Myth Matters

Send Catherine a text Message Meaning is a very powerful thing. The meaning of something is intimately connected with the nature of the thing itself, whether that thing be an actual "thing" or an idea. The meaning of something is central to its appearance, identity, and significance. When you change the meaning of something, you change the truth of it.  You change the context. You may ch...

Send Catherine a text Message "I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, pass the wit of man to say what dream it was."  --Shakespeare, from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" A few Celtic stories about encounters with fairies, to celebrate the solstice and midsummer, and to consider the need for healthy skepticism and making room for magic. "The Celt in all ages of...

Send Catherine a text Message The help that we need often comes from unexpected sources, if we have the wisdom to recognize them.  We're surrounded by helpers, teachers, and truth-tellers in the visible and invisible worlds, and yet it's easy to miss the advice and magical tools and get stuck.  We think that we know what's important. We place faith in illusions of power and control....

Send Catherine a text Message When the king is fatally ill and radical change is required, you need to make a journey down unfamiliar paths into the symbolic world of story, and find the water of life.   "The Water of Life," a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, provides some guidance about how this quest can be undertaken. What message does it hold for you right now? Support the...

Send Catherine a text Message "I’ve been terrified every moment of my life—and I never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do." -- Georgia O’Keefe How do you find the courage and commitment to be true to yourself? A relatively small happening in your life, a minor mystery or random thought, even an irritant, can be a moment of awakening and the start of your quest. In th...

Send Catherine a text Message " Imaginal knowing is the only way that the unconscious can move into consciousness [... it happens through pictures, events, and well-told stories. It happens through poetry, where well-chosen words create an image that, in turn, creates a new awareness [...]"  In this episode we do something a bit different, in celebration of National Poetry month. Here is...

Send Catherine a text Message "Art is the informed translation of soul." ---Brian Michael Tracy April is National Poetry month in the United States. I'm joined by fellow myth-lover and poet, Brian Michael Tracy, for an exploration of the connections between poetry and soul.  Psyche is the mysterious wellspring of myth, dream, and poetry, and our source of creative vitality. As Brian...

Send Catherine a text Message "April 1st is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are the other three hundred and sixty-four days."    Mark Twain There's been so much abuse of the truth, deception, and erosion of our trust in each other that April Fool's Day feels a bit dicey. And yet, laughter is more than the best medicine. Laughter is life. Here are some fun facts ab...

Send Catherine a text Message To see a World in a Grain of Sand  And a Heaven in a Wild Flower  Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand  And Eternity in an hour from "Auguries of Innocence" by William Blake   Among the paradoxes posed by Blake, I find the notion of "eternity in an hour" particularly compelling. Events of the past year have changed our relationship to time. I won...

Send Catherine a text Message “Perhaps the greatest stories are those which disturb us, which shake us from our complacency, which threaten our well-being. It is better to enter into the danger of such a story than to keep safely away in a space where the imagination lies dormant.” -- N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain What are these stories that disturb us, and why would you venture into...

Send Catherine a text Message This entertaining Ashanti story about the trickster spider Anansi reveals the threads between story, imagination, and possibility. Who controls the stories that we tell, and why is it important to reach beyond our personal experience to hear the stories of those who are different from ourselves? Support the show Email Catherine at catherine@mythicmojo.com Post a posit...

Send Catherine a text Message This episode includes a series of Sufi teaching stories that address change, loss, and renewal, and the power of story to shift our perspective and life the spirit. Includes Nasrudin and the man with the sack, Fatima the Spinner, Nasrudin and his neighbor, and one of my favorite poems by Rumi, "The Guest House." "With its concentration, among other thin...

Send Catherine a text Message This is the fourth and final episode in the 4-part series on the Sumerian myth of Inanna. We've crossed into the new year in the meantime, and this mixing of beginnings and endings felt appropriate for this myth and for these times. What is the difference between a "beginning" and an "end?" What binds the realms of the Great Above and the Grea...

Send Catherine a text Message The ancient Sumerian story of Inanna's descent to the underworld is an iconic myth about a psychological and spiritual journey of great significance. There's loss and suffering in this story. And there's a return to new life. Feels like a fitting end to 2020, and this season of Myth Matters A belated happy solstice and hurrah to the dawning age of Aquar...

Send Catherine a text Message In this episode I tell the second part of Inanna's story, the courtship and marriage between Inanna and her honey man, the shepherd Dumuzi. I've always delighted in the description of their courtship and the way it captures the excitement and hesitation that is part of falling in love and discovering the power of your sexuality.  At the same time, I bridled...

Send Catherine a text Message "Symbol systems cannot be simply rejected, they must be replaced. Where there is no replacement the mind will revert to familiar structures at times of crisis, bafflement, or defeat."  --Carol Christ The corruption of the old forms, of old institutions and ways of thinking, continues to be revealed. The need for a new paradigm, myth, or metaphor that carries...

Send Catherine a text Message "Imagination is destiny." James Hillman Your greatest gift in times of change is your imagination. What is your vision? Are you ready to live it? In this episode, a story about the Hopi creatrix Spider Woman and a poem by Diane di Prima offer inspiration to feed your imagination and creative power. " history is a living weapon in yr hand & you have...

Send Catherine a text Message This Hindu story, "The King and the Corpse," is one of my favorites, rich in metaphor, humor, riddles, and insight.  A king spends a long night with a talking corpse and realizes a profound truth. No spoilers-- so I'll end on this note: you may also learn something about the power of story to teach, transform, and awaken. I hope this story provides you...

Send Catherine a text Message In the last podcast, we talked about the crisis of a life of "nothing but" and the inherent dangers in what C.G. Jung called "the one-sidedness" of Western consciousness. The overly rational person is psychologically crippled, and vulnerable to what is repressed in the unconscious. This is also true of cultures, and we are living with the ills and...

Send Catherine a text Message "Everything is banal, everything is 'nothing but;' and that is the reason that people are neurotic. They are simply sick of the whole thing, sick of that banal life, and therefore they want sensation. They even want a war; they all want war..." --C. G. Jung from "The Symbolic Life," CW 18. According to Jung, most Western individuals suffe...

Send Catherine a text Message "Our identity is shaped not only by our differences from the Others but in the alchemy by which assimilating them informs the genesis of self. They are both the reciprocal and the constituents of our consciousness."  --Paul Shepard, "The Others, How Animals Made Us Human" Dragons, griffins, chimeras, unicorns, talking horses, and helpful toads-- im...

Send Catherine a text Message "I’ve been terrified every moment of my life—and I never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do." --Georgia O’Keefe How do you find the courage and commitment to be true to yourself? A relatively small happening in your life, a minor mystery or random thought, even an irritant, can be a moment of awakening and the start of your quest. In thi...

Send Catherine a text Message The popular image of the hero is ripe for reflection. In this episode, I share two Buddhist teaching stories (jatakas) that offer an interesting perspective.  The Tigress Jataka and The Prince Five Weapons Jataka illustrate different courses of action taken on the path of the bodhisattva. Are the "heroes" in these tales, heroes? What do you think? So you sho...

Send Catherine a text Message " We moms are often underestimated. But we're stronger than we're given credit for. So what do you say, will you stand with me?" Bev Barnum, catalyst for the Wall of Moms protest in Portland, OR USA   In 411 BCE, Aristophanes' comedy the “Lysistrata” was performed in Athens. Athens was embroiled in the Peloponnesian War, and the play was a dre...

Send Catherine a text Message Cultural and personal transformation begins with conscious evaluation of value systems and the stories that express and perpetuate them. In the West, this includes the idea of the hero, and the mythic pattern of the hero's journey delineated by Joseph Campbell. A close critique of Western heroes and heroism is long overdue in my opinion, and yet the incredible po...