On the Soul's Terms

Chris Skidmore
  • 5.0 (45)
  • Philosophy
  • Updated Semimonthly

The wisdom of stories. Approaching what the ancients knew. On the Soul's Terms: The Podcast

  1. Aug 21

    #131 | Spyros Siamos | The Clarifying Light at the Centre of it All

    Spyros Siamos is an energy healer, esoteric author, and former mathematics teacher based in Messinia, Greece. He lives on a coastal olive grove situated near an ancient Temple of Apollo, where he conducts one-on-one healing sessions and hosts sound therapy, meditation, and spiritual workshops. A father of two and author of three books on esotericism, Spyros has explored various healing modalities and trained in Peruvian Shamanism for over ten years. He recently established Esothen Messinia—a dedicated space created to host accessible, low-budget creative and spiritual holidays, as well as affordable retreats in Greece. English is not Spyros' first language. Many of the concepts we touch on in this episode are ones that he wishes he could wax poetic on in his mother tongue. Never the less, this apparent limitation gives us, the listener, the opportunity to, like Apollo, allow ourselves to be engaged in the struggle of birthing the light. We begin with Spyros' childhood. His father taught primary and encouraged his interest in the ancient myths of his culture that were taught in early education. Spyros experienced myth as a way of tapping into the threads of history.  Once in high school, myth was no longer taught. He replaced mythology with philosophy as that's what was considered to be the sensible thing to learn. To put away childish things.  Then, through his exploration of the interior landscapes with a Peruvian Shaman, in the depth of his own consciousness, the mythic figures he'd learned about in early education returned as guides. First Athena, Aphrodite, Dionysus and others. And after a few years, Apollo.  It was this first hand experience with the gods that I wanted to connect to On the Soul's Terms. Apollo (or the astrological Sun) not just as a concept that we can form opinions on and argue on the costs and benefits of such a god, but as an emergent, embodied, felt sense experience that is personified in Ancient Greek culture as the deity of light, harmony, balance and a clarifying light at the centre of it all.  Later in the episode we touch on how and where Apollo has shown up in Spyros' healing work. Including the first time, when he was in the position of healer for a young man who had gone into a coma following a motorcycle accident. Here the god helped him to stay in a state of observation whilst the pain, suffering and emotion swirled all around him. We talk about the cultivation of the mind necessary to be in right relationship with such potent energy fields. And the risk, that Spyros himself has suffered personally, of having one's system blown open when that light is unmediated.  Which draws us to the field of the Muses or the Angels or the Daimones. Whatever one might call that layers of consciousness that is neither this nor that, both... and. And how they can help us to create from a steady hearth rather than from bright sparks that leave us singed in the end.  Spyros will be hosting a retreat for men in Greece in October. I'll be personally attending. For more information on that click here.  The episode artwork is from the West Pediment in the museum in Olympia. We discuss the scene in the episode – The Centaurs vs the Lapiths. Apollo stands in the centre of a chaotic battle between consciousness and instinct. Victory, in this sense, is not a case of overpowering the instinct, but of locating the light whilst being open to it all. Join the Newsletter! Podcast Musician: Marlia Coeur Please consider becoming a Patron to support the show! Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.

    #131 | Spyros Siamos | The Clarifying Light at the Centre of it All

  2. Aug 16

    #130 | The Odyssey

    Firstly I suppose I should say... *Spoiler Alert* Although let's face it, the story is over 3,000 years old. By now you should probably have heard of it.  Secondly, there is a Post Script here to listen out for. An 'after the credits' scene if you will. Definitely stay tuned for that part. It ties the episode together.  The episode itself has been brewing for the last month, since the release of Nolan's The Odyssey in cinemas worldwide.  Of course, everyone with even a pinky toe in the world of Greek Mythology has commented on it by now. And in that sense, I'm certainly late to the party.  Still, it didn't feel right to miss the opportunity altogether. So here is my contribution. After watching the movie I went back to read the Iliad followed by the Odyssey. About 30 hours of reading. I wanted to become steeped in that mythic landscape. To imagine myself in an ancient hall, lit by torches and the hearth, being transported into another world by the rhythmic tones of the bard. It was that trance state I wanted to enter, as best as one can when actually just reading lines on a page translated into English that don't actually retain that rhythm and flow. And juxtapose that trance with the modern version of staring at a screen. Both of these forms take you to another world. The bard exercises your ability to generate images inside of your mind. The movie screen generates the images for you.  All this to say, I wanted to speak from my personal experience of Odysseus, as our most polymorphic of literary characters, and how it connects to the great quest of our lives: becoming who we actually are.  I consider that to be what the sun is symbolic of in astrology. Not as seperate from the moon, but as an extension of it. To be oneself and fully related. That would be the 'soli-lunar' task of becoming.  So this episode, which is a BONUS episode within the planets series, is a chance to enter Odysseus' world. His naming ritual that coincides with his wounding. His movement out of the cave and into the light past the threshold guardian. The owning of his name, his lineage, his place and his fame. And his return home to reclaim his throne. A throne that is threatened by many false selves that we know as 'the suitors'. I'd love to hear what stirs for you in the story. Particularly the places that your mind and soul keep returning to. That (t)horn in the side that draws you back to it again and again. As wounds that have bestowed upon us the endless gifts of our mortal lives.  YouTube and Patreon seem to be the best place to leave comments these days. See you there.  Cover Art is Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - Homer's Odyssey. Joseph Mallord William Turner. 1829. Oil on canvas. The translations I returned to (The Iliad and The Odyssey) were both by Emily Wilson. Join the Newsletter! Podcast Musician: Marlia Coeur Please consider becoming a Patron to support the show! Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.

    #130 | The Odyssey

  3. Aug 8

    #129 | The Sun | Apollo through the Zodiac

    Doing an episode on the sun, our central fiery point that takes up 99.86% of the mass of our solar system and gives the system itself a name, turned out to be quite the task.  Enormous, if you will.  I've always found that the Sun in astrology felt a little... flat. Two dimensional. It was though we were looking at the image with that singular eye that the sun conjures to our minds. The image of the all-seeing-eye of the Cyclopes that, in reality, has no depth perception.  So, this episode is an effort to add a second eye (I?) to the sun. To see it as a series of 'both... and' propositions. The still centre of it all AND the cacophony of sound and light that springs forth from it. The first breath of creative fire AND every subsequent humble endeavour. And as Apollo, the archer seeing from afar AND the one enamoured with life on earth, particularly the floral world whom he chases but can never obtain.  It's an episode effectively in two parts.  Part One is to get a sense of the sun in Astrology. We sit in the temple (con-templ-ate), we stare at the glyph, we check in with the consensus of the astrological world. Then we feel the sun on our skin, allowing it to penetrate and worm our cells. We even get a sense of the scientific mythos, this ball of self-generating life, so hot at the core, cooler (relatively) at the surface, but then mysteriously blazing again as the 'corona': the sun's own royal crown.  Part Two we get mythic and follow Apollo's many stories, allowing him to morph into the many shapes that our Zodiac itself allows. One moment plucking a lyre and giving us lyricism, the next pulling back the bow and reigning down arrows on his enemies.  The journey takes many twists and turns, but returns us to a central image. Veiling and revelation. Being seen and unseen. Just like his birth place, Delos ("Visible"), at the centre of the Cyklades ("circle"): a humble floating rock from which all golden things are born.  The image is Apollo of the Belvedere at the Vatican Museum.  I am indebted to Carl Kerenyi and his book The Gods of the Greeks.  Also to Apollodrus' Library. And to the extensive work of Brian Clark on astrosynthesis.com.au. (It's a fun co-incidence that this episode is released on 'Lion's Gate' 8.8.2026) Join the Newsletter! Podcast Musician: Marlia Coeur Please consider becoming a Patron to support the show! Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.

    #129 | The Sun | Apollo through the Zodiac

  4. Jul 19

    #128 | Melanie Reinhart | The Moon

    The Moon pulls the tides of the ocean, but the question that won’t let us go is simpler and stranger: what is it pulling in us? Melanie Reinhart joins me for a wide, grounded, moonlit ramble through lunar consciousness, astrology, and the body. We start with the moon as a constant companion for earthlings, a reliable rhythm of waxing and waning that can steady us when life feels politically, personally, and collectively turbulent. From there, we drop into somatic territory. We talk craniosacral therapy and the experience of “tides” in the system, from surface noise to the deeper mid tide and the long tide where time feels different. That becomes a living metaphor for the lunar path: not a heroic push to achieve, but a deepening that restores life force. We also bring in the Orphic Hymn to the Moon as an invocation practice and explore why reverence matters, not as an antique idea but as a way to relate to powers we still live inside. We get practical about moon phases too: the dark of the moon as a window for retreat, the full moon as an emotional amplifier, and how lunar timing can support better choices in work, conflict, learning, and creativity. We move into dreams as night-world digestion, why forcing interpretations can block the nourishment, and how light pollution mirrors a cultural forgetting of darkness, sleep, and imagination. If you care about the lunar cycle, dreamwork, depth psychology, the Jungian unconscious, or the roots of astrology in the night sky, this conversation is for you. *the above blurb was auto-generated by Buzzsprout's AI. Cover Artwork is The Fairy of the moon by Hermann Kaulbach (b&w) circa 1891 with a background extension from Canva. The Orphic Hymns including the one in this episode dedicated to the moon, and the invocation with Musaeus. It's the Thomas Taylor translation from 1792. Melanie's personal favourite. Find out more about Melanie and her work here. She has many great books including, famously, Chiron and the Healing Journey. Melanie reads from: Dane Rudhyar, The Lunation Cycle: A Key to the Understanding of Personality, from the section “The Pattern of the Lunation Cycle.” Rudolf Steiner, “In Pure Rays of Light” The verse appears in Esoteric Instructions (GA 264), with related commentary in an esoteric lesson of 5 December 1907 (GA 266/I). We discuss: Iain McGilchrist's book: The Master and his Emissary and associate right brain activity with the moon and left brain with Mercury. Jung, obviously, comes up a lot. I paraphrase this quotation from him. We also talk about the Tides in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. If you'd like to know more about that the work of Franklyn Sills (may he rest in peace) is a good starting point. Clearing up the confusion of the 'far side' vs the 'dark side' of the moon we go to NASA... But always appreciative to Pink Floyd for creating such confusion but also such a cracking album. Melanie also mentions the Dark Sky Movement. Such important work. Have a look at darksky.org. We also acknowledge that "mentor" is not etymologically related to Mene or taurus. What we're engaging in during that section is a nice bit of folk etymology. Join the Newsletter! Podcast Musician: Marlia Coeur Please consider becoming a Patron to support the show! Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.

    #128 | Melanie Reinhart | The Moon

  5. Jul 4

    #127 | The Moon

    The Planets Series begins with our closest and most intimate neighbour: the moon.  The moon represents the dreaming mind, our instinctive life and our guidance system to the emotional waves of our turbulent lives.  Each of these elements of the moon is explored in this episode with the help of three mythic figures: Selene as a personification of the moon riding her white cow through the sky, visiting her lover Endymion (one who finds himself within) in his cave as he dreams the eternal dream.Artemis as the wild, instinctual life that stays true to her nature and close to her essence. and Hekate, the triple goddess, who has her home in the underworld. It's Hekate who arrives in our most desperate times of need to accompany us in the realm of grief and loss. The second half of the podcast begins with the image of Grimm's Hansel staring longingly back at his home as he's taken into the woods by his step-mother to be abandoned. He drops white stones on the ground that are then lit up by the moonlight to guide him back home.  From there we visit Mnemosyne's cellular memory, the thread-weavers and the way Ithaka pulls at Odysseus. The Gorgons, including Medusa, will help us relate to the moments we feel unrelatable. There are many links between Medusa, the ocean and the moon. Including the Orphics calling the moon's face the Gorgoneion. And finally Rilke with some soul-soothing words in his poem 'You Come and Go'. Cover Art: Endymion : Effet de lune, ou Le Sommeil d’Endymion (The Sleep of Endymion), Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, 1791. I leant heavily on Gods of the Greeks, Carl Kerenyi, 1951 Very thankful to Brian Clark, Melanie Reinhart, Travis Elliot and Milena Kadziela for their help in the creation of this podcast. For my German audience... The poem at the end from Rilke: Du kommst und gehst Du kommst und gehst. Die Türen fallen  viel sanfter zu, fast ohne Wehn.  Du bist der Leiseste von allen,  die durch die leisen Häuser gehn. Man kann sich so an dich gewöhnen,  daß man nicht aus dem Buche schaut,  wenn seine Bilder sich verschönen,  von deinem Schatten überblaut;  weil dich die Dinge immer tönen  nur einmal leis und einmal laut. Oft wenn ich dich in Sinnen sehe,  verteilt sich deine Allgestalt;  du gehst wie lauter lichte Rehe,  und ich bin dunkel und bin Wald. Du bist ein Rad, an dem ich stehe:  von deinen vielen dunklen Achsen  wird immer wieder eine schwer  und dreht sich näher zu mir her,  und meine willigen Werke wachsen  von Wiederkehr zu Wiederkehr.   Join the Newsletter! Podcast Musician: Marlia Coeur Please consider becoming a Patron to support the show! Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.

    #127 | The Moon

  6. Jun 25

    Podcast Announcement | The Planets | Internal Solar Systems

    I disappeared for a few months, went a bit underground, and even partially relocated my life to Greece so I could be a little closer to the gods I keep talking about. Now I’m ready to return with something simple, specific, and surprisingly alive: a new astrology podcast series on the planets, approached as characters of the psyche rather than abstract symbols on a page. If the houses are the places where the saga of a life unfolds, the planets are the ones living it. I’ve been thinking of them less like an internal family system and more like an internal solar system, each planet representing a different part of the self with its own aims, needs, and ways of moving. We’ll take an imaginal voyage through the horoscope, stopping at one planet or luminary at a time, experimenting with what it feels like to become the Moon with its craters and shadow, the Sun with its heat and power, and Mercury with its fast, message-carrying urgency. Myth will be one of our main guides. Because the planets share names with Greco-Roman figures, their stories give us a rich way to watch archetypes behave: who allies with whom, what gets opposed, and how a planet’s gifts can become traps when they run the inner world unchecked. The order of the series follows the Sun’s movement through the zodiac, exploring the ruler of the sign we’re in, beginning next week with the Moon as ruler of Cancer, then the Sun for Leo, then Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, plus a bonus planet and a special guest. As usual, I’ll be joined by guests to explore each planetary archetype. We start with my dear friend, colleague, and mentor Melanie Reinhart for the lunar conversation. If you’d like to go deeper, paid Patreon members can join a monthly reflective Zoom call to ask questions about personal placements and continue the threads we leave open. Subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find this mythic astrology journey. * My words here underwent a clean up from Buzzsprout's AI. Join the Newsletter! Podcast Musician: Marlia Coeur Please consider becoming a Patron to support the show! Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.

    Podcast Announcement | The Planets | Internal Solar Systems

  7. Apr 4

    #126 | Briar Rose or Sleeping Beauty or Dornröschen | Dormant Gifts

    The series on the houses wouldn't have felt complete without one last fairytale.  In this, the 40th and last episode of the series, we explore the German tale of Dornröschen, which loosely translates to 'the little rose inside the thorns'.  It begins with a talking frog who crawls out of the water to deliver a prophecy to the bathing queen. And it takes us into those places in ourselves that feel dormant. We feel that these parts have such great potential in our lives, but they remain fast asleep.  Until... Well, that's the thing. The story takes us into the element of timing, of transits, of progressions, of gestation and of waiting until that which slumbers is ready to arouse.  I'm joined in a very synchronous way by Milena Kadziela, a fellow astrologer and psychotherapist. She sends a transmission from London, in the middle of the night, on the Libra Full Moon. The moon was at 12°, which is the 13th degree. Milena, a listener to the show, felt that the one element that was missing in the series was that of the intercepted house. It happens that she uses this very story, Briar Rose, to speak to those hard to access parts of the chart.  And so, she joined us for a late cameo in the episode to drop her night wisdom on us all.  If you'd like to find out more about Milena's work you can find her here.  You can read the story itself here. The image for the podcast is again from Artist and Patron, Lucy Dodd. Her work is also featured on episode 124 with Melanie Reinhart.  With an overlaid princess from a 1981 edition of La Belle Au Bois Dormant & Autres Contes Merveilleux (Sleeping Beauty & Other Wonderful Tales), published by Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri and Hachette. Join the Newsletter! Podcast Musician: Marlia Coeur Please consider becoming a Patron to support the show! Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.

    #126 | Briar Rose or Sleeping Beauty or Dornröschen | Dormant Gifts

  8. Mar 27

    #125 | The Twelve Houses. A Retrospective | Hosted by Brian Clark (Guest Chris Skidmore)

    My guest for this episode is... well... me! Astrologer Brian Clark interviews me, Chris Skidmore, in this episode as we look back on the journey that was the 12 Houses of Astrology. In no particular order, we move back through the images that captured our attention from the fairy tales, and revisit our 13 guests that helped us along the way.  Thank you to all of you who have come along with me in the sacred role of 'audience'... it's your listening that makes this possible.  Special shout out here to all of my wonderful guests. Find our more about their work by clicking their links: Brian Clark: www.astrosynthesis.com.au Cameron Allen: www.cadreamplanet.com Collette Davis: www.collettedavis.com Melanie Reinhart: melaniereinhart.com Vive Oldham: www.viveandco.com Libby Rose Waite: libbyrosewaite.com Kira Sutherland: www.astrologyofhealth.com Ryan Nielsen: www.yourveryownlife.com Travis Elliott: travisjelliott.com Amanda Simon: amandasimon.co.uk Thomas Moore: www.thomasmooresoul.com Michael Meade: www.mosaicvoices.org Jason Holley: jasonholley.net Join the Newsletter! Podcast Musician: Marlia Coeur Please consider becoming a Patron to support the show! Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.

    #125 | The Twelve Houses. A Retrospective | Hosted by Brian Clark (Guest Chris Skidmore)
See All (132)

5
out of 5
45 Ratings

About

The wisdom of stories. Approaching what the ancients knew. On the Soul's Terms: The Podcast

Information

  • Creator
    Chris Skidmore
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    132
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 On the Soul's Terms
  • Show Website
    On the Soul's Terms

You Might Also Like