The gift of error and imperfection

Good Books About Myth and Culture

Ginette Paris: Wisdom of the Psyche: Depth Psychology after Neuroscience
Paris provides a wonderful explanation of the intersection between personal life story and collective myths and the way myth shapes perspective.
James Hillman: We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy--And the World's Getting Worse
Hillman is a central figure in the field of archetypal psychology, which provides a theoretical base for work on cultural mythologies that I find very useful. This collaboration with Michael Ventura is an accessible and stimulating introduction to some of Hillman's ideas.
Michael Meade: The World Behind the World
"The world," Meade writes, "despite it's disasters, tragedies and villainies, can't end unless it runs out of stories." Useful reflections on these changing and frightening times--I especially like the story of the Old Woman, the black dog, and the loose thread.
Carl G. Jung: The Undiscovered Self (Mentor)
C.G. Jung and Sigmund Freud first articulated the existence of the unconscious (which became depth psychology) and understood the ongoing relationship between human meaning and myth. In this book, Jung discusses the moral obligation to become self aware.
Joseph Campbell: The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Bollingen Series)
Campbell writes, "It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation." An important and influential book that links the mythic narrative of "the hero's journey," found across cultures, to contemporary life.
Barry Mills, editor: Kali's Kites: Essays From The Mythological Imagination
This book is both a beautiful and provocative collection of essays about myth, soul and the depths of the imagination. Each author is a graduate of Pacifica Graduate Institute, a unique institution dedicated to animae mundi colendae gratia (for the sake of tending soul in and of the world). Two of my essays are included: "Euripides' Women: The Role of the Feminine Other," and "The Myth of Actaion: Archetypal Image of Buddhist Enlightenment."
Theodore Roszak, editor: Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind
This anthology is a good introduction to some of the themes and thinkers in the field of ecopsychology, which involves the intersection of human ideas about self and world, and the natural, biological, and ecological. Given the current environmental crisis and modern alienation from the natural world, including our own bodies, it is crucial that we deepen our understanding of the cultural myths that govern these relations.
Dennis Patrick Slattery: A Limbo of Shards: Essays on Memory Myth and Metaphor
In this collection of essays, Slattery explores the related themes of memory, myth, and metaphor, drawing material from literature, poetry, and current events. In "The True Terror of Terrorism," he suggests that the loss of Trust, necessary to maintain "civilized space," may be the greatest loss. "Trust is a virtue," he writes, "security its pale shadow."

September 05, 2009

One day the god Obatala was sitting in the forest making human beings. Eshu found him and stopped to visit. He opened a bottle of palm wine. Obatala is a very pure spirit and a righteous god but he does like a little wine. Eshu got him drunk. Obatala made cripples and albinos and some other less than perfect human beings that afternoon.

Obatala, Grant me the Gift of Your Error

Excess of palm wine is
The beginning of art.
I covet not your gold chain
And my tongue does not water
For the liver of your sand-scattering hen
Grant me only the gift of your error

Weary after a long day
Of moulding perfect men
Drained after a long day
Of sculpting perfect women
You punctured the neck of a palm tree

Alas! Your throat imbibed
This foaming liquid in excess
The same excess that made Ogun
Flood the land with an ocean of blood
Gushing from the headless bodies
Of subjects he swore to defend.

Ah, Obatala! You who own the
Whiteness of the liquid. Is this you?
This staggering silhouette
Slave to the whims of the foam?
Palm wine drove your creative hands
From a uniformity of shapes
To a cacophony of forms

Surely, excess of palm wine is
The beginning of art.

I salute the cripple
I salute the albino
I salute the obese
I salute the anorexic
I salute the giant
I salute the dwarf
I salute the one-legged man
I salute the one-handed woman
I salute the born-blind
I salute the born-deaf
I salute the born-mute
I salute the born-blind-deaf-mute
I salute the Black man
I salute the White man
I salute the Brown man
I salute the Yellow man
I salute the Mulatto

I salute you all
"Imperfect" products of
A god's error of inebriation
Icons of art's plenitude
To a poet's admiring eyes

Ah, Obatala! Grant me the gift of your error
That my verse may escape the tyranny of uniformity
Grant me the gift of your error
That I may rhyme some, free others
Grant me the gift of your error
That my art may sing the beauty of difference
Grant me the gift of your error
That my art may be rainbow.

---Pius Adesanmi, from Words Bigger Than the Mouth. Click here for more of his poetry.

Posted at 04:15 PM in Poetry, Tricksters | Permalink

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Obatala, Grant me the Gift of Your Error

Excess of palm wine is
The beginning of art.
I covet not your gold chain
And my tongue does not water
For the liver of your sand-scattering hen
Grant me only the gift of your error

Weary after a long day
Of moulding perfect men
Drained after a long day
Of sculpting perfect women
You punctured the neck of a palm tree

Alas! Your throat imbibed
This foaming liquid in excess
The same excess that made Ogun
Flood the land with an ocean of blood
Gushing from the headless bodies
Of subjects he swore to defend.

Surely, excess of palm wine is
The beginning of art.

I salute you all
"Imperfect" products of
A god's error of inebriation
Icons of art's plenitude
To a poet's admiring eyes

---Pius Adesanmi, from Words Bigger Than the Mouth. Click here for more of his poetry.

Cultural Mythology: American Notions of Self and Country

Join Dr. Catherine Svehla in an exploration of current American myths and participate in the development of a new, more sustainable, mythos.

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Good Books About Myth and Culture

September 05, 2009