Myth Matters

Underworld Journeys: The Realms of Copper, Silver, and Gold Stories of the underworld and underworld experiences are an important piece of our mythic inheritance and yet our understanding of the variety and nuances may be limited. What distinguishes the "underworld" from the upper world, and from other realms and dimensions of experience that also deviate from the everyday? What takes place in the underworld, and why are so many of us (all of us?) compelled to go there at one time or another?...

This episode revolves around a Czech fairy tale that you've probably never heard of but I suspect you'll recognize some of the motifs. The story raises some interesting questions about the nature of abundance and what's necessary to the life of our "kingdom," the kingdom of our inner world and the outer society. Fairy tales speak to us about common life experiences and psychological processes. They also convey cultural values, and the needs and concerns of particular times and particular plac...

“Epic shows us again and again the pattern of moving from the old myth to a new, carrying everything of value with it as it goes.” -- Louise Cowan Christopher Nolan's film version of the ancient Greek myth The Odyssey has been big news. Written down by "Homer" some 3-400 years after the destruction of the city of Troy, The Odyssey is a mythic account of rise of Greek civilization after the collapse of the Bronze Age Mycenaean kingdoms. It's an old story about ancient times. A blast of t...

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, that then when we no longer know which way to go, we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings." ---- Wendell Berry The situation that Berry describes is a creative edge, the place where the known meets the unknown, where what is and has been realized and understood fades into the possibilities of what is yet to be. Two questions arise f...

“Energy, creation, movement and harmony, development, all happen under the aegis of love, in the domain of eros. Desire is the cause of all movement, and movement is the character of all being. The universe is a process, and its method is change.” — Germaine Greer The ideas expressed by Greer in this quote reflect the ancient Greek perception of a cosmic dynamic of love and attraction, imagined as the god Eros. The notion of Eros is thousands of years old and yet still central, compell...