The 12th and final house of astrology is often given a bad wrap. It's considered the house of hidden enemies and of our own undoing. It rules over places we'd rather not be such as prisons, hospitals and asylums.

And yet, deep in this oceanic place in our charts we may meet the gods themselves. Figures from the collective unconscious who shape shift and morph, reveal and conceal themselves into and out of our minds.

It's a place that has associations with Neptune, Jupiter and Pisces; the deepest places of the ocean where our surface world probes can't reach. A place where Saturn, brooding and moody as he is, is in his Joy. Yes, that's right, Saturn has a joyful place.

In order to enter this house we need to leave our conscious tools at the door. We need to journey away from the known world on a wonderful sea journey with fantastic companions.

Hercules' 12th labour, Ariadne abandoned on Naxos and Hephaestus, the wounded goldsmith whose workshop is in a cave under the sea, will help us get a better feel for this place. Help us take a good look around and see what it is that we might be missing about this much maligned house, and what secret treasures it might be already, right now, shaping and re-shaping in the forge.

Carl Jung – Modern Man in Search of a Soul

James Hillman – The Myth of Analysis

Arnold Mindell – Process-Oriented Psychology

Mircea Eliade – The Forge and the Crucible

Walt Whitman – Song of Myself, from Leaves of Grass

Roberto Calasso – The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

The Delphic Maxims (including “Know Thyself”)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphic_maxims

• Heracles and Cerberus • The Labours of Heracles
• Theseus and the Minotaur
• Ariadne and Dionysus on Naxos
• Hephaestus and the forge beneath the sea
• The Golden Net of Ares and Aphrodite
• Cronus and the Golden Age

• The Twelfth House • Neptune and the Oceanic Realm
• Saturn’s Joy in the Twelfth House
• The Water Houses: 4th, 8th and 12th
• The Ascendant as Threshold (the “door-slab” of the chart)

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Podcast Musician: Marlia Coeur
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Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.

Part Two of our wanderings with Iron John/Hans. The episode begins with the moss bed made for the boy in the forest. Ryan shares soulful reflections on moss itself; known as a 'boundary layer' that draws moisture not from the ground up but from the air down. Moss forms little cups to gather water from the electricity in the air, which must be one of the most Aquarian/11th House symbols I've ever heard.

We re-enter the story where we left off in part one; the boy is learning to listen in to his inner most knowing. In speaking for the scent of the wild flowers he shows us that his time asleep on the moss transformed his sense of reality. He is becoming ready to work with the gold/wound split in his consciousness.

In the second half of the story we encounter much Chironic imagery. A three-legged 'hobblety jig' horse speaks to our current moment as Chiron moves through the last phase of Aries and Saturn/Neptune through the first. What does this story tell us about Aries energy, wounded kings, lost wildness and the world's deep thirst?

It's a longer episode than most, but once you listen in you'll see why. To get the most nourishment from this story we needed to move more with Kairos time than Kronos. The result, however, is a very nourishing alchemical brew.

So grateful to Ryan's wife, Holly Parson Nielsen, for the artwork for the episode. It conjures the movement of the story so well from the well to the moss to the gold. Thank you Holly.

If you'd like to know more about Ryan's work, or perhaps book a session with him to explore his approach to astrology, mythology and the dreaming body, go to yourveryownmyth.com.

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Podcast Musician: Marlia Coeur
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Ryan Nielsen joins the podcast again (see episode 104 for our circuitous meanderings on Allerleirauh) to explore the Grimm tale of Iron John (or Iron Hans) whilst reflecting about the cusp between the known and unknown worlds (the 11th and 12th house cusp).

Iron John is a story that was made famous by the poet Robert Bly in the 1990s. It became the central story that he worked with in his book by the same name. Robert uses the story to illustrate the many trials and tribulations in the process of becoming a man in the modern world.

Ryan and I pick the story up not from the hands of Bly but from the creative commons of the story itself. We let the images lead us. The story comes alive in a new way in this conversation as we riff and bounce and feel and atune to it with the backdrop of the 11th and 12th house to guide us.

If you'd like to connect with Ryan he has just launched his new website: yourveryownmyth.com.

Join us on Patreon to discuss the episode! You can join in for free or pledge some appreciation.

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Podcast Musician: Marlia Coeur
Please consider becoming a Patron to support the show!
Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.