Cultural Mythology: Myth, culture, and consciousness

Homer's Odyssey: What is an epic?

 

One reason that Homer's Odyssey has remained important through the millenia is that it's an epic poem. An epic is a big, big story with action on a grand scale. It's the story of a people told through the experience of an individual. Odysseus is one man and he is also all men (and now, women). Odysseus will be transformed but what’s heralded is a collective change. The old values are being held up to the light, seen from a different angle. The stage is being set for something new to emerge.

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—Another characteristic of an epic is the active participation of the unseen, invisible world. As we saw in Book 1, little happens without the participation of the gods! The heros are engaged with huge forces. We are reminded that our lives, our dramas and problems, take place in the midst of something bigger, a cosmos in which we are both the center and an infinitesimal dot.

So The Odyssey is a poem about a cultural transition and we also know that the notions of heroism will be involved. These somewhat abstract ideas can be traced in the story by following a few themes. Here are a handful that are commonly identified and will guide our conversation: justice (and appetite); what constitutes the good life (and family), identity (and memory). Of course you can find many other threads to follow as your interest dictates.

Justice: Hospitality, hospitality, hospitality. There are more descriptions of eating in the Odyssey than any other activity. A good meal is clearly part of the good life in peacetimes and it's part of xenia. What is right, what is hospitable, and appetite (the decorous versus the gluttonous) are linked in the poem.

Good life: The Iliad is a poem about war time and the concerns of war heros, namely honor, victory, and death. The Odyssey is about coming home from the wars, making the transition to peacetime and rebuilding  what war has broken. (Odysseus's family, for example).

Identity: Identity is related to memory, to what we remember and how others remember us. Memory takes form in the stories that we tell about ourselves and that are told about us. Note the stories that are told. They’re conveying information, foreshadowing future events, and making this important point.

With this in mind, let's set sail with Telemachus in Book 2.

(The photo is of the Lion Gate, the main entrance of the Bronze Age city of Mycenae in southern Greece. 13th century BC).

High Desert Mythological RoundTable® Group

Tuesday November 27th, 7-9PM Red Arrow Gallery in Joshua Tree

The Power of Myth Episode Six: Masks of Eternity

The Power of Myth is a series of conversations between myth scholar Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. In "Masks of Eternity," Campbell talks about the names and images people use to describe and express the transcendent, and how we might identify with it. This is the last episode in the series---please join us!

The High Desert Mythological RoundTable meets the last Tuesday of every month at the Red Arrow Gallery. All open-minded adults who enjoy a good story are welcome to join our thought-provoking conversations. Bring cookies or other goodies to share. Donations for the Joseph Campbell Foundation are much appreciated.

(Image is the Masks of God from the Power of Myth. Note: Mythological RoundTable® is a registered trademark of Joseph Campbell® Foundation).

High Desert Mythological RoundTable (R) Group

Tuesday February 28th, 7-9PM Red Arrow Gallery in Joshua Tree

The Power of Myth: Sacrifice and Bliss (Episode 4)

"Like a seed that dies only to be reborn, the archetypal hero must undergo the death of the ego to achieve new life and the revelation of bliss."

Last month, episode 3 of this series generated a very lively conversation and provided much food for thought. This month we'll delve deeper into Campbell's work with episode 4.This series of stimulating conversations between Bill Moyers and myth scholar Joseph Campbell created a national sensation when they first aired on public television in 1987, and Campbell's ideas are still provocative. Come watch and join the conversation.

The High Desert Mythological RoundTable meets the last Tuesday of every month at the Red Arrow Gallery. All open-minded adults who enjoy a good story are welcome to join our thought-provoking conversation. Bring cookies or other goodies to share. Donations for the storyteller and the Joseph Campbell Foundation are much appreciated.

High Desert Mythological RoundTable (R) Group

Tuesday January 31st, 7-9PM Red Arrow Gallery in Joshua Tree

The Power of Myth: The First Storytellers

This series of stimulating conversations between Bill Moyers and myth scholar Joseph Campbell created a national sensation when they first aired on public television in 1987, and Campbell's ideas are still provocative. Come watch and discuss this episode, the third in the six part series.

The High Desert Mythological RoundTable meets the last Tuesday of every month at the Red Arrow Gallery. All open-minded adults who enjoy a good story are welcome to join our thought-provoking conversation. Bring cookies or other goodies to share. Donations for the storyteller and the Joseph Campbell Foundation are much appreciated.

"Finding Joe," a new film by Patrick Solomon

"Finding Joe" is an exploration of famed mythologist Joseph Campbell’s studies and their continuing impact on our culture. The film premiers on Saturday, October 1st in Santa Monica at 1:10 PM at Laemmle's Monica 4-Plex and will be followed by a Q & A with Director Patrick Takaya Solomon and Joseph Campbell Foundation President Robert Walter.

Tickets are available on-line at Laemmle.com  Dates and times for theater showings around the country are available at Finding Joe.

 

Remodeling character

For the last few months, I've devoted the bulk of my time to remodeling a house that my husband and I want to sell. This project dominates our time and our thoughts and leaves us physically and mentally exhausted. Any sense of balance evaporated weeks ago. Now we just want to get done. Soon.

One day I may have the time and inclination to take a seat at Hestia's hearth and explore the poetic-mythic dimension of this experience. I do take great satisfaction in seeing this dilapidated old house come back to life, as she deserves the attention and chance to shine. But right now the hours spent remodeling are a constant reminder of the connection between obligation and freedom, and the way that our choices both expand and limit our lives. I've obligated myself to finish this project, through necessity and the bonds of partnership, and although I often feel stressed, frustrated, and constricted by the time and effort it demands, this house is part of a larger vision of the life that I want to live. If only such things were easier to realize on the material plane!

In the post on Three Transformations of the Spirit, I referred to Joseph Campbell's idea that freedom is what you are, not what you do. This kind of freedom, which is a matter of identity and self-definition, comes from a highly developed sense of obligation. In other words, we are the commitments that we choose to make, and those commitments, willingly undertaken, can free us. Meditation or some other conscious practice, devotion to a craft, training for a race, building a house, getting married, becoming a parent, caring for animals or plants, going to work every day--- when you think about it, almost every aspect of an adult life requires a commitment, a decision to show up consistently, make sacrifices, and be uncomfortable if need be.

But when you find yourself obligated in a way that you didn't plan, then what? When the remodel that was supposed to be finished in March threatens to drag into May, what do you do or rather, who do you become? This is the question that moves with me through the days. I paint the house green and feel the tension between this project and my other work mount. I long for some unstructured hours to just sit with my cats and listen to the birds.  I miss meetings and things fall through the cracks. But I also feel the strength of my partnership with Phillip. I appreciate my stamina and sense of humor, and I marvel at the deep reservoir of creativity which finds so many outlets. This is a chance to wrestle with Rilke's angel. I guess I am earning some character.

Three transformations of the spirit

In my last post, I said that willingly obligating yourself can be the path to the freedom. There is an intuitive truth to this for those of us who try to understand our interconnectedness and are concerned about our shared fate. But this kind of self-determination is not easy. There are few models to follow and tremendous pressures to conform and accept trivial forms of self expression in lieu of real freedom. Hillman talks about this in the Huffington Post interview I posted a few days ago. I also wonder, in these days of deep divison and hot rhetoric, if we are not tempted to make our ideas about freedom another ideology rather than a matter on ongoing reflection.

I've struggled to define my values and live my life according to my own principles, which is part of the attraction of Joseph Campbell. Campbell was interested in the self-responsible individual. Freedom, he said, is not what you do but what you are, and it’s borne from a highly developed sense of obligation. The goal is personal authenticity and yet...?

Campbell often spoke about Nietzsche’s Three Transformations of the Spirit (in Zarathustra) to illustrate this point. I heard him explain it over and over again in the hours I spent with his audiotaped lectures, and my first respone to this repetition was to heave a heavy sigh. But I keep thinking about this progression as I uncover the "thou shalts"  lurking in my life. Maybe this idea will hold some magic for you too.

First you must be the Camel, who says “Put a load on me.” The camel takes on a heavy load and carries it. Then the camel goes into the desert. Next, the Lion appears. The Lion kills a dragon, the dragon named “thou shalt.” The camel submitted to the dragon of “thou shalt” and the lion kills it. But you have to be a camel first to be a lion capable of killing that dragon.

Finally, Campbell says, you become a child— a wheel rolling out of its own center. Then you are a gift to the world, even if you do nothing, just by existing. This is freedom that can’t be granted by parents or society. “There does come a moment when you know what you were born for—you can rest in it—it gets deeper and deeper,” Campbell says. This is one definition of bliss.

You can also hear Campbell talk about Nietzsche (or get a written transcript) on the Joseph Campbell Foundation website, www.jcf.org. Look for Lecture I.2.1 The Thresholds of Mythology in the Collected Lectures series. Some of Campbell’s lectures are also available through itunes and amazon.com

 

The middle way

In the Blackfoot myth of the Buffalo Dance, we see one way of handling the problem of death. Death is a problem because we die, and because life depends on death. In the myth, death isn't absolute. The people have the power to bring others back to life, as if death is merely one phase in an endlessly repeating cycle. You may have a similar view.

But death isn't the only thing that troubles us. There are many forms of suffering, injustice, and disaster and a lot of energy gets spent trying to change, avoid, or prevent trouble. I'm one of those people who almost always thinks that "something should be done." I work for my vision of a "better" world, a better society, and a better me. But I often wonder about this attitude. I'm not sure how to negotiate the boundary between activism and acceptance. And how much can be done? Primo Levi, who spent a year in Auschwitz, said "It is the duty of righteous men to make war on undeserved privilege, but one must not forget that this is a war without end." Do you think this is true? I don't know.

Joseph Campbell used to talk about "joyful participation in the sorrows of the world." This intrigues and puzzles me. It sounds Buddhist and does reflect Campbell's deep knowledge and appreciation of Eastern philosophies. But he was a champion of the heroic Western individual, and he describes this task in terms of Percival, authenticity, and the Wasteland. Percival means “to pierce the veil,” or  “to pierce through the middle.” Percival's way is the middle way, the way between black and white, good and bad. Vacillation tips you toward black Campbell says, but you can stay in the middle if you follow your nature. Not completely one or the other. Life is like this too. It’s bittersweet, a mixture of joy and pain.

In a lecture titled “Loyalty to Your Imperfections: Wasteland versus an Authentic Life,” Campbell says,

"A human being in action cannot represent perfection, they always represent one side of a duality which itself is perfection, the two—in being loyal to your part of it you are keeping history in form. We live in duality; perfection is non-dual. The only ‘perfect’ existence is non-existence […] When we reconcile ourselves to this, when we accept imperfection in the world and ourselves and go ahead and live, that’s joyful participation in the sorrows of the world."

When we accept imperfection in the world and ourselves and go ahead and live-- this sounds like good advice, maybe even the recipe for sanity. But not without the quest for earned character and the benchmark provided by that kind of self-knowledge.

Special showing of Sukhavati next Saturday, March 26th

Saturday March 26th, 7-9PM at the Red Arrow Gallery
Join us for a special showing of

Sukhavati: A Mythic Journey

Sukhavati means “place of bliss.” In this film, renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell talks about bliss and sorrow, and the global, historical arc of spiritual ideas from the Neolithic to the Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist. Come celebrate the journey through consciousness and Campbell’s 107th birthday with home baked cake and conversation.

“A journey of transcendence and illumination, a trip through the mythological symbols and sagas left by our ancient forebears.”

Brought to you by the High Desert Mythological Roundtable ® Group and Transmission. Suggested donation $8. Proceeds to benefit the Joseph Campbell Foundation.

The best facts

I was recently reminded of just how crucial it is that we develop, as individuals and as a culture, the facility for (and appreciation of) a mythic perspective. We have so many important things to talk about, issues at the heart of our survival, topics that open and expand our humanness, and opportunities for illumination. We often talk past each other and argue points beside the point because we don't know the proper stance or perspective to adopt. For far too many of us there is only one option-- the literal-- and well practiced that becomes dogmatic and that, my friends, is the end of the conversation.

To look at something from a mythic perspective involves finding and understanding metaphors. In the Blackfoot myth of the buffalo dance, for example, we're told that that a young woman promised to marry a buffalo in exchange for the willing sacrifice of some of the herd. When they jumped over the cliff, she had to take the lead buffalo as a husband. Marry a buffalo? What might this signify?

This "marriage" is a metaphor for a kind of relationship. Marriage is an intimate union that creates a shared fate, and historically brought together different people, different families, and even different countries. A marriage in the traditional sense creates allies; it forces the two parties and the folks attached to them to envison common bonds and interests.

If we think about a marriage between a young woman and a buffalo in literal terms it is just inconceivable, bizarre, and the story is merely a cultural artifact. From this literal stance one can easily bandy about opinions about "those people" and what they believed, and argue over who knows the most about Native Americans and has the best facts, and the credentials to prove it. But that's not what we're up to here.

"Marriage" as a metaphor for the relationship between people and buffalos allows us to understand something about the order of the Blackfoot cosmos and our own situation. The young woman's offer to marry concretized, in a sense, the context for the story: The people's surivival depended on the killing of the buffalo.The myth is a story about the profound nature of that relationship, the need to recognize it, and the protocols that would protect its sacredness.

The absolute connection between eating and killing has not changed since this story was first told. Maybe you, like me,are married to a carrot and a soybean, but nonetheless, she who eats today will be eaten tomorow. The shared fate of the hunter and the prey---death---and our inability to precisely determine when we will fall, this has not changed either. Many of us have a different story, different metaphors, and a different awareness. But I do not think that we're better for it. In devaluing the lives of other species, we've devalued our own.

If you were married to your food, would that change your manner of eating? Can this story help you think about that? Does it give you an image to hang onto, a concept to contemplate, and a place to start a different kind of conversation?