The expedition of the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece is one of the most fascinating myths of antiquity. Their journey across the sea does not only celebrate the feat of a single hero, but rather a community of intents, when all the most extraordinary talents of ancient Greece gathered around a hero by chance, Jason, driven more by the desire to undertake the journey than by the need to accomplish the deed.
What did the 50 heroes still have to prove when they sailed in the Argo ship towards a faraway country at the edge of the world? Many of them were already famous. Heracles had already fulfilled most of his labors. Orpheus had already achieved his reputation of superb cantor. The two Dioscuri brothers Castor and Pollux already excelled in the fight. All of the 50 heroes left a kingdom, a family, many certainties. Some of them did not return. And all this for the sake of a reckless young man without a kingdom, Jason, whose only merit was to own a beautiful boat, and have a destiny.
What does an ancient myth tell us today?
Perhaps this is the true meaning of the Argonauts’ expedition today: that we should make the most of the time we are given, as the heroes of their time did, to pursue a destiny that is not just individual, but is rather a common destiny.
Our book “A Social Dreaming Experience at the Time of COVID 19”, by Elisabetta Pasini and Cinzia Trimboli, will be released in November 2023 by Springer. The book is the chronicle of the Dreams Journey we embarked on 3 years ago, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time of the first lockdown in Italy, between March and May 2020, a series of Social Dreaming Matrices we called the Dream Journeys was our way to cope with a traumatic event, that seemed to mark the end of an era.
Together with a small group of “dream hunters, we set out on a journey of sharing dreams in a series of Social Dreaming Matrices, which were from the beginning filled with stories, images, fragments of new and old life experiences, which could be looked at with new eyes.
The Flying Carpet, in dreams, turned into a ship, making us feel like modern Argonauts sailing toward an uncertain destiny, embarked on a fragile vessel.
As the journey went on, at each stop we took courage, landed on new islands, experienced the thrill of new challenges, discovered inner resources we did not know we had.
Little by little, the myth of the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece became the metaphor for enduring the problems of the present, and for making new discoveries about the future. Reminding us that the awareness of “being in the same boat” can be, today, the only way to survive an uncertain fate, rediscovering the sense of a collective becoming.
“As if” we were New Argonauts, ready to face the challenges of the present, but knowing that no one can do it alone.