This workshop will explore the experience of Neptune aspects and transits through the lens of Homer’s masterwork, The Odyssey, the tale of Odysseus’s 10-year-long journey home to Ithaca from Troy – a trip that he thought would take only a few short weeks – due to the influence of Poseidon/Neptune.
Odysseus was not a hero in the usual sense, and as anyone who has lived with a strong natal Neptune or Neptune transit knows, this is not a god who is interested in human heroism or valor. Repeatedly described as “he who was born for pain”, Odysseus is shipwrecked and beached again and again, onto island after island full of strange and otherworldly creatures. Instead of force and will, he must embrace strategies of indirection: surrender, disguise, shapeshifting, loss, altered states of consciousness, and multiple forms of the archetypal feminine along his journey home to Ithaca.
We will explore several of the key chapters of Odysseus’s journey to deepen our understanding of Neptune aspects and transits – his famed encounters with the Sirens, the monsters Scylla and Charybdis, the sorceress Circe, the goddess Calypso, and some other less well-known experiences. We will work with in-depth and nuanced psychological interpretations of these stories, and explore through case studies how these myths have played out in the lives of individuals during the course of long-term psychotherapy, where these themes were actively engaged and worked with. We will also explore how the stories of the Odyssey can provide a deeper felt sense of Neptune’s aspects and transits in your own chart. We’ll especially consider the Mercurial nature of Odysseus – wily, tricky, and clever – and how Mercury can act as something of a counterpoint to Neptune (following on the polarity of their associated signs Pisces and Virgo), a way to mutably adapt to the ups and downs of the seas.
Finally, we also have the rare opportunity to study the actual astrology of a key moment in an ancient myth. Recent archaeometric research has precisely dated Homer’s description of the day of the final return of Odysseus to Ithaca based on astronomical and seasonal references in the text. So we will examine the chart of the date and time proposed as Odysseus’s return and what it may have to tell us about surviving and sailing with Neptune transits.