What is Your Odyssey?

What is Your Odyssey? retells the earthy and profound adventures of the Greek hero Odysseus as teaching stories which hold insight and guidance for your own present-day journey in the second half of life.

On his winding odyssey, Odysseus meets magical and powerful beings, who are not shy about meddling in his affairs. Some see him for who he really is and help him; they bring him wisdom and attainment, and unlock creative possibilities. Others, aggravating and difficult strangers, try to do him in: Odysseus gets sidetracked, enchanted, waylaid. Some truths he learns easily and others he resists. In all of this, Odysseus is not so different from the rest of us.

Homer’s Odyssey is the great story of homecoming. Since ancient times, The Odyssey has been known as the journey that each one of us – having been out and about, struggling one way or another, pretending to be this and that – must take to return Home, to who we really are and what we are supposed to become.

On his long odyssey, Odysseus gets sidetracked, distracted, waylaid. Some truths he learns easily and others he resists. He meets magical and powerful beings, who can help the journey along or cause disaster. Some see who he is in his heart and help him, and bring him insight and attainment. Others – aggravating and difficult strangers – try do to him in. In all of this, Odysseus is not so different than the rest of us.

The meeting of Odysseus and Penelope
Description

“Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for.”
— C. P. Cavafy

Learn more about our journey:
Introduction
The Lotos Eaters: Desire under the Helm
The Cyclops: Polyphemus Perversity
Aeolus: The Wind Done Gone
The Laestrygonians: Darkness at Noon
Hermes/Circe: Holy Moly
To Hades and Back
The Sirens: Killing Me Softly
Scylla and Charybdis: Necessary Losses
The Cattle of the Sun: Going for the Gold
Calypso: Animation
The Phaecians: Do the Right Thing
Home Again
The Symbolic Life

INTRODUCTION

Homer is at the soul of storytelling, but he was far more than a wondrous storyteller. It would be hard to overstate his vast influence.

His two epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey, are the first grand narratives of the Western imagination; for the nearly 140 generations since he recounted these adventures (from about 750 BCE) philosophers and warriors and tellers of tales have claimed the hero Odysseus as one of their own, as the ancient roots of their diverse traditions. Homer was said to be a wanderer, which meant that his stories were not provincial, not limited by time or place. He was unlearned, so that he was not tied to the official story of the times. And he was by tradition blind, which, in the conventions of mythology, suggests that he saw what others did not. And indeed, for ancient audiences, Homer’s stories of great but flawed heroes who wrangled with fabulous monsters, sensuous witches and evil foreigners (not to mention those gods and goddesses who shamelessly meddled in human affairs) percolated with profound meanings. In fact, the true focus of Homer’s stories was said to be a sacred wisdom describing the fate of souls and the structure of the universe.

The fifth century philosopher Proclus wrote that for those who were perceptive enough to appreciate it, Homer’s poems taught what he called a ‘secret doctrine’, by which he seemed to mean not some musty theology, but more like a working perspective on life, a way of being in the world, a most practical way of traveling the journey Home. A myth like The Odyssey plays out on several levels.

The travels of Odysseus take place in the realm of the psyche, as if in a dream. And, as in a dream, we play all the parts. We are not only Odysseus, the bedraggled traveler who becomes a hero, but also the brutish Cyclops, shrewd Circe and the rest. With each adventure, the characters of our internal drama jockey for position. But, perhaps more startling, these stories are the stuff of what we call the outer world as well. So often, psychologically minded people look inward for meaning, when staring us right in the face is the Cyclops himself, barely disguised as the overbearing boss or street tough. Odysseus is nothing if not a practical man, a traveler in the real world. From him we learn the nitty – gritty facts of life about the long journey Home.

THE LOTUS EATERS: DESIRE UNDER THE HELM

Soon after leaving Troy, Odysseus and his fleet make landfall at a sleepy backwater port which is the Land of the Lotos Eaters. The Land of the Lotos Eaters straddles two worlds. Odysseus, a great war hero, is leaving the competitive, combative, outer-directed and ego-oriented realm of The Iliad, centered on conquests, one-upmanship and material accomplishments. This is the world that we know.

He could continue on as he has, business as usual, sacking cities and claiming treasure, expanding his reputation and influence, and getting very rich. If he did nothing more in his life, Odysseus would still be remembered as famous and successful, the shrewdest of the Greeks at Troy. He could rest on his laurels. We would still be reading about him, although perhaps not with such consequence.

Or he can change direction and head for Home; this is the difficult inner journey toward a deepening of meaning and toward who he really is supposed to be – king and husband and father – and what he really wants.

Lotos Land is at the fork in the road. It is where the people who can’t decide which way to go get struck.

Like some coffeehouse beatniks of another era, Lotos Eaters are an easygoing, no-hassle, copacetic tribe that goes with the warm and fuzzy flow. They are the first counter-culture in Western literature. But underneath their super-languid persona, they have a dark secret: they are drug addicts, hooked on an herb called lotos. And they are pushers too: they share their noxious weed with the sailors Odysseus has sent ashore.

When he hears that his men have taken lotos, Odysseus storms off his ship, furious, a one-man shore patrol. He collects his stoned, disoriented sailors. He lashes them to the ship’s rowing benches (for they fight hard to stay in Lotos land), and they urgently sail on.

Why does lotos stall the journey? Why is Odysseus so alarmed?

Lotos is not just some mellow herbal tea. It is a potent narcotic that triggers a specific, disastrous amnesia: everyone who takes lotos loses all memory of Home.

What’ s the big deal?

Home is where the heart is of course, the place where you are most at home in the world; it is the place, safe “beyond the reach of the perils of wayfaring,’ where you are not a stranger, where your most private struggles are known and understood and where you are seen and appreciated for your special virtues, your own unique powers. Home, at essence, is where you are recognized for who you really are, not more and not less. When you make yourself at home, you show your true nature, no matter where you are.

Home is not only the world that knows you, but it is where you can recognize the world for what it is, where you can see clearly without exaggeration or distortion, inflation or deflation. Free from pretense, you can see past appearances, past roles or titles, past your fears and projections and defenses, to glimpse someone else’s true nature. Home is where you can get out of your own way.

From the perspective of the psyche, each traveler holds deep in the soul the knowledge of the place where he or she is most real, most easily seen for who one is, and where he or she need not pretend to be more or different than that. That place, of course is your true Home.

it is unlikely to be some Great Mystery. Most travelers could tell you without much trouble what being at home is like (or would be like) for them.

For Odysseus, Home is the small, rocky island of Ithaca where his beloved wife and soul mate Penelope awaits, and so does his real king and husband and father. Homer’s principal epithet for Ithaca is “clear-seen:” it is the place where one sees and is seen clearly.

Until he gets there, no matter how edifying his travels, no matter how welcoming and supportive the natives, no matter how divine the goddesses along the way, Odysseus is everywhere a foreigner, a refugee from the wars. Later on, Calypso is the hostess with the mostess, and the Phaecians sing Odysseus’ praises; both ask him to stay on and mean it, but he is not at-home even in their fulsome care. Each new stop means an alien nation where he is, at least in part, not quite known or knowable.

The psychologist Carl Jung called this very sort of journey individuation, the arduous journey to ‘ divest the self of false wrappings’ as he put it, as to engage and express the true self. “Individuation” Jung wrote “is a process by which a man becomes the definite unique being he in fact is”, so that he fulfills a particular calling which is distinctively his own.

If home is the place where you are most yourself, then the distance between who you are pretending to be, your ‘ false wrapings’ as Jung has it, and who you really are, is how far you are from home. For Odysseus, it is a long and difficult trip.

For Lotos Eaters, the memory of Home is wiped out. Without the possibility to be at Home in the world, then no matter ow ingenious or fervent or fearless the traveler, he or she is utterly lost. There is nothing to set your compass by. Heck, there is not much reason to leave comfy Lotos Land. That would be bad enough. But Home is not just the destination of this voyage: Home is at the root of all wanting and choosing. All desires are desires to get closer to Home one way or another, to be more at Home in the world.

Lotos Eaters, for all their pleasantness, have no desires at all; they have snuffed them out with their deadening drug. Oh, they may have preferences during their day. But, as they amble through life they are unable to heartfully choose one path of action over another because they have fallen asleep to their guidepost, their Home: who they really are what they are supposed to become. They are stuck at this fork in the road, unable to choose a direction. No wonder Odysseus is so concerned.

What is Lotos?

Some travelers forget themselves with actual drugs or alcohol, and lotos can be that; lotos can be food or sex or any of the fashionable addictions of the moment, but lotos need not be a conventional measure. It could be a television, smartphone or Internet habit, a humdrum job or an inflexible daily routine. It could be that longtime relationship of convenience; you know the one, comforting in a way perhaps, but smothering and without passion.

For workaholics, lotos shows up as more work, more projects, a larger stack in the box. Overactivity is the lotos that keeps Type A people so stuck in their trance that hey fail to remember their real Home. We have had all times when we have forgotten ourselves and where we are headed, when we were pressed into the agendas of others, got swept along, and then later regretted it.

But Lotus Eaters make a life’ s work of forgetting their real selves. They put themselves aside, stifle their own yearnings, and periodically wake up to find themselves a supporting cast member in someone else’s play. They may find themselves at midlife feeling frustrated and betrayed for having given up their own journey for reasons that no longer make sense. They may have had their good reasons once.

You’ ll know you’re in Lotos Land when:
You are in the land of inertia, stagnation and overwhelming loss of will and desire
The natives create easy harmony and calm, complacency and conformity
Priority-setting and ambition are avoided
Change feels overwhelming
Initiative, innovation and risk-taking are discouraged
Decision-making is slow and bureaucratic: choices are chewed over endlessly
The goals (and the organizing vision) are fuzzy
Everything runs out of habit and on automatic
Disruptive, paradigm-busting talk is disapproved. Better to go with the conventional wisdom. Don’t upset the apple cart
Deep feelings – anger and desire – are stiffled
People are urged to accommodate, ” to love what you have”

If you are in Lotos Land:
Keep the memory of Home conscious: remember who you really are and who you are supposed to become.
Keep your eyes on the prize; don’t be distracted by the inessential.
Be willing to tolerate the discomfort of desire.
Be a bold self-starter, don’t wait for permission or consensus, risk action instead (There are other realms on the journey where the journey where the opposite is true)
Put your oar in the water, even though the path toward Home may not be totally clear. This Odyssey begins with an existential act: Odysseus puts his oar in the water and starts rowing.
Odysseus escapes Lotos Land because his instincts are to act, to overcome obstacles and solve problems. (Other predicaments will require different escape routes). He is not seduced by this lotos induced, torpid state of tranquility, without elation or depression. Here in Lotos Land the way out is not through disengagement.

To the contrary, Odysseus’ triumph emerges out of his longings and his passions – particularly his desire to be on the road home and his passion for his extraordinary wife – and his willingness to risk engagement on the road to get there, and to suffer the consequences. But how much engagement is enough and how much is too much? The next adventure with the monstrous Cyclops seeks to answer these questions.

THE CYCLOPS: POLYPHEMUS PERVERSITY

Odysseus comes now to an island that is an unspoiled natural paradise. The locals are the enormous giant Cyclopes, “man mountains” Homer calls them; they have one huge eye in the center of their forehead. The Cyclopes don’t farm their land; instead they “live on such wheat, barley, and grapes as grow wild without any kind of tillage.” Cyclopes Land is a kind of Garden of Eden, a bountiful, fecund, natural wilderness.

The Cyclopes have no laws and no meeting places because each Cyclops “is lord and master in his family, and they take no account of their neighbours.” The Cyclopes want what they want when they want it, and they take it. They don’t suffer shame or guilt or reservations. They are not worried about what others think.

Odysseus and his men make their way to the cave of a Cyclops named Polyphemus, who is out. They build a fire and make themselves at home. When the ugly, enormous Polyphemus returns to the cave, Odysseus and his men are understandably terrified and cower in the back of the cave. Polyphemus closes his cave’ s opening with a huge rock slab so big that Odysseus guesses 22 wagons could not budge it.

Then Polyphemus notices his intruders. Odysseus is normally a pretty slick talker, but here he is petulant and demanding. Odysseus warns Polyphemus that Zeus himself is the god who protects travelers, so Polyphemus had better treat him well or else. Further, Odysseus insolently demands a “guest gift” per Greek custom. As it happens, Odysseus has said the wrong thing in the wrong place to the wrong monster. Polyphemus roars, ” Stranger, you are a fool, or you know nothing of this country. Fear the gods? We Cyclopes do not care about your blessed gods, for we are ever so much stronger than they! In a rage, and to second the point, Polyphemus crushes the heads of two of Odysseus’ men and eats them raw. Then, arrogantly, supremely overconfident, he goes to sleep, even with Odysseus and his team cowering about the cave. He sleeps on his back, his feet splayed out, snoring.

Odysseus wants to run Polyphemus through with his sword straight away, but he understands – brilliantly – that he and his men by themselves won’t be able to move the immense rock slab that imprisons them in the cave. Odysseus needs to have the Cyclops open the door. But how? When faced with a Cyclops, the great task is to figure out a way to turn his overwhelming power to your own purposes, to get him to move the slab for you without getting yourself eaten. Success here requires patience for the right moment, discipline in execution and the rare self-sophistication that allows you not to get so hooked by your ego that you must kill him or be killed by him. All of this has Odysseus in spades.

For a quick instant breakfast, the Cyclops scoffs two more men. When Polyphemus heads out with his flocks leaving Odysseus and his men imprisoned in the cave, they spend the day sharpening a large olivewood stake as a weapon. Polyphemus returns in the evening to dine on two more men. Now the Cyclops asks Odysseus his name. Famously Odysseus says his name is “Nobody”. Odysseus offers the Cyclops some potent Maronian wine that he has brought with him and in short order Polyphemus passes out. This Cyclops does not know when to stop. And this is true of all Cyclopes you may meet: in spite of how big and scary they are, their voracious appetites, and their insensitivity to their own limits make them vulnerable and set up the conditions for their undoing. Odysseus and his crew now thrust the olivewood stake through the sleeping Polyphemus’s single eye. Polyphemus screams so loud in pain that he rouses his Cyclops neighbors who come running. “Polyphemus” they yell through the slab door, ” is anyone bothering you?” ” Nobody!” says Polyphemus, referring to Odysseus, ” Nobody is messing with me!” To which the Cyclopedian neighbors reply, ” OK, if nobody’ s bothering you, it must be the gods at work and we’ll go home.” And they do.

Homer offers a fundamental clue about how to deal with the Cyclops when you are besieged, overpowered and without recourse. You don’t engage the Cyclops directly and beat him by overpowering him (unless you are a Cyclop yourself). You will lose, guaranteed. Power is his thing. When you’re in a fight with a Cyclops, and you make it personal or make it about your ego, you’re surely done.

When the blinded Polyphemus opens the cave slab in the morning so that his flock can graze, Odysseus and his men escape by clinging to the underbellies of the sheep and goats, while Polyphemus pats his animals’ backs but not their undersides to check for the visitors. Outside the cave, the crew runs for the ships and quickly casts off. But from this ship as he’s sailing away, Odysseus taunts the Cyclops. “Cyclops, if any one asks you who it was that put your eye out and disgraced you, say it was the valiant warrior Odysseus, who lives in Ithaca.” Once Odysseus reveals his true name, Polyphemus can ask for a specific revenge. The Cyclops prays to his father, the Lord of the Sea Poseidon, that Odysseus never reach home, or if he must return, that he arrive a broken man after a long struggle, in a foreigner’s ship and find lots of trouble at home. Poseidon hears his blinded son’s prayer and, furious for revenge, he singles out Odysseus for a devastating vendetta that will last the next ten years. Odysseus does ultimately make it Home, but Polyphemus’ prayer is answered: Odysseus arrives late, battered and alone; all his shipmates are dead, and he is facing very acute trouble at Home.

The Cyclops

The Cyclops embodies the forces of nature unrestrained, uncultivated, unfettered. He is natural, raw power. He appears in the outer world as the overbearing boss, the tyrannical gang leader, the oppressive parent, wherever bullying, overwhelming might or demand or craving works its way. In the inner world he is the ” I want what I want when I want it” monster, which Carl Jung called the libido and Sigmund Freud called the id. The id, according to Freud, is ‘ the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of instinctual needs”. Just like the Cyclops, the id has no laws, no meeting places, no community, no sense of propriety or concern for any neighbor. The id, bursting with energy, just cares about its own will and its own pleasure.

The Cyclops has just the one eye. The most particular thing that happens when you have one eye is that you lose the perception of depth, which is to say you lose the perspective of the psyche. (The Greeks thought that of the two eyes, one looked out on the external world and the other looked within. The Cyclops has no ‘in sight’ ). Without being able to look within (to see with depth) its difficult to know who you are, what’s important and what to value. It’ s hard to see yourself in context, and with just the one eye, it is hard to see from the point of view of others. Uninterested in complexity or reflection, neither tentative nor nuanced, Cyclopes are steamrollers who plow straight ahead over anything in their way. They don’t have much flair for lateral thinking or for finessing around a problem. All Cyclopes by their nature and physiology intensely focus on the one thing right in front of them; it is their great advantage and a principal source of their demise. With limited peripheral vision, the Cyclops is easily blindsided. Subtlety, cleverness, out of the box thinking, misdirection, paradox? The Cyclops is not likely to see these coming. Of course his laser focus serves the Cyclops well where intense raw power, force of will and single-mindedness are key to victory. They are willing to have an impact on events. The Cyclops are id-iots – big loud bullies who want their own way, who only see their own way and who will over others to get it. The Cyclop’s life is a series of showdowns and intimidations.

You’ll know you’re in Cyclops Land when:
You feel powerlessness in the face of an intimidating bully who seems to hold all the cards
The Cyclops has real power which can crush you and which, at the same time, you are dependent upon
The Cyclops does not see who you really are: your considerable strengths, your commitment to virtue, the private struggles you endure
You despair about your own powers, whether they are real or of any value

If you meet the Cyclops:
Don’t try to reason. Reason is out of place here.
Don’t demand your rights. The customs of civil society don’t apply either
Don’t moralize. Cyclops is not religious.
You can be sure the Cyclops will test the limits and break the rules, conventions, laws and understandings (especially if you are the person setting the rules)
He is guaranteed to test you as well, to see what you are made of, to see if you are a man or a mouse.
Remember to work from your own powers even though the Cyclops will try to make you think you don’ t have any.
Don’t retaliate out of anger or loss of temper. Have a tempered, clever plan instead. A calm head is the way to deal with the wild man.
Don’t take on the Cyclops face to face, on his terms. Don’t take the bully by the horns. You will lose for certain. Rather the Cyclop’s great vulnerability is to indirection. Like Odysseus, speak cleverly to power.
Set clear limits but don’t raise the level of confrontation. You need to stand up to the bullying Cyclops, but you can’t kill him or be killed by him, or you will be stuck in the Cyclops mindset forever. You will die in the cave under he misimpression that life is simply about raw, brutal, direct power.

The Poseidon Adventure

Once Odysseus reveals his true identity, Polyphemus prays to his father Poseidon, Lord of the Sea, to take revenge against Odysseus. Poseidon superintends a vast, primitive oceanic kingdom, which is below the surface, under conscious awareness. The deep is his domain. It is dark and unfathomable, a Mystery. It is a world that we do not know: normally we only skim the surface. Poseidon bullyrags us with messages from the deep however he chooses: depressions, shocks and failures of whatever kind. The Sea God is around when we feel as though we are inundated, in over our head, overwhelmed, swept away by sea changes. He can be turbulent and destructive: he devises earthquakes, volcanoes and typhoons. He makes waves. He rocks the boat, whatever it takes to unnerve a traveler. Poseidon certainly makes the journey home perilous and fraught with difficulty; he is vengeful and mischievous and relentless, at critical moments scuttling Odysseus’ best laid plans.

But with his tests he gives the journey meaning. By ensuring that Odysseus make the essential detours and meet the necessary beings, he transports Odysseus to worlds beyond himself. And Poseidon teaches Odysseus profound lessons in what may be the main thing for a traveler: the depth of his resources to continue. These are hard lessons, tough love. Every lesson is crucial for the self involved, full of himself, sorry for himself, easily distracted Odysseus. Still Poseidon seems to thoroughly enjoy his grudge and most people cast moody, volatile Poseidon as the bad actor in this story; yet he has every opportunity to drown Odysseus in the ocean, but he does not. Why not put the poor human out of his misery?

Poseidon will not let Odysseus off the hook so easily. Later, the soothsayer Tiresias and the goddess Circe tell Odysseus that his harrowing trials will not end until he makes his peace with Poseidon. The god of the depths insists that Odysseus come to terms with him. But what will it take? What does Poseidon want? This is the decisive question, of course. But for now, as Poseidon insinuates himself into Odysseus’ journey, the story becomes the Sea God’s as well. Somehow, and to some purpose, these tow, man and god, are traveling companions of a kind.

AELOS: THE WIND DONE GONE

Next Odysseus reaches Aeolia, home of Aeolus, who is Master of the Winds. Aeolia is an island that floats whimsically on the sea with no fixed locations in bobbers wherever the winds blow it.

The Aeolians live lightly, playfully, spontaneously. Each day they enjoy an elegant party with food and music.. The conversation is witty, bubbly and sophisticated. They have every conceivable kind of luxury. And at night, according to Odysseus, they sleep with their mates on lavish, ornate bedsreads.

The Aeolians, says Odysseus, ‘feast on without end’. Not only is the party ongoing, but the Aeolians also have the optimist’s sense that it will never end.

But Odysseus and his men want to get home, and not just party.

Still, even the most sober traveler could not ignore the fun, lightness and excitement, the great spirit of the place. The crew parties on for a full month.

And as Odysseus prepares to leave, Aelous presents him with a magical gift: an ox-skin inside of which he has tied all the winds except the Zephyr, the West Wind, which was left free to blow Odysseus and his crew home to Ithaca.

With Zephyr at their back, in nine days they are at last so close to home that Odysseus can see Ithaca, he can see the shepherds tending fires, so close that he has a bird’s eye view of the island in sharp detail, and he must be beyond joy. He can smell it, and he can taste it. It is a spectacular, numious vision of home, just what he had hoped. It is what the psychologist Abe maslow would have called a peak experience and it is as high as Odysseus will get, and is close as he will get to Home, until he actually makes it to Ithaca nine years from now. (YOu might say it is a peak experience, Aelous gives Odysseus a good look at what might be)

But now Odysseus tires and dozes off: a sign that something imaginal is happening, that his normal waking consciousness can’t contain or process events. Who would not be overwhelmed glutted, by such a clear and close vision of the end of his long journey?

Sorry to say, with Odysseus fast asleep, the crew starts to talk amongst themselves, muttering that Aeolus has surely stuffed the ox-skin with silver and gold and treasure for Odysseus alone. Upset that they might be cheated, the impudent, imprudent crew breaks the bag open. They are looking for a windfall, and they get it. All the winds escape and the furious whirlwind blasts them right back to Aeolia.

Back on Aeolia, a devastated Odysseus humbly approaches Aeolus for a second wind, but Aeolus declines. If the gods detest you that much, pal, you’re not getting any help from me. Aelous doesn’t need a weatherman to know which way the winds are blowing. He does not like bad vibes at all, and in the face of them he is surprisingly cold hearted, dismissive and cynical. The bright, fun, playful, helpful, consciousness of Aeolus that Odysseus left behind has already floated away by the time of the blowback. Aeolus is in “another place” now.

And Odysseus is left holding the (wind) bag.

There comes a time in life when you know where you want to go, you get wind of it. You can imagine it. this is the time to pay your respects to dazzling Aeolus who can inspire, clarify and refine the vision: he lets the winds of the imagination propel you to where you want to go – so that you can see what it would be if your dreams were to come true, so that you can see what Ithaca looks like. Aeolia is the place to envision Home.

The central, salient feature of Aeolia is that it is not tied down. It is a (psychological) place with ‘no fixed location’.

Thus Aeolians are always available for wherever the latest breeze takes them; rootless they can easily and without the slightless embarrassment or apology, reverse direction on a whim,, and then do it again, consistency is not remotely a concern. Everything is negotiable. They keep their options and opportunities perpetually open.

Aeolia is an ideal place for innovation and improvisation, for taking risks and for experimenting with new ideas. Aeolians are imaginative thnkers because they are not wedded to the conventional wisdom; they are not bound by ‘where they were’. in the past. They naturally think outside the boxes that others are wedged in.

We meet them as smart, charismatic, upbeat people with nimble minds, articulate generalists who can bobber from subject to subject with ease, dillettantes who deftly skim the surface. They will be drawn to the new, the cutting edge, the outré, the latest idea. Like the floating island itself, they are not anchored to tradition, or to the past, or even to their own history; their focus is utterly on visioning the exciting and new that is just out of reach.

Aeolus’ special gift is to help the traveler strategize and imagine what is yet to come, and to that he adds his particular brand of spirited enthusiasm, as with our hero, Aeolus gins up an extraordinary picture of what could be, what Ithaca would be like, just the way you imagine and hope for.

Aeolians are easily found in the vast professional community of futurists and imagineers, in think tanks devizing splendid concepts, even spiritual concepts especially spiritual concepts – that galvanize and inspire and promise to bring everyone together in a just and good world: enthusiastic hope on a grand scale for world change, ending hunger in our lifetime and war as we knowit, colonizing other planets.

But Aeolians are not so interested in whether the ideas are practical or in the trodding and plodding ground work that it will take to get there.

What you see is not what you get

And that is why it is impossible to get home from Aeolia. Oh , you can dream your dream house at Aeolia, and even draw up the blueprints. But a real home entails a commitment to a particular location, to holding your ground, to digging down and excavating, setting a foundation and building a solid structure. Home, Ithaca, is the opposite of keeping your options open of following the latest breeze, of not taking responsibility for how things come out.

Whether you in fact get to Ithaca is obviously not Aeolus concern; he is more interested in the idea of Ithaca.

If you have problems with the gods, or your crew, or if there are other bumps in the road related to the practicalities, well, tough. Aeolus will not be interested in your repair. As with Odyssus he might get irritated or worse. Difficult personal situations are swept under the rug on this island. He plain doesn’t like hassles. There is no energy for regrets or what might have beens here. If your project tanks, by the time you are back to complain, he will have floated on to another place anyway.

Without a real-world strategy for reaching a goal, or because the premises themselves change so quickly, Aeolians ‘wing it’. They launch all kinds of trial balloons and see what will ‘fly’. They have no shortage of ideas or possibilities, and there is little reason to pre-qualify them, or nail down the details in advance, or work them through.

Odysseus’s vision is blown away when the crew covets the imagined gold in the wind bags.

Odysseus makes it home, almost. He gets a crystal clear vision of his personal destiny. But why doesn’t he get there? We have to assume the possiblity that he is not ready to face the meaning of his journey.

What is the significance of the Odyssey? Whom does Odysseus’ journey serve. How does the journey matter?

Well, you say, as Odysseus might at this point, it is to get back to Ithaca, to be at home in the world and to build a life with Penelope. But what a modest thing it would be if this journey is for Odysseus’ own salvation. Perhaps there is something more.

This we know for sure: Aeolus is a brilliant guide to the envisioning, but he can’t helpl much with the meaning of the quest. Real meaning is not some clever idea floating about: it has to be unearthed, a consequence of the clust-ups that come from serious traveling.

While it is easy to get lost in Odysseus’ failure to make it to Ithaca, he has pictured his home island in clear and most compelling detail Whatever his disappointment, Odysseus knows that if it is possible to get that close, it is possible to get home. Who could say that this knowing is not essential?

You’ll know you’re in Aeolia if:
There is great focus on the big picture future
Ideas, imaginationi, and clever, leading-edge thinking are central
The give-and-take comes fast (Aeolus means ‘quick’)
Ideas and positions change with the wind
You celebrate a moveable feast: there is no sense of permanence or rootedness
The impulsive, undisciplined glib locals skim the emotional surface
The culture values having fun and being upbeat
There is little tolerance for the downside possibilities or ideas.
Loyalty to a company or commitment to seeing things through are not priorities.

If you are in Aeolia:
The visit to Aeolus can answer the question: What is possible?
This is the valuable time to envision and plan and imagine the exciting future, to see how your dreams can work
Ask questions. Explore the widest range of possibilities. Generate alternatives. Aeolus loves hypothesizing.
Being overwhelmed, immobilized or intoxicated by possibilities, get you stuck in Aeolia
Don’t confuse a good idea with practical action. Aeolus can’t get you home by just imagine home.
Hard work and meeting responsibilities will get you out of this temporary place and on wiith the journey

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Chapter Four

The Laestrygonians Darkness at Noon

After his clear vision of home turns to thin air in Aeolia, Odysseus is understandably cautieus. Aeolia is the optimistic land of dreaming your greatest dreams. But Odysseus’ next stop is Laestrygonia, the land of negative expectations.

The Laestrygonian harbor has a long, narrow entrance protected by tall cliffs, like a Scandinavian fjord. Laestrygonia is hard to get into and hard to get out of. Odysseus’ squadron maneuvers through the fjord and moors deep inside the harbor, all the ships huddled together. But Odysseus discreetly ties his flagship to a rocky cliff outside the entry. In Laestrygonia, as we shall see, prudence is a virtue.

But the remarkable high light of Laestrygonia is that the sun never sets. Homer calls Laestrygonia ‘the land of unremitting light’ because there is no night, just a brief period of twilight. Odysseus, always a man looking for an angle, muses,

‘In that country a man who could do without sleep might earn double wages, one as a herdsman of cattle, and another as a shepherd, for they work much the same by night as they do by day’

Laestrygonia is the land of the midnight sun, and some who ponder the ‘real world’ locationis of the Odyssey like to put Laestrygonia somewhere near the Artic Circle. Like the far north in winter, Odysseus’ adventure here is cold and stark and brutal.

Odysseus sends three men to scout around, and they encounter the Laestrygonians, unpleasant, unattractive giants. When they chance on the queen she is so hideous they hate her on sight.

The Laestrygonian King Antiphates seizes one of the man and eats him on the spot, just like that. The two other scouts flee for the ships, but they are followed by a horde of giant Laestrygonians who, without apparent provocation rain great boulders smashing the ships in the harbor and killing all the men, except for Odysseus’ ship and men outside the harbor. Odysseus slashes the cable that ties his ship to Laestrygonia, and they sail quickly away.

With their attack, the Laestrygonians launch what during the war in Viet Nam was called a protective reaction strike against Odysseus’ fleet: since this ‘enemy’ armada is surely going to attack anyway, the Laestrygonians feel completely justified in shooting first.

So we know for certain that Laestrygonians have a hair trigger They are looking for trouble, alert and on the defensive, ready to pounce. These ugly giants are paranoid. They imagine the worst.

Laestrygonians in all walks of life search for how they are going to be attacked, fretting about whether their bosses or employees of signifcant others will do them in; then they can justify retaliating in advance. Concern with the hidden motives and secret agandas of others drives the Laestrygonians.

And why does the sun never set here? It is because the Laestrygonians are afraid of the dark. They need to see what people are up to, and who can be trusted. They need to keep an eye on their enemies, and their friends, and of course each other. They are looking for proof that they are safe, but no evidence will ever suffice.

In the relentless bright light – and to the psyche bright light means the rational and scientific, the intention to understand and control, the search for clues that will predict – the Laestrygonians are confident that they see in sharp relief the dangers that they face, that they know the world as it is. But their gaze is superficial, merely on the external. With the light always on, there is no opportunity or inclination for interiority, introspection or self-knowledge.

As Jung pointed out, an intense emphasis on one extreme constellates its opposite. So in Laestrygonia, in spite of, or rather because of, the constant light on ‘what’s happening out there’ we have, inevitable, considerable concern with matters that do in fact transpire in the dark: What are other people really up to? What is happening under the surface? How will I be done in?

Us Against Them

Because Laestrygonia is umabiguously light and dark, black and white, these natives sharply divide the world into enemies and allies. Each of us has our own inner Laestrygonia, a land of doubt and worry. We doubt other people, their motives, competence and allegiances. How wil I be done in? Can I trust others? And most of all, we doubt ourselves and our abilities and our authority to act.

The King of the Laestrygonians is named, astonishingly, Antiphates – ‘opposed to recognition’. To the extent that you choose at this point in your journey to recognize your true self your powers, your authenticity, your depth, and particularly your authority, Antiphates, opposed to such recognition, propopes to do you in. His preferred method is to rain giant projectiles on you and your men.

What are these projectiles? In fact they are our own projections.

We project onto others what Jung called the shadow: the part of ourselves, qualities or inclinations, that we don’t want or like or believe, our small-mindedness and prejudices, our looming incompetence, our self-doubts and fears, unfortunate desires and resentments, our nascent immoralities, our disreputable parts, all those parts of ourselves that, like Antiphates, we refuse to recognize as parcel of our psychic community. They are whatever does not fit with our idealized self-image. The specifics may change with each person and with each person’s shifts of attention.

We project the shadow so that it will seem to come from someone else, so that it is not our responsibility, so that it will seem as though it is the other person who makes small-minded judgments, is intent on bickering, while our thoughts and intentions are pristenely honorable.

The Laestrygonians show up when you want to be seen for your true self. They throw a wrench in the works. They say ‘No, you are not worthy, not smart enough, not deep enough, not virtuaous enough, not together enough. You are not ready. If you are stuck in Laestrygonia you will agree with them. You invalidate yourself, you blame yourself, you become your own enemmy. You rain giant projectiles on yourself.

Laestrygonia stands in direct opposition to Ithaca, the place where you are most recognized for who you are. In that sense, Odysseus is at this moment the farthest he can be from home. Of any imbroglio, the Leastrygonians do by far the most damage to Odysseus flotilla, in a flash destroying his entire fleet except for his flagship.

Why not fight?

Commentators over three millennia have wondered why Odysseus, the great warrior, didn’t put up a better fight with the Laestrygonians. Why isn’t he more engaged, more willful, more like a hero? In fact, their huge size notwithstanding, why doesn’t he run them through? After all, he handled the monstrous Cyclops pretty well.

It may seem as though Odysseus has failed. But the Laestrygonians inevitably serve up a chilling experience of alienation, victimization or defeat. Why? Because they are projections of the unconscious, and projections are always created to seem bigger and more powerful on their own terms.

By fleeing, Odysseus withdraws from his self-invalidating projections. He survives because he does not engage the Laestrygonians as they would like him to. He will not make himself at home in this paradigm, this set of paranoid perceptions about the world.

You can’t beat the Laestrygonians by wrestling with them on their own turf by their own rules: you will be trapped in Laestrygonia, stuck int he self-invalidating mindset, negating the negators, fighting a dirty, little guerilla war that you cannot win. With all your arguments, you are not likely to be able to convince the Laestrygonians that they are wrong. What kills the Laestrygonians, the experts at non-recognition is recognition of who they are (which is to say, who you are). This means facing the shadow without compromise, which requires real courage. For a Laestrogyonian, the real truth is always hidden; and the center of the action – what really matters – is in these secrets, what is left unsaid or under the surface. The real predicament of the Laestrygonians is that they are too attuned to trouble, to fighting it or running from it.

Courage

What to do in Laestrygonia?

In The Republic, Plato makes the Guardians of the City the virtuosos of courage. The way they acquire that virtue is not to eliminate the feeling of fear – a fearless person is, of course, not courageous – but rather to learn what should legitiately be feared and what should not be.

Courage means thinking clearly in situations that are dangerous, difficult, painful or scary and then acting on the resolution. The contentious, hyperalert Laestrygonians are not couragous, quite the opposite. They do not see the threats they face in context. All visitors are equally suspect; all dangers are potentially catastrophic. To the Laestrygonians, the only sensible response to visitors seems to be a full bore pre-emptive strike.

When you are attacked by the Laestrygonians, always an unpleasant situation since they target their heavy projectiles with devastating precision, you need to sort out and acknowledge what is true and what is important about their attack – they will pummel your soft spots – without being stymied by them.

You need courage to face the Laestrygonian parts of yourself, to see them for what they are, neither inflating them nor deflating them, seeing how brutal and invalidating they are but also to see them in their context, and then go on anyway.

Odysseus does not try to conquer the Laestrygonians or repress them or eat them. He sees that they will not be vanguished; if he were to engage them by fighting them he would die here, as the vast majority of his sailors do, in the Laestrygonian frame of reference. He does not get hooked by them. He does not yield to their view of him.

Instead, he recognizes the invalidators for who they are and what they are. He sees clearly their power, their brutality, the need to dodge their invalidating, well-aimed projectiles. He sees this is not the place to make his stand; he wil have to be recognized elsewhere. He takes his lumps, and he hits the road.

And here is the outcome: Odysseus faces his own demons. They have thrown him for a loop, caused him real damage, and yet he continues on. Who can say that is cowardly?

After Odysseus had the wind knocked out of him in the Aeolian adventure, and now that he’s been pummeled int he Laestrygonian darkness, his dis-inflation is complete. Simply meeting the Laestrygonians in your life is reason enough for humility. Consider when you have not been ‘recognized’ for who you really are by powerful people who falsely accused you or misunderstood your intentions. They did not see your compassionate heart, your intelligence, your honorableness or your sophistication. So frustrating. And yet these people are just the Laestrygonians made manifest. The trick, as always, is not to settle in Laestrygonis, which is to say, not to let their dehuminazing definition of you be the one you settle for.

You’ll know you’re in Laestrygonia when:

• The world seems dangerous, the truth is hidden, and appearances are suspect
• People are divided into enemies and allies. It is us against them, the good guys (us) against the bad guys, or so it appears
• Reality looks black and white, with no shades of gray
• Motives and intentions and important facts will be hidden
• You are not affirmed for what you really are: your honorableness, your good intent, your kind heart

If you are in Laestrygonia

• Courage! Laestrygonia always demands self-affirmation in the face of dark forces who want to do you in.
• The Laestrygonians cannot be conquered or eradicated, or convinced that they are wrong.
• Don’t dismiss the Laestrygonians’s concerns. They may be right as far as they go.
• Recognizing them for who they are, without exaggeration, saps their power to entrap you
• See the truth of their position, and also their blind spots and then move on.
• If you fight them on their terms you will be stuck in the Laestrygonia mindset
• Surviving a visit to Laestrygonia requires an anchorage (a source of reassurance) outside the Laestrygonian harbor.
• Disclose your own self-interest. Show as much of your motives and intentions as you can. The Laestrygonians seek transparancy; they want to know what is hidden.
• Make your allegiances clear. The Laestrygonians want to know that you’re not going to attack them, or even better, that you’re on their side.
• Fight the good fight.

Many critics ove the millennia have dismissed the Laestrygonian contretemps as a pale reprise of the Cyclops episode. And the Laestrygonians and the Polyphemus are indeed both oppositional monsters who like to chomp on humans.

But in teaching and intent they are opposite.

Both want to protect their turf against intruders, but the Laestrygonians magnify the dangers they see; paranoids, they make things worse than they are. Odysseus’ crew is an unlikely threat to these warrior giants, yet the Laestrygonians feel compelled to mount a devastating, pre-emptive attack. They don’t know how to evaluate potential problems, so they destroy everything in sight. They overestimate the enemy.

If the Laestrygonians are a bit self-doubting, the blustery Cyclops Polyphemus is too self-confident. He downplays or ignores real dangers: he has no idea how great a threat Odysseus is, and that Odysseus will do him in. He overvalues his own strength and undervalues that of his visitors, just the opposite of the Laestrygonians.

Hermes Circe Holy Moly

The disastrous dust-up in Laestrygonia is chaotic and discombulating. The land of enemies and allies has left Odysseus with most of his sailors dead and with just one ship left from his fleet of a dozen. Odsysseus must be deeply shaken, filled with despair. If he can no longer claim to be commander of a great military force, or , on these facts, even a competent leader, he must ask: Who am I anyway?

What’s happening to me? How to get on track again? He will require professional help.

Circe is the Traveler’s Aid. A guru, a mentor, a wisdom teacher: she is that wise being who can offer any seeker authorative guidance about the road ahead, if she is so inclined and if one knows how to approach her.

Circe (hawk, as she is a sharp – eyed and unsentimental observer) is a sorceress – ‘with lovely braids’ according to Odysseus – who lives on the bleak island of Aeaea. A dense wood hides her marble palace. Odysseus sends a scouting squad that discovers her singing and weaving; wild animals, lions and wolves, sit tamely, fawning about her.

Circe offers Odysseus’ men her special homebrew of ‘cheese, barley and pale honey mulled in Pramnian wine, but into the brew she stirred her wicked drugs’. In fact she slips them something.

The squad leader Eurylochus doesn’t drink because he is suspicious, and rightfully so, but the other sailors pig out on the potion. Once they do, Circe waves her magic wand and, higgledy – piggledy these men are turned into swine. Eurylochus, stunned and frightened, hightails it back to Odysseus to tell of the men transformed into pigs. Odysseus immediately realizes something is not kosher and heads out to investigate.

Pig Irony

Why does Circe expose Odysseus’ crew as pigs?

Pigs have been disparaged as gluttons for thousands of years, they are big, greedy eaters. People who overstuff themselves are called pigs.