11: Rosy-Fingered Dawn - My Life with The Odyssey

Episode 11: Rosy-Fingered Dawn: My Life with The Odyssey

Hello friends. 

With the release of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, Homer's ancient epic is once again capturing the world's imagination. But for me, this extraordinary poem has been a lifelong companion.

In this episode, I share my personal journey with The Odyssey, from discovering it as a young woman, to writing songs inspired by Odysseus, Calypso, Circe and the Sirens, to finally walking the shores of Ithaca itself. Together we'll explore why myths continue to speak so powerfully across thousands of years, and how they help us navigate our own journeys of love, loss, transformation, and homecoming.

We'll also celebrate the magic of Eos, the Rosy-Fingered Dawn, whose arrival each morning reminds us that every day offers the possibility of a new beginning.

A special edition: For this episode, I've woven excerpts from many of my Odyssey-inspired songs throughout the conversation, inviting you to experience these ancient myths through both storytelling and music.

In this episode:

• The symbolism of Eos, Goddess of Dawn
• Why The Odyssey has shaped my creative life
• My travels to Ithaca and the legendary palace of Odysseus
• The stories behind songs from The Lotus Eaters
• Circe, Calypso, the Sirens, and the universal language of myth
• A two-card Tarot reading for the journey ahead

Listen to my Odyssey playlist:
🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3we3r4ukGzu3agU8Ii4WmL?si=b2dPVduTSGKj2dFf3kAJHg

🎵 TIDAL: https://tidal.com/playlist/df4f8d94-e8ec-4348-907a-6a2756bde56c

As always, thank you for listening. If you'd like to continue the conversation and join me for a deeper exploration of this episode's Tarot reading, come and visit me on Patreon.

Oh, and don't forget to check out my Australian tour at www.wendyrule.com 

EXPLORE MORE:

• WENDY'S WEBSITE
• JOIN WENDY'S PATREON COMMUNITY
• WENDY'S MUSIC ON BANDCAMP

AUDIO PRODUCTION by Timothy Van Diest at Meadowlark Studios

Transcript

Welcome And The Leo Dark Moon

Speaker 4 0:07

Hello, friends, and welcome to episode 11 of Darkness and Light. I'm your host, Wendy Rule, and this is a podcast about myth, magic, and nature. Let's check in with the sun and the moon. As this episode lands, it is one day after the Leo Dark Moon. So we're still in Leo season, and we've had that beautiful concentration of energy, the sun and the moon meeting in the sign of Leo, and now that moon is breaking free from the light of the sun, beginning her waxing journey. And any moment now we will see that fresh new crescent appear in the western twilight sky. This first sliver of light returning. I feel like every new moon brings a sense of hope of rebirth. That fresh new crescent reminds me of the energy of Dawn. And there's a famous phrase that describes Dawn that has influenced me for decades. Rosy Fingered Dawn. One of my favorite phrases in literature. And it is from The Odyssey. And with the release of this new movie by Christopher Nolan, the Odyssey is getting a lot of attention right now. I'm recording this a couple of weeks before its release, so I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm very keen to. Maybe you already have by the time this podcast is released. But although I haven't seen this latest interpretation of this ancient Greek poem, I know the story very well. It has been my traveling companion for decades, since before the start of my musical career, and I have songs on my first album and beyond that are dedicated to this amazing ancient epic poem. And in this episode, I would really love to share that journey with you, my personal connection with the Odyssey and why it has been so important for me personally and creatively, why it's captured my heart for such a long time. So that's going to be our focus for this episode.

Rosy-Fingered Dawn And Eos

Speaker 4 3:09

But before then, let's dive into this energy of rosy fingered dawn, this beautiful energy of a fresh new morning, and get a sense of this feeling of hope and rebirth that dawn brings, aligning so nicely with this very early stage of the waxing moon, that very first hint of light. To awake before sunrise and feel the day stretch out ahead. It has a special magic, has a privacy to that energy of dawn. I always feel that it's time just for myself. There's a secret, almost eerie, mystical, magical energy of that light before sunrise. The songs of the first birds, that dip in temperature before the sunrise, making those first rays of the sun even more welcome. In Greek mythology, the energy of dawn is represented by the goddess Eos. She is a titan, one of the earliest generations of gods. Her father is Hyperion, her mother is Thea, and her siblings are Helios, the sun, and Selene, the moon. The dawn, the sun, the moon. Eos is Dawn in the same way that Helios is the sun. She is the embodiment of dawn itself. So when Homer in the Odyssey writes the rosy fingered dawn appeared, he literally means Eos herself appeared. Here's a quote When Dawn, born in the early morning, appeared with her rosy fingers. And this line rosy fingered dawn is repeated dozens of times in the Odyssey and the Iliad. Rothovacdilos Ios Rosy Fingered Dawn. It's so evocative. And by honoring Dawn as goddess, dawn becomes more than just an atmospheric event. It's the arrival of a divine being whose presence brings the first light. She rises from the eastern edge of the world, bringing the first light before her brother Helios, the sun, drives his chariot across the sky. And I love this idea that dawn isn't just something that happens. Dawn is a goddess arriving. I've always found that dawn, just like the new moon, is a very powerful time to send our intention out to the universe. It's a great time for spell work, for magic, for meditation. It feels like time outside of time, buzzing with potential, alive and potent. Those first days of the waxing moan, that first new crescent that appears. We get to experience that once a month. This sense of rebirth of possibility. But dawn comes every day. First light, welling the night to fade, stretching the canvas ready for Helios' rays for the sun's glorious colors. I

From Fairy Tales To Myth

Speaker 4 7:46

have always loved stories. As a kid, I had a special love of fairy tales. Something about the collective nature of these stories, that they belonged to a culture, that they'd passed down through generations, that they were stronger than a particular author. They transcended the personal and became collective stories. Even as a kid, I kind of recognized the strength of these collective stories. So moving from fairy tale to myth was a pretty natural progression. And it was early on, like late high school, early college, that I became quite obsessed with the Odyssey. I really have read that poem dozens of times. Most recently last year, I read the wonderful Emily Wilson translation, one of the most recent translations. When I was traveling to Ithaca, the island of Ithaca in Greece, which is the legendary home of Odysseus, the hero of the Odyssey. And Ithaca was absolutely amazing. It's a gorgeous island on the west coast of Greece. There was more forested and more lush than the islands of the Aegean that I was used to. And I was there in June last year, and it really didn't have too many tourists at all. That will probably change after this great Odyssey hype that's happening right now. But yeah, I was lucky and it was gorgeous. Beautiful beaches, very mellow, very quiet. I did some beautiful hikes through gorgeous forest, up over a headland, through beautiful forest, and then down to a pristine beach that I had all to myself one morning. I'd risen with the dawn, our rosy fingered dawn to begin this hike, and had this gorgeous expanse of white pebbled beach to myself for hours. It was incredible. That landscape feels so mythic. And whether or not it was actually where the legendary Odysseus had his palace, there is an archaeological site there that is referred to as Odysseus's palace. So of course I had to go and discover that. It was further north on the island, and I spent a wonderful day there. Again, hardly anyone there. Mostly I had it to myself. It was gorgeous. I actually remember making a little video there for my Patreon that week. It was lovely to be able to share that special and ancient site. Even if it's not the actual place, even if Ithaca was somewhere different, because there's a lot of contenders in Greece, and various islands will say, no, this was actually Ithaca. But anyway, this island in modern times is called Ithaca. And Ithaca really is the symbol for home. That desire, that longing to return to home, whatever that is. That sense of safety and security, home. Every time that I connect with this myth, it offers something different. It's not just the exciting story, monsters and goddesses and that epic sea journey. To me, it's always felt like something more, something very deep and human that resonated with me. When I was writing my first album, which came out in 1996, so I was 30 when it came out, I was born in 1966. So

Songwriting Through Saturn Return

Speaker 4 11:38

I was writing those early songs in my late twenties, which coincided with my Saturn return, which is a very tumultuous time in our lives, our first Saturn return. So these epic stories, these adventures and trials, these losses, this grief, these loves that Odysseus encountered on his journey, mirrored my own tumultuous life at that point. At that point in my life, everything did feel epic. So I wrote two songs for my first album that are based directly on the Odyssey. One of them is called Odyssey, and the other is Sirens. And I remember writing sirens. I remember I was in the Melbourne Botanical Gardens where there's some huge and beautiful fig trees with their big twisted branches, and I remember being underneath one of those and immersed in my notebook writing this song of tumultuous love, of love that can feel like it devours. So this poem of the Odyssey, I felt like I was both Odysseus and the Siren. I was the ship and the sea and the sailors. It became part of me, genuinely a traveling companion through that whole time of my life, and continues to be. I'm still compelled to dive deeper and deeper and deeper into this epic work. And I'm actually really excited about this film because it is bringing this ancient myth to a whole new audience. And as I said, I haven't seen the film yet. I don't know if I'm gonna like it or not, but what I am gonna like is the fact that it's been made, that this poem that's essentially 3,000 years old continues to hold relevance because it explores not just a series of adventures, but our human journey, our trials, our loves, our losses. These themes remain relevant because they're universal, they're timeless. He's

Odysseus The Trickster And Homecoming

Speaker 4 14:38

been to the Trojan War reluctantly. He never wanted to go. But he ended up kind of winning the war by being the inventor, the brains behind the whole Trojan horse trickery that got the Greek soldiers inside the walls of Troy and led to Troy's defeat. So Odysseus saves the day, and then the war ends, and everyone who survives, all the Greeks that survive disperse and go back home. They've been away for ten years, and this whole time, during that ten years, Odysseus left when his son was a baby. So he now has a ten-year-old son, his wife Penelope, is at home. She's a queen. Odysseus is the king of Ithaca, and Penelope is the queen, and she's trusting in his survival and trusting that he will return. But when other soldiers head straight home after the Trojan War, Odysseus, with his fleet of ships, with his men, decides to take a little detour. He's so inquisitive that he just has to see what that island is all about, what's around that corner. Back in episode, I think it was maybe episode six or seven, I recorded a podcast episode all about Hermes, and I actually talked about Odysseus in that. Odysseus is very mercurial. He has that energy of Hermes, of Mercury, inquisitive, tricky, also, yeah, a little untrustworthy. He's mercurial. He needs to explore, he needs to know, and he he's also a trickster. Odysseus is a trickster. He lies and he cheats. And this particular personality that is presented in this ancient poem gets him both into and out of trouble. So, yeah, on the surface, it's a story of a man trying to get home after the Trojan War. But that very first detour that he makes sets in play a whole series of events that means it takes him another ten years to get home. And by that stage, he is the only survivor of all of those men who he was in charge of. So this sense of this tumultuous uncertainty of his journey becomes a mirror of the human experience. And certainly that's what it felt like for me. Writing those songs in my late twenties, my Odyssey song, one of the lines, these are the times when you taste of your soul, tossed on an ocean and driven by need, pain in escaping or reaching your goal. Drink of the blood and you'll certainly bleed. That's how it felt back then. That because when Odysseus does get back to Ithaca, it's not a simple happy homecoming. If you've seen the film, I guess you'd know. There's not really a need for a spoiler alert warning here because this story's 3,000 years old. But yet, his homecoming ends up being destructive and bloody and murderous. And it can feel like that. We're yearning, yearning, yearning to reach a particular shore, to find our way home. But what does home even mean? This story of this one tricky man, this complicated man, of his journey home becomes our story of human experience, of loss and love and hope, feeling adrift, feeling lost, feeling like the gods are against us. And I know, as a traveller setting off on my own Odysseys each year when I head out on tour, or when I go adventuring, that homecoming can feel disorienting. Any journey, any experience changes us in a way, then we come back and try to integrate that aspect, that new aspect of self into an older life. And I mean, I'm talking, I might go away for a couple of months or something. Odysseus was away for 20 years in total. So he comes back a changed person, but he also comes back to a changed situation. His baby son is now 20 years old. His castle is overrun by suitors trying to convince his wife Penelope that Odysseus is dead and that she should remarry. So all the things that seemed so sure that if he can just get home, everything will be okay, that's made very clear. It becomes very apparent that this is not the case. You know that feeling when you return to somewhere that you might have traveled to or visited, and you return a while later, and the special place, maybe a restaurant that was on that particular corner, is no longer there, or the shop you really wanted to go to has disappeared, or that little cobblestone street has become a thoroughfare. There's a sense of uncertainty, of disorientation that comes from this change. And we witness this experience through this poem. It's not just a series of ancient, interesting stories. It's our story, our human story, it's our Odyssey. After

Building The Lotus Eaters Album

Speaker 4 21:07

those first couple of songs on my first album, Odyssey and Sirens, I continued to journey with this myth. And a couple of albums down the track, I decided that I wanted to dedicate an entire album to this myth. I guess kind of like what I ended up doing for my Persephone album, which came out in 2019. I wanted to do my version of Telling the Odyssey, but didn't quite work out like that. I continued to immerse myself fully in this ancient work. And this was before I began touring internationally. I began conceiving of this album, which ended up becoming my album, The Lotus Eaters. And the first song that I wrote was about the ocean. It was called Horses. It's the opening track of that album. And really, it's an ode to Poseidon, to the waves of white horses. When I wrote that, I was yearning to travel. I was on the shore. And I literally wrote this. I wrote this down at the Great Ocean Road during a winter. I was camping down there, and I stood on that shore and I watched the wild waves roll in. And I just wanted to somehow sail that ocean. I wanted that sense of freedom that comes with the enormous expanse of ocean. I was yearning to travel, and in that song I talk about longing to be a migrating bird, to fly to all that is wild and all that is free. This feeling of somehow being landlocked and just wanting to fully open my wings and expand. Yeah, it's actually one of my favorite songs to sing. It remains one. It's an old song now, you know. That album came out in 2003. But it is absolutely one of my favourite songs to sing. It feels ecstatic, and especially when I perform it with my friend Rachel Samuel, who's played cello with me all these years. It feels deeply ecstatic, and I think I'm feeling that energy of standing on the shore and yearning for the adventure, yearning to set sail. And it was basically the year after I wrote that that I began touring internationally, and now I am a migrating bird, flying back and forth across the hemispheres to all that is wild and all that is free. But that's how I began this writing about this Odyssey, starting with the ocean itself. But then I went to America and I was thinking, yeah, you know, I'm gonna be writing this narrative essentially, but it didn't work out like that. I found myself on my own big journey of love and loss. And because my experience was all-encompassing, my emotional experience, I decided not to write that narrative, but rather to let the poem, let the Odyssey, act as, I guess, a lens through which to view my own life. So I wrote all these songs that cast myself as either Odysseus or the ocean or one of the goddesses he encounters. So I have a song called Penelope, where I'm waiting and waiting and waiting because of this stupid love affair I was in and waiting for some kind of sign of it moving forward. I wrote in the voice of Calypso, the goddess Calypso, who Odysseus spends seven years on her island as her lover, but he's yearning the whole time to leave. And eventually the gods decree that she needs to release him and help him to get home. And I wrote in the voice of Calypso, seeing him sail away with a broken heart. I wrote that it's this I can't even sing that song anymore. It would it's too sad. When that album first came out, I, you know, I sang it a few times and I'd cry during it. And now it's just kind of tucked away. I doubt that I'll ever necessarily feel like I want to sing that again. It brings up too much pain, this sense of deep loss, and that became expressed through imagining how Calypso felt as Odysseus sailed away, knowing she would never see him again. So I was able to talk about my particular individual sense of loss and heartbreak through the lens and experience of this goddess. And that made my experience everyone's experience. That calypso standing on the shore and watching him sail away. In the song they say, a boat set sail upon the sea, and now my heart is bleeding. That's everyone's heart bleeding. We've all felt grief, we've all felt loss. And as soon as I become calypso, I'm no longer Wendy in that experience. Yes, I am to me, but to anyone else listening, that personal experience becomes universal. I'm able to share it, to transcend and integrate my own individual experience. On the album I write a song for the sirens called La Femme de la Mer. The sirens of beautiful and deadly women allure sailors to their deaths with their exquisite singing, singing on the edge of the sea. Sailors will jump overboard in order to get closer to that song, only to be devoured. And there's this amazing section of the Odyssey where Odysseus hears this tale and longs to hear the sirens sing without being devoured. And it's the goddess Circe who teaches him how to do just that, to use beeswags to stop up his sailors' ears so that they can't hear the sirens, and will keep continuing onward, while Odysseus, tied to the mast of his ship so that he doesn't leap overboard, leaves his ears free so that he can hear that beautiful and deadly song and yet survive. It's such a beautiful metaphor for love, of knowing that we can lose ourselves when we willingly dive to that allure of melding with another being. So when I wrote La Femme de la Mer, I was feeling that too, feeling the song of this beautiful woman singing me into the waves, calling me to dissolve into her.

Circe The Underworld And The Statue

Speaker 4 29:27

Partly this is because she is known as a witch, a sorceress, and I feel a really scorpionic energy with Circe. It's Circe who instructs Odysseus as to how to access the underworld and the rituals that he'll need to perform in order to communicate with the ghosts of the dead, the shades of the dead. So she has this affinity with the underworld. And as I mentioned, it's Cersei who helps Odysseus to navigate the sirens, to be able to listen to their song and yet survive. So there's something about her ability to connect with the realm of death and yet navigate it well, which I feel is very scorpionic, and I'm a Scorpio, so I feel an affinity with this and her witchcraft. But there's also a very personal reason why I love Circe, a very particular reason. In the National Gallery in Melbourne, there is a statue of the goddess Circe. It's by an artist called Edgar Bertram McKennell and was created in the late 1800s. It's a slightly larger than life-size bronze, and it depicts Cersei in the most magnificent way. She's standing on a kind of plinth. I'll go into that a little deeper in a second. She's naked. She's standing her feet strong on this base. And her arms are stretched out in front of her with both power and grace. Her hands lightly pointing downward to earth, but stretched out straight in front of her. She gazes directly ahead, her face focused and yet soft. She holds incredible power. And then wrapped around her head is a circlet of snakes. It's a headpiece. They're depicted not to be live snakes, but rather some kind of like a crown or headpiece. And around that base are also twined serpents. So this is a giant bronze. It's incredible. And the way she stands, so sure and calm and powerful, while those serpents are twining around her. And then below that, circling that whole plinth, that base, are depictions of naked people kind of writhing and swirling. Maybe there's suggestions of sex in there. And that represents the animal nature of man, of humans. In the myth, Circe transforms men into animals. Odysseus arrives at her island and sends his men ahead as he tends to do. They don't come back. And it ends up that Circe is transforming them into animals, into pigs mainly. So eventually he goes, but he's intercepted by Hermes, who gives him a magical potion called Moli, and it makes him immune to the magic of Cersei. I just love this depiction of these writhing humans, this raw animal nature, and then Cersei so poised above it. I mentioned earlier about writing in the Botanical Gardens, well, for my first album. I lived in Clifton Hill in inner city, Melbourne. I was a young mother. So whenever I got extended periods of time to myself, I would always make sure that I was using that for my creative work. I'd try to claim a day a week for doing that. I would cycle into the city. I was on a crazy tight budget, so I would go to places that were free, and I would spend a lot of time in the gallery, in the National Gallery in Melbourne, and this statue was there. And I honestly just fell in love with her. I would just sit at that base and just gaze at her, and I'd write there as well. She she felt like an ally, like a powerful friend. And sometimes I would mimic her stance, stand in front of her with my arms extended and meet her gaze. I'd be gazing up to her because it was taller. So in my song on the Lotus Eaters to Circe, I say, come to the woman with the snakes in her hair. I guess that's a little obscure because you might automatically think of Medusa, the goddess who was transformed into a Gorgon with the snakes in her hair, the classic Medusa twining with snakes. But I'm actually referring to Cersei and to this representation of her with these snakes equally poised and elegant in her hair, this connection with the underworld, the underworld that doesn't phase her at all. There's actually a really lovely novel around that I'd recommend by Madeline Miller, came out a few years ago, called Circe, and it is a novelization of her mythic story and takes a very personal approach to Circe. Circe is the daughter of Helios, of the Sun. So it's interesting that there's this connection with darkness, and yet she's the daughter of the sun. Anyway, if you're interested in this story, I think it's a great way to connect with the narrative of the myth. And it's all written from her perspective, so it gives a very personal insight into Cersei's state of mind and her transformation of the men into swine is reflected in the fact that sailors would be coming to her island and abusing her hospitality. So she learnt these skills to depict their true nature. So that's my Cersei story. If you happen to be in Melbourne, that statue has now been moved to the Australian Art Gallery in Fed Square, Federation Square. You can still find it. Last time I went, she felt a little bit hidden away. I think that's a sign of the times, too, that divine, dark, strong, feminine. She used to hold a really prominent place in the main gallery, but now she's a little more hidden away. Maybe she's been moved around. I don't know. But anyway, seek her out. She is so powerful and so resonant with that wisdom of the underworld.

Speaker 37:32

So you love rid the land, the whips the wave of southern ocean. With a snake's way.

Speaker 4 38:28

Still

Shipwreck Shores Heartbreak And Refugees

Speaker 4 38:29

longing to get home, he's the last of his men. Everyone else has perished on the journey. And he sets out on this raft after Zeus decreed that Calypso had to help him leave her island. So he's journeying on this wild sea. But the sea is his enemy. Poseidon is his enemy after Odysseus blinded Poseidon's son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. So Poseidon, the god of the sea, is Odysseus' enemy through this entire journey. Not great for a sailor to have the god of the sea wanting to kill you. So Poseidon does all that he can to capsize Odysseus's raft, and he does just that. And so now Odysseus is tossed naked in the waves, and he spends seven days at sea, like this, just trying to survive. And eventually he sees land. And it's the land of the Phaeacians who end up being very helpful to him in his journey. But as he approaches this land, that sense of relief is replaced by horror when he realizes that the part of the island that he is heading towards is edged with sharp cliffs and rocks, and the waves are bashing against this. My mind automatically goes to the wild ocean along the Great Ocean Road at the south of Australia in Victoria, and those cliffs are stood along sections of that ocean so often. And you know, it's known as the shipwreck coast. So that gives an indication of just how wild it is. And I often think of this scene, Odysseus approaching this land. And often I'll stand there thinking, what would I do? How would I get onto this? Would I go into that little section there? Which part of the rock would I grab? And it becomes just very visceral and very real of how terrifying this would be and would have been to so many of those people whose ships were wrecked on that coast, surviving the initial shipwreck and then trying to find a way to land, you know. So in the Odyssey, there's a description of this where Odysseus reaches the rocks. And to save himself, he has to grab at the rocks, but they're so sharp that they slash at his hands, and his hands are bleeding as he drags himself to shore. That just feels so terrifying and so real to me. It's always been a point in the Odyssey that I love to read because it's so believable. So I wrote a song that references that scene, and it's called The Water, it's on the Lotus Eaters, and I was referencing that feeling of arriving on a shore that you think is going to be safe, and it ends up being yet another trauma. I was referencing the second time I went to America. I'd arrived in spring in 2001. I'd met someone and then I went back in autumn expecting that soft shore to glide gently into a sandy cove. And instead it felt like those rocks where the person who I was going to visit, their heart had changed, and they were very, very cruel. I talked a bit about this whole experience of my first U.S. tour in episode three of this podcast, my first bright green springtime beltane, and my first deep, golden, red, sad, sourn. And I felt, I really did feel like I was Odysseus trying to find an anchor, trying to save myself, even though the rocks were cutting into my hands. So that's what I was referencing there. But then afterwards, after I'd written the song, I thought of so many other instances where humans must feel like that. And especially my heart went out to and still does, to refugees who sometimes literally have traveled on a rough sea to reach a shore that is then unwelcoming, to survive one trauma only to find themselves thrown into another. And that's a human condition. That's why the Odyssey is still so relevant. Because these conditions remain, these situations that we find ourselves in. And when I listen to that album now, which occasionally I do, it is actually one of my favorite albums, I have to admit. If ever someone at one of my shows is looking at my merch table and says, I can only afford one album, which one should I get? I usually say the Lotus Eedus. It has my song Hecate on it as well. And that was my reference to. That underworld to Odysseus crossing the underworld. Not a literal part of the Odyssey, but still referencing that essence of crossing a threshold into that realm of darkness. But yeah, when I listen to it now, the album that starts with horses, which is this ecstatic celebration of the ocean, and then toward the end of the album, this song, The Water comes up, of that the ocean can be so harsh as well. The realm of emotion is so tumultuous and can be so unsettling.

Speaker 1 44:42

So cruel, so pure that unifies the sea.

Speaker 45:00

The emotion is one with the finite, is one with the infinite, is one.

Why Myth Makes Personal Pain Universal

Speaker 4 45:31

In the myth, the Lotus Eaters is one of the islands that Odysseus visits and he sends his men out to explore, sends a couple of them from the ship, go and find out what's happening. And they don't come back. He sends a few others, they don't come back, and eventually he goes himself and finds these men in this beautiful haze of bliss. They've eaten the flowers of the lotus, and they are in a state of ecstasy, yet they've lost all their memories and lost all of their yearning for home. And he drags them back to the ships, kicking and screaming. They want to stay in this state of blissful forgetfulness. And there are times when we feel like that, where all we want is that lotus flower to make everything feel lovely, but the cost is so great of losing self. Although the themes would be similar, the experiences would be utterly different. The loves, the losses, the hopes, the fears, the monsters. The themes are universal. They speak to all of us, and we can find them turning up in our lives again and again and again and again. And I guess that's why I want to share this story with you. In this heightened time when the Odyssey has come right into the forefront of awareness in our culture, is that it's still really relevant. All myths are relevant. So rather than writing a song that is just about my personal love or loss, I'm interested in finding that universal thread of experience and connection, those core human experiences that transcend time and culture that are at the center of our human journeys. And by exploring these experiences through the lens of myth, we're able to share them in a way that breaks down the barriers between self and other. My album, The Lotus Eaters, isn't just about my personal experience. By couching it in mythic language, I'm inviting every listener to find their own entry point into these experiences. If I sing a song about the sirens, there's a millennia of meaning built into that word, the siren. There's a layer upon layer upon layer of meaning and depth. Myth is helpful. These stories exist to help us navigate our own lives. They're still powerfully relevant. When we experience the Odyssey at this point, when we experience this ancient poem, from our perspective, here at this time, in this era, we bring a different layer of meaning to it than would have been experienced a hundred years ago, five hundred years ago, a thousand, two thousand years ago. We experience it through a cultural lens. These soldiers returning from a war that lasted ten years. There are soldiers returning from wars right now, coming home to a land that feels unfamiliar, not knowing where they fit within it. There are refugees landing on unwelcoming lands, tossed on an ocean that feels like it's their enemy. We all make our own journeys into the underworld just like Odysseus did, encountering the ghosts of those who have gone, feeling that grief of loss, a moral Penelope, waiting, waiting, holding on to hope. Every translation, every interpretation of this myth brings its own magic and reflects the era that it emerges from. In years to come, there will undoubtedly be other versions of this myth that rise up again in popular culture, and they'll be exploring and leaning into different aspects of this ancient story, points on the journey that are particularly relevant. But I wanted to share with you my personal experience with the Odyssey. Well, for one thing, because I'm just so excited that a whole new generation of people are going to get to know these stories, that these names of goddesses of ancient people are going to continue to be part of our toolkit, that we will be able to reference a siren, and all the danger and longing that is inherent within that single word will be understood, that we'll continue to journey with mythology and know that it is living and breathing and changing with us. My story is your story, and your story is my story.

Tarot Pull Strength And The World

Speaker 4 51:53

Before we dive into some tarot for this episode, let's take a moment to still our minds, slow our breath, come into the right here and the right now, and in your mind's eye, picture that energy of rosy-fingered dawn, bands of pink and soft mo through the early, early morning sky, and feel that sense of possibility. Breathe into that sense of hope and rebirth that aligns with this new waxing mood. Breathe to the right here and right now. Alright, let's shuffle these tarot cards. You know, I think I want to pull two cards for this episode. Somehow it just feels right. It's nice to kind of shake things up a little too. And for me, tarot, I don't like to be too set with it. And my approach to tarot is playful. Even though it holds such great wisdom. I like to play with the cards, see how they want to speak to me. So let's do that now. We're gonna pull two cards. I think we could use this theme of the Odyssey. We could think. First card. What shore are we sailing toward? What shore are we sailing toward? Alright, let's see what that is. Like, where is our journey heading, okay? Alright. Oh, it's a nice one. Strength. The strength card. I'm reading from the Smith Rider weight deck. And nice for Leo season. That's pretty appropriate because this has a drawing of a lion. And there is a woman who is gently bending over him and closing his jaws, and he seems willing to be tamed or quieted. The land that they are on is green and fertile, a beautiful mountain in the background, and this woman is dressed in a beautiful white robe with a crown of flowers in her hair, and a belt of flowers tumbling down, looks like red and green, maybe roses. And above her head is a lemnuscate, that figure eight on its side, which the only other character that has in the tarot that has this above their head is the magician. So there's this sense of magic, and that with gentleness, with gentleness, this woman or goddess is able to tame this wild beast. Not through anger or violence or physical strength, because clearly the lion is the stronger, the physically stronger. This strength is emotional. It's the strength of the loving heart. So, what is the shore we're sailing toward? It is finding that strength within us. Finding that strength of kindness. I always feel this card is so kind. There's so much that needs to change in our world right now, so much unfairness, so much unkindness. But aggression isn't going to change that. Kindness tames that wild beast. So there's something very peaceful about this card. And it reminds us that strength, that calm, kind, loving energy is deeply powerful. It is strong. Alright, let's pull that other card. So I'm kind of thinking like, what's the vessel that will take us to this shore? What's the tool, or maybe the ally, that can help us to reach this? It might be our companion, might be our boat, it might be the tool we use. Let's find. What is it that can help us reach this, okay? Oh, two lovely cards, both major arcana to the tool, the vessel, the companion, the ally is the card. The world. Two beautiful cards. So we have in this version of this card, we have a woman who is naked but draped with a lovely shawl, and she is dancing, standing on one foot and clearly moving, and in each of her hands is a wand that again is reminiscent of the magician. So we've kind of got these two different expressions of this magic, and in the four corners of the card, oh, she's dancing within an oval wreath, like a laurel wreath of victory. And it's oval like an egg. So no beginning, no end. This is the final card of the Major Arcana. It is a sense of ending, but it's got that wreath makes a zero shape, so it's also like the beginning, like the full. Each corner has an image that corresponds to the four fixed signs of the zodiac. So we've got down the bottom left, we have a picture of a bull, so that's Taurus. Bottom right is a picture of a lion, so that's Leo, fixed fire. We have an eagle up the top right, that's fixed air. And oh no, that's a Scorpio, actually. That's right. It's the human on the top left, that's the Aquarius, fixed air, and the eagle is the Scorpio, fixed water. So how is this our ally that can help us get to this sense of gentle, powerful, compassionate, calm? Or part of it, we're talking about this Odyssey, this big journey, part of it is moving out of just our own individual perspective. It's the world card, actually being willing to open our eyes and know that there's a bigger story out there. I also think this speaks to that universal language of mythology too, that it unites all these different aspects, all these different elements and ways of experiencing life, earth, air, fire, water, they're united in this card. So it's stepping out of just our individual perspective and broadening our vision to remember there's a wide world out there. And the woman in the center of the world card, again, this powerful energy is treated very lightly. She's lightly dancing, she's combining all of those energies in this one cosmic dance. So I guess if I was to sum this up, and I will go deeper into this on my next Magic Monday episode on this coming Monday, I'll explore and meditate on these cards and probably dream about them. And you might like to do that too. If you're one of my patrons, then you can tune in to Magic Monday and uh share your views on these cards. And if you're not yet a patron, you can head over to patreon.com forward slash Wendy Raw. Jump on board if you wish. So yeah, I'll chat more about them on Monday. But for now, the overall message that I'm getting, if our goal is this strength, then our vehicle is expanding our vision, recognizing that we are all on this same human journey, breaking down those barriers of difference, experiencing the world as a container for all of us, that we all share these stories, these core human experiences, and remembering that is going to help open our hearts with compassion and loving kindness.

Recommendations Playlist And Next Full Moon

Speaker 4 1:01:06

Thank you so much for tuning in and journeying with me in this special Odyssey, rosy-fingered dawn episode of darkness and light. I really hope that my experience of journeying with this myth entices you to dive a layer deeper with it. I would actually really encourage you to listen if you'd like a really accessible way into this poem. I really enjoyed the audiobook of Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey, and it's read by the lovely Claire Danes, the actor Claire Danes, and she does such a beautiful job of it. It's very enjoyable, very accessible. Her reading of it, it really brought aspects of the poem to life for me. So that would be a recommendation. And I've made a playlist on both Spotify and Tidal for all of these songs that are related in some way to the Odyssey that I've written. If you'd like to take a listen, I will put links in the show notes and you can find them there, or I'll put a link up on my website too. I would love for you to check out all those songs. And yeah, I really appreciate you tuning in and allowing me to share my Odyssey journey with you. I will be back here in a couple of weeks' time for the next episode of Darkness and Light. And we are going to be celebrating the full moon in Pisces and connecting with both Poseidon and also the god Dionysus. So I'm excited to begin work on that episode. And I will see you back here then. Blessed be.