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For his sixth labor (see my previous posts), Hercules was ordered to disperse a huge flock of extremely aggressive, large, predatory and territorial birds that had taken over a lake near the Greek town of Stymphalos. As with the cleaning of the Augean stables, this task took far more brains than brawn. Stumped at first, Hercules, with the inspiration of the goddess Athena, finally came up with a clever plan to scare the birds from a safe distance with a massive noisemaker, picking them off one-by-one with a slingshot as they instinctively took flight. Next, Hercules had to subdue and deliver alive the dangerous Cretan bull. Hercules successfully completes this seventh labor in short order, but the marauding bull is immediately set free again to terrorize the country. But this is not the complete story of the Cretan bull, which takes us well beyond the labors of Hercules.
The Cretan bull was originally sent by the sea-god Poseidon specifically to be sacrificed by King Minos. Despite his promise to do so, the king, taken by the awesome savage beauty of the beast, refused to obey, substituting a lesser bull for the religious slaughter. Outraged by the deliberately broken vow, Poseidon vents his spleen by having the bull rampage madly throughout Crete. Poseidon also induced King Minos' queen, Pasiphae, to become infatuated with the wild bull and engage in sexual intercourse with it while disguised as a cow. Pasiphae then bore the terrifying fruit of this unnatural liaison : the Minotaur.
The Minotaur was a nightmarishly fearsome monster, half-bull and half-man, confined by King Minos to a complex labyrinth beneath his castle so meandering and convoluted that, like the captive Minotaur, no person entering the maze could ever escape its confusing prison. When his son, Adrogeus, is murdered on an ill-fated trip to Attica, the bitter King Minos declares perpetual war on Athens, and, assisted by famine and pestilence visited upon Athens by the gods, his army finally defeats the Athenian forces. As part of their terms of surrender and supplication to the angry gods, the Athenians are required to sacrifice unto the Minotaur seven young men and seven virgin women annually. The youthful human sacrifices sent begrudgingly to Crete by the Athenians were forced, unarmed, into the intricate labyrinth, and either made short work of by the murderous Minotaur or would wander endlessly so hopelessly lost through the perplexing labyrinth that they eventually took their own lives.
After two rounds of such terrible tribute, the Athenians grow resentful and resistant to sending still more of their precious young men and women off to certain death. (Perhaps not unlike how many Americans currently feel about sending our young men and women off to wars they don't support.) In response, Theseus, a young Athenian compared to Hercules by some, volunteers to be sent to Crete as part of the next sacrificial offering, boyishly confident he can somehow defeat the Minotaur and end the awful cycle of slaughter. Ariadne was the charming daughter of King Minos and Pasiphae. Upon his arrival in Crete, the fair young princess falls in love with handsome Theseus at first sight, and swiftly devises a simple but brilliant plan to save her beloved from the man-eating Minotaur. She secretly provides Theseus with a sharp sword and large ball of red thread with which to find his way out of the labyrinth in the unlikely event he survives his fateful fight with the ferocious Minotaur. With Ariadne's loving assistance, Theseus slays the mighty Minotaur, escaping the winding underworld of darkness, detours, blind alleys, and false starts of the labyrinth by following the fragile thread back into the bright, sunlit world where Ariadne--and his new life-- await him. Curiously, Theseus later also courageously kills the same Cretan bull Hercules captured to complete his seventh labor.
What is the psychospiritual significance of the mythical labyrinth? The labyrinth can be seen as an archetypal symbol of the psyche and of what C.G. Jung called the individuation process: that twisty, unpredictable, tortuous, serpentine path toward wholeness and authenticity. The goal is to reach the center, the Self, the core of our being. But this is only half the journey. For having discovered the inner center with it's treasure, the "pearl of great price," is not sufficient: One must then find a way out of the labyrinth and back to the outer world--forever transformed by this experience. And this inward and outward expedition is repeated over and over, each time yielding new riches. But there are real dangers lying in the labyrinth that can block the way--or worse. Psychosis, major depression, and other severely debilitating mental disorders can be likened to hopelessly losing one's way in the horrifying, hellish underworld of the labyrinth.
Psychotherapy itself can be such a labyrinthine process. Patients often seek psychotherapy because they feel alone and hopeless, confused and abandoned, much like the unlucky lost souls caught in the mythic labyrinth. Indeed, as for those suffering victims, suicide sometimes seems the only way out of the labyrinth. The impenetrable darkness, disorientation, discouragement and deep dread of the unknown may be intolerable at times. What is it about the inescapable labyrinth that makes it so tragically intolerable? Perhaps it is precisely the immense nothingness and darkness of the labyrinth that we humans find most frightening: Such places echo or reflect back to us that which dwells in the deepest, darkest recesses of our own psyche. Whatever it is we fear most--and therefore flee from--is called forth and amplified by the lightless labyrinth.
The hero--be it Hercules, Theseus or some mythic female counterpart such as Psyche --is not without fear of the unknown, of death, of the unconscious. The hero or heroine suffers from anxiety, doubt, despair just like the rest of us. What distinguishes the hero from the herd is the willingness to accept this anxiety, to embrace the unknown, to bravely face possible psychological or physical annihilation or death head on. The hero transcends his or her own self-interest, risking life, limb or psyche for some great transpersonal purpose, value, or meaning. Theseus sought to put an end to the barbaric sacrifice of his fellow countrymen. The psychotherapy patient too is heroic, sacrificing his or her narcissistic arrogance by seeking help, facing fear of the unknown, willingly walking into the labyrinth and confronting his or her own personal Minotaur. One implication of this myth is that we are most at risk when we refuse to voluntarily venture into the labyrinth, but engage instead in what Freud referred to as resistance: the fearful refusal to enter, or in some cases even consciously acknowledge, the powerful reality of the unconscious. But by mustering courage, being heroic despite our dread and doubts, like Theseus, we stand a fighting chance to survive meeting the Minotaur--another metaphor for our inner demons--and returning to life transmuted by the experience.
After vanquishing the Minotaur,Theseus triumphantly escapes from the labyrinth with enduring confidence to face the future challenges and inevitable tragedies of his life and, at least briefly, to find love with Ariadne. Yet, he could not have succeeded without the aid of Ariadne, especially Ariadne's slender thread. Ariadne's love for Theseus strengthens him, as symbolized by the phallic sword she provided; but perhaps more importantly, she provides a vital link which enables him to trace his way back out of the labyrinth. This Ariadnean thread is immensely important also in the psychotherapy process. It represents the caring relationship between them. Research on psychotherapy outcome strongly suggests that it is not any one particular theoretical orientation or technical approach but rather the relationship ( working alliance) between therapist and patient or client that is the primary healing factor. When one is about to enter the labyrinth, or already lost within it, we require an Ariadnean thread to help guide us safely back out to the world. Slaying the Minotaur is of no real use if one remains desperately lost in the bowels of the labyrinth for all eternity. Conquering the Minotaur requires courage, skill, and strength; but escaping the labyrinth demands a quite different set of skills. Ariadne's thread also represents intuition, feeling and discernment. The return to the light requires sensitivity sufficient to discern the slender Ariadnean thread in the dark, the humility to crawl on hands and knees grasping the fragile thread, and the faith to trust in the often imperceptible thread's ability to lead to salvation. Ariadne can also be understood as symbolizing what Jung termed the anima: a man's inner feminine qualities. In this myth, Theseus is saved by staying closely connected to his own emotions, instincts and soul.
When patients feel lost in the labyrinth, we could say that they have lost touch with their Ariadnean thread. What they need is to be loved and cared for enough to be provided the opportunity to rediscover and reclaim that elusive link. When the psychotherapist invites and encourages the patient to explore the labyrinth--the unknown, the unconscious, the shadow, the daimonic--we bestow the gifts of Ariadne: the empowering sword of strength, courage, and rational, logical, analytical insight, and the means to remain tangibly tethered, rooted, related and connected to us, to reality, to the light, to humanity, to the outer, material world--and to one's self. These are essential tools for the task. Venturing into the labyrinth improperly equipped and prepared is a perilous and foolhardy undertaking for both therapist and patient, courting catastrophe. In psychotherapy, the Ariadnean thread symbolizes both the therapeutic relationship--the strong, supportive, vital, empathetic tie between patient and therapist--as well as the struggling and disoriented hero-patient's still undiscovered destiny.
Destiny is different than fate. Fate is what happens to us and is beyond our control, starting from and including conception. We cannot change our fate, nor are we responsible for having caused it. Those occurrences in life over which we do have some measure of control, and are therefore at least partially responsible for, are aspects not of fate but of destiny. Fate is given and inexorable, and cannot be altered. Destiny is what we do with fate, how we choose to deal with it. Unlike fate, which is handed to us unbidden--parents, birth, gender, ethnicity, talent, temperament--destiny must be actively discovered and fulfilled. Mythologically speaking, it is the gods who decide our fate. But we alone are responsible for our own destiny. In psychotherapy, as in life, each person has both a fate and destiny. Fate must be acknowledged, along with our reactions to what has fatefully befallen us. Destiny is a creative process, a movement toward the future, a process of becoming, which requires courage and always involves existential choice to some extent. The Ariadnean thread can guide us through the labyrinth to our destiny, as it drew Theseus to his. But it is all too easy to lose touch with this fragile life line at times, becoming temporarily or, in some tragic cases, chronically lost and disoriented in the Minotaur's dangerous, dark, lonely labyrinth.
Next: The Meaning of the Minotaur
