Myth Matters

Send Catherine a text Message Endings, loss, and uncertainty. Fears of a catastrophic future. Many of us are living with this right now or wondering how to. How to act. How to participate. Perspective and guidance can be gleaned from myths and old stories. They are a poetic record of life in a world where catastrophe happens. A world in which people have at various times, felt that everything was...

Send Catherine a text Message "It is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception and compassion and hope." –Ursula K. LeGuin  This episode revolves around the Welsh myth of Cerridwen and the Birth of Taliesin. I've worked with this story a number of times. It comes to mind this time of year because Cerridwen is both a goddess and a witch, and this story includes potions,...

Send Catherine a text Message “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”― Joseph Campbell We began an exploration of some important questions in the last episode. Questions about our allegiance to the inner world and the concerns of our outer life in the material world, as the demands of these realms often seem to be in conflict with each o...

Send Catherine a text Message To what do we owe greater allegiance, our outer life in the material world of human conventions, or our inner life and the requirements of soul? I explore this question through the lens of a fairy tale called "The Nixie in the Mill Pond,"  collected by the Brothers Grimm.  This is a big topic and a fascinating story with many twists and turns so I'm dev...

Send Catherine a text Message How we imagine our lives is how we live our lives, and mythologies provide the images and ideas in this process. But images of the human in the dominant myths-- as sinner, dominator, or world destroyer-- aren't guiding us toward a bright future. What are the alternatives? How about an ingenious, improvising jack-of-all-trades, the "bricoleur"? There is...

Send Catherine a text Message How we imagine ourselves is how we'll be.  And where do we receive these images of the human? They're in our myths. In this episode, I take a look at three images in the myths of the dominant culture that determine how many of us see ourselves and how we live: the sinner, the king of the animal kingdom, and the world destroyer/ parasite.  Are these images us...

Send Catherine a text Message Sifting through options to make a decision is something that each of us has to do at some point. When our choice is part of a creative process in work or life, in the arts or our psychic terrain, it can be very difficult. Something new will come into the world. Some type of transformation will take place. We're deeply invested in the outcome and there may be cons...

Send Catherine a text Message “We would do well… to think of the creative process as a living thing implanted in the human psyche.”  --- C.G. Jung (1922) Collected Works 15 We often say that every person is inherently creative and yet doubts and fears of inadequacy are common. Many of us hesitate to make any claims to creativity and feel it is lacking in our lives, or question the value of our cre...

Send Catherine a text Message Apple's ad for the new iPad has evoked some very strong reactions, reactions that illuminate old links between image, metaphor, myth, and our collective notions about creativity and the creative process. The current cultural conversation is a good starting point for reflection on  some commonly held images of creativity and the way these images shape our creative...

Send Catherine a text Message "Well, that's the trick: the sudden unexpectedness inside the over-known." --- Heather McHugh What type of mood does the word "poetry" evoke for you? Do you associate poetry with the profound and weighty? The concerns of the soul and the seriously sacred?  I rarely look to poetry for a laugh and I wonder why, when there are many brilliant mome...

Send Catherine a text Message Fate and free will, and the longing for purpose and prospect of destiny that hangs somewhere in-between. How do these forces shape our lives? Do we play assigned roles in a cosmic plan or make it all up as we go? These questions weave through many myths and stories. What answers do we find and how can we live with the questions? Support the show Email Catherine at cat...

Send Catherine a text Message   “A yogi sees Me in all things and all things within Me.” Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita The Bhagavad-Gita is an important Hindu teaching story embedded in the Mahabharata, an astonishing epic poem. Astonishing for its length- 100,000 verses-- and for its beauty. Astonishing for the complexity of the social and spiritual world constructed in the poem and the exploratio...

Send Catherine a text Message Last Monday, February 26th was Tell a Fairy Tale Day. I began preparation for this episode with the intention of telling  you a fairy tale, perhaps one that was connected to the holiday. This process opened up reflection on the necessity of a well-developed imagination to meet life challenges in a creative and satisfying way, and the role fairy tales play in cultivati...

Send Catherine a text Message We have an ever- increasing wealth of myths and stories, fueled by new discoveries and ongoing mythmaking. There are also dominant myths and stories, and dominant ideas about myths and stories, that limit the usefulness of this inheritance and the possibilities we entertain.  In the last episode, I turned to the Hero's Adventure, a mythic pattern articulated by J...

Send Catherine a text Message It's only January and 2024 already feels like a year of consequence. Crazy weather and climate change, war, elections, ideological, religious, and cultural conflicts, and Pluto's move into Aquarius, heralding a long underworld journey of transformation in our communities, social contracts, technology, idea of service, and visions of freedom. What role might...

Send Catherine a text Message The solstice will soon be upon us, followed by the arrival of a new year. A time of endings and beginnings. Reckoning.  This passage through winter darkness here the in northern hemisphere leads me to Norse mythology and my fascination with the god Odin. Odin is a god who lives with the prophecy that his world will end and he will die. This is an unusual combination o...

Send Catherine a text Message "I am destined to die either by a crocodile, a serpent, or a dog; it is the will of the gods. Then let me go forth and follow my heart's desire while I live.". 2023 is drawing to a close. "The Tale of the Doomed Prince,"  a fairy tale found in ancient Egyptian papyri from 1550 BCE or so, is an interesting companion to year end (year round?) re...

Send Catherine a text Message The existence of monsters, alongside gods and goddesses, is a distinguishing feature of myths, fairy tales, and legends. Defeating a monster is often the test of the hero, the act that makes that individual a hero.  And yet, life is full of challenges and dangers. There are plenty of opportunities for various forms of heroism in this everyday world and ordinary realit...

Send Catherine a text Message The season around Halloween and Samhain is a liminal time when shadows grow and lengthen in the world and psyche. The old Celtic stories of poet warriors and fairies feel especially potent to me right now, so I'm dipping back into the collection Irish Fairy Tales by James Stephens for this story offering.  "The Enchanted Cave of Cesh Corran" is rich in...

Send Catherine a text Message Sedna is the goddess mother of the sea, marine animals, and the underworld in the myths of the Inuit people, an indigenous Arctic culture. This episode is an exploration of variations on her origin story, and some of the questions and possibilities Sedna raises in this time of climate change and fundamentalism. Support the show Email Catherine at catherine@mythicmojo....

Send Catherine a text Message "I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread.."  ---from "The Song of Wandering Aengus" by W.B. Yeats  The Salmon of Knowledge is a mythical creature in Irish folklore associated with poetry and knowledge of deep truths. Any person who ate a bit of the fish would becom...

Send Catherine a text Message “Dogs are our link to paradise.” -- Milan Kundera Sometimes a "little" detail in my day triggers thoughts about my mythic orientation and brings stories to mind. This episode began with a short news story about a dog. Which led me to a Jicarilla Apache creation myth and an Irish legend about Fionn MacCool. These stories remind us of the enduring bond between...

Send Catherine a text Message "I don’t think the meaning of life is what we’re seeking. I think it’s an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have residences within our own innermost being in reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive." -- Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth The meaning of life isn't what we'r...

Send Catherine a text Message "Rationality and logic can be spiritual." -- Alan Lightman, Mr. g The antagonism between Western science and myth/religion has shaped human history and continues to obstruct the quest for a holistic understanding of existence. In Myths to Live By , Joseph Campbell outlines the conflict and offers solutions to the modern dilemma. Science will provide new meta...

Send Catherine a text Message The Babylonian Enuma Elish , also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation , is one of the oldest surviving creation myths. The story narrates the epic battle between the god Marduk and the primordial goddess Tiamat, which resulted in the creation of mankind and the establishment of an enduring order in heaven and on earth.  No one alive today "believes" in th...