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  • Essay / Odysseus in The Hero and the Goddess and Calypso and...

    Ulysses in The Hero and the Goddess and Calypso and CirceReflections on the experience of Odysseus in relation to The Hero and the Goddess by Jean Houston: The Odyssey as Mystery and Initiation and Calypso and Circe by Alicia LeVan On the lush, lush island of Ogygia, Odysseus spends seven years of his ten-year journey at home with the beautiful and seductive nymph Calypso, who virtually possesses him and l forces one to live a sensual but vegetative existence. For ten years, surrounded by men, he lived the heroic masculine ideal of the warrior, then spent several years still testing himself against otherworldly obstacles. In the process, he lost all his companions and only had what little remained. Here, on the island of Calypso, he lives in paradise: “Thick, lush woods grew around the cave, alders and black, pungent poplars. cypresses too, and there birds perched, folding their long wings, owls and hawks and the outstretched-beaked crows of the sea, black skimmers who earn their living from the waves. And around the mouth of the cave trailed a vineladen with clusters, bursting with ripe grapes. Four springs in a row, bubbling clear and cold, flowing side by side, took channels to the left and right. The gentle meadows that stretched around were starry with violets, lush with beds of parsley. Well, even an immortal god who came. on this place, he would gaze with wonder, his heart captivated with pleasure. Homer, The Odyssey, V: 71-82, translation by Fagles. Odysseus is now embraced by Mother Earth, in all her verdant fertility, and also lives deep in caverns that only recall his mother's womb. For seven years, Calypso protects him from Poseidon's wrath. As a devoted, all-consuming mother, AND alluring, engulfing mistress/lover, she is both what men most desire and what they fear most. Alicia LeVan wrote: "Perhaps his 'need' for unity with the feminine, coupled with his desire to be home (an embodiment of the feminine principle representing relationship, community, cooperation and non-aggression) represents a need for integration of the feminine principle into one's psyche after years of operating in war, with the constant testosterone of destroying, killing, raping and surviving in the barren and inhumane strife-torn plains of Troy , soaked in blood. After ten years of operating as a killer and destroyer, he must heal his numbness and desensitivity by connecting to his feelings..