MEDICINE STORIES TO HEAL THE SOUL:
Eros and Psyche: The Four Tasks of Love
by Pythia Peay

In ancient times, sacred stories were used as a symbolic medical prescription to heal the wounds of the soul. A well-told parable, fairy tale, or myth could ease the dull pain of sadness, lower high levels of anxiety, or fill the hollow spaces of heart-emptiness. These Medicine Stories have staying power because they give meaning to our suffering. The right story at the right time can align us with our destiny, steadying our souls on this strange and wild adventure called life.

Part of the secret magic of a good story is timing. Because the planet Venus has just emerged from her retrograde journey through the underworld and is finally moving forward in the skies, it is a healing time for the soul to hear a medicine story about love. On June 29 the planet Venus shifted from retrograde to direct motion. According to the ancients, Venus was thought to have emerged at this time from her stay in the underworld, emerging in her "light" aspect. Though Venus retrogrades approximately every 18 months, this particular retrograde period has been of great symbolic significance: On May 17^th, Venus stationed retrograde at 26 degrees Gemini while opposing Pluto at 23 degrees Sagittarius. Adding to the magic, Neptune (higher octave of Venus) also stationed retrograde on that same day. Then, on June 8^th, Venus made a rare, exact transit of the Sun at 17 degrees Gemini, still in close opposition to Pluto, Lord of the Underworld. On June 25, Venus and Pluto will reach their final opposition; then the transformation begun in the underworld of the unconscious psyche will be completed. The light and dark aspects of Aphrodite will be woven together into a beautiful wedding garment. Venus retrogrades occur in pairs, separated by eight-year intervals: Venus will station retrograde at the same degree of Gemini in 2012 – heralding the end of the Mayan calendar and the onset of a new cycle of mythic time. Thus the next eight years offer us an opportunity to give our selves to the work of love - in hopes of bringing healing and light to our lives, and to the earth.

The Roman author Apuleius penned the myth of Eros and Psyche in the second century AD; threads of it can be found in the fairy tales Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella. Encrypted within its coded message is a true tale of how the inner work of attending to love’s call through reflection and self-knowledge can change our consciousness and awaken the sleeping soul within.

The Story

The tale begins with "sweet Psyche" - the youngest of the three daughters of a king and queen. So rare and exquisite is Psyche that she is hailed as a "new Aphrodite." But men were intimidated. They "marveled at her divine loveliness, but as men marvel at a statue fairly wrought." With her two older sisters married, Psyche’s father seeks advice from the oracle of Apollo. The oracle delivers the message that because his mortal daughter has made mighty Aphrodite jealous, she must suffer the fate of being chained to a mountain. Blindfolded, she will be carried off by a fierce dragon. In order to avenge her honor, Aphrodite sends her son, Eros (known to us as Cupid) to carry out the traumatic task of bearing Psyche to her doomed marriage to a monster.

Winging his way to the forsaken Psyche, Eros catches a glimpse of her beauty – and falls hopelessly in love. Rather than carry out his mother’s orders, Eros lifts the frightened, blinded Psyche up on a breeze and carries her to his palace. There he marries her, and they live an idyllic life. But there is one hitch: though they sleep together every night, he remains invisible, and she must obey his order never to look at him directly. A visit to her jealous sisters, however, plants doubt and fear in Psyche’s heart. Poking and prodding, criticizing and judging, they convince her that, because she has never seen him, her husband must really be a monster. On their advice, she takes a candle to her husband’s bed one evening after he has fallen asleep and, lifting it high, sees the beautiful god he really is. Overcome with love, Psyche loses her grip on her candle, and a drop of wax falls on his shoulder. Rudely awakened from sleep, his wound smarting, Eros angrily accuses her of breaking their vow. He flies off into the night, and returns to his mother’s house. There he hides out, nursing his shoulder.

Depressed and in despair over the loss of her husband, Psyche tries to drown herself in the river. But the kind river refuses to accept her body, throwing her up on its bank. There she encounters the old nature god Pan, who wisely encourages her to remain steadfast in her love. Desperate, Psyche makes her way to Aphrodite’s house, begging her help and forgiveness. Unmoved, haughty Aphrodite presents her daughter-in-law with four tasks that, if she can carry them out, will win her husband back. Secretly, however, the Goddess smirks, for she has no intention of letting Psyche upstage her again. The tasks she gives Psyche are impossible for any mortal to carry out. Indeed, each time Psyche undertakes one of the superhuman tasks, she faints in fear and tries to kill herself again. Yet each time, a helpful ally appears and helps her figure it all out. Finally, Psyche accomplishes all of the chores assigned to her by the Goddess of Love – save the very last, which she fails. Just at this moment, however, Eros relents. His wound mended, he leaves his mother’s house and flies to the side of his beloved Psyche. Raised up to Olympus by Zeus, Psyche becomes the first human to become one of the Olympian immortals, and she and Eros give birth to a beautiful child named Pleasure.

Whether a romantic affair, a marriage, a friendship, or a parent-child relationship, the narrative bones of this tale can be found in all the love stories of our lives. There are the doubting sisters – like the four girlfriends on Sex and the City, these are the helpful friends with whom we process every twist and turn in the tale of our own love stories. And Eros - I’ve known a lot of men who, like him, retreat in wounded silence when exposed to the glare of honest exchange. At the same time, I’ve found myself in the role of Eros – ducking away from difficult emotional issues. And Psyche – who hasn’t been in her position before? When Eros splits and goes into his sulk, she thinks she’ll never find love like that again, and falls in to a mood of hopeless despair. But Psyche, after all, is only human. Though the gods have chosen her to risk the dangerous obstacle course of love, she’s hardly a noble knight or courageous athlete. Rather, again and again, she falls apart and gives up. Like all of us, love brings out the best and the worst in her. Still, our brave little Psyche is undaunted by love’s difficulties. And in the end, she succeeds in winning back her heart’s true love. She does this by trusting in nature and the wise old Pan. Digging deep into her inner resources she finds a way to make love work – and to make it real, and lasting. She does this for the simplest of all reasons - because she loves Eros. And why else would anyone go through the things they have to put up with in relationships, if not for love?

Since it was first published, this story has become a kind of hero’s journey of the human heart. Many commentators have interpreted it as the initiation of the human soul into the mystery of love - one that is rich with insight and practical advice on how to weather the rocky passages of emotional intimacy. In the story, both Psyche and Eros are completely blind-sided by their sudden, overwhelming attraction to each other – revealing that love’s arrow falls where it will, and that the force of love does not bend easily to personal control. Both figures represent different aspects of the love experience, as well. The too-beautiful Psyche, for instance, symbolizes the individual who is innocent and untouched by the depth of true relationship – rather than the humbling transformation that takes place between two individuals whose love is shaped in the crucible of everyday reality. The winged Eros, as well, represents the desire to be in relationship while avoiding heart-to-heart encounter.

Who hasn’t seen these archetypal patterns reflected in their relationship? The wish to remain "blindly in love"; the searing pain when our fantasies are stripped bare, exposing the "real" person; the desire to keep our faults hidden from one another; the way one lover "flees" from the other out of wounded pride. Yet though we may want to give up, the tale says that the only way out of love’s entanglements is through. Perhaps the most significant characters in this tale are the chorus of non-human cheerleaders: The river who refuses to Psyche drown, the pagan earth-god Pan, the little ants, the whispering reeds, the eagle, and the talking tower. All of nature, they seem to say, conspires toward love and connection. To cut off the flow of love and feeling is to cut off life itself. By courageously following love where it takes us, the personal and the transpersonal are joined together. Through the human experience of relationship, this Medicine Story says, we humans can blossom into the fullness of our spiritual potential.

Here is a brief description of the Four Tasks of Love:

The first task given to Psyche by Aphrodite – or Love – is to sort through a giant pile of different types of seeds, arranging them in separate piles. When she faints in despair before this huge task, the little ants come and help her in the night. Symbolically, this corresponds to the way love’s confusions force us back inside ourselves. Engaging in THE PAINSTAKING WORK OF thoughtful reflection, we have to carefully and methodically sort through our feelings, thoughts, fears, and doubts. We have to discriminate and discern what issues are real or passing, as well as what belong to us – and what belongs to our partner. The second task given Psyche is to snatch a handful of hair from the hide of one of the fierce golden rams. This time, it is the gentle "whispering reeds" that come to her rescue, advising her to steal the hair during the cool of twilight. The ram symbolizes aggression. In the Zodiac, the ram is the animal assigned to the warrior sign of Aries. In this context, the ram symbolizes the tempestuous anger that can erupt within ourselves and within the most peaceful of relationships. The secret to handling arguments and fighting, say the wise whispering reeds, is to wait until evening after the sun has set. In other words, one way to handle aggression is to wait until fiery tempers have simmered down, things have cooled off, and anger can be balanced by reflection. The third task given Psyche is to climb a dangerously high mountain peak and fill a crystal cup from the source-spring of the underworld, guarded by fierce snakes. This time it is an eagle that comes to Psyche’s rescue, filling the cup for her. The cup of water symbolizes the water of life: the energy, spirit, and life force that animate relationship. Without its invigorating power, a relationship falls into the grip of boredom and emptiness. The last. and most dangerous, task assigned Psyche is to descend to the underworld in search of a rare beauty ointment for Aphrodite. Utterly dejected, Psyche climbs a tall tower and prepares to throw herself to her death. Just in time, the "farseeing" tower "speaks," giving her detailed instructions on how to accomplish this last, and most dangerous task. First, the" talking tower" warns her against responding to the outstretched hands of a poor donkey driver, a corpse, and, last, the old decrepit "weaving women" whom she will encounter along her way. Once beneath the surface of the earth, Psyche must not eat of any food offered her, but must receive the beauty box from Persephone, goddess of the underworld, and return straight away, without looking inside the box. Psyche successfully accomplishes all these tasks – except the very last. As she mounts the rising path up and out of the underworld, she cannot resist peeking inside the box with its mysterious contents. At that moment she falls to the ground, overcome with deathly sleep. At this point Eros intervenes to save her, and the two enjoy a fairy tale ending on the heights of Mt. Olympus. The "talking tower" symbolizes the human capacity for intuition - the heightened perspective that can penetrate the very depth of things. The prohibition against helping those in need represents those times in our lives when, in order to accomplish a great task, we must recognize our limitations and avoid over-extending ourselves to others. The underworld symbolizes that deep, hidden place of rebirth and regeneration within all of us. Within this place, the small self is reborn as Self, or Soul. Persephone’s beauty ointment shows how the willingness to go to the very ends of the earth in our extreme suffering for love’s sake produces the rare quality of true, soulful beauty. And Psyche’s failure to heed the last instruction to resist peeking inside the beauty box? Perhaps this is the point we reach when, despite our efforts, we finally grasp that there is only so much we can do to win over another. In the end, love is a mystery that lies far beyond the reach of any games or romantic ploys. It says that while there is a time for working things out, there is also a time for letting fate, or the Goddess, take over for us. Indeed, it is at this magical point in the tale when Eros flies to Psyche’s side, lifting her out of her deathless sleep. Thus at the end of the story, love (Eros) awakens the soul (Psyche) – and the immortal and the mortal intersect. Psyche, or soul, attains spiritual realization through her initiation into the eternal mysteries of human love.

Pythia's latest book, Mercury Retrograde: Its Myth and Meaning, is now available! Order from Amazon.com, or visit Pythia's website for more information.

© 2004 Pythia Peay
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