The Fool's Journey by Maureen Clark

Author:Maureen Clark
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781082005497
Published: 2019-07-22T04:00:00+00:00

Yet it is to the great mother, Hera, that Heracles is dedicated as ‘the Glory of Hera.’ For it is only she who can give him his ‘second birth’ as a god, and this she will only do if he fulfills the twelve labours she imposes, via an intermediary, to be carried out in her mortal world of forms.

Most of Heracles labours involved animals in some way. For animals represent so well the libido, the potential of the untamed psychic energy of the instinctual and emotional contents, which needs however to be mastered if we are not to be devoured by it. His first labour was the slaying of the Nemean lion in hand to hand combat. Being victorious, the lion’s skin provided a garment which rendered him invulnerable. This was his second ‘skin’ or garment, for Athene, Wisdom, had already given him a robe when he set forth. Thus he is clothed by wisdom and by might, or in Tarot terms, he has balanced within him the two of the High Priestess and that of Strength, and so gained the right to guidance through the solar cycles.

The two tasks of Heracles which did not involve animals contain Venus symbols. One was to obtain the girdle worn by the warrior Queen of the Amazons. The girdle, a Venus symbol and an attribute of Netzach, is that which girds the loins for action. The other, the eleventh labour, was to fetch three golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides on the slopes of Atlas ‘where the panting chariot horses of the sun complete their journey.’[117] Not knowing which direction to take, Heracles has to seek out Nereus, the wily old shape-changing sea-god, to wrestle the information from him. This is equivalent in Tarot to consulting the Hierophant to discover which route we need to take to obtain our goal.

On obtaining the apples, Heracles presents them as a gift to Athene. Athene returns them whence they came, thus emphasizing that the importance lies not in the ‘treasure’ at the end of the journey but in the adventures passed through to reach it. Heracles then turns to his twelfth and final labour: to bring into the light of day three-headed, serpent-maned Cerberus, the guardian of the underworld.

In the mystery tradition the hero following the path of the sun must undertake the night sea journey, for the descent into the sea is itself part of the solar myth. The solar journey to reach the heights alternates with the descent to one’s depths in the hours of darkness. Following, and preceding, the twelve hours of day comes sunset, and the inward turning of the mind through the twelve hours of night. This is the plunge into the lunar ruled planes of illusion. With the descent of the Chariot into darkness, we embark on the journey through the planes of illusion, and the subjectively lunar-ruled abodes of time.

It is in the chariot of Poseidon that we make the sea journey. Though master over the immense sea, Poseidon was greedy still for earthly kingdoms.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.