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Then the heroes arrived to a vast and fertile island inhabited by the Phaeacians and ruled by King Alcinous where they were very warmly welcomed. Drepane (“the Sickle”) was the name of the sacred nurse of these people.
At the same time as the Argonaut’s arrival on the island the army of the Colchians arrived threatening war, having continued the chase to bring Medea back to her father.
Medea pleaded with Queen Arete, wife of King Alcinous. Not denying her mistake she justified her fleeing as having been caused by fear rather than desire for Jason, swearing that she was still a virgin. The Argonauts whom she had helped and brought back to their land safe and sound appeared indifferent to her fate and she urged them to keep their promise.
After having heard the plea of his wife in favour of Medea the king delivered the following judgment: if Medea was a virgin she would be sent back to her father, otherwise she would stay with Jason.
The Argonauts were secretly forewarned of this decision by the queen and they hurried to prepare the bridal couch that they covered with the Golden Fleece, and Jason and Medea then tasted the joys of love.
The Colchians respected Alcinous’ decision and thus Medea stayed with Jason.
But they feared the wrath of their king Aeetes and asked for permission to settle in the land of the Phaeacians, which was granted to them. They stayed there for several years till the Bacchiadae took their place. But that, Apollonius tells us, happened only much later over the course of centuries.
The mysterious Phaeacia that we will come across again in the voyage of Ulysses is a symbol of a “mysterious” transition in consciousness that helps transition to a higher state but in a super-conscious manner unknown to the seeker.
Apollonius gives us a clue that does not explain much when he names what “feeds” this transition Drepane, “the Sickle”, which is to say a reversal of consciousness.
This process is active all the way down to the yoga of the body. In the Agenda the
Mother mentions “reversals” on several occasions.
For Satprem the passage to the Supramental is a process as radical as the transition of a fish from a marine environment to dry land. But there are in all cases intermediary stages, amphibians in the case of the fish and the Superman to come in the case of man.
According to Apollonius the Phaeacians were born from the froth that formed around the genitals of Uranus flung by Cronus into the sea when he castrated him. Coming from the same origin as Aphrodite they would in this way be a manifestation of the fertilisation of life by the creative power of the Spirit. By its character structure, Phaeax refers to “a luminous consciousness both above and below” (or maybe “the radiating of the gradual descent of the Spirit through the planes of consciousness”).
Alcinous the king of Phaeacia is a symbol of a work of “soul fortitude” and a “mighty spirit” applied to “that through which one excels” according to the name of his wife Arete, striving within the framework of an identity of Spirit and Matter (Φ+Ι+Ξ).
It is here – in this work – that aspects belonging to the domain of the soul and resulting from the development of sensitivity will settle for a long period of time (the Colchians are the subjects of Aeetes) as long as the seeker is not overwhelmed by the “joys of ecstasy of the sunlit path” (till the arrival of the Bacchiadae assimilated into the lineage of the Bacchantes or Bacchae) which, as Apollonius tells us must take place much later on the path.
Upon their arrival on the island of the Phaeacians the union of Medea and Jason was consummated so that the fruits of the development of sensitivity/consciousness could be preserved, otherwise the aid for the realisation of the task would have been postponed (Medea would have had to return to her father’s land): the seeker thus takes an irrevocable internal decision to fulfill the goal of his life. It is therefore for him the beginning of his dedication to his task, the true goal of his life.
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