Cultural Mythology: Myth, culture, and consciousness

Myth in the Mojave on radiofree Joshua Tree

I'm delighted to announce the launch of Myth in the Mojave, a weekly half hour of storytelling and conversation about mythology on our new online radio station, radiofreejoshuatree. This station promises to be a real boon to the local community and beyond (yahoo for internet resources) and I hope that you'll check out the fantastic music and other resources as well.

We kick off today (Saturday 13th) as this week's feature in Other Desert Stories with Ted Quinn, from 4-5PM. This show will run again Sunday 14th from 7-8PM.

Myth in the Mojave will run every Saturday from 3-3:30PM beginning next Saturday, April 20th.

 

Archived shows will be available at radiofreejoshuatree and here at Cultural Mythology. Thank you for listening and feel free to contact me with questions about the show and mythology generally.

(The painting is mine, titled "Promised Land.")

Myths that open

In "Vulnerability to the Eternal" I said that we can live in conscious awareness of the unseen forces that support and shape us, and that it’s the origin and purpose of mythology to articulate this experience. The various gods and goddesses, the spirits and angels that populate our fantasies and belief systems, are the faces we choose to give to the ineffable. Many of my colleagues in myth studies talk about the need for a new myth, that is, a new story and a new face, one that can heal the schisms between human and earth, man and woman, and the gods that threaten to strangle us in a fundamentalist death grip. I am also looking for such a story.

But I sometimes wonder if the quest for a new mythos is the quest for a new, better “answer” to our dilemmas. Maybe the challenge and opportunity of this time lies in our conscious awareness of mythmaking. Can we find meaning in our stories, knowing that they are stories? Can we live with the ambiguity that mythology both resolves and defines? As Hillman writes in Archetypal Psychology, “Myths do not ground, they open.”

Do we need a “new” story or a new perspective on ourselves as mythmakers, engaged with our storied past?

Which is ample introduction to the story that I’m currently living with, Homer’s Odyssey, a long poem about wandering and generally having the ground shift beneath your feet (or waves). Odysseus spends ten years trying to get back to Ithaca and his homecoming is both enabled and thwarted by those unseen forces I’ve been talking about. We recently embarked on an exploration of this epic poem at the High Desert Mythological Roundtable and I’ll endeavor to share this with you here in the weeks ahead.

“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns…” And so it begins.

The painting is The Return of Odysseus by Claude Lorrain, 1644.

Vulnerability to the eternal

As some of you know, I live in the Mojave Desert, a place of barely concealed mystery where the concreteness of rock and thorn consistently speak to the tremendous power of the unseen. Call it geology if you want. That doesn’t diminish the magic for me, though I prefer to imagine Coyote making mud patties of the dirt a daring grebe brought up in his webbed feet, from beneath the cosmic seas.

I walk in the rocky hills below our cabin almost every day and have been listening to some interesting interviews lately, downloaded from onbeing.com. In the archives I found an unedited interview with John O’Donohue, the Irish poet, philosopher, and one-time priest (with an unwavering Celtic soul). The interview starts with some thoughts about the invisible world that landed like arrows in my heart.

Two thoughts in particular have stayed with me, as I feel the daily tide of energies ebb and flow. That human beings have a helpless opening to the eternal that cannot be avoided. That “being in the neighborhood of a very subtle otherness,” while not specific or factual, may nonetheless be real. This is one of the many gifts of mindful awareness.

We live in the place were the unseen is manifest, and can live conscious that we are each a point on that continuum of formlessness to form. I don’t know what this “means,” but it is the origin and purpose of mythology to articulate the intersection in the myriad ways it surfaces in our daily lives.

That’s why I love the destruction of Acteaon while I shudder at the horror of his dismemberment, and appreciate the possibility that he was “loved” as we humans say, by the goddess Artemis. As Edith Wharton writes, “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!” In her poem Actaeon has the courage and curiosity required to truly be alive.

Here is a lovely little video of images and music set to the words of one of O'Donohue's best-loved poems, "Irish Blessing (Beannacht)".

 (Image is Red-Eyed Ducks by Christina Tonges Korn and her work is marvelous. Check it out).

 

 

Daimons and destiny

You know that there is an invisible world beneath/beside/within the visible one. Call it god or atoms; religious belief or science, there is more to this world than meets the eye. So I am struck by the difficult time people can have “accepting” the supernatural aspects of a story. Maybe it’s a matter of context. I tell you a story that includes a goddess and that seems totally implausible. You don’t “believe” in her after all. It’s fiction. And the tale may have been handed down from people we imagine as unsophisticated because they didn't have cell phones.

But if we are at a dinner party you might tell me about the time that you definitely saw a ghost or received a message from an ancestor. Or had a strange dream that presaged later events. Or had an animal talk to you. Or found an open gateway in your consciousness, under the influence of psychedelics, meditation, music, or chance that revealed a breathing, energetic cosmos connected by faintly glowing strings, pulsing with desire. Or looked under a microscope. Contemplated or boosted your immune system. Studied physics. Had a fateful encounter with a stranger.

Who knows what is true about the invisible world? We have lived experience and dreams, reason and imagination, shared facts and fictions, and the compulsion to interpret them. Out of this hodgepodge comes our favorite stories, theories, beliefs (the words are interchangeable in this context)—the ones that create a world that we want to live in. A world that is inherently dependent on metaphor.

I recently reread The Soul's Code by James Hillman, an exegesis on character, calling, and the notion that our lives are guided by a caring, personal daimon. Our dull and unimaginative approaches to life, Hillman says, rob us of mystery and meaning. You don’t have to “believe” like an evangelical to adopt (imagine) a creative perspective about the ongoing role of the invisible in your life. Why not relate to a personal genie that guides your life toward a personal destiny? (Genie, from the Latin genius, meaning "guardian spirit").

With this in mind I’ll turn to the Greek myth of Artemis and Actaeon in the coming posts. It's the story of a young hunter who is turned into a stag by a goddess and subsequently dismembered by his own hunting dogs. Weird, right?  Now it’s time for my daimon to take me out to lunch.

Symposium for the Study of Myth



Visit The Study of Myth for more information about the symposium, how to submit a proposal, and the evolving vision for myth studies.

Reflections on Odin and Santa Claus

The 2011 holiday season is behind us and fading fast but I'm not quite done thinking about Odin and Santa Claus. Why rush the new year/old year musing when the next big spectacle is the upcoming elections (gulp). Don't you wish that we could get Santa to run? At least he understands that global warming is real and that distribution is the key to real abundance. Santa would give Goldman Sachs and Bank of America and the rest what they deserve--- a lump of coal.

Why is Santa Claus such a big deal? Many of us believed in Santa when we were young and were actively encouraged in this by our parents and other adults. Parents take kids to see Santa, help them write letters to him, or leave food out for him and the reindeer on Christmas Eve. They might stage the arrival of the sleigh with jingle bells on the roof. And they improve bad behavior with the suggestion that Santa will know. Belief in Santa is so powerful that both children and adults try to enhance and prolong it. It's rare that an adult spills the beans about his imaginary status and many of us feigned belief despite our doubts because we suspected that Santa brought the best presents. As a friend recently observed, giving up Santa Claus meant that you might just get clothes for Christmas--- horror of horrors!

As you'll see in the next (and final) post about Odin, the simliarities between this god and Santa are striking. So are the differences in the details. We're likely to find the Wild Hunt strange, barbaric, and unbelievable. Those Germanic tribes people must have been pretty gullible, huh, not like us. But why haven't we given Santa up altogther if we're so rational and scientific? Why do we keep this mythic figure alive? Is it the good presents or the magic that we're after?

Although the embrace of a Santa-less holiday is considered an inevitable part of growing up, we don't celebrate it. Giving up Santa Claus means accepting a smaller, more practical, less colorful world, a world with one less mystery. I'm not arguing for widespread belief in Santa Claus, especially the Coca Cola drinking variety. But I am in favor of a little magic of the sort that allows us to see more, feel more, and give more in a world that offers as many questions as answers. And as the Norse once said, "The mind only knows what lies near the heart."

On Sleipner!

Trouble is bound to come

The Dalai Lama has said, "Trouble is bound to come, so cultivating the right attitude is crucial." There has always been trouble and suffering in the world and yet we must do what we can to alleviate it, out of compassion for ourselves and others, for the world. We need myth now more than ever, to help us contact that timeless dimension where this paradox can be meaningfully lived.

My understanding of the power of myth began when I read The Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters. For reasons beyond explanation I suddenly grasped the tremendous power of story to make the world and the human place within it. In that moment a path unfolded. A friend recently shared another piece of Hopi wisdom with me. I hope this message from the Hopi Elders in Oraibi, Arizona inspires and compels you to find your place in the great drama currently unfolding.

Hopi Elders Message

You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.
And there are things to be considered:

Where are you living? What are you doing?
What are your relationships? Are you in right relationship?

Where is your water?
Know your garden.

It is time to speak your truth. Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now, very fast. It is so great and swift that there will be those who are afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.

Know that the river has its destination.

The Elders say that we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river,
keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

See who is with you, and celebrate!

At this time in history we are to take nothing personally.
Least of all, ourselves. For the moment that we do,
our spiritual journey and growth comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your vocabulary and attitude.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

Awakening the myth living in each of us

"Myths are intended to break the spell of time and release us from the pressures and limitations of daily life. Myth speaks to the extraordinary in us and to the innate nobility of our souls. Hearing a mythic story awakens the myth living in each of us. As the story enters us, we enter the timeless territory of myth. We become mythic again, a knowing participant in our own story and a seeker near its source. For, being in a "mythic condition" allows us to reconnect to the core imagination at the center of our soul." --- Michael Meade

Meade's work as a mythologizing storyteller, author, and advocate for soul is an ongoing inspiration to me. He's got a wealth of stories, including "The Old Thief and the Plum Seed," which I'll be telling at the High Desert Mythological Roundtable next Tuesday, November 22nd.

Learn more about Michael Meade at Mosaic Voices. And if you haven't seen "Finding Joe," the new film by Partick Takaya Solomon about the hero's journey and contemporary life, find a theater near you and add some spark to your story.

Finding Joe - Trailer V.7 from pat solomon on Vimeo.

 

The Immanance of Myth

Edited by James Curcio, The Immanence of Myth is a wide-ranging collection of essays by folks passionate about the importance of mythology, and the need to be conscious of our myths and mythmaking. I'm proud to be included in this effort and applaud Curcio for his vision, conviction, and hard work. Not like every other book on myth. Now available at amazon.com

The Study of Myth

On August 31-September 3, 2012, a four-day Symposium for the Study of Mythology will be held in Santa Barbara, California. This interdisciplinary gathering will pay tribute to the fact that myth is a changing, elastic landscape that flourishes in surprising ways. People use mythology and mythmaking in a wide variety of forms, as teachers and artists, as poets and social commentators, as storytellers and scholars. Anyone interested in the significance of mythology and mythmaking today is encouraged to attend.

The vision of the symposium is threefold:
CONVERGENCE • RESURGENCE • EMERGENCE

Details of the programs that will make up the Symposium will emerge in the coming months. In the meantime, peruse the website and join the conversation bubbling in our myth forums. You may find friends and collaborators. Visit The Study of Myth.