both from his own life and those of his ancestors .
¶ The Inner Journey of Hercules
The third labour is very much unlike the first two . If the first task aligns with Leo , and therefore the sun , and the second aligns with Cancer and therefore the moon . It would make sense that the third labour aligns with Virgo and therefore the sacred side of Mercury or Hermes .
By this I mean the side of Hermes that is linked with Hermeticism and the magic arts , the hermetically sealed container of alchemy and the need to sometimes be still in order for the elements to separate , purify and integrate . Hercules is sent to capture the Cyrenian hind and bring her alive to Mycenae .
This hind or deer has golden antlers and was therefore often confused . As a stag , when Artemis was still a child , she saw five such deer running wild in the hills . She rounded four of them up with her bare hands and harnessed them to her chariot . The fifth ran free .
Apparently , this was as Hera had intended it to be , already having Hercules' labour in mind at the time . Without using any weapons or force of any kind , hercules tracked the hind for an entire year . We can imagine him being as quiet and still as he could be , perhaps covering himself in the moss of the forest and becoming one with nature .
Eventually , the deer took refuge in Mount Artemisium and took a drink in the river Laodon . Hercules let fly with a precise arrow that pinned her four legs together , which passed between bone and sinew , drawing no blood . Or it's possible that he just used nets and no force and waited until the creature was finally asleep from exhaustion .
He laid it across his shoulders and made his way back to Euryceus the king . On the way he was stopped by Artemis , who chastised him for his treatment of the holy beast . But Hercules explained his situation , pleading necessity and assuring her that he would return the hind to her rightful place as soon as the labour was complete .
This calmed Artemis and she allowed him to carry out the task which he did , returning her unharmed to her grove afterwards . Here we see the sifting and sorting process between lunar and solar consciousness that perhaps can only be done in quiet contemplation . Hercules causes no chaos in his year in pursuit of the hind .
He simply watches and waits as the interior world and the exterior world come into harmony . His focus is just on this majestic animal with the golden horns . After battling heroically with our daimon and having the poison of our interior emotional world breathed into our faces , perhaps this is the critical piece in the journey towards individuation .
Life , both interior and exterior , are going to throw challenges at us , no matter how well we live . The separating and integrating of those processes is something that is far beyond the scope of the conscious mind . Perhaps this task gives us the hint that there are times in our lives that we just have to become still silent and calm .
Times when it's not right to use our club and heroically battle the monsters of the world .
Times when we acknowledge our limits in that Virgoan way and become who we are meant to be , by allowing time and space for our souls to sift and sort , knowing that when the world calls us forth again , we'll be more ourselves and therefore more ready for the challenges that lie ahead , and therefore more ready for the challenges that lie ahead .
I recommend taking some time with these first three labours within your own life's journey . I see them as complete unto themselves . Astrologically , they align with the second quadrant of the zodiac Cancer , leo and Virgo Images that help us contemplate the interior life , the exterior life and the balancing of the two .
Fittingly , we complete this process with the help of the goddess Artemis , who symbolizes self-containment and individuation . With her assistance , we become anchored in who we truly are .
¶ The Hunt for the Boar
After Artemis' Vagolan process , we come up over the horizon of the Zodiac constellations and enter Libra , the scales , but also the claws of the scorpion . Fittingly , then , our next labour will be the hunt for a boar . This aligns mythically with Adonis , lover of Aphrodite , who , much to Aphrodite's despair , found his death at the spear of the boar's horn .
On the way to this labour , we encounter Follis , a centaur who holds a hermetically sealed jar of Dionysian wine that hasn't been opened for four generations . By convincing him to open the jar , hercules unleashes the chaos of the erotic world , symbolised by the attack of the wild centaurs Confused .
Don't worry , we'll get to the bottom of all that next time , on the Soul's Terms .