The twelve labors of Hercules

an interpretation of its psychological symbolism

A Journey from chaos to order

Hercules is the kind of hero who carries a divine spark within him, in a body filled with chaos and confusion.

Unlike Perseus, a hero born in more noble and favorable conditions for the victory of the Spirit, Hercules is the rough hero — the cool ogre — who desires good but does evil. He is the screwed-up buddy who wants to ascend and improve.

Hercules is the son of Zeus, the principle of creating order and organizing the universe, and Alcmene, a mortal and noble woman. Hercules is the individual who loves the divine and order. He is the individual endowed with great strength and inner power — the typical young person about whom it is said that they “have great potential,” but end up ruining their own life — because their soul is in a chaotic state: their imagination filled with rotten references, unreasonable desires, and maladjusted behaviors.

Hercules even tries to marry and have a normal life. But his inner chaos makes him see this life as a prison and view his wife and children as monsters. In his madness, he ends up killing them. This symbolic representation can be translated into a situation, for example, of a person who gets married but can’t stand being married and ends up sabotaging and ruining their own marriage.

This is also the same person who later regrets and sincerely feels that they could have done better, although they are incapable of doing so. Because that’s who he is: he loves good, desires order, but is relentlessly drawn to evil due to his own inner chaos.

But his destiny is not to end his days in the mud. Hera-cles means “for the glory of Hera.” Nomen est omen — the idea that his name contains a prophecy about his destiny applies well here. Hercules is destined to establish order in his own soul, symbolized by the goddess Hera, who appears in this myth as a symbol of the inner order he seeks, and which imposes trials upon him.

Here, the 12 labors appear as a spiritual journey to overcome the vices deeply rooted in the hero’s soul, to conquer virtues, and effectively establish order in the psyche.

The number 12 also has a symbolic nature. The number 12 results from the combination of the 4 elements (water, fire, earth, and air) that fill SPACE with the 3 stages (beginning, culmination, and ending/transmutation) that paces TIME. That’s why the number 12 appears in the total number of musical notes, divisions of space, zodiac signs, months of the year, etc. It represents the totality of possible directions, the total sum of stages in a cycle.

In the story of Hercules, the 12 labors are a journey of character formation. The symbolic nature of the number 12 in this story lies in its representation of a complete cycle encompassing the entirety of the human personality. Completing the 12 labors signifies the completion of one’s own soul.

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1

The Nemean Lion

SUMMARY:

Conquering Fortitude and Sovereignty

— // —

Mythical Experience

The mythical experience takes place in a dreamlike sphere, where the situations you face, real actions, and emotions are transfigured into fantastic images.

Imagine for a moment, as in a dream, being Hercules himself about to face the Nemean Lion.

You are about to confront a fierce, hostile, and invulnerable force. This force wants to devour and destroy you. You enter its lair, surrounded by the bones of men who tried and failed. “They failed because they were dominated and retreated,” is what you think. It will not be your case. You are a hero, and your intention always leads you to move forward. You do not retreat, you circumvent. You find a way.

The creature appears before you in all its majesty. Its fiery eyes ready to cut through your flesh, sharp teeth, and claws. Muscles tensed, ready to explode into an attack. You shoot arrows, but you watch them ricochet and fall to the ground. The beast leaps towards you, but you sidestep, draw your sword, and deliver a slash to its flank. Once again, you see your blade ricochet: it is as if you were trying to tear through a wall of steel. The beast remains as whole as before.

If you were an ordinary man, you might be inclined to flee in fear. But you can only move forward.

You wrestle with the beast in body-to-body combat. Embracing the beast, you feel a true mountain of muscles moving beneath your body. “This lion is truly a terrific force”, you think. But you hold on even tighter. By seeking a region that your arms can fully embrace, you end up finding its neck. You interlace your arms in a lock and realize that the flow of air that inflated the creature ceases to flow. You feel the creature writhing in spasms as you hold on tighter and tighter to its body. You feel each of your own muscles tensed and engaged in the task of subduing the beast. Finally, you feel its strength drain away. Its power reduced to inert immobility.

In the next moment, you emerge dressed in the skin of this very lion.

By confronting invulnerable hostility, you have become invulnerable yourself. You are no longer a fragile child. Your spine is firm, and your skin is thick. No matter the ferocity of the confrontation or the discomfort of the task, you are the person who embraces discomfort. You are now a man with the skin of a lion.

Pain and discomfort do not have the final say over your decisions. You are sovereign. Your intention always leads you to move forward. You don’t retreat, you circumvent. You find a way.

Symbolic Reading

The lion is a multifaceted symbol, with both benevolent and malevolent qualities. Being at the top of the food chain, it is typically associated with the king, a symbol of sovereignty. Sovereignty means that it is you who determine, and is not yourself determined; it means that the final word in decision-making is yours, and yours alone. However, this sovereignty can be directed towards very different purposes. Therefore, the lion lends itself to being a symbol of imposition and tyranny, but it can also represent strength, courage, and majestic nobility. In any case, whether benevolent or malevolent, it is the lion who decides what to do.

The confrontation with the Nemean Lion represents the confrontation with the hostility and indifference of the world, this sorrowful and fierce exteriority. The challenges that life imposes on us are uncomfortable and terrible.

The hostility of the lion is like the hostility of the world. It is a man-devouring arena. Entering this arena means being attacked, hurt, and eventually destroyed.

As if that weren’t enough, it is also an invulnerable creature. The hero’s arrows and thrusts, when they hit its skin, bounce off and are unable to affect it. This is how the world is, an arena that is fierce and hostile in every way, and yet invulnerable. You are unable to penetrate its defenses.

You do not overcome the aversion to pain and discomfort by retreating from it and attacking from a distance, but by embracing it. It is by embracing and suffocating the lion that Heracles defeats it. By embracing discomfort, and accepting that the experience in this world is permeated with pain and discomfort, one is able to subdue it. It is by accepting and embracing discomfort that you become strong, not in the sense of producing strength, but in the sense of resilience and fortitude.

The victory over the Nemean Lion means overcoming the aversion that the confrontation with the world causes us. It means embracing pain and discomfort and becoming tough-skinned. Pain and discomfort no longer have the final say in our decisions. We have become sovereign.

2

The Hydra of Lerna

SUMMARY:

Eradicating deep-rooted vices from the body

— // —

A monster that dwells in the swamp, thriving in stagnation and feeding on mud and filth. A monstrous serpent with seven or nine heads that grow back as they are severed.

The Hydra and its multitude of heads represent the multiple vices. Vices thrive in the stagnation of the soul and feed on the filth we allow to accumulate within. Those base stimuli we consent to consume — or those degrading behaviors we consent to engage in to immediately gain that pleasurable sensation — build up and form a neural circuit of their own. This structure will demand that you continue to nourish and feed it. The addict becomes a slave to this monster.

In facing the hydra, Hercules is confronted with this problem: when he cuts off one of its heads, they grow back. His victories are all in vain.

This is precisely the problem of a person afflicted with a vice: when they try to set limits on their behavior (cut off a head), the cravings sprout with renewed force and the vice resurfaces stronger.

Just like the hydra, the vices ingrained in our neurology seem like an invincible monster.

To defeat it, Hercules not only had to cut off the heads but also had to burn the site with fire. Fire here is a symbol with a dual meaning. On one hand, it represents that, apart from setting a limit to the behavior, the hero seals that limit with fire. On the other hand, fire is related to ascetic practices that the hero needs to incorporate in order to be victorious.

He knows that it is not enough to suppress the vicious behaviors, but those limits need to be consolidated and sealed, so that the vice does not grow back.

The addict is someone who puts pleasure above all else and seeks to exclude pain and physical discomfort from their life.

There is an insight here about the nature and dynamics of pleasure that can be useful to anyone who finds themselves imprisoned by the Hydra.

As in many other fields, our experience is often defined by contrast.

Is diving into cold water pleasurable or aversive?

If you have gone for a 30-minute run under the sun, you will discover how pleasurable a cold shower can be.

Moderate-intensity physical activity is uncomfortable? Yes, but the next moment is one of immense pleasure.

Because pleasure consists in being a relief. Without a load of pain and discomfort, there is nothing to be relieved from.

Human beings were not meant to have as comfortable a life as we have, or as we often aspire to have. Discomfort not only strengthens you but also enhances the strength of the smallest pleasures and adds flavor to our lives.

The individual who opts for the prevalence of pleasure finds themselves increasingly dissatisfied with their experiences of enjoyment and seeks more radical, violent, and perverse forms of pleasure.

The exclusion of discomfort exacts a high price on their soul.

Vices sprout, and life becomes more insipid the more one seeks the prevalence of pleasure.

Incorporating fire into the fight against the Hydra is a symbol of incorporating asceticism in the battle against vice. It is a voluntary choice for pain and discomfort. This is the key to victory over the Hydra.

This not only bestows upon you the virtue of temperance but also adds spice and color to your life.

Dismiss the hedonist within you and make room for discomfort in your life.

There is a change in worldview and ideal of life that sets the hedonist apart from the temperate individual. The whole question revolves around emotional stability.

The hedonist needs many pleasurable stimuli to achieve emotional stability. The temperate person seeks a condition in which they can maintain stability with the bare minimum of stimuli.

3

Ceryneian Hind

SUMMARY:

Acquiring a high-level skill

— // —

The Ceryneian Hind is essentially a feminine symbol. It is a sublime animal dedicated to Artemis, the goddess of the wild nature — both the one who leads to chastity and bars the path to sensuality. That’s why she was the goddess presiding over the first cycle of Spartan education, the Agoge. It was a kind of cult of expertise, precision, and skill.

This splendid animal with golden horns is characterized by its delicacy and speed, although it has bronze hooves. It even visits the land of the Hyperboreans, a mythical place, a kind of remote paradise, not geographically defined, a place of recreation for the blessed.

The nobility of the animal and its sublime lineage reveal that here Hercules is not struggling to overcome a vice or dominate an animal instinct, but to conquer an elevated gift connected to higher spheres.

The hind symbolizes a quality of soul opposed to violent activity: sublime sensitivity.

This sublime sensitivity has two facets: 1> A subjective one, related to the control of our own body. 2> And an objective one, related to interaction with the environment.

1> It is associated with fine motor control and the ability to execute movements with precision.

We see this in the development of any skill: when we are beginners, we make a lot of effort and are clumsy.

When we become experts, our movement is effortless and precise. It is delicate and firm. The firmness is related to the bronze hooves, which indicate that this sublime sensitivity (hind), although opposed to violence, possesses a strength devoid of any sentimental weakness. There is a force of the soul there.

2> Also, when we are beginners, our actions often go against the tendencies of the object we are dealing with. As we become skilled and competent, we acquire a special touch, an ability to read people, objects, and situations. Hence, we struggle less against them, as a consequence.

This is especially evident in the image that shows a very skilled and experienced fisherman who manages to remain calm and composed while fishing in a turbulent and rough sea.

— // —

The achievement of this level of skill in an ability is related, in the neurological sphere, to a structure of great complexity and versatility. Something that no animal is capable of acquiring, which is why the myth relates this achievement to the elevated and sublime realms.

THE HUNT

The hunt for the hind symbolizes the pursuit of wisdom.

However, the word wisdom has a broader meaning here. Originally, the term, derived from the Latin “sapio” (to discern through tasting/tasting), referred to a person who had sharp discernment, much like a professional wine or beer taster who, with a brief taste, can distinguish and describe various nuances of flavor present in the drink.

This wisdom is represented by the golden horns that adorn the hind’s head. Gold evokes the sun and all its symbolism of light-knowledge-shine, representing the acquired discernment: from that head emanates the light that makes things evident.

In ancient Greece, the word “wise” (sophos) was initially associated with competence and skill in general. A good shoemaker, an expert sculptor, or a competent war general were all considered “sophos”. There was a wisdom there that was evident in the demonstrated competence of the individual. We still think this way: “Actions speak louder than words.” “Don’t take advice from someone who doesn’t show results.” Only later did this word acquire a more restricted and “theoretical” sense.

The hunt for the hind is the pursuit of becoming a sophos: a competent and expert person. The image of the long hunt represents the patience and difficulty of the effort required to attain this wisdom, this subtlety of perception and firmness of execution.

Hercules only manages to capture the hind, at great cost, after a long time. It was one of the most difficult and costly tasks he had to perform.

He succeeds by shooting an arrow that hits her between the bone and tendon, without spilling a single drop of blood.

The fact that Hercules captured the hind with such a precise shot to her feet signifies that we acquire this ability by seeking the precision of focus and thought.

4

The Erymanthian Boar

SUMMARY:

Mastering Impulsive Desire

— // —

A wild boar that devastates the locality it inhabits. A primitive, strong, and unrestrained animal that resides in the heart of the wilderness but is out of control, ravaging the entire area.

The Boar represents our most primitive and instinctive facet related to the appetitive and concupiscent faculty. The pig is a symbol of dark tendencies: gluttony, lust, and selfishness. The pig finds pleasure in mud and filth. (Notice the connection to previous works)

Capturing the wild boar signifies acquiring dominion over concupiscent impulsiveness. When we desire something, we move towards our object of desire. This is because appetite has two valences: on the one hand, it is due to appetite that we desire something, and on the other hand, it is due to appetite that we move towards that something to enjoy it and possess it.

The interesting thing here is that Heracles captures the wild boar when, in its pursuit, he leads it into a frozen territory where the boar, unable to gain a foothold on the ice, slows down and is captured by the hero.

Here we are still within the theme of ascetic practices that, by creating an unfavorable territory for the wild boar, favor the hero’s capture, that is, taking control over their concupiscent desires and impulses.

Notice that impulsiveness is not mastered without first creating unfavorable conditions for it to “gain a foothold”. Something analogous appears in our language when we say that someone needs to “cool their head”, because when the heated rush of impulsiveness drags us towards action, we need to stop, take a deep breath, and cool down, in a way to regain control over ourselves.

When a person feels a surge of impulsiveness, like wanting to eat a certain food, if they give in to this impulse, they will devour the food eagerly. The act of regaining control over oneself is associated with cooling down: stopping and taking a deep breath.

The capture of the wild boar is, therefore, a symbol of self-control and temperance.

5

The Stables of Augeas

SUMMARY:

Cultivating a state of attention and presence.

Openness to the flow of life.

Putting your personal space in order.

— // —

Heracles is given the thankless task of cleaning the stables of Augeas, an inattentive king who never cleaned his own stables, allowing them to accumulate an ocean of excrement. The myth tells that there was so much dung there that it would take many, many years to clean it. It was a task virtually impossible to be accomplished by a single individual.

The stables symbolize the subconscious which, due to the presence of an inattentive and negligent consciousness — the king — has become a repository of the worst ideas, phrases, images, music, references, and habits. Everything that is rubbish keeps accumulating there, resulting in an imagination full of garbage.

The sludge of the stables is a symbol analogous to the swamp where the Hydra lived. Symbolically, it is the type of environment created in the stables that nurtures and feeds the Hydra.

Heracles knows that it is impossible to clean the stables manually. Not even his strength would be of help here.

He then makes the river Alpheus, symbol of purification, to pass through the filthy stables and carry away that sea of excrement.

The river is a symbol of the flow of life, and its winding course represents the events of daily life.

Washing the stables with the course of the river means purifying the mind from banal stagnation through vivifying and sensible activity. That kind of activity in which one is present, alive, and attentive.

Just like Augeas’ stables, it is also impossible to clean your subconscious of all the dung that has accumulated there over years of passivity and inattention. Only a living and attentive consciousness, open to the flow of life, can drag away the dirt.

And why the symbol of “dirty stables”? Because those who are attentive and caring take care to clean and put things in order. A common practice in martial arts schools is for the practitioners themselves to take care of the martial space, not so that the master is exempt from paying a cleaner, but to exercise an attentive and caring consciousness.

The fool, in the etymological sense of the term, is a person closed in on themselves. The perceptive one is open to the flow of events.

The attentive and alive consciousness is like a mighty river: always flowing, always renewing itself. The inattentive and careless person is like a closed ditch, occupied with accumulating and rehashing images and sensations.

For all these reasons, this work represents the conquest of presence of mind: being attentive to life, to the flow of events, to real life.

6

Birds of Lake Stymphalus

SUMMARY:

Liberating from artificial ideas and foolish fantasies

— // —

Bronze birds that obscure the brilliance of the sun with their flight, shoot bronze feathers and devastate the region in which they inhabit.

These artificial and destructive birds symbolize artificial ideas, which obscure the brilliance of intuitive intelligence (self-evident knowledge) and consequently prevent individuals from contemplating the world as it is. An individual with a mind full of artificial ideas, disconnected from reality, superimposes narratives, ideologies, and ideas upon direct and obvious perception, and driven by them, produces chaos and destruction in their particular circumstances.

Hercules combats the birds by shooting arrows at them. The arrows are weapons of Apollo, which travel in a straight line from their source to their destination, and therefore symbolize light. The arrows symbolize that which is capable of revealing and rendering transparent the reality of things. It is through them that the hero is able to bring down the birds that obscure the brilliance of intelligence.

The birds can only be defeated with an Apollonian weapon, which is the clear and precise word. The sign used rationally and directly, like an arrow, to refer to the essence of the thing. It is the realization that the word-sign is like a finger pointing at something that actually exists in the real world, and that if there is no referent, there is no effective reality.

This symbol finds resonance in Plato’s allegory of the cave, in which the men in the cave are dominated by signs and images that do not refer to anything real, whereas the reality of things lies beyond that which is referred to by that community of speakers.

The victory over the bronze birds signifies the overcoming of the disconnect between abstract thought and concrete experience, with the subsequent overcoming of the condition of being a person dominated by artificial ideas or ideologies. It implies the attainment of the capacity to symbolize reality through signs and to kill fallacious ideas with the “light” of truth: the intellectual acuity that makes a clear distinction between the true and the false.

THE SECOND CYCLE OF LABORS

The second cycle of Hércules’ labors.

Hercules now embarks on a new phase.

After: 1> having conquered the willingness to face discomfort and become resilient to pain, [Lion] 2> having eradicated vices, [Hydra] 3> and achieved a high-level skill, [Ceryneian Hind] 4> Having learned to master oneself in impulsive concupiscent situations [Erymanthian Boar] 5> having become attentive, present, and open to the world, [Stables of Augeas] 6> having eradicated fantasies and unreal ideas, [Stymphalian Birds]

Hércules has achieved victories in the private/personal realm and now must confront the world and achieve public victories.

Having established order within his internal and subjective space, Hércules is no longer an obstacle to himself, becoming more capable of acting upon the world with efficiency. By becoming able to dominate himself, he now has the possibility of projecting his power onto the world and dominating others.

Having transformed into a person endowed with real power, he now runs the risk of being driven by arrogance and the desire to subjugate and tyrannize others. If in the previous cycle he was a man governed by the pleasure principle (Freud), here, at the beginning of the second cycle, he becomes a man governed by the desire for power (Alfred Adler).

It is against this kind of vice that we will see Hércules battle at the beginning of this new phase.

7

The Cretan Bull

SUMMARY:

Achieving mastery over one’s own aggressiveness.

Channeling the impulse to act towards serving others.

— // —

The next task of Héracles is to capture the Cretan Bull, which symbolizes the aggressive impulse of destruction and domination. In Greek tradition, bulls — proud animals of indomitable ardor — symbolized the unbridled unleashing of violence. They were consecrated to Poseidon, the god of the oceans and storms. To dominate the bull means to dominate its impetuosity and strength and to subordinate it to one’s will and to the service of the world.

The Cretan Bull, a splendid and sacred animal (just as power is splendid), had been given to King Minos by Poseidon to be sacrificed to him again. However, in his fascination with the creature, the king chooses to hide the bull and sacrifice another bovine. The error of his decision leads to disastrous consequences. His wife Pasiphae falls in love with the bull and has a son with him: the Minotaur. King Minos, ashamed of this, with the help of Daedalus, builds a huge labyrinth to hide the Minotaur inside. After that, he imposes tyrannical peace conditions on the Athenians: they should periodically send 7 men and 7 women to be devoured by the Minotaur.

The symbolic translation is that King Minos and Pasiphae are two aspects of the same person: the king symbolizes that part of the psyche involved in deliberating and deciding, while the queen, on the other hand, symbolizes that part of the psyche related to desire and its affective inclinations.

The decision to keep the bull instead of sacrificing it — that is, putting it in the service of a common good — causes the individual to become attached to the dominating power and have a child with it. This child — the man-eating Minotaur — is a symbol of the imposition of a tyrannical order, which has at its center a man in love with his own power. A tyrannical peace that is maintained at the cost of the continuous sacrifice of innocents.

The next act of King Minos is extremely significant: the recourse to Daedalus to design the labyrinth. The labyrinth is a justification, a tangled and deceitful reasoning built by a clever intellect to hide the monstrous and tyrannical intentions of the man-eating king.

The general lines of the drama are these, and they can manifest themselves on two levels. We can see it taking place within a single individual, or we can see it taking center stage in our own society.

The image of the bull that was to be sacrificed means that that great power and ability should be put in the service of the gods, that is, it should be used to play its role in the great cosmic concert of the world and society. But instead, the tyrant refuses to put his gift to use. He uses and retains power for his own pleasure, and from this affair between the soul and power, a monstrosity is born: the man-eating Minotaur, the ultimate symbol of tyrannical rule protected by a labyrinthine construction of absurd justifications and false reasoning to perpetuate the government that devours men for the pleasure of its tyrant.

The individual dominated by the principle of pleasure cannot even imagine what it would be like to confront this challenge.

In this seventh task, we see that Héracles, like Minos, takes possession of the bull, mounts it, and even uses it as a vehicle to cross the sea, a symbol of life. To navigate, or to cross life, mounted on the bull means that the hero crosses life in the dominion of his impetuosity. However, unlike King Minos, he delivers the bull to King Eurystheus, fulfilling the task entrusted to him by the gods.

This means that the individual dominates his impetuosity, appropriates the power invested in him, and puts it at the service of the world.

8

The Anthropophagous Mares of Diomedes

SUMMARY:

Overcoming hostility towards others and becoming hospitable.

— // —

The man-eating mares belonged to King Diomedes, son of Ares (the god of war). Diomedes was infamous for capturing strangers and throwing them into the stables to be devoured by the mares. In doing so, Diomedes violated Zeus’ laws that demanded hospitality towards visitors. The myth tells that the mares had developed such a taste for human flesh that they would no longer eat any other food.

Here we have a kingdom that is closed off from the world and refuses to extend hospitality to others. This closed and inhospitable mindset generates hostility and wickedness. To be ruled by the son of Ares means to see the world as a great battlefield, full of malicious intentions, with no possibility of goodness in foreign and unfamiliar elements.

Where does this closed and hostile stance come from? Generally, it arises from some perceived or real aggression suffered, and hostility, initially a defensive posture, eventually becomes an active and malicious stance, as it is essentially resentment in action. Over time, your consciousness, closed off in its aggressive disposition, develops a taste for hostility and feels justified in acting this way because the world is evil. In this process, you do not see yourself as the agent inflicting suffering. You do not perceive your own delight in the suffering of others. You do not perceive your own tyranny.

Hospitality presupposes a worldview in which the possibility of good and well-intentioned people exists. It is not a total and naive openness, but rather a friendly availability towards what comes from outside.

The mares are not originally monsters. In Greek mythology, equines are symbols of the great physiological vitality inherent in our animality. However, the myth makes it clear that these mares developed a taste for human flesh because they were accustomed to it. The feminine aspect here signals that it is an affective disposition, indicating that there is a natural instinct that has been perverted and now needs to feed on it: it has become thirsty for doing evil.

After defeating Diomedes, Heracles seizes him and throws him to be devoured by his own mares. It is the confrontation of consciousness with its own evil that brings down the tyrannical disposition.

After being fed, Heracles tames the mares and takes them on his ship to Mycenae. When they are handed over to King Eurystheus, the mares are dedicated to the goddess Hera, becoming calmer. Only when the appetite is once again consecrated to order can the soul be pacified.

9

Belt of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons.

SUMMARY:

Opening up to share intimacy with another person. Becoming capable of a life together.

— // —

In this labor, Hercules must obtain the belt of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons.

To accomplish his task, Hercules resorts to persuasion. He explains to Hippolyta that he has been tasked by the gods to take her belt and give it to King Eurystheus.

Hippolyta is convinced! She does not want to contradict the gods’ design and promptly agrees to surrender the belt to Hercules. But the body of Amazons behind her reacts with hostility and attacks him. Hercules and his crew then fight and defeat them. He then proceeds to take the belt with him.

The Amazons are masculine and warrior women who rule themselves, copulate just with foreigners, and only raise daughters, blinding or mutilating their sons.

Hippolyta’s belt was supposedly given to her by Ares.

The belt is a piece of clothing that closes around oneself, representing a commitment assumed by its bearer. The belt seals access to the lower belly region. It’s a symbol of keeping chastity and fertility.

Wearing the belt means remaining chaste, untying the belt means opening oneself to marriage and fertility. It’s up to the husband to untie this knot.

The fact that the belt was given by the God of war indicates the nature of the chastity assumed by the Amazon.

In Greek mythology, the Amazons symbolize women hostile to men, who desire to take the man’s place and destroy him instead of completing him.

This rivalry exhausts the essential strength of a woman, her quality as a lover and caregiver, turning her into a virile and masculine woman, unable to offer love and comfort.

Giving the belt means renouncing hostility and war against men. It means opening up to the harmonious union between the sexes.

Hippolyta understands that renouncing her hostility and opening herself to marriage is acting according to the transcendent order.

But the Amazons do not let her.

This event represents those moments when the intellect makes a decision, but your body drags you in another direction. The decision is not enough, it’s necessary to overcome the hostile inclinations that drag you in a contrary direction.

Defeating the Amazons and appropriating the belt means breaking the commitment to wage war against the opposite sex. It means opening up to the harmonious and complementary relationship between man and woman.

10

Cattle of Geryon

SUMMARY:

Becoming skilled in dealing with vanity, pleasures and hostilities.

Becoming Sovereign.

— // —

In his tenth labor, Hercules had to sail to the far west, beyond the ocean, to the mythical land of Erytheia in order to appropriate the cattle of Geryon, a monstrous creature made up of 3 bodies joined at the waist, its 3 heads adorned with heavy helmets with 3 shields resistant to the sharpest of spears, and endowed with monstrous-looking artificial wings.

Besides, Geryon had in his company a guard dog named Orthrus with two heads, jaws with pointed teeth, and also Eurytion, a giant of strength equivalent to Hercules who served him as a shepherd.

On the way, Hercules encounters a mountain that separated the Atlantic Ocean from the Mediterranean Sea. The hero opened the space, creating the pillars of Hercules, our Strait of Gibraltar. To cross the vast ocean and reach Erytheia, Hercules borrows the boat of Helios — the sun god.

Separating the space between the mountains means breaking with the material and daily limits that usually prevent the individual from transiting to the most remote regions of their soul, where the monsters usually reside.

The light is what makes clear and evident the obscure and hidden things. The sun god represents the aid of a person capable of clarifying and illuminating consciousness. However, his aid to Hercules is not direct: he provides him a vehicle to access the core of his soul. His participation in the myth shows that the journey takes place under the auspices of light and enlightenment.

The victory over Geryon and his entourage represent the triumph over the main perversions that plague the human condition.

Geryon’s shepherd represents incontinence (inability to contain oneself) and his two-headed dog represents excesses, which can lead man to exceed both more and less.

In Geryon, we have united in a single symbolism the 3 human drives that psychologically lead to the corruption of imagination and desire, leading them to perversion: appetite (exceeding in sensory enjoyment), sociability (domination or manipulation of others), and spirituality (attributing oneself as more important and special than the rest of humanity).

The wings show that this is a perversion that plagues the imagination of men, affecting their fantasy.

In the myth of Geryon, we have the entire constellation of concepts dear to Ethics: defeating the two-headed dog means not leaning to either excess or lack. Defeating the shepherd means mastery over incontinence: knowing how to contain oneself, having self-control.

This allows access to Geryon, the perverted rush (symbolized by the giant) that being beyond the conscious territory influences and directs our psyche towards perverted choices.

Defeating Geryon means a fundamental victory over the main perversions that plague human beings. It means having triumphed in the human condition and harmonized the desires of the soul, achieving peace of mind — symbolized by the luminous oxen. Unlike the bull, the ox is a symbol of kindness, calm, and peaceful strength: capacity for work and sacrifice.

However, the myth makes clear that this triumph is only the attainment of a transient state of the human soul, for in his descent back to everyday life the hero can lose it again. This is apparent in the various attempts to steal the oxen and in Hercules’ struggle to recover them.

Achieving this state of soul requires attention and vigilance in its maintenance, because although the hero has managed to settle in the human condition in a state of harmonization of desires, he continues vulnerable to the disruptive action of the world. This is evident in the various assaults and losses of the cattle that he suffers along the way and in the many struggles he undertakes to recover them.

11

Gathering the Golden Apples from the Garden of the Hesperides

SUMMARY:

Cultivating intelligence and reaching the understanding of luminous truths from the higher spheres.

— // —

In his 11th labor, Hercules was to gather from the garden where the Hesperides live — daughters of Atlas and Hesperis — three golden apples from the central tree.

To find out where the garden was, Hercules had to question Nereus, the elusive and metamorphic sea deity — the only one to whom Hera had bequeathed the secret of the garden’s location. Hercules manages to imprison him and force him to reveal the secret, under the penalty of never releasing him. Nereus then reveals that the garden is at the ends of the world, where the titan Atlas bears the celestial dome on his shoulders. Nereus tells him that he will never be able to gather the apples, as the garden is protected by Ladon, the immortal 100-headed dragon that never sleeps, as while half of the heads sleep, the other half remains vigilant.

The garden symbolizes the heavenly paradise. It represents the spiritual states corresponding to paradisiacal experiences that are beyond the limits of experience, eternally inaccessible to human beings, guarded by Ladon, a symbol of ever-present animality that never sleeps, which interferes with any attempt to access the transcendent world.

Furthermore, we have two analogous symbols that represent the center and the axis. On one side is the tree that grows at the center of the garden, representing a central axis that connects heaven and earth, and on the other we have Atlas supporting the celestial dome, also a symbol of a central axis connecting heaven and earth.

Just as the column is an axis that ascends to heaven and roots in the earth, so too is the tree a movement that expands towards the heavens and takes root in the earth. On one side the transcendent principles and possibilities; on the other the particular and contingent reality.

Gathering the 3 golden apples means acquiring the luminous and supreme knowledge that does not originate from everyday experience, but that is beyond life and the limits of the world: they are the good, the true, and the beautiful. It is in the sphere of eternity, a region that no man can access.

The fact that its location is enigmatic reveals that no one knows how to reach this place or access this type of experience.

Who holds the secret is Nereus, the sea deity. Moving waters, the sea symbolizes a transitional state between yet formless possibilities and configured realities. Symbol of everyday life that offers us situations of ambivalence, uncertainty, and doubt, which can conclude well or poorly.

Nereus represents the confrontation with everyday experience, which like him hold the secret of the location of the Garden of the Hesperides. Just like the sea, everyday life manifests itself in thousands of forms, and when asked about the meaning of life or about the place where transcendent knowledge is, it never answers precisely, expressing itself only through enigmas.

Just as Hercules imprisons Nereus, it is only in moments of absolute quietude, when the everyday agitation is paralyzed, when man ceases to be convulsed by his transformations, when he is willing to keep the quiet indefinitely is there that he finds the axis of the human condition: the path of ascent to the contemplation of the transcendent world.

The edge of the world, where Atlas holds up the celestial dome indicates the horizon line: that place where the sky and the earth touch. It is on the borders of consciousness and the known world. In this case, Hercules needs to go to the limits of the known world to bring, from the other world, transcendent knowledge.

In his search for the place, Hercules ends up finding Prometheus, who had been imprisoned by Zeus to a rock, having his liver eaten by an eagle during the day and regenerated at night. Upon freeing Prometheus, he reveals a way to get the golden apples: resort to Atlas himself, so that he brings them, as the dragon Ladon would not attack Atlas.

Prometheus represents the logos logistikos, “thought that foresees”; that part of the intellect in charge of calculations and evaluations. Prometheus is a Titan, therefore, he carries within him a germ of rebellion from the material world, in the sense of seeking to subdue the divine intelligence, steal its sparks, and put them to the service of his appetite for pleasure, power or vanity.

Prometheus, as an intellect that calculates and evaluates, is a capacity of the spirit, but that does not necessarily seek the progressive spiritualization of itself, but only the increase of personal power and purely material success.

He represents that type of intellectuality that, when channeled to purely practical ends, leaves the individual tied to materiality — represented in the myth by a stone — while being devoured by the liver — an organ that symbolizes anger, animosity, and deliberately poisonous intentions. That is, suffering as a consequence of his actions.

However, this same capacity represented by Prometheus is the one that, when freed from its materialistic shackles, becomes the ingenuity that reveals the path of heavenly ascent, just like in the story of Hercules.

Hercules finds Atlas and manages to convince him to seek the golden apples, while he supports the celestial dome in his place.

The sky is the direct manifestation of transcendence and sacredness. Of that which no living being on earth is capable of reaching, simply because it is elevated and is on top.

By putting himself in this position he becomes an axis between heaven and earth.

To support the celestial dome Hercules needed to push it up with his hands, and at the same time anchor his feet firmly against the ground.

The analogy between Hercules’ movement and the symbolism of the tree is practically perfect. His gesture coordinates an ascending and a descending movement, exactly like in the tree that gathers in itself an ascending movement, towards the celestial spheres, of eternal principles and possibilities, and another descending, towards the earth, concreteness, and particularity.

The human being is this creature capable of placing himself in the axis of the cosmos: capable to understand the eternal and transcendent order and act on the contingent world.

While this capacity is inaccessible and distant from everyday life, it constitutes the core — the center, the axis — of what it is to be human.

Hercules cannot directly enter the garden. But through an action that simulates the vital movement of the tree of knowledge: seeking the contemplation of the transcendent spheres, firmly rooted in the earth, he can make the three golden apples come to him: the good, the beautiful, and the true — knowledge that sprouts directly on the tree of paradise.

The fact that he returns Atlas to his post is important.

He ran the risk of being eternally turned towards the contemplation of the transcendent world, thus finding himself indefinitely separated from the world.

But no: Hercules has an experience of the transcendent dimension, reaps the fruits of this experience and returns to the everyday world in possession of the transcendent knowledge of the good, the beautiful, and the true.

12

Cerberus

SUMMARY:

Descent into the depths of the soul.

Awareness of one’s own shadow and its petty motivations.

Ability to bring them to light and renew oneself.

— // —

In his final task, Hercules must descend into Hades, the world of the dead, and bring back Cerberus. Son of Typhon and Echidna, the three-headed dog with a dragon’s tail and a neck bristling with snakes, Cerberus allowed souls to penetrate Hades but did not allow them to leave.

It is extremely significant that the penultimate labor, which involved an upward movement towards the sky to pick the 3 luminous apples from paradise, is followed by a labor of descent into darkness where one must tame a monstrous three-headed dog.

Although we naturally associate it with hell, Hades is a very different place. It is simply the world of the dead. The god Hades himself has no association with the figure of the Devil or Satan. He is just the great administrator of this universe.

Legend has it that before embarking on the journey, Hercules was initiated into the Mysteries of Eleusis. The Mysteries concern the abduction of Persephone, her descent into Hades, and her spring return. Their celebration was secret. Therefore, there is no record of reports that have come to us. A testimony from Aristotle says, “Those who are initiated must not learn something, but experience emotions and be led to certain dispositions.”

Perhaps the 12th labor of Hercules, and the inclusion of his participation in the Mysteries in this last labor, indicates the kind of experience provided by the mysteries of Eleusis.

Hercules would never have been able to accomplish such a task if he had not counted, by order of Zeus, on the assistance of Athena and Hermes. That is, the one who discerns wisely and the one who does not err the ways.

Before taking any initiative regarding the capture of Cerberus, Hercules goes to Hades to explain that it is a task ordered by the gods and to ask for his authorization. Hades allows him to capture Cerberus, but on the condition that he does so without weapons, with his hands-free. However, no restriction is made to his lion’s mantle.

Hercules grapples with Cerberus and receives many wounds in the process. Were it not for his lion’s cloak — his courage and resilience — it might not have been possible to carry out the task. But he finally manages to tame Cerberus by the neck, ties him with a chain, and immediately takes him to Eurystheus.

-//-

Entering Hades and visualizing one’s own shadow is the same as confronting the parts of your personality that your self-conscious ego rejects but still resides in the thresholds of your soul.

What do we do when we feel oppressed, resentful, envious, or bitter? Most of us do not like to perceive ourselves with these petty emotions and malevolent intentions.

Do we admit to ourselves what is nesting in our soul? Or do we keep these feelings and desires in the dark?

Do we confess the reality of what is in our chest and bring it to the light of day? Or do we pretend they do not exist?

Cerberus allows us to enter and see the shadows: we know they are there, but we do not confess; we do not want to admit. Driven by Cerberus himself, we push these shadows back into our abysses.

As long as we remain pretending and without confessing, our sins will haunt us.

To tame Cerberus is to overcome again the perversion of the fundamental drives that, even defeated on the plane of our self-consciousness (Geryon), never cease to exist — like Cerberus himself. We live in a permanent tension with them.

To renew the soul and fully reestablish order, one must be able to make the movement of renewal: descend to the shadows and bring them to light in a frank and sincere confession.

Only by bringing to the light of consciousness those shameful and ugly aspects of our soul, those malevolent feelings and intentions — which we would like to keep hidden — can we reintegrate the order of the soul.

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3)