August 11, 2025 • 60 mins
The Myth of Theseus part I: The Wannabe Hero's Road to Readiness
Before the monster in the labyrinth, before the sword and thread, there was a boy in Troezen — and a stone that would not move. In this episode, we return to the very beginning of Theseus’s story: his uncertain birth, the quiet wisdom of a mother who knows more than she says, and symbols of readiness waiting until the hero is strong enough to claim them along with his destiny.
Along the way, we’ll face the choice between the safe, straight road and the long, dangerous path that shapes the soul. What waits under the stone might surprise you — and it might just have something to say about your own next step.
You can find an expanded transcript for this episode on www.theinwardsea.com which includes extra notes, reflection questions, all my reseach sources.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is a podcast where we explore the intersection of mythology, folklore and modern life.
I'm Dimitri and I'll be your companion on this journey of discovery.
Each episode, we'll follow roots charted in the old stories and let them lead us into forgotten currents and toward new shores.
(00:21):
Welcome to The Inward Sea.
(The Inward Sea Theme - Dimitri Roussopoulos 2024)
(01:08):
Hello, and welcome back to The Inward Sea.
If this is your first time joining me, my name is Dimitri and you're listening to a podcast all about mythology, personal growth and creative development.
This is the first episode in a series in which I'm going to take you on a deep exploration of a hero in Greek mythology.
(01:29):
Today's episode is entitled "The Wannabe Hero's Road to Readiness".
Because whether or not you and I want to be a hero, there are times in all of our lives when we need to step up and be a bit heroic anyway.
So in today's episode we're going to sit with a powerful question.
(01:51):
What does it really mean to come of age?
Not just in years, but in soul.
No matter your age, this story is for you.
Because it's not just we who come of age.
You see, at some point, every new beginning, whether it's at a new job, or in a new relationship, or a new undertaking of a creative project, any new beginning will eventually lead us down a path of initiation.
(02:21):
Across cultures, our ancestors marked the passage from one stage of life to another with initiation rites and rituals.
Some traditions still do.
But in many places today, those deep rites of passage have been replaced by things like academic exams or an inner turmoil that no one really gets to see.
(02:43):
Initiation rituals that marked the coming of age of individuals in ancient cultures were, and in some cases where they're still practiced, are, often quite a lot more traumatic than the modern sanitized practices that have taken their place in society. Carl Jung likened the psychological function of these ancient rituals to the breaking of a weak bone, so that it would grow back stronger as a result of the calluses or scarred tissue that result from the healing. The way that modern initiation ceremonies, although still meaningful, largely consist of pageantry and celebration, leaves the real trauma of breaking and healing aspects of ourselves as we grow as something that each of us has to face personally.
(03:31):
That's where stories like this one come in.
In this episode, we'll walk alongside a young man who's still in the process of becoming.
He's not a hero...yet.
He's not a king.
He doesn't even know who his father is.
In English, his name is Theseus, but in Greek, it's said Θησέας.
(03:55):
In this podcast, wherever possible, I'll be trying to use the pronunciation of names as close to the way that they would have been said in their home languages.
This is my way of offering a nod of appreciation to the original cultures that have given us these myths.
If you have trouble with the names, or if in my attempt to honor their cultural roots, I end up butchering them entirely, you'll be able to find an expanded transcript for this episode on my website through a link in the show notes.
(04:26):
It will include some additional notes and a list of the names of the characters in English and Greek, for those of you who are curious or perhaps more fluent in Greek than I am.
In today's story, there's a stone that won't move, a mother who knows more than she says, and a choice between two roads, one safe and one littered with danger.
(04:54):
Our hero is walking the path of initiation from youthful innocence and obscurity to maturity and recognition.
In my years of working with the story and teaching it, it's become a mirror for me because whether you're entering something new or leaving something behind, Theseus' early path and the characters he meets on it offer us guidance and insight.
(05:22):
It's a remarkably detailed map of what forces we have to face as we move into new spaces.
At the very least, it can help us look back and notice where on our own path we've gone through similar processes.
It can also prepare us, making us more ready and able to recognize these same forces when they inevitably come around again.
(05:47):
In the last episode, we explored the myth of King Minos (Μίνως), the sea god, Poseidon (Ποσειδών), and a broken promise that birthed a manifestation of Minos' shame, the Minotaur.
Originally, I planned to continue from there and follow Theseus as he enters the labyrinth armed with a spool of borrowed thread and a sword.
(06:09):
But his confrontation with Pasiphaë (Πασιφάη)'s son, the fruit of Minos' betrayal, only makes sense, both for him and us, if we understand the path that shaped him.
Theseus didn't just appear one day, fully formed and ready to confront the Minotaur.
In the process of becoming the hero we think of when we hear his name now, he walked a path of initiation that positioned him as a model of ego consciousness we can view in contrast to the model described in King Minos. To understand that better, and hopefully learn a thing or two about ourselves in the process, we're going to walk his path with him. That path doesn't begin in darkness. It begins in Troezen (Τροιζήνα), with the questions surrounding his birth and the weight of a stone that must wait for years before it can be moved. Our story today starts not with Theseus, but with King Aegeus (Αιγέας), the ruler of Athens.
(07:26):
Uncertainty wrapped itself around the palace in Athens.
It clung in heavy pleats and folds between the cornices and columns.
It billowed through the colonnades and courtyards like wind-caught linen, coiling through corridors and cloaking marble surfaces in silence.
(07:47):
At the center of it all sat King Aegeus. The problem, you see, was this. Aegeus had no heir, and power without succession is a slow march toward collapse.
He had already taken two wives, but both had remained childless. So Aegeus, set off to seek the aid of the gods. He journeyed north to the Oracle of Apollo (Απόλλωνας) at Delphi, hoping for clarity. But the god, as gods often do, replied in riddle:
(08:29):
"Loose not the bulging mouth of the wineskin, O best of men, until you reach the height of Athena."
Confused and troubled by the words of the oracle, Aegeus left Delphi and made his way south again.
(08:50):
This time to the city of Troezen, where his friend Pittheus (Πιτθέας) ruled.
Now Pittheus was a clever man, too clever perhaps.
Over a meal, Aegeus recounted the riddle and Pittheus understood immediately.
(09:11):
Wineskin? That was no wineskin! The god's poetry was thinly veiled and Pittheus read it for what it was. Aegeus was...to keep it in his pants until reaching Athens. But Pittheus, ever the opportunist, had other ideas. Why wait on fate when a daughter and now a dynasty were both within easy reach?
(09:39):
Instead of explaining the prophecy, he told his friend that he had done well to visit him.
It was, after all, safer to drink here in his home than out there on the road.
And then he poured Aegeus another drink, and another, and another.
And then he introduced him to his beautiful daughter, Aethra (Αίθρα).
(10:05):
That night, led by wine and in no small part by the gentle manipulations of his host, Aegeus lay with Aethra. The mouth of the king's bulging wineskin, quite contrary to the oracle's warning, was very much loosed. Prophecy be damned.
Whether Aegeus remembered the oracle in that moment is anyone's guess.
(10:29):
But Pittheus certainly did. And somewhere, perhaps, Apollo was shaking his head.
After the deed was done, Aethra fell into a deep sleep. She dreamed, and in her dream, the goddess Athena (Αθηνά) appeared to her and told her to wake up and wade out to an island which lay close to Troezen's shores. Quietly, Aethra left the sleeping king and slipped out into the night.
(11:04):
On the island, Aethra visited a shrine when suddenly Poseidon, the god of the sea, appeared to her, his own intentions rather more clear than Apollo's riddles. And by dawn it seems another, far more divine wineskin had also been loosed.
None of the sources have anything to say about how Aethra felt about any of this, which reminds us that this is a myth, not a memoir. These characters are archetypal energies, forces of the unconscious rather than real people with inner monologues and private agency.
(11:42):
But back to the story.
When morning light and sobriety returned, King Aegeus began to worry. What if Aethra was pregnant, and what would become of the child in the uncertain and, one might suspect, Game-of-Thrones-like landscape of Athens, where his brothers' children were likely already plotting their place in line.
(12:10):
So, Aegeus took his sandals and a sword and buried them beneath a great stone.
Before he departed, he pulled Aethra to one side and gave her instructions. If she was pregnant, if she bore a son, and if that boy grew strong enough to lift the rock, she was to secretly send him to Athens, carrying the tokens hidden beneath it. Then, and only then, would Aegeus recognize the boy as his heir. And with that, he left.
(12:47):
Aethra never told him about the island, or what happened after the king had fallen asleep.
As the weeks went by, it became abundantly evident that Aethra was in fact pregnant, and ten months later she gave birth to a baby boy. She named him Theseus.
(13:07):
She raised him quietly, letting him grow into himself. He had no father—at least not one that he could name—only his mother, Aethra, and his grandfather, the clever and politically-minded Pittheus. The other boys all had stories about their fathers—heroes, merchants, warriors—
(13:29):
Theseus had only silence. But that silence around his lineage didn't mean that Theseus had no role models. More than anything else, he admired Heracles. The young boy dreamed of the heroes labors at night and in daylight tried to emulate them in every way he could.
(13:50):
Once, when Heracles (Ηρακλής) was visiting Pittheus, he set down his lion skin while resting at the palace.
The children, mistaking the thing for a live beast, screamed and scattered. Except for Theseus.
He didn't run. He grabbed the nearest axe and struck at it, undaunted. (Apparently, no one thought to ask why a child had such easy access to an axe, but this is a myth after all.)
(14:19):
Clearly, young Theseus was not like the other boys in the city. He ran faster. He fought harder.
Was it because he was trying to prove something? Was he trying to fill in the missing shape of his father with strength and skill? We don't know. The inner life of heroes is rarely recorded.
They're measured by what they do, not by what they feel.
(14:43):
But time and time again he would return to his mother with a question of who his father was.
And Aethra never let anything slip.
It may have been Pittheus, ever the opportunist, who spread the tale that the boy was the son of Poseidon.
After all, the god of the sea was deeply honored in Troezen,
(15:06):
and a divine pedigree could open doors. Whether Theseus himself believed it, or saw it as his mother and grandfather's way of dodging the truth, is another question entirely.
The story may have satisfied the people of Troezen, even earned him some status, but it doesn't seem like it was enough of an answer for young Theseus. And so, as he grew, one day Aethra looked at him and realized that he was no longer the child that she remembered.
(15:36):
The softness in his face was being replaced by the beginnings of a beard, and his hands bore the calluses from training with the sword and javelin.
It was soon after that, when the young man asked her again about his father,
she led him to a big rock and told him that his earthly father, a great man, had left him an inheritance beneath it.
(15:59):
Now, we're not told how many times he tried to move that boulder.
Maybe it was once, maybe it was many times. Maybe he returned to it in secret, when no one was watching, testing himself against it, trying, failing, waiting, growing, and trying again.
(16:21):
What we do know is that one day, when Theseus was all of 16 years old, and ready for it, the rock finally moved. Beneath it he found the sandals and the sword, tokens left by a man he had never met, a lineage he had never known.
(16:41):
By picking them up and dusting them off, he stepped into a story that had been waiting for him all along.
(17:10):
All right, and that was the story.
Well, I'm sure you can tell there is a lot to unpack in this bit of the myth, but I think it'll be better for us for the purposes of this podcast to limit our discussion to the person and actions of Theseus, because he offers a striking contrast to King Minos, whose story we explored in a previous episode. But before we move on, let me ask you this.
(17:40):
What's resonating so far with you?
Is there an image that caught your attention?
A moment that felt heavy, strange or...magnetic in some way?
If so, I really encourage you to make a note of it.
These mythic moments, especially the ones that tug at us for no clear reason, tend to lead somewhere.
(18:02):
And when we revisit them later, we often discover that they were already whispering something meant just for us, even before we heard them told in a story. In a way, those moments are like the rock that appears in this myth, waiting quietly for us to move them.
They call to us, they test our strength, our curiosity and our readiness. And like the stone, they may be hiding exactly what we need in order to begin the journey that's been waiting for us.
(18:34):
But, okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start off by talking about Theseus himself—the hero.
If I were to ask you to pull a lesson from the story, most people would instinctively focus on Theseus, what he does, what he learns, and then try to frame that in terms of their own lives.
(19:00):
Like I've said before, there isn't really a right or wrong way to interpret a myth, but some ways yield more insight than others. Identifying directly with the hero character tends to yield less.
Marie-Louise von Franz, speaking about the hero archetype, wrote, "It can therefore be said that the hero is an archetypal figure which presents a model of an ego functioning in accord with the Self. [...] It is a model to be looked at and it is demonstrating a rightly functioning ego, an ego that functions in accordance with the requirements of the Self." (See website transcript for sources)
(19:39):
All right, that's a dense quote but here's the key idea. The hero in myth isn't a realistic human character. They're not meant to reflect our personal psychology in all its complexity.
They are archetypal images, that is symbolic figures, who act out essential psychic patterns.
(20:00):
Modern retellings often try to flesh these characters out. We get their inner thoughts, their traumas, their motivations. But the older sources rarely work that way.
The mythic hero isn't really relatable. He or she is a moving pattern, a kind of inner choreography, part of a much bigger psychic system. So Theseus is not an avatar for you or me in the world of this story. He's not a role model in the Instagram influencer sense. He's just a model, as in a diagram or a map—something we can observe, learn from, but not something we should try emulate. You may remember from episode 2 that we talked about King Minos of Crete. Minos is a character who makes obvious mistakes, big ego-driven blunders that set off disastrous consequences.
(21:01):
With him, we don't usually feel tempted to see ourselves in him, in his story.
But with the hero like Theseus, it's different.
There's a strong pull to identify with him, to cast ourselves in that heroic role.
And that's understandable. But it's also a bit of a trap.
(21:25):
I'm not sure if you remember, but back in the 90s, some Christian groups wore bracelets with the initials WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) embroidered on them.
It was a well-meaning gesture, but from a psychological perspective, it risks encouraging performance over actual transformation.
It can lead people to imitate behaviors that they feel would be perceived as "good" or "right", rather than paying attention to the interior causes of the conflicts they're trying to resolve through that "right" behavior.
(21:58):
If we were to consider an alternative bracelet, WWTD (What Would Theseus Do?),
we might be tempted to simply mimic Theseus' behavior.
For example, to try move the boulder, to fail, go train, work out and come back and try again.
This type of imitation isn't necessarily bad, but when it becomes something driven by external expectations of what is "good", "right" or "moral", we often begin to try to place some of those expectations on others, too.
(22:32):
What is intended for personal growth can end up becoming something like the white bull from episode 2, rather than an actual avenue of personal development.
This is all to say that Theseus, our hero, is not a character that we should try and copy.
Rather, he is a representation of how we can modulate the attitude of our ego and reorient it in relation to other facets of the psyche—inwardly.
(22:59):
We'll see an example of that as we follow him further along his road in just a moment.
We can learn from the hero's pattern without needing to cosplay as one.
Theseus shows us what the ego can be when it accepts the gifts and follows the path set by something older, deeper and wiser than itself.
So to be clear (23:19):
in this story, Theseus is not you or me.
He is an image of the ego in right relationship with the archetypal Self.
This is one of the reasons why the image of the hero in stories or in mythology is often one that has two fathers.
One father represents the known world of conscious awareness, while the other represents the deeper source, the archetypal Self, of which we are mostly unconscious.
(23:51):
We are conscious beings.
The point here is not to identify with the unconscious and try give ourselves over to it.
Instead, the task of the ego is to slowly, on a journey much like Theseus's, confront things that arise from the unconscious.
In this myth, these forces are pictured by characters that appear on the wilderness road outside the ordered confines of the cities.
(24:17):
Our task, as modelled by Theseus, is to meet them and integrate them, and transmute their energy to make them useful to us instead of potentially overwhelming for us.
We will talk more about the image of the sword in a moment, because the sword is a powerful depiction of what that process entails.
(24:39):
Anyway, back to Theseus.
His ability to lift the stone and claim the sandals and the sword left by his father marks the beginning of a journey that all of us must walk in one form or another. That is the path of initiation. Now remember, mythology doesn't give us instructions, it gives us images.
So let's turn to the next set of images that concerns Theseus (25:02):
the sandals, the sword, and the rock that covered them.
So, having finally succeeded in moving the rock that his father placed so intentionally, Theseus is now able to claim his inheritance from his dad, a pair of sandals and a sword.
(25:29):
These are obviously symbolic images. After all, neither a pair of sandals nor a sword left under a rock for 16 years is likely to be very useful.
When Theseus moves the rock and uncovers the sandals, he isn't just claiming a pair of old shoes that have been buried for some time. He is stepping into a new relationship with his world. In folklore and myth, shoes often signal where we stand, both literally and Symbolically.
(26:03):
They are more than just practical gear for the road ahead, they represent our standpoint, our footing in the world, and our connection to the path beneath us.
Psychologically, this means that the sandals mark Theseus' first act of grounding himself in the reality of who he is and who he is called to become.
(26:27):
That's not a small gesture.
Stepping into one's father's shoes is a metaphorical image with which most of us are familiar.
We use it to talk about responsibility, power, inheritance and legacy.
While we usually mean this metaphorically, Theseus actually does it quite literally.
(26:48):
By claiming his father's sandals so far from Athens, the hero is signalling that he is ready to earn his place at the table, prepared to undertake the difficult journey towards the kind of man who can wield that legacy with wisdom and compassion.
The sandals give him traction. They mark the beginning of his authority, not yet as a king, but as someone willing to walk the road toward recognition.
(27:18):
What does that look like for you and me? Well, the image here is showing us the hero-model claiming something from the past, from which it has been separated.
The separation is no fault of its own, just like how we, in the process of growing up, fragment and compartmentalise ourselves.
This is all perfectly natural, of course.
(27:40):
None of us behave in the same way with our friends as we do with our parents.
As we grow, we learn to adopt different personas in different groups and social settings.
Some parts of ourselves that we don't pay much attention to because they just don't seem to fit into any particular setting or, perhaps, because we are actively repressing them, remain underdeveloped.
(28:04):
These underdeveloped parts of ourselves, though we pretend they don't exist, are still part of us.
As we grow, they do not. But they do gather to themselves more and more psychic energy, and occasionally manifest just as Theseus returns time and time again to Aethra to ask who his father is.
(28:26):
He knows he has an earthly father, but as long as neither Aethra nor the rock move, he has no chance of re-establishing a connection with him.
For you and me, the act of claiming the sandals might look like a willingness walk into those underdeveloped parts of ourselves, to explore parts of ourselves that we have buried either as a natural result of growing or perhaps as a result of fear and shame.
(28:54):
It's important to remember that it's not just scary stuff that's buried beneath our metaphorical rocks. How many people do you know that go through life claiming things like "I'm not creative" or I'm bad at mathematics. These statements are rocks. Rolling them away and being willing to engage with those things that we are not, the things that we just don't see as part of our identity, well, that's one way of claiming the sandals. By being willing to explore and engage with the variables that we stick into statements of, "Well, I'm not X!" or, "I can't do Y!" we come to another common saying about shoes, one that calls for compassion.
(29:43):
To walk in someone else's shoes means to see the world from their point of view.
It often means confronting parts of them that we've experienced as having walked away from us, just like Aegeus did from Theseus.
It calls us to view the world from a point that is different from the way we see it.
(30:07):
You see, Theseus doesn't just step into his father's sandals out of blind loyalty to, or angsty teenage rebellion against, the authority that a dad represents.
He does it with a readiness to face a relationship that has been left unfinished.
(30:28):
He is about to walk a path, not to repeat the past nor to deny it, but to redefine it through his own actions and begin something completely new.
And as we shall soon see, he's willing to do this on his own terms.
How might our own lives and the lives of those around us change if we approach those underdeveloped parts of ourselves in the same way.
(30:59):
These may be his father's sandals, but the road he's about to walk is his alone.
If the sandals show that Theseus is ready to walk the path, then the sword reveals that he is ready to shape it.
But what does that mean, to shape a path?
(31:20):
After all, we don't usually think of paths as things we shape, right?
They're things that we follow.
Yet if we pause for a moment to consider how our choices carve the routes we walk each day, a deeper truth begins to surface.
We determine where a path begins, where it ends, and, more crucially, what shape it takes between those two points.
(31:47):
We shape a path the moment we declare "this is where I begin" and the moment we say "this is where I'm going".
And despite the stories we often tell ourselves, those declarations are always choices, even if we make them unconsciously.
To shape the path then is not to control the world, but to refine the lens through which we see it. And the sword, for Theseus, symbolises a newly forged faculty of his psyche, the power to cut through illusion and to separate what is real from what is merely projection. It marks the capacity to discern what is truly ours from what we've inherited, absorbed or adapted for survival.
(32:37):
In Jungian terms, the sword represents the focused application of libido, not as raw drive or compulsive desire, but as the living energy of the psyche directed towards clarity, truth and meaningful action.
When we carry that sword, we begin to move with a different kind of agency.
(32:58):
We no longer just react, we choose and respond.
And with each choice, we chisel a path not only through the world, but through our own psychic wilderness.
If myth has taught us anything, it's this.
Swords don't just appear by accident in our hands.
(33:19):
They arrive when we are ready to meet them.
They are heralds of destiny, yes, but also reminders of responsibility.
Think of Luke Skywalker receiving his father's lightsaber, not at the beginning of his life, but when he's ready to confront the legacy that shaped him.
(33:39):
Or the young King Arthur, well, he wasn't a king then, but, you know, the young Arthur, pulling the sword from the stone and later receiving the most wonderful of all swords, Excalibur, from the Lady of the Lake.
Excalibur was given not as proof of his birthright, but as a sign of his worthiness.
In the samurai tradition, the sword, uchikatana, is seen as the soul of the warrior.
(34:04):
Not merely a weapon, but an embodiment of discipline, clarity and moral code, always sharp and always sheathed, unless necessary.
Psychologically, the sword represents the focused application of libido.
The term libido can sound confusing if you're not familiar with Jungian terminology.
(34:27):
In the early days of psychoanalysis, libido was understood to be something like the driving force of desire, and naturally, it was associated strongly with sexual urges.
But later, especially in the work of Carl Jung, it took on a more universal meaning, something more akin to a deep reservoir of living psychic energy within each one of us.
(34:53):
And the sword? Well, the sword is not a primitive weapon like a club or a sharpened stone. It's metal, mined, smelted and forged for a purpose. It is beyond the base forces that drive us to act on impulse or out of blind obedience to instinctual urges. The sword represents libido that has been tempered, forged and sharpened to achieve a specific result. It is will with an edge. In alchemical traditions, the sword is also a tool that divides and clarifies. It cuts through confusion, separates the base from the refined. Just as the alchemist divides the prima materia to reveal hidden essence, so the hero must learn to wield discernment within and without.
(35:46):
The blade doesn't just strike, it transforms. When Theseus finally succeeds in moving the stone, that effort is already the first use of the sword. The act of moving the rock is not purely physical, It's the culmination of waiting, of growth, of restraint.
(36:07):
The sword doesn't make him powerful.
He gains the sword in recognition of the fact that he already is.
In many myths, the sword appears at the threshold of transformation.
Symbolically, it cuts away the old.
Its blade is a symbol of the dividing line between innocence and experience, unconscious potential and conscious responsibility. It is the tool of one who has learned how and when to act. But it's also dangerous. The sword divides, wounds and, if misused, corrupts.
(36:49):
That's why it's hidden. That's why it can't be given too early. To carry the sword is to carry the burden of one's own agency, and to know that power is not just the ability to act, but the responsibility to act well.
So as Theseus takes up the blade, he's stepping into a new stage of his own growth, armed with the tools he has gained up to that point.
(37:33):
But before Theseus can claim either of these items, the sandals that ground our authority and enable free movement over difficult terrain, or the sword representing the intentionally shaped use of mental energy that enables us to divide and dissolve what we once perceived as singular – things like experiences, projections or identities. Before he can claim either of these two tools, he must reach an age and a level of strength that will allow him to move the rock that covers them.
(38:11):
Stones and rocks are everywhere. We step over them, we build on them, we clear them away.
Rarely do they carry meaning until they are altered in some way, perhaps by being moved, painted or carved. And then, when they are altered, they begin to hum with mythic charge.
(38:35):
Think of the rocks of Stonehenge, or the standing stones in Stennes, Scotland.
Physically, these rocks are no different from the gravel we kick aside or the rocks we blast through to build roads.
Yet placed with intention, these stones begin to resonate with numinous energy.
(38:56):
We know they are huge, heavy, and must have taken vast effort to place so deliberately.
But who put them there?
When and why?
In this way, these rocks, ordinary though their geological material may be, take on the role of threshold symbols.
In a wonderfully physical way, they mark the meeting point between the known and the unknown.
(39:24):
We may never know who placed those stones or why, but all of us feel the mythical weight of the numinous in what we perceive as wonder.
They seem to vibrate with threshold energy and immediately engage the imagination of all who look on them.
Luckily, in our story today, we know exactly who placed the rock and why.
(39:48):
And that gives us something precious:
the ability to name the threshold it marks.
This rock is the first gate of Theseus' initiation.
It was placed by King Aegeus, Theseus's earthly father.
Remember, like so many heroes, Theseus has two fathers, King Aegeus from the known earthly world and the sea god, Poseidon, from the unknown Other-world.
(40:17):
Theseus cannot simply take the sword and sandals whenever he wants.
He must move the rock.
He must prove something, not just to his father, but to the world, and more importantly, to himself.
The rock is a test of strength, yes, but more than that, it's a test of readiness, the first threshold of maturity.
(40:42):
It is the symbolic beginning of his journey, the first step in his initiation.
Now, "initiation" might feel like an uncomfortable word for us today.
It might call up images of fraternity hazings or military rituals, but these are modern distortions of something far older.
(41:09):
Initiation, in its original sense, is universal, a ritual common to all human cultures since time immemorial.
And yet, there's something that we rarely talk about.
You see, initiation isn't just a one-time event.
It's not just a bat mitzvah, or quinceañera, or graduation.
(41:35):
Psychologically, initiation is cyclical.
Sandals are, after all, not made for just a single step or even a single journey, and a sword is not made to strike just once.
We undergo initiations every time we step into new terrain, every time we begin a creative project or step into a new role, every new relationship we begin, or any time we leave something behind.
(42:04):
Throughout our lives, we go through many initiations, whether we are aware of them or not.
Each of these moments demands something of us, and they all follow a similar pattern.
First is the preparation phase, in which we outgrow our old paradigm and ultimately leave it.
(42:27):
When we go into a new area, we enter the stage of confrontation, in which we come face to face with the forces governing that new space we are entering. And finally, if we survive that confrontation, we re-emerge in what we could call an emergence state, in which we return to the world with the personal agency to wield the forces we have faced and overcome.
(42:55):
Initiation in that sense is both mythic and personal. It's not just something we go through. It's something we grow through. In societies, coming-of-age initiation rites exist so that the young person can confront the forces that they once thought absolute, divine even, and come out of that confrontation transformed, ready to accept the responsibilities of adulthood.
(43:26):
Our modern discomfort with the brutality of many of these confrontations misses their deeper purpose.
These rituals were designed to be believable to the psyche, and that often meant they were terrifying.
On the other side of terror, however, is transformation.
(43:48):
The initiate emerges from the horrific experiences marked, often physically changed or scarred, and spiritually realigned, ready to hold the very powers that once held them.
And here's the catch:
the moment of initiation for each of us is not under our personal control.
(44:10):
It arrives with time, with age, perhaps through loss or challenge or crisis.
None of us get to choose when the rock is ready to be moved.
Despite his longing to be a hero like Heracles, Theseus had to wait.
(44:31):
First, until he was old enough to try, and then until he was strong enough to actually move the rock.
Only after that period of waiting and trying, what may have felt like false starts or disappointing failures, could he claim the sandals and the sword and make his way to Athens, his father's city.
(44:52):
It doesn't take a lot to reflect on these symbols and start seeing how they apply to our own lives.
Before the end of today's episode, I'm going to leave you with three questions.
But I hope you will take the symbols of the sandals, the sword and the rock away with you, that you'll spend a bit of time with them and look in your own life, whether it's that's happening right now, or perhaps something that you have faced in the past, and see how these symbols and tools have played a part in shaping your own walk on the path of initiation.
(45:30):
But for now, let's get back to the story, shall we? Back to the time of oracles and gods, to a young man who has just uncovered the symbols of his destiny.
(45:51):
The golden light of the early evening painted the world in amber and gold.
Long blue shadows like the fingers of the young knight reached across the tiled courtyard where Theseus stood beside his mother.
A soft breeze rustled the olive trees nearby,
(46:11):
their gilt-edged leaves whispering like old women at a well. Across from them sat his grandfather, King Pittheus, aged, sharp-eyed, and wrapped in a light robe of pale wool, the color of distant storms. Pittheus had always known who the boy's earthly father was, but he had not known about the rock, or the sandals, or the sword. Now, as Theseus held these tokens in his hands, the weight of the moment settled over the three of them.
(46:44):
Aethra spoke. She told her father everything, how King Aegeus had placed the items beneath the stone and left instructions should his son be born to her. She went on to explain, possibly more for Theseus' benefit than his grandfather's, the need for the secrecy and Aegeus's fear that his brother's children in Athens would kill the boy before he could be recognized, and when she finished, she fell silent.
(47:13):
Piteas nodded gravely.
He looked out towards the bay where sunlight shimmered on the water like coins spilled from a hole in Helios's purse as he had passed overhead.
Athens was not far.
A sea journey would be swift and safe, cutting across the blue waters in a matter of hours.
(47:33):
Pittheus, ever pragmatic, immediately offered a vessel, a fast galley, fully manned.
It could deliver Thysseres directly to the shores of the Attic peninsula, where the palace lay only a short walk inland.
But the boy, no, the man, did not answer immediately.
He looked inland, toward the dry hills and winding paths.
(47:58):
The wilderness between Troezen and Athens was the road that Heracles would have chosen.
The safe route was not the one that called to him.
And so, despite his mother's worries and grandfather's insistence, Theseus refused the offer of the boat and safe passage, and chose to go by land.
(48:20):
After all, his father, the king of Athens, hadn't left him oars but sandals.
This choice, to go willingly along the difficult path, is one that Theseus will make again later in his life, although at that point, it will be a long and winding road into darkness, into the shadowed turns of the winding labyrinth on Crete.
(48:45):
But for now, as the late afternoon gave way to evening and the shades of amber deepened to purples and blues of night, Theseus began making his plans to leave the following morning.
(49:13):
Now it's time to talk about the road.
The road between Troezen and Athens skirts the Saronic Gulf.
It traces a path connecting six mythological gates to the underworld, each guarded by a monstrous chthonic figure.
Of course, there are many ways to frame this journey, and if I let myself, I could fall down a dozen rabbit holes here.
(49:37):
I mean, we could talk about the rock that Theseus moved as the Philosopher's Stone, a catalyst for alchemical transformation that occurs along the road to Athens.
In this framing, the sword and the sandals become the tools for division and discernment to separate the elements within, while the path describes the stages of dissolution, reintegration and emergence from the materia prima of Theseus' childhood self into the golden hero we think of when we hear his name today.
(50:09):
But for now, I'll keep it simple.
Since Theseus walks this road, we'll just walk it with him, step by step, encounter by encounter.
I hope that by following this hero along his road, you'll also gain the courage to approach the road before you a little differently.
Carl Jung describes the path to wholeness as the "longissima via", a snake-like journey full of detours and terrors, but one that unites opposites and leads to integration, much like the alchemist's magnum opus. That phrase gave me a meaningful name for Theseus' road, not a shortcut, but a longissima via, where each confrontation on the road isn't a detour, but a necessary turn. In talking about the same path in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell says, "The passage of the mythological hero may be overground incidentally, but fundamentally it is inward, into depths, where obscure resistances are overcome and long-lost forgotten powers are revivified and made available for the transfiguration of the world." Theseus doesn't know it yet, but each of the six figures he'll meet along this road will mirror distorted aspects of human nature, forces that twist, tempt or overpower us when left unchecked. They are challenges not just of body, but of psyche.
(51:42):
So what moments or images stood out for you in today's story?
Was it the rock? The massive boulder Theseus had to wait years before he was strong enough to move?
Was it the sandals and the sword?
Or was it the moment he chose the long road, the dangerous one, when the safer path lay glittering right there across the sea?
(52:04):
Maybe you faced a choice like that in your own life.
The choice between the easy way, the route with fewer obstacles, and the longer path, the one that asks something deeper of you.
The one where you know you'll have to face real resistance.
The one that will change you.
Let's pause here for a moment.
(52:27):
Remember those six gates of the underworld that I mentioned?
Each of them is guarded by a bandit.
Those bandits are threshold figures, guardians of the in-between.
Theseus isn't descending into Hades (Άδης)—the world of the dead—
he's walking from one city to another.
But the journey itself is initiatory.
(52:50):
It's a rite of passage.
In the symbolic sense, these bandits mark gates to the underworld not because he's literally going underground, but because he's entering psychological terrain shaped by the unconscious.
These gates to the underworld show up whenever we are on the brink of change, when we're leaving behind an old version of ourselves, but not yet sure of who we are becoming.
(53:18):
And that kind of transformation doesn't just arrive out of nowhere, it begins with an act of courage or strength, of readiness.
It begins in this story where the stone is finally lifted.
Because under that stone lies something crucial.
Not just the sandals and the sword, but a truth about who Theseus really is.
(53:40):
A truth that was hidden, unknown, even to him, until he was ready.
And the same is often true for us.
Our next chapter often waits under some metaphorical stone, something we haven't been strong enough to face or see clearly until now.
Whenever I reflect on this story, I'm reminded of a line from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.
(54:03):
He wrote, "The impediment to action advances action, and what stands in the way becomes the way." That's exactly what the stone in this myth represents.
The sandals and the sword that are hidden beneath it?
Well, they aren't just gifts from a father who is unable to be around while the child is growing up.
(54:23):
They are proof of Theseus' readiness.
They are the evidence that Theseus has crossed some invisible line.
He's no longer just someone with potential, he's someone who has chosen, and who is equipped by everything he has been through, to step forward onto the longissima via of initiation.
(54:44):
In order to get to that point, Theseus had to have the courage and tenacity to try, as well as the faith to trust, that the rock was worth moving, without knowing what was beneath it.
In closing, I'd like to leave you with a few questions to ponder.
As always, there are no right answers here.
Only territory for you to explore on your own terms.
(55:10):
[BELL RINGING]
The first question is, are there stories told by others or perhaps even by your own mind that have shaped who you think you are?
Are any of those stories ready to be questioned, outgrown, or maybe rewritten?
(55:34):
[Sounds of waves]
The second question is, what is the stone in your life right now?
Is there something heavy, unmoving, that you feel that you are growing towards being able to lift?
(56:00):
What might be waiting for you underneath it?
And the third and final question is, what does it mean for you to choose the path that will change you rather than simply get you from A to B?
(56:25):
And what are you afraid of facing along the way?
In the next episode, we'll journey further with Theseus from Troezeb to the nearby town of Epidauros, where he will come face to face with his first real test on the road, a bandit named Periphetes, who some say is a misshapen son of a god.
(56:55):
Through this encounter, Theseus will demonstrate the real power of the sword he has received and we'll discover what a bronze club has in common with the pelt of a lion.
But for now, thank you so much for spending your time with me.
If you've enjoyed today's episode or if something leapt out at you and you want to chat about it, please leave a comment on the episode or reach out to me through my website at www.theinwardsea.com.
(57:22):
That's www.theinwardsea.com.
As always, I'd really appreciate it if you'd subscribe to this podcast, rate this episode, or leave a review with a comment, or share it with anyone you think might find it interesting.
(57:46):
I really enjoy researching and preparing these episodes, and I'd love to know how they land with you.
So once again, thank you, and until next time, keep on pushing those rocks.
They will move one day, and then who knows what you'll find beneath them.
My name is Dimitri, and you've been listening to the Inward Sea.
(The Inward Sea Theme (58:06):
Outro)
This is a podcast where we explore the intersection of mythology, folklore and modern life.
I'm Dimitri and I'll be your companion on this journey of discovery.
Each episode, we'll follow roots charted in the old stories and let them lead us into forgotten currents and toward new shores.
(00:21):
Welcome to The Inward Sea.
(The Inward Sea Theme - Dimitri Roussopoulos 2024)
(01:08):
Hello, and welcome back to The Inward Sea.
If this is your first time joining me, my name is Dimitri and you're listening to a podcast all about mythology, personal growth and creative development.
This is the first episode in a series in which I'm going to take you on a deep exploration of a hero in Greek mythology.
(01:29):
Today's episode is entitled "The Wannabe Hero's Road to Readiness".
Because whether or not you and I want to be a hero, there are times in all of our lives when we need to step up and be a bit heroic anyway.
So in today's episode we're going to sit with a powerful question.
(01:51):
What does it really mean to come of age?
Not just in years, but in soul.
No matter your age, this story is for you.
Because it's not just we who come of age.
You see, at some point, every new beginning, whether it's at a new job, or in a new relationship, or a new undertaking of a creative project, any new beginning will eventually lead us down a path of initiation.
(02:21):
Across cultures, our ancestors marked the passage from one stage of life to another with initiation rites and rituals.
Some traditions still do.
But in many places today, those deep rites of passage have been replaced by things like academic exams or an inner turmoil that no one really gets to see.
(02:43):
Initiation rituals that marked the coming of age of individuals in ancient cultures were, and in some cases where they're still practiced, are, often quite a lot more traumatic than the modern sanitized practices that have taken their place in society. Carl Jung likened the psychological function of these ancient rituals to the breaking of a weak bone, so that it would grow back stronger as a result of the calluses or scarred tissue that result from the healing. The way that modern initiation ceremonies, although still meaningful, largely consist of pageantry and celebration, leaves the real trauma of breaking and healing aspects of ourselves as we grow as something that each of us has to face personally.
(03:31):
That's where stories like this one come in.
In this episode, we'll walk alongside a young man who's still in the process of becoming.
He's not a hero...yet.
He's not a king.
He doesn't even know who his father is.
In English, his name is Theseus, but in Greek, it's said Θησέας.
(03:55):
In this podcast, wherever possible, I'll be trying to use the pronunciation of names as close to the way that they would have been said in their home languages.
This is my way of offering a nod of appreciation to the original cultures that have given us these myths.
If you have trouble with the names, or if in my attempt to honor their cultural roots, I end up butchering them entirely, you'll be able to find an expanded transcript for this episode on my website through a link in the show notes.
(04:26):
It will include some additional notes and a list of the names of the characters in English and Greek, for those of you who are curious or perhaps more fluent in Greek than I am.
In today's story, there's a stone that won't move, a mother who knows more than she says, and a choice between two roads, one safe and one littered with danger.
(04:54):
Our hero is walking the path of initiation from youthful innocence and obscurity to maturity and recognition.
In my years of working with the story and teaching it, it's become a mirror for me because whether you're entering something new or leaving something behind, Theseus' early path and the characters he meets on it offer us guidance and insight.
(05:22):
It's a remarkably detailed map of what forces we have to face as we move into new spaces.
At the very least, it can help us look back and notice where on our own path we've gone through similar processes.
It can also prepare us, making us more ready and able to recognize these same forces when they inevitably come around again.
(05:47):
In the last episode, we explored the myth of King Minos (Μίνως), the sea god, Poseidon (Ποσειδών), and a broken promise that birthed a manifestation of Minos' shame, the Minotaur.
Originally, I planned to continue from there and follow Theseus as he enters the labyrinth armed with a spool of borrowed thread and a sword.
(06:09):
But his confrontation with Pasiphaë (Πασιφάη)'s son, the fruit of Minos' betrayal, only makes sense, both for him and us, if we understand the path that shaped him.
Theseus didn't just appear one day, fully formed and ready to confront the Minotaur.
In the process of becoming the hero we think of when we hear his name now, he walked a path of initiation that positioned him as a model of ego consciousness we can view in contrast to the model described in King Minos. To understand that better, and hopefully learn a thing or two about ourselves in the process, we're going to walk his path with him. That path doesn't begin in darkness. It begins in Troezen (Τροιζήνα), with the questions surrounding his birth and the weight of a stone that must wait for years before it can be moved. Our story today starts not with Theseus, but with King Aegeus (Αιγέας), the ruler of Athens.
(07:26):
Uncertainty wrapped itself around the palace in Athens.
It clung in heavy pleats and folds between the cornices and columns.
It billowed through the colonnades and courtyards like wind-caught linen, coiling through corridors and cloaking marble surfaces in silence.
(07:47):
At the center of it all sat King Aegeus. The problem, you see, was this. Aegeus had no heir, and power without succession is a slow march toward collapse.
He had already taken two wives, but both had remained childless. So Aegeus, set off to seek the aid of the gods. He journeyed north to the Oracle of Apollo (Απόλλωνας) at Delphi, hoping for clarity. But the god, as gods often do, replied in riddle:
(08:29):
"Loose not the bulging mouth of the wineskin, O best of men, until you reach the height of Athena."
Confused and troubled by the words of the oracle, Aegeus left Delphi and made his way south again.
(08:50):
This time to the city of Troezen, where his friend Pittheus (Πιτθέας) ruled.
Now Pittheus was a clever man, too clever perhaps.
Over a meal, Aegeus recounted the riddle and Pittheus understood immediately.
(09:11):
Wineskin? That was no wineskin! The god's poetry was thinly veiled and Pittheus read it for what it was. Aegeus was...to keep it in his pants until reaching Athens. But Pittheus, ever the opportunist, had other ideas. Why wait on fate when a daughter and now a dynasty were both within easy reach?
(09:39):
Instead of explaining the prophecy, he told his friend that he had done well to visit him.
It was, after all, safer to drink here in his home than out there on the road.
And then he poured Aegeus another drink, and another, and another.
And then he introduced him to his beautiful daughter, Aethra (Αίθρα).
(10:05):
That night, led by wine and in no small part by the gentle manipulations of his host, Aegeus lay with Aethra. The mouth of the king's bulging wineskin, quite contrary to the oracle's warning, was very much loosed. Prophecy be damned.
Whether Aegeus remembered the oracle in that moment is anyone's guess.
(10:29):
But Pittheus certainly did. And somewhere, perhaps, Apollo was shaking his head.
After the deed was done, Aethra fell into a deep sleep. She dreamed, and in her dream, the goddess Athena (Αθηνά) appeared to her and told her to wake up and wade out to an island which lay close to Troezen's shores. Quietly, Aethra left the sleeping king and slipped out into the night.
(11:04):
On the island, Aethra visited a shrine when suddenly Poseidon, the god of the sea, appeared to her, his own intentions rather more clear than Apollo's riddles. And by dawn it seems another, far more divine wineskin had also been loosed.
None of the sources have anything to say about how Aethra felt about any of this, which reminds us that this is a myth, not a memoir. These characters are archetypal energies, forces of the unconscious rather than real people with inner monologues and private agency.
(11:42):
But back to the story.
When morning light and sobriety returned, King Aegeus began to worry. What if Aethra was pregnant, and what would become of the child in the uncertain and, one might suspect, Game-of-Thrones-like landscape of Athens, where his brothers' children were likely already plotting their place in line.
(12:10):
So, Aegeus took his sandals and a sword and buried them beneath a great stone.
Before he departed, he pulled Aethra to one side and gave her instructions. If she was pregnant, if she bore a son, and if that boy grew strong enough to lift the rock, she was to secretly send him to Athens, carrying the tokens hidden beneath it. Then, and only then, would Aegeus recognize the boy as his heir. And with that, he left.
(12:47):
Aethra never told him about the island, or what happened after the king had fallen asleep.
As the weeks went by, it became abundantly evident that Aethra was in fact pregnant, and ten months later she gave birth to a baby boy. She named him Theseus.
(13:07):
She raised him quietly, letting him grow into himself. He had no father—at least not one that he could name—only his mother, Aethra, and his grandfather, the clever and politically-minded Pittheus. The other boys all had stories about their fathers—heroes, merchants, warriors—
(13:29):
Theseus had only silence. But that silence around his lineage didn't mean that Theseus had no role models. More than anything else, he admired Heracles. The young boy dreamed of the heroes labors at night and in daylight tried to emulate them in every way he could.
(13:50):
Once, when Heracles (Ηρακλής) was visiting Pittheus, he set down his lion skin while resting at the palace.
The children, mistaking the thing for a live beast, screamed and scattered. Except for Theseus.
He didn't run. He grabbed the nearest axe and struck at it, undaunted. (Apparently, no one thought to ask why a child had such easy access to an axe, but this is a myth after all.)
(14:19):
Clearly, young Theseus was not like the other boys in the city. He ran faster. He fought harder.
Was it because he was trying to prove something? Was he trying to fill in the missing shape of his father with strength and skill? We don't know. The inner life of heroes is rarely recorded.
They're measured by what they do, not by what they feel.
(14:43):
But time and time again he would return to his mother with a question of who his father was.
And Aethra never let anything slip.
It may have been Pittheus, ever the opportunist, who spread the tale that the boy was the son of Poseidon.
After all, the god of the sea was deeply honored in Troezen,
(15:06):
and a divine pedigree could open doors. Whether Theseus himself believed it, or saw it as his mother and grandfather's way of dodging the truth, is another question entirely.
The story may have satisfied the people of Troezen, even earned him some status, but it doesn't seem like it was enough of an answer for young Theseus. And so, as he grew, one day Aethra looked at him and realized that he was no longer the child that she remembered.
(15:36):
The softness in his face was being replaced by the beginnings of a beard, and his hands bore the calluses from training with the sword and javelin.
It was soon after that, when the young man asked her again about his father,
she led him to a big rock and told him that his earthly father, a great man, had left him an inheritance beneath it.
(15:59):
Now, we're not told how many times he tried to move that boulder.
Maybe it was once, maybe it was many times. Maybe he returned to it in secret, when no one was watching, testing himself against it, trying, failing, waiting, growing, and trying again.
(16:21):
What we do know is that one day, when Theseus was all of 16 years old, and ready for it, the rock finally moved. Beneath it he found the sandals and the sword, tokens left by a man he had never met, a lineage he had never known.
(16:41):
By picking them up and dusting them off, he stepped into a story that had been waiting for him all along.
(17:10):
All right, and that was the story.
Well, I'm sure you can tell there is a lot to unpack in this bit of the myth, but I think it'll be better for us for the purposes of this podcast to limit our discussion to the person and actions of Theseus, because he offers a striking contrast to King Minos, whose story we explored in a previous episode. But before we move on, let me ask you this.
(17:40):
What's resonating so far with you?
Is there an image that caught your attention?
A moment that felt heavy, strange or...magnetic in some way?
If so, I really encourage you to make a note of it.
These mythic moments, especially the ones that tug at us for no clear reason, tend to lead somewhere.
(18:02):
And when we revisit them later, we often discover that they were already whispering something meant just for us, even before we heard them told in a story. In a way, those moments are like the rock that appears in this myth, waiting quietly for us to move them.
They call to us, they test our strength, our curiosity and our readiness. And like the stone, they may be hiding exactly what we need in order to begin the journey that's been waiting for us.
(18:34):
But, okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start off by talking about Theseus himself—the hero.
If I were to ask you to pull a lesson from the story, most people would instinctively focus on Theseus, what he does, what he learns, and then try to frame that in terms of their own lives.
(19:00):
Like I've said before, there isn't really a right or wrong way to interpret a myth, but some ways yield more insight than others. Identifying directly with the hero character tends to yield less.
Marie-Louise von Franz, speaking about the hero archetype, wrote, "It can therefore be said that the hero is an archetypal figure which presents a model of an ego functioning in accord with the Self. [...] It is a model to be looked at and it is demonstrating a rightly functioning ego, an ego that functions in accordance with the requirements of the Self." (See website transcript for sources)
(19:39):
All right, that's a dense quote but here's the key idea. The hero in myth isn't a realistic human character. They're not meant to reflect our personal psychology in all its complexity.
They are archetypal images, that is symbolic figures, who act out essential psychic patterns.
(20:00):
Modern retellings often try to flesh these characters out. We get their inner thoughts, their traumas, their motivations. But the older sources rarely work that way.
The mythic hero isn't really relatable. He or she is a moving pattern, a kind of inner choreography, part of a much bigger psychic system. So Theseus is not an avatar for you or me in the world of this story. He's not a role model in the Instagram influencer sense. He's just a model, as in a diagram or a map—something we can observe, learn from, but not something we should try emulate. You may remember from episode 2 that we talked about King Minos of Crete. Minos is a character who makes obvious mistakes, big ego-driven blunders that set off disastrous consequences.
(21:01):
With him, we don't usually feel tempted to see ourselves in him, in his story.
But with the hero like Theseus, it's different.
There's a strong pull to identify with him, to cast ourselves in that heroic role.
And that's understandable. But it's also a bit of a trap.
(21:25):
I'm not sure if you remember, but back in the 90s, some Christian groups wore bracelets with the initials WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) embroidered on them.
It was a well-meaning gesture, but from a psychological perspective, it risks encouraging performance over actual transformation.
It can lead people to imitate behaviors that they feel would be perceived as "good" or "right", rather than paying attention to the interior causes of the conflicts they're trying to resolve through that "right" behavior.
(21:58):
If we were to consider an alternative bracelet, WWTD (What Would Theseus Do?),
we might be tempted to simply mimic Theseus' behavior.
For example, to try move the boulder, to fail, go train, work out and come back and try again.
This type of imitation isn't necessarily bad, but when it becomes something driven by external expectations of what is "good", "right" or "moral", we often begin to try to place some of those expectations on others, too.
(22:32):
What is intended for personal growth can end up becoming something like the white bull from episode 2, rather than an actual avenue of personal development.
This is all to say that Theseus, our hero, is not a character that we should try and copy.
Rather, he is a representation of how we can modulate the attitude of our ego and reorient it in relation to other facets of the psyche—inwardly.
(22:59):
We'll see an example of that as we follow him further along his road in just a moment.
We can learn from the hero's pattern without needing to cosplay as one.
Theseus shows us what the ego can be when it accepts the gifts and follows the path set by something older, deeper and wiser than itself.
So to be clear (23:19):
in this story, Theseus is not you or me.
He is an image of the ego in right relationship with the archetypal Self.
This is one of the reasons why the image of the hero in stories or in mythology is often one that has two fathers.
One father represents the known world of conscious awareness, while the other represents the deeper source, the archetypal Self, of which we are mostly unconscious.
(23:51):
We are conscious beings.
The point here is not to identify with the unconscious and try give ourselves over to it.
Instead, the task of the ego is to slowly, on a journey much like Theseus's, confront things that arise from the unconscious.
In this myth, these forces are pictured by characters that appear on the wilderness road outside the ordered confines of the cities.
(24:17):
Our task, as modelled by Theseus, is to meet them and integrate them, and transmute their energy to make them useful to us instead of potentially overwhelming for us.
We will talk more about the image of the sword in a moment, because the sword is a powerful depiction of what that process entails.
(24:39):
Anyway, back to Theseus.
His ability to lift the stone and claim the sandals and the sword left by his father marks the beginning of a journey that all of us must walk in one form or another. That is the path of initiation. Now remember, mythology doesn't give us instructions, it gives us images.
So let's turn to the next set of images that concerns Theseus (25:02):
the sandals, the sword, and the rock that covered them.
So, having finally succeeded in moving the rock that his father placed so intentionally, Theseus is now able to claim his inheritance from his dad, a pair of sandals and a sword.
(25:29):
These are obviously symbolic images. After all, neither a pair of sandals nor a sword left under a rock for 16 years is likely to be very useful.
When Theseus moves the rock and uncovers the sandals, he isn't just claiming a pair of old shoes that have been buried for some time. He is stepping into a new relationship with his world. In folklore and myth, shoes often signal where we stand, both literally and Symbolically.
(26:03):
They are more than just practical gear for the road ahead, they represent our standpoint, our footing in the world, and our connection to the path beneath us.
Psychologically, this means that the sandals mark Theseus' first act of grounding himself in the reality of who he is and who he is called to become.
(26:27):
That's not a small gesture.
Stepping into one's father's shoes is a metaphorical image with which most of us are familiar.
We use it to talk about responsibility, power, inheritance and legacy.
While we usually mean this metaphorically, Theseus actually does it quite literally.
(26:48):
By claiming his father's sandals so far from Athens, the hero is signalling that he is ready to earn his place at the table, prepared to undertake the difficult journey towards the kind of man who can wield that legacy with wisdom and compassion.
The sandals give him traction. They mark the beginning of his authority, not yet as a king, but as someone willing to walk the road toward recognition.
(27:18):
What does that look like for you and me? Well, the image here is showing us the hero-model claiming something from the past, from which it has been separated.
The separation is no fault of its own, just like how we, in the process of growing up, fragment and compartmentalise ourselves.
This is all perfectly natural, of course.
(27:40):
None of us behave in the same way with our friends as we do with our parents.
As we grow, we learn to adopt different personas in different groups and social settings.
Some parts of ourselves that we don't pay much attention to because they just don't seem to fit into any particular setting or, perhaps, because we are actively repressing them, remain underdeveloped.
(28:04):
These underdeveloped parts of ourselves, though we pretend they don't exist, are still part of us.
As we grow, they do not. But they do gather to themselves more and more psychic energy, and occasionally manifest just as Theseus returns time and time again to Aethra to ask who his father is.
(28:26):
He knows he has an earthly father, but as long as neither Aethra nor the rock move, he has no chance of re-establishing a connection with him.
For you and me, the act of claiming the sandals might look like a willingness walk into those underdeveloped parts of ourselves, to explore parts of ourselves that we have buried either as a natural result of growing or perhaps as a result of fear and shame.
(28:54):
It's important to remember that it's not just scary stuff that's buried beneath our metaphorical rocks. How many people do you know that go through life claiming things like "I'm not creative" or I'm bad at mathematics. These statements are rocks. Rolling them away and being willing to engage with those things that we are not, the things that we just don't see as part of our identity, well, that's one way of claiming the sandals. By being willing to explore and engage with the variables that we stick into statements of, "Well, I'm not X!" or, "I can't do Y!" we come to another common saying about shoes, one that calls for compassion.
(29:43):
To walk in someone else's shoes means to see the world from their point of view.
It often means confronting parts of them that we've experienced as having walked away from us, just like Aegeus did from Theseus.
It calls us to view the world from a point that is different from the way we see it.
(30:07):
You see, Theseus doesn't just step into his father's sandals out of blind loyalty to, or angsty teenage rebellion against, the authority that a dad represents.
He does it with a readiness to face a relationship that has been left unfinished.
(30:28):
He is about to walk a path, not to repeat the past nor to deny it, but to redefine it through his own actions and begin something completely new.
And as we shall soon see, he's willing to do this on his own terms.
How might our own lives and the lives of those around us change if we approach those underdeveloped parts of ourselves in the same way.
(30:59):
These may be his father's sandals, but the road he's about to walk is his alone.
If the sandals show that Theseus is ready to walk the path, then the sword reveals that he is ready to shape it.
But what does that mean, to shape a path?
(31:20):
After all, we don't usually think of paths as things we shape, right?
They're things that we follow.
Yet if we pause for a moment to consider how our choices carve the routes we walk each day, a deeper truth begins to surface.
We determine where a path begins, where it ends, and, more crucially, what shape it takes between those two points.
(31:47):
We shape a path the moment we declare "this is where I begin" and the moment we say "this is where I'm going".
And despite the stories we often tell ourselves, those declarations are always choices, even if we make them unconsciously.
To shape the path then is not to control the world, but to refine the lens through which we see it. And the sword, for Theseus, symbolises a newly forged faculty of his psyche, the power to cut through illusion and to separate what is real from what is merely projection. It marks the capacity to discern what is truly ours from what we've inherited, absorbed or adapted for survival.
(32:37):
In Jungian terms, the sword represents the focused application of libido, not as raw drive or compulsive desire, but as the living energy of the psyche directed towards clarity, truth and meaningful action.
When we carry that sword, we begin to move with a different kind of agency.
(32:58):
We no longer just react, we choose and respond.
And with each choice, we chisel a path not only through the world, but through our own psychic wilderness.
If myth has taught us anything, it's this.
Swords don't just appear by accident in our hands.
(33:19):
They arrive when we are ready to meet them.
They are heralds of destiny, yes, but also reminders of responsibility.
Think of Luke Skywalker receiving his father's lightsaber, not at the beginning of his life, but when he's ready to confront the legacy that shaped him.
(33:39):
Or the young King Arthur, well, he wasn't a king then, but, you know, the young Arthur, pulling the sword from the stone and later receiving the most wonderful of all swords, Excalibur, from the Lady of the Lake.
Excalibur was given not as proof of his birthright, but as a sign of his worthiness.
In the samurai tradition, the sword, uchikatana, is seen as the soul of the warrior.
(34:04):
Not merely a weapon, but an embodiment of discipline, clarity and moral code, always sharp and always sheathed, unless necessary.
Psychologically, the sword represents the focused application of libido.
The term libido can sound confusing if you're not familiar with Jungian terminology.
(34:27):
In the early days of psychoanalysis, libido was understood to be something like the driving force of desire, and naturally, it was associated strongly with sexual urges.
But later, especially in the work of Carl Jung, it took on a more universal meaning, something more akin to a deep reservoir of living psychic energy within each one of us.
(34:53):
And the sword? Well, the sword is not a primitive weapon like a club or a sharpened stone. It's metal, mined, smelted and forged for a purpose. It is beyond the base forces that drive us to act on impulse or out of blind obedience to instinctual urges. The sword represents libido that has been tempered, forged and sharpened to achieve a specific result. It is will with an edge. In alchemical traditions, the sword is also a tool that divides and clarifies. It cuts through confusion, separates the base from the refined. Just as the alchemist divides the prima materia to reveal hidden essence, so the hero must learn to wield discernment within and without.
(35:46):
The blade doesn't just strike, it transforms. When Theseus finally succeeds in moving the stone, that effort is already the first use of the sword. The act of moving the rock is not purely physical, It's the culmination of waiting, of growth, of restraint.
(36:07):
The sword doesn't make him powerful.
He gains the sword in recognition of the fact that he already is.
In many myths, the sword appears at the threshold of transformation.
Symbolically, it cuts away the old.
Its blade is a symbol of the dividing line between innocence and experience, unconscious potential and conscious responsibility. It is the tool of one who has learned how and when to act. But it's also dangerous. The sword divides, wounds and, if misused, corrupts.
(36:49):
That's why it's hidden. That's why it can't be given too early. To carry the sword is to carry the burden of one's own agency, and to know that power is not just the ability to act, but the responsibility to act well.
So as Theseus takes up the blade, he's stepping into a new stage of his own growth, armed with the tools he has gained up to that point.
(37:33):
But before Theseus can claim either of these items, the sandals that ground our authority and enable free movement over difficult terrain, or the sword representing the intentionally shaped use of mental energy that enables us to divide and dissolve what we once perceived as singular – things like experiences, projections or identities. Before he can claim either of these two tools, he must reach an age and a level of strength that will allow him to move the rock that covers them.
(38:11):
Stones and rocks are everywhere. We step over them, we build on them, we clear them away.
Rarely do they carry meaning until they are altered in some way, perhaps by being moved, painted or carved. And then, when they are altered, they begin to hum with mythic charge.
(38:35):
Think of the rocks of Stonehenge, or the standing stones in Stennes, Scotland.
Physically, these rocks are no different from the gravel we kick aside or the rocks we blast through to build roads.
Yet placed with intention, these stones begin to resonate with numinous energy.
(38:56):
We know they are huge, heavy, and must have taken vast effort to place so deliberately.
But who put them there?
When and why?
In this way, these rocks, ordinary though their geological material may be, take on the role of threshold symbols.
In a wonderfully physical way, they mark the meeting point between the known and the unknown.
(39:24):
We may never know who placed those stones or why, but all of us feel the mythical weight of the numinous in what we perceive as wonder.
They seem to vibrate with threshold energy and immediately engage the imagination of all who look on them.
Luckily, in our story today, we know exactly who placed the rock and why.
(39:48):
And that gives us something precious:
the ability to name the threshold it marks.
This rock is the first gate of Theseus' initiation.
It was placed by King Aegeus, Theseus's earthly father.
Remember, like so many heroes, Theseus has two fathers, King Aegeus from the known earthly world and the sea god, Poseidon, from the unknown Other-world.
(40:17):
Theseus cannot simply take the sword and sandals whenever he wants.
He must move the rock.
He must prove something, not just to his father, but to the world, and more importantly, to himself.
The rock is a test of strength, yes, but more than that, it's a test of readiness, the first threshold of maturity.
(40:42):
It is the symbolic beginning of his journey, the first step in his initiation.
Now, "initiation" might feel like an uncomfortable word for us today.
It might call up images of fraternity hazings or military rituals, but these are modern distortions of something far older.
(41:09):
Initiation, in its original sense, is universal, a ritual common to all human cultures since time immemorial.
And yet, there's something that we rarely talk about.
You see, initiation isn't just a one-time event.
It's not just a bat mitzvah, or quinceañera, or graduation.
(41:35):
Psychologically, initiation is cyclical.
Sandals are, after all, not made for just a single step or even a single journey, and a sword is not made to strike just once.
We undergo initiations every time we step into new terrain, every time we begin a creative project or step into a new role, every new relationship we begin, or any time we leave something behind.
(42:04):
Throughout our lives, we go through many initiations, whether we are aware of them or not.
Each of these moments demands something of us, and they all follow a similar pattern.
First is the preparation phase, in which we outgrow our old paradigm and ultimately leave it.
(42:27):
When we go into a new area, we enter the stage of confrontation, in which we come face to face with the forces governing that new space we are entering. And finally, if we survive that confrontation, we re-emerge in what we could call an emergence state, in which we return to the world with the personal agency to wield the forces we have faced and overcome.
(42:55):
Initiation in that sense is both mythic and personal. It's not just something we go through. It's something we grow through. In societies, coming-of-age initiation rites exist so that the young person can confront the forces that they once thought absolute, divine even, and come out of that confrontation transformed, ready to accept the responsibilities of adulthood.
(43:26):
Our modern discomfort with the brutality of many of these confrontations misses their deeper purpose.
These rituals were designed to be believable to the psyche, and that often meant they were terrifying.
On the other side of terror, however, is transformation.
(43:48):
The initiate emerges from the horrific experiences marked, often physically changed or scarred, and spiritually realigned, ready to hold the very powers that once held them.
And here's the catch:
the moment of initiation for each of us is not under our personal control.
(44:10):
It arrives with time, with age, perhaps through loss or challenge or crisis.
None of us get to choose when the rock is ready to be moved.
Despite his longing to be a hero like Heracles, Theseus had to wait.
(44:31):
First, until he was old enough to try, and then until he was strong enough to actually move the rock.
Only after that period of waiting and trying, what may have felt like false starts or disappointing failures, could he claim the sandals and the sword and make his way to Athens, his father's city.
(44:52):
It doesn't take a lot to reflect on these symbols and start seeing how they apply to our own lives.
Before the end of today's episode, I'm going to leave you with three questions.
But I hope you will take the symbols of the sandals, the sword and the rock away with you, that you'll spend a bit of time with them and look in your own life, whether it's that's happening right now, or perhaps something that you have faced in the past, and see how these symbols and tools have played a part in shaping your own walk on the path of initiation.
(45:30):
But for now, let's get back to the story, shall we? Back to the time of oracles and gods, to a young man who has just uncovered the symbols of his destiny.
(45:51):
The golden light of the early evening painted the world in amber and gold.
Long blue shadows like the fingers of the young knight reached across the tiled courtyard where Theseus stood beside his mother.
A soft breeze rustled the olive trees nearby,
(46:11):
their gilt-edged leaves whispering like old women at a well. Across from them sat his grandfather, King Pittheus, aged, sharp-eyed, and wrapped in a light robe of pale wool, the color of distant storms. Pittheus had always known who the boy's earthly father was, but he had not known about the rock, or the sandals, or the sword. Now, as Theseus held these tokens in his hands, the weight of the moment settled over the three of them.
(46:44):
Aethra spoke. She told her father everything, how King Aegeus had placed the items beneath the stone and left instructions should his son be born to her. She went on to explain, possibly more for Theseus' benefit than his grandfather's, the need for the secrecy and Aegeus's fear that his brother's children in Athens would kill the boy before he could be recognized, and when she finished, she fell silent.
(47:13):
Piteas nodded gravely.
He looked out towards the bay where sunlight shimmered on the water like coins spilled from a hole in Helios's purse as he had passed overhead.
Athens was not far.
A sea journey would be swift and safe, cutting across the blue waters in a matter of hours.
(47:33):
Pittheus, ever pragmatic, immediately offered a vessel, a fast galley, fully manned.
It could deliver Thysseres directly to the shores of the Attic peninsula, where the palace lay only a short walk inland.
But the boy, no, the man, did not answer immediately.
He looked inland, toward the dry hills and winding paths.
(47:58):
The wilderness between Troezen and Athens was the road that Heracles would have chosen.
The safe route was not the one that called to him.
And so, despite his mother's worries and grandfather's insistence, Theseus refused the offer of the boat and safe passage, and chose to go by land.
(48:20):
After all, his father, the king of Athens, hadn't left him oars but sandals.
This choice, to go willingly along the difficult path, is one that Theseus will make again later in his life, although at that point, it will be a long and winding road into darkness, into the shadowed turns of the winding labyrinth on Crete.
(48:45):
But for now, as the late afternoon gave way to evening and the shades of amber deepened to purples and blues of night, Theseus began making his plans to leave the following morning.
(49:13):
Now it's time to talk about the road.
The road between Troezen and Athens skirts the Saronic Gulf.
It traces a path connecting six mythological gates to the underworld, each guarded by a monstrous chthonic figure.
Of course, there are many ways to frame this journey, and if I let myself, I could fall down a dozen rabbit holes here.
(49:37):
I mean, we could talk about the rock that Theseus moved as the Philosopher's Stone, a catalyst for alchemical transformation that occurs along the road to Athens.
In this framing, the sword and the sandals become the tools for division and discernment to separate the elements within, while the path describes the stages of dissolution, reintegration and emergence from the materia prima of Theseus' childhood self into the golden hero we think of when we hear his name today.
(50:09):
But for now, I'll keep it simple.
Since Theseus walks this road, we'll just walk it with him, step by step, encounter by encounter.
I hope that by following this hero along his road, you'll also gain the courage to approach the road before you a little differently.
Carl Jung describes the path to wholeness as the "longissima via", a snake-like journey full of detours and terrors, but one that unites opposites and leads to integration, much like the alchemist's magnum opus. That phrase gave me a meaningful name for Theseus' road, not a shortcut, but a longissima via, where each confrontation on the road isn't a detour, but a necessary turn. In talking about the same path in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell says, "The passage of the mythological hero may be overground incidentally, but fundamentally it is inward, into depths, where obscure resistances are overcome and long-lost forgotten powers are revivified and made available for the transfiguration of the world." Theseus doesn't know it yet, but each of the six figures he'll meet along this road will mirror distorted aspects of human nature, forces that twist, tempt or overpower us when left unchecked. They are challenges not just of body, but of psyche.
(51:42):
So what moments or images stood out for you in today's story?
Was it the rock? The massive boulder Theseus had to wait years before he was strong enough to move?
Was it the sandals and the sword?
Or was it the moment he chose the long road, the dangerous one, when the safer path lay glittering right there across the sea?
(52:04):
Maybe you faced a choice like that in your own life.
The choice between the easy way, the route with fewer obstacles, and the longer path, the one that asks something deeper of you.
The one where you know you'll have to face real resistance.
The one that will change you.
Let's pause here for a moment.
(52:27):
Remember those six gates of the underworld that I mentioned?
Each of them is guarded by a bandit.
Those bandits are threshold figures, guardians of the in-between.
Theseus isn't descending into Hades (Άδης)—the world of the dead—
he's walking from one city to another.
But the journey itself is initiatory.
(52:50):
It's a rite of passage.
In the symbolic sense, these bandits mark gates to the underworld not because he's literally going underground, but because he's entering psychological terrain shaped by the unconscious.
These gates to the underworld show up whenever we are on the brink of change, when we're leaving behind an old version of ourselves, but not yet sure of who we are becoming.
(53:18):
And that kind of transformation doesn't just arrive out of nowhere, it begins with an act of courage or strength, of readiness.
It begins in this story where the stone is finally lifted.
Because under that stone lies something crucial.
Not just the sandals and the sword, but a truth about who Theseus really is.
(53:40):
A truth that was hidden, unknown, even to him, until he was ready.
And the same is often true for us.
Our next chapter often waits under some metaphorical stone, something we haven't been strong enough to face or see clearly until now.
Whenever I reflect on this story, I'm reminded of a line from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.
(54:03):
He wrote, "The impediment to action advances action, and what stands in the way becomes the way." That's exactly what the stone in this myth represents.
The sandals and the sword that are hidden beneath it?
Well, they aren't just gifts from a father who is unable to be around while the child is growing up.
(54:23):
They are proof of Theseus' readiness.
They are the evidence that Theseus has crossed some invisible line.
He's no longer just someone with potential, he's someone who has chosen, and who is equipped by everything he has been through, to step forward onto the longissima via of initiation.
(54:44):
In order to get to that point, Theseus had to have the courage and tenacity to try, as well as the faith to trust, that the rock was worth moving, without knowing what was beneath it.
In closing, I'd like to leave you with a few questions to ponder.
As always, there are no right answers here.
Only territory for you to explore on your own terms.
(55:10):
[BELL RINGING]
The first question is, are there stories told by others or perhaps even by your own mind that have shaped who you think you are?
Are any of those stories ready to be questioned, outgrown, or maybe rewritten?
(55:34):
[Sounds of waves]
The second question is, what is the stone in your life right now?
Is there something heavy, unmoving, that you feel that you are growing towards being able to lift?
(56:00):
What might be waiting for you underneath it?
And the third and final question is, what does it mean for you to choose the path that will change you rather than simply get you from A to B?
(56:25):
And what are you afraid of facing along the way?
In the next episode, we'll journey further with Theseus from Troezeb to the nearby town of Epidauros, where he will come face to face with his first real test on the road, a bandit named Periphetes, who some say is a misshapen son of a god.
(56:55):
Through this encounter, Theseus will demonstrate the real power of the sword he has received and we'll discover what a bronze club has in common with the pelt of a lion.
But for now, thank you so much for spending your time with me.
If you've enjoyed today's episode or if something leapt out at you and you want to chat about it, please leave a comment on the episode or reach out to me through my website at www.theinwardsea.com.
(57:22):
That's www.theinwardsea.com.
As always, I'd really appreciate it if you'd subscribe to this podcast, rate this episode, or leave a review with a comment, or share it with anyone you think might find it interesting.
(57:46):
I really enjoy researching and preparing these episodes, and I'd love to know how they land with you.
So once again, thank you, and until next time, keep on pushing those rocks.
They will move one day, and then who knows what you'll find beneath them.
My name is Dimitri, and you've been listening to the Inward Sea.
(The Inward Sea Theme (58:06):
Outro)
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