The Planets Series begins with our closest and most intimate neighbour: the moon.

The moon represents the dreaming mind, our instinctive life and our guidance system to the emotional waves of our turbulent lives.

Each of these elements of the moon is explored in this episode with the help of three mythic figures:

Selene as a personification of the moon riding her white cow through the sky, visiting her lover Endymion (one who finds himself within) in his cave as he dreams the eternal dream.
Artemis as the wild, instinctual life that stays true to her nature and close to her essence.
and Hekate, the triple goddess, who has her home in the underworld. It's Hekate who arrives in our most desperate times of need to accompany us in the realm of grief and loss.

The second half of the podcast begins with the image of Grimm's Hansel staring longingly back at his home as he's taken into the woods by his step-mother to be abandoned. He drops white stones on the ground that are then lit up by the moonlight to guide him back home.

From there we visit Mnemosyne's cellular memory, the thread-weavers and the way Ithaka pulls at Odysseus.

The Gorgons, including Medusa, will help us relate to the moments we feel unrelatable. There are many links between Medusa, the ocean and the moon. Including the Orphics calling the moon's face the Gorgoneion.

And finally Rilke with some soul-soothing words in his poem 'You Come and Go'.

Cover Art: Endymion : Effet de lune, ou Le Sommeil d’Endymion (The Sleep of Endymion), Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, 1791.

I leant heavily on Gods of the Greeks, Carl Kerenyi, 1951

Very thankful to Brian Clark, Melanie Reinhart, Travis Elliot and Milena Kadziela for their help in the creation of this podcast.

For my German audience... The poem at the end from Rilke:

Du kommst und gehst

Du kommst und gehst. Die Türen fallen
viel sanfter zu, fast ohne Wehn.
Du bist der Leiseste von allen,
die durch die leisen Häuser gehn.

Man kann sich so an dich gewöhnen,
daß man nicht aus dem Buche schaut,
wenn seine Bilder sich verschönen,
von deinem Schatten überblaut;
weil dich die Dinge immer tönen
nur einmal leis und einmal laut.

Oft wenn ich dich in Sinnen sehe,
verteilt sich deine Allgestalt;
du gehst wie lauter lichte Rehe,
und ich bin dunkel und bin Wald.

Du bist ein Rad, an dem ich stehe:
von deinen vielen dunklen Achsen
wird immer wieder eine schwer
und dreht sich näher zu mir her,
und meine willigen Werke wachsen
von Wiederkehr zu Wiederkehr.

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