7-Sessions Taught by Jason Holley and Chris Skidmore
Section 1: Thursdays, 5pm-7:15pm Pacific, Begins August 7 - Register Here - Thursdays
Section 2: Fridays, 7am-9:15am Pacific, Begins August 8 - Register Here - Fridays
Each section limited to 14 students
$425 before July 17, 2025; $450 after
This experiential reading course is an in-depth exploration of The Argonautica, the Greek epic poem by Apollonius, which tells the myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to retrieve the Golden Fleece from Colchis. In a small group setting of no more than 14 students, we will engage figures ranging from a wide range of heroes and heroines who took up the call, such as Atalanta and Hercules; to the Golden Ram Chrysomallos and the Night witch Medea; as well as places from the Mysteries of Samothraki to the Clashing Rocks to the Dragon guarding the Grove of Ares. We enter and participate in the stories directly through action methods including writing, dreamwork, art-making, movement, embodiment; and we study them through their associated astrological symbols — signs, planets, houses, asteroids — in our own horoscopes. You will come to understand these symbols and the range of stories, feelings, sensations, desires, dreams, action urges, and relational orientations they carry; and also, be a part of a re-dreaming and re-weaving of the myths and stories we so need in contemporary times. As well, you will develop skills in working with symbolism and myth, and the arts of divination, healing, magic, and initiation that this story depicts.
The Golden Fleece is the pelt of the Ram depicted in the constellation of Aries and Jason the hero most associated with the sign. As Neptune and Saturn enter the sign together, perhaps we have an opportunity to feel into the voyage of the coming years with the aid of this ancient sea-faring story.
Format
Each section will meet 7 times weekly 2 hour 15 minute sessions. Between class each week, we will all read a portion of the epic as well as 2-3 hours of supplemental reading or video material, including original material from Jason and Chris as well as articles and video from the archetypal. Jungian, classics, and astrological traditions. In class, we will explore the story experientially through action methods including writing, movement, dreamwork, art-making, astrodrama; as well as through conversation, discussion, and imaginative contemplation of horoscopes, transits, and progressions.
More About Experiential Astrology - Pedagogy and Participant Feedback
Jason Holley Jason Holley has been a practicing astrologer for 35 years and a practicing psychotherapist (LPCC) for 18 years. Jason grew up in astrology and divination, stretching back to his great-great-grandmother, who was a tea leaf reader in the West Virginia hills where he was born and grew up. Jason’s work focuses on engaging with stories of earth and sky in a way that enhances life and our connections with all our relations, in our shared sensuous and animate world, and in the inner ecosystems of creatures we experience through the horoscope. In 2014 Jason founded the Hermes-Hestia Center for Living Astrologies, now home to a Practitioner Program in experiential astrology, as well as the first Living Astrologies Conference to be held in October 2025.
Chris Skidmore weaves together Process-Oriented Psychotherapy, Astrology and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy to enter the dreamlike soulscapes of our uniquely experienced inner worlds. Myth and fairytales (or as they are called in German, 'Conjuring tales') have become the key entry points into this inner realm in his work. The last four years he has worked closely with Brian Clark and largely follows in his Hermetic footsteps of allowing the imagination to drive, however haphazardly, towards the oceanic depth of this ensouled universe. Chris is from Perth in Western Australia but for the last nine years has lived in Ubud, Bali. On The Soul’s Terms