Cultural Mythology: Myth, culture, and consciousness

Artemis to Actaeon

THOU couldst not look on me and live: so runs
The mortal legend -- thou that couldst not live
Nor look on me (so the divine decree)!
That sawst me in the cloud, the wave, the bough,
The clod commoved with April, and the shapes
Lurking 'twixt lid and eye-ball in the dark.
Mocked I thee not in every guise of life,
Hid in girls' eyes, a naiad in her well,
Wooed through their laughter, and like echo fled,
Luring thee down the primal silences
Where the heart hushes and the flesh is dumb?
Nay, was not I the tide that drew thee out
Relentlessly from the detaining shore,
Forth from the home-lights and the hailing voices,
Forth from the last faint headland's failing line,
Till I enveloped thee from verge to verge
And hid thee in the hollow of my being?
And still, because between us hung the veil,
The myriad-tinted veil of sense, thy feet
Refused their rest, thy hands the gifts of life,
Thy heart its losses, lest some lesser face
Should blur mine image in thine upturned soul
Ere death had stamped it there. This was thy thought.
And mine?

The gods, they say, have all: not so!
This have they -- flocks on every hill, the blue
Spirals of incense and the amber drip
Of lucid honey-comb on sylvan shrines,
First-chosen weanlings, doves immaculate,
Twin-cooing in the osier-plaited cage,
And ivy-garlands glaucous with the dew:
Man's wealth, man's servitude, but not himself!
And so they pale, for lack of warmth they wane,
Freeze to the marble of their images,
And, pinnacled on man's subserviency,
Through the thick sacrificial haze discern
Unheeding lives and loves, as some cold peak
Through icy mists may enviously descry
Warm vales unzoned to the all-fruitful sun.
So they along an immortality
Of endless-vistaed homage strain their gaze,
If haply some rash votary, empty-urned,
But light of foot, with all-adventuring hand,
Break rank, fling past the people and the priest,
Up the last step, on to the inmost shrine,
And there, the sacred curtain in his clutch,
Drop dead of seeing -- while the others prayed!
Yea, this we wait for, this renews us, this

Incarnates us, pale people of your dreams,
Who are but what you make us, wood or stone,
Or cold chryselephantine hung with gems,
Or else the beating purpose of your life,
Your sword, your clay, the note your pipe pursues,
The face that haunts your pillow, or the light
Scarce visible over leagues of laboring sea!
O thus through use to reign again, to drink
The cup of peradventure to the lees,
For one dear instant disimmortalized
In giving immortality!
So dream the gods upon their listless thrones.
Yet sometimes, when the votary appears,
With death-affronting forehead and glad eyes,
Too young, they rather muse, too frail thou art,
And shall we rob some girl of saffron veil
And nuptial garland for so slight a thing?
And so to their incurious loves return.

Not so with thee; for some indeed there are
Who would behold the truth and then return
To pine among the semblances -- but I
Divined in thee the questing foot that never
Revisits the cold hearth of yesterday
Or calls achievement home. I from afar
Beheld thee fashioned for one hour's high use,
Nor meant to slake oblivion drop by drop.
Long, long hadst thou inhabited my dreams,
Surprising me as harts surprise a pool,
Stealing to drink at midnight; I divined
Thee rash to reach the heart of life, and lie
Bosom to bosom in occasion's arms,
And said: Because I love thee thou shalt die!

For immortality is not to range
Unlimited through vast Olympian days,
Or sit in dull dominion over time;
But this -- to drink fate's utmost at a draught,
Nor feel the wine grow stale upon the lip,
To scale the summit of some soaring moment,
Nor know the dulness of the long descent,
To snatch the crown of life and seal it up
Secure forever in the vaults of death!

And this was thine: to lose thyself in me,
Relive in my renewal, and become
The light of other lives, a quenchless torch
Passed on from hand to hand, till men are dust
And the last garland withers from my shrine.

Edith Wharton, 1862-1937.

You can find this poem and other work by Wharton at the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia

Happy Holidays

"A young woman in the United States learned about the work of Mother Teresa and became obsessed with the idea of moving to India and committing herself to that work. She heard that Mother Teresa was coming to the U.S. -- to her city, even -- and she managed to squeeze through the crowd and actually speak to Mother Teresa as she was getting out of the car delivering her to an event. 'Please take me with you -- I want to help you with your work!' the young woman pleaded. Mother Teresa kindly said no, this isn't your life mission, and then asked the woman what she did for work. The young woman was embarrassed to say that she worked for a local theater. But Mother Teresa replied: 'There are many kinds of famine in the world. In my country, there is a famine of the body. In your country there is a famine of the spirit. Stay and feed your people.'"

A dear friend of mine recently heard this wonderful story on a recent podcast of "The Moth" storytelling. May we all find our own ways to address the many forms of hunger, and feed each other in the days to come.

Blessings and Happy Holidays!

The madness of love

The madness of love
Is a blessed fate;
And if we understood this
We would seek no other:
It brings into unity
What was divided,
And this is the truth:
Bitterness it makes sweet,
It makes the stranger a neighbor,
And what was lowly it raises on high.

Hadewijch of Antwerp, 13th century, translated by Oliver Davies

Carrying our own oats

We've been reflecting on stories about the mysterious relationship between love for an Other, and the inner union of masculine and feminine energies that fuels our personal development. For example, when Psyche and Eros were separated she was not presented with tasks that tested her love for him or proved her devotion. She had to learn the value of discrimination, strategy, and single-minded focus. In Valemon the White Bear King, the youngest princess must save the white bear who possesses the golden wreath that she cannot live without. That is, her highest Self is realized through participation in their mutual adventure of transformation. After adversity and challenges, comes the happily ever after.

Have you ever fallen into a magical love with your perfect soul mate? In the beginning there is nothing and no one else in the world but the beloved. But that cocoon ultimately becomes a crucible, and we understand that we are first and foremost, in relationship with our self. We don't get to this stage in every love affair, but if we're lucky we climb the glass mountain at least once.

The funny thing is, we take the journey to discover what was always present. Like the horse in the Hirshfield poem I posted last week, we carry the oats we will eat on our own back. We don't find our Self in relationship because the beloved has something essential that we lack. We can complete ourselves in relationship because loving calls forth from within us, what is required for our own realization.

"Briefly, briefly, we see it, and forget" Hirshfield writes, "As if the spell were too powerful to hold on the tongue." Thank goodness for the poetry and stories that help us remember, and wake up.

Each Step

Nowhere on this earth
is it not a place where the lovers
turn lightly in sleep in each other's arms,
the blue pastures of dusk flowing gladly
into the dawn.

Nowhere that is not reached by the scent
of good bread
through an open window,
by the flash of fish in the flashing of summer streams,
or the trees unfolding their praises--
apricots, pears--of the winter-chill nights.

Briefly, briefly, we see it, and forget.
As if the spell were too powerful to hold on the tongue,
as if we preferred the weight to the prize.

Like a horse
that carries on his own back
the sacks of oats he will need, unsuspecting,
looking always ahead,
over the mountains, to where the sweet springs lie.

He remembers this much from his youth,
the taste of things, cold and pure--
while the water-sound sings on and on, unlistened to,
in his ears;
while each step is nothing less than the glistening
river-body reentering home.

---Jane Hirshfield, from October Palace

(image is "White Horse Walking Away" by George Woodcock)