VENUS AND NEPTUNE: The Mapped and the Unmapped Emotional Domains, Heidi Lindemann and Michael Perry

Six Tuesdays

Course

Heidi Lindemann
and Michael Perry

In the symbolic system of Kriya Yoga, Venus represents the heart chakra and the full range of emotions. These emotions have been extensively mapped in a wide variety of cultures - from the Natyashastra of India to the Poetics of Aristotle to both ancient and recent emotional-therapeutic systems. The mapping of these emotions is so thorough in these various systems that they are used with skill and deliberation by artists, musicians, dancers, actors, healers, and therapists to evoke emotion in a predictable way that leads to catharsis (in the system of Aristotle); or to bhava - the fullness of emotion that transports one to insight and realization (in the system of the Natyashastra); or to transmutation in the system of Kriya Yoga.  

Neptune, in contrast is unmapped. The earth's oceans function as a symbolic and literal instance of Neptune. While 71 percent of the earth is covered by ocean, most of it remains unmapped and as such, is the great unknown.

Venus and Neptune interact in important ways. When you enter fully into a known and predictable emotional patterning, you will sometimes find that the emotion is so powerful to you that you slip through a gateway into the groundless domain of Neptune. This can have a variety of results. On the expansive side, it can result in art, music, poetry and other creative artifacts that you produce from the great unknown; on the constrictive side, it can result in self-destruction, self-deception and a variety of addictive behaviors.
We will examine a variety of texts from film and television to poetry, art, and music that embody the relationship between Venus and Neptune.

In the kriya yoga tradition, astrology is an initiated experience that allows one to explore the parameters of their own psyche and their own life experience, rather than having it interpreted by another. As always the course will culminate by the participants presentations of their own projects synthesizing the materials presented in the class and their meaning to the participants own psyche and life.

Heidi Lindemann and Michael Perry a (Swamis Abhipadananda & Jyotir Vakyananda) are lineage holders in the Kriya Yoga tradition, an Indian alchemical tradition, and are authorized to initiate and teach Kriya Yoga and its related teachings.  The techniques of Kriya Yoga involve a psychophysical means of self-inquiry and are an initiated path to understanding one’s own psyche in the context of the macrocosm.  The Swami order is one of the oldest, continuous, living initiatory and alchemical systems extant.  Heidi and Michael combine their experience to make yogic teachings accessible to western minds by use of comparative mythology, storytelling, astrology, and other symbolic systems. They are regular presenters at the Jung Society, Theosophical Society, Kanyakumari Ayurveda & Yoga Wellness Center, and have lectured on Samkhya Yoga to colleges and seminaries in various parts of the United States.  They teach and initiate the techniques of Kriya Yoga on a private basis in Washington, D.C., and regularly perform life-cycle rituals in their role as swamis.