Living Symbols and the Power of Images
Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
Of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
The wanderer, harried for years on end…
And learned the minds of many distant men,
And weathered many bitter nights and days
In his deep heart at sea, while he fought only
To save his life, to bring his shipmates home…
Lift the great song again.1
These words are Homer’s from the opening strains of The Odyssey. Part invocation and part challenge, they beckon us to begin our own journey in exploring our psychological challenges by watching someone else go through theirs from the safe distance of story.
The themes, presented through memorable adventures, powerful images, and familiar symbols, play out in every human heart, and therefore connect us to each other and to the universe as a whole. One could say that The Odyssey is an ancient owner’s manual for the Western soul on its quest for wholeness, integration, and meaning, and that Odysseus, the main character, is a projection of what a hero must endure to overcome mankind’s most common fundamental dilemmas.
So this boat, this captain, these shipmates, and these adventures are aspects of the Self on its mythic journey back “home.”
I first encountered the stirring power that images and symbols can invoke when I was in college and I read another ancient Greek work- Plato’s Timaeus2. Plato’s words conjured pictures in my mind that engaged my intellect. Yet something else was being communicated too, a deeper truth about the nature of the Self. In some ineffable way I was transformed from a lonely and solitary thinking being into a loving manifestation of something grand but yet undiscovered.
When Plato links each of our soul’s destiny to a specific star in the heavens, he writes…
“…(The Creator) divided the whole mixture into souls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each soul to a star; and having there placed them as in a chariot, he showed them the nature of the universe, and declared to them the laws of destiny…they must have love, in which pleasure and pain mingle; also fear and anger, and the feelings which are akin or opposite to them; if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they were conquered by them, unrighteously. He who lived well during his appointed time was to return and dwell in his native star, and there he would have a blessed and congenial existence.”
I love the magnitude of this image. I love Plato’s invitation to participate. Involved in this image is me down here, the very distant stars out there, and between us…space. In this space I expand. I am humbled. This sense of space, empty yet cognizant, filled me with such sweetness and compassion. When I read Plato’s words I awake to the possibility that there is meaning and purpose, an order in things, a destiny woven into my little life.
I awoke to something else as well. I became aware that many other people had searched for meaning and purpose in their lives. Writers and philosophers like Plato and Homer plumbed the ancient mythic imagination present in their culture and shared what they found. In the blink of an eye my own contemporary struggle became joyously impersonal. I shifted from feeling like an isolated person adrift in my little boat (my ego) to belonging to an armada of like-minded souls embarking on the great journey; that my personal evolution was important to the success of the entire operation. And in nurturing myself on Plato’s mythic poetry I teamed up with a league of travelers searching for their own ways home, enduring terrible hardships and great disappointments, “weathering many bitter nights and days.” A “return to our native star” is possible in the same way that all streams eventually return to the sea.
But the peace I felt at the time was not to last. The details of everyday life seemed to dampen and then smother my broader sense of harmony, destiny, and purpose. Small-mindedness, self-centeredness, and doubt, entered my mind. And somehow, without me noticing, the forgetfulness of the Lotus-Eaters3 had entered my life.
After a long period of inner darkness I once again set sail and plotted a new course, this time to the East. I studied Tibetan Buddhism and Hindu Advaita, two great non-duality traditions. I discovered that the sense of space I touched in Timeaus was at the core of these teachings. They use terms such as Empty Cognizance, Awareness, and the Supreme. I noticed I had a familiarity and a resonance with the teachings. But obscurations surfaced and made these moments fleeting. I began to feel like a New York tourist in Nepal: it is an interesting and deeply moving vacation, but in the background is the constant sharp smell of the unfamiliar and a longing for home.
Then, over a casual lunch with my friend, the great depth astrologer Bob Campbell, Bob brought up the myth of Proteus, one story among many presented in The Odyssey. Our discussion hinged on the idea that present in the words and images of Homer is a profound understanding of what one must endure to awaken fully to the totality of who and what we are.
I rushed out and bought the book. And something in me stirred after a 27-year hibernation. From reading the first line of this epic poem I felt as if I had come home. The living truths in this work, written over 2700 years ago, was singing in me now, at this time, with fresh vigor.
Questions arose. How is one to “live well during his appointed time?” We, like Plato before us, can read Homer’s words and find the answers. Because on the personal level The Odyssey is a roadmap to help us awaken to the loving wholeness already present inside ourselves.
How might The Odyssey do this? How could we make it personal here and now? How could we move it from the head to the heart and make it our personal drama. What might be the most effective way to find immediate resonance? It is my interest in these questions that led me to write and illustrate these posts. (Continues in the next post)
References
1. Homer (1992). The Odyssey (R. Fitzgerald, Trans.). New York, NY: Everyman’s Library/Alfred A. Knopf.
2. Plato. (2009). Plato’s Timaeus (B. Jowett, Trans.). Rockville, MD: Serenity.
3. In book IX Odysseus describes the way three of his crewmen become drugged with lethargy and forgetfulness after eating lotus flowers. “Those who ate this honeyed plant, the Lotus…never cared to return…forgetful of their homeland.” I take this to mean a false peace, instant gratification, and a passive avoidance of accepting the responsibility of facing the difficulties required to move towards wholeness.