Mythic

In an Instagram Reel, John Selig described this image — Mount Etna as a cosmological diagram: Typhon pinned underneath, his rage powering the volcano; Hephaestus at the forge above, that same rage transmuted into craft; Prometheus chained on the side, the fire bringer who suffered for giving us what the gods had kept for themselves; and Zeus at the crown, not a creator of fire but the one who directs it.It set my imagination ablaze!John’s handle is @stolenfires_. That name tells you everything about his approach: myth is Promethean fire, meaning held by the gods and waiting to be taken — not as belief, not as doctrine, but as a lens you can actually use. What he wants is for you to leave the conversation with something in your hands.We spent this episode inside Greek myth as a living, working system. We examined the Theogony as three successive orders of creation — and why Zeus’s is the first one generative enough to let everything be born, even the monsters. We read the Odyssey as the story of a man who cannot go home yet because his unconscious won’t let him — the sailors as impulses that thwart the ego until it’s ready. We talked about what happens to a culture that runs entirely on Athena consciousness while Poseidon goes ignored. And we talked about creativity, perfectionism, and what myth can do for people who are stuck.What We CoverWe use Prometheus — the fire-bringer who stole meaning from the gods and handed it to ordinary people — as the lens for this conversation. Along the way we explore:Stolen Fires and What the Name Actually Means. The name is two things at once: a cosmological statement about myth as Promethean fire, and — as someone pointed out to John recently — an accidental description of a mythology hot-take platform. He didn't plan that second meaning. The Trickster did. The core idea: myth holds meaning the way the gods held fire. John's work is the theft.Myth Doesn't Require You to Believe Anything. Myth and history are not the same category. Mythologizing history breaks it. Historicizing mythology breaks it too. One lives in the world of the imaginal; the other is the world of record. You can work with myth — let it illuminate your life, your psyche, your moment — without making a single metaphysical commitment.Typhon, Hephaestus, and the Shape of Shadow Work. Zeus didn't destroy Typhon. He pinned him under Mount Etna, where his rage powers the volcano — and Hephaestus's forge sits at the top, transmuting that same rage into craft. Integration instead of obliteration. The energy doesn't disappear. It gets redirected. That's the shape of shadow work, and it's also the shape of the creative process.Satan and the Cultural Shadow. Monotheism needed a bucket for everything that didn't make the approved list, and Satan is what it built. A lot of what ended up in there isn't all that bad — it's just human. The qualities most associated with the mythic Satan map cleanly onto basic features of human nature, and the Greco-Roman roots of the image run deeper than most people realize.Three Orders of Creation. The Theogony gives us three successive cosmological regimes, each more generative than the last. Uranus won't let anything be born. Kronos swallows his children rather than risk displacement. Zeus frees everyone and starts an order in which everything gets to exist — including the monsters. The Greek pantheon is so crowded because Zeus's order requires it to be.The Sailors as Unconscious Impulses. The sailors in the Odyssey aren't named or characterized because they're not really separate people — they're the unconscious impulses that keep thwarting what the ego says it wants. Odysseus doesn't reach Ithaca until they're all dead. The friction isn't always the enemy. The sailors may be telling him something he isn't ready to hear yet.Athena Consciousness, Poseidon Consciousness, and What We've Left Out. Ian McGilchrist's hemisphere theory maps onto the Greek gods: Athena as the rational, ordering, left-brain mode; Poseidon as the holistic, oceanic, right-brain mode. We've built a civilization that runs almost entirely on Athena consciousness while Poseidon goes unaddressed — and John thinks the epidemic of depression among his generation follows directly from that.Spirituality and the Brain. The part of the brain that activates depression is the same part that activates spirituality. When the spiritual mode is engaged, it becomes physiologically impossible to be depressed. This isn't a spiritual claim. It's neuroscience. And you don't have to believe in anything to get there.The Tyranny of Heaven. Uranus and Gaia: heaven and earth, the ideal and the actual. Heaven wants the thing to be perfect. Earth wants the thing to exist. Any version of something is necessarily not every version of something — which is obvious, and is still the exact mistake most creatives make constantly, holding the work hostage to what it could be until it never becomes what it is.Chapters00:00 Welcome00:03:49 The Name Stolen Fires00:04:56 Myth Without Belief00:05:42 Typhon, Prometheus, and the Volcano00:06:53 Satan and the Cultural Shadow00:08:30 How the Volcano Became a Map00:10:17 Zeus as Air, Not Fire00:11:30 Three Orders of Creation00:18:29 Into the Odyssey00:19:31 The Sailors as Unconscious Impulses00:21:57 Odysseus Isn’t Ready for Ithaca00:26:42 Myth Is Fractal00:34:20 The Modern Mind and Its Limits00:35:10 Meaning, Depression, and the Missing Lens00:41:45 Spirituality and the Brain00:48:05 The Myth and Creativity Course00:49:05 The Tyranny of Heaven00:50:10 Where to Find JohnMemorable Quotes“The trick with myths is to not take them literally and to turn them into lenses that you can then look at your own life through.” — John Selig“Typhon is put underneath Mount Etna, and his fiery rage powers that volcano and then Hephaestus’s forge is at the top, turning that rage, alchemizing it into something beautiful.” — John Selig“That’s how it feels to do shadow work, to channel your grief into something creative, to face a part of you that you don’t wanna face. All of those things are in that image and it’s cosmic and natural and personal all at the same time.” — John Selig“Myth doesn’t require you to believe anything. These stories didn’t happen. Getting history and mythology confused is one of the biggest problems in our world today.” — Boston Blake“Mythologizing history or historicizing mythology. It breaks it. One lives in the world of the imaginal and one is the world of the historical.” — Boston Blake“If that spiritual part of your brain is activated, it becomes physiologically impossible to be depressed.” — John Selig“Any version of something is necessarily not every version of something.” — John Selig“Take the mess you’re working on and make it sacred.” — John SeligResources & LinksJohn Selig’s website: https://stolenfires.comStolen Fires on Instagram: @stolenfires_Stolen Fires on YouTube: @stolenfiresStolen Fires on TikTok: @stolenfiresStolen Fires on Substack: https://stolenfires.substack.comJohn’s Myth and Creativity Course (May 2026): https://stolenfires.comEpisode page: https://bostonblake.com/mythic-podcast/john-selig-stolen-firesIf this episode landed for you, feel free to add to the pot: https://bostonblake.com/contribute/https://mythicpodcast.comAbout the GuestJohn Selig is a writer and educator specializing in the psychology of myth, symbol, and creativity. He has traveled the world visiting the sacred sites of many cultures and is currently writing a book investigating the deeper practical meanings hidden within the world’s myths and religious stories. A lifelong creative, John has worked in music, writing, game design, podcasting, and video, and coaches people in seeing their lives through mythic and symbolic lenses through his one-on-one Mythwork sessions. He has taught at Harvard, UCLA, and School of Rock. Learn more at https://stolenfires.com.About MythicMythic is a podcast about meaningful living through the power of myth, ancient lore, modern pop culture, and depth psychology. Hosted by Boston Blake — ICF Professional Certified Coach, and lifelong student of mythology and depth psychology — Mythic brings together the stories that have have something to teach us.https://mythicpodcast.comTopicsGreek mythology, depth psychology, Jungian psychology, archetypal psychology, practical mythology, myth and meaning, mythology podcast, Prometheus, Typhon, Hephaestus, Zeus, Theogony, Hesiod, Odyssey,...

About This EpisodeThis episode marks the return of Mythic after a year and a half — and what a place to come back from. I recorded this conversation live at Pachalegria, a retreat and healing center in Zipolite, Mexico, at the close of my first men's tantra retreat. The man who led it — and built the place — is sitting right next to me.Martin Bilodeau is a Québécois public figure, social psychologist, and bestselling author of Awaken Your Inner Buddha, A Practical Guide to Modern Tantrism and Chronicles of an Urban Buddhist (all currently available in French). His path runs through indigenous shamanism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Tantrism, with lineages from Osho, Yogi Bhajan, and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He spent half his life in India, Asia, and traveling the world before founding Pachalegria in 2020.This is Martin's first English-language podcast.What We CoverWe use Martin's framework of four spiritual emergencies as Ariadne's thread into the labyrinth — not naming all four explicitly, but tracing the arc of a life spent following the thread of awakening from Buddhism into shamanism, Tantra, and finally into the act of building a living vision on a hillside in southern Mexico.Along the way we explore:Buddhism and the Inner World. Martin discovered Buddhism at 17 through the books of Alexandra David-Néal, the first Western woman to walk into Tibet. He consecrated his twenties to practice — two hours of meditation a day, temple visits in India and Nepal, annual retreats. But the real challenge wasn't the monastery. It was bringing the Dharma into daily modern life.Bodhicitta and the Belief That Changes Everything. The teaching that cracked Martin open: compassion as a way of seeing the world, not a feeling you wait to receive. The ego sees the world as something to take from. Compassion asks what you can bring. That single reorientation — from appetite to offering — underpins everything Martin does.Why "Emergency"? Martin spent nearly 15 years managing services for homeless, addicted, and delinquent youth in Québec. What he saw confirmed it: every wound is a wound of unlove. Every act of harm is a cry for it. If all our damage is created by the absence of love, love is the only thing that will heal it. That's not romantic. It's urgent.Tantra and the Body. We've never been more disconnected from our bodies than we are now. The body is always in the present moment — it's the mind that escapes. Tantra is the path that reconnects them: through breath, sensation, movement, and the radical act of feeling rather than managing life.The Minotaur in the Labyrinth. One of the most vivid mythic images in our conversation: the Minotaur as kundalini, as primal life force — not a monster to be slain but an energy that got trapped by the engineered maze of the mind. Daedalus built the labyrinth with his head. The Minotaur didn't need to be killed. It needed to be freed. And what frees it? Ariadne's love.Shame as a Control Mechanism. We were once invocators — beings who danced, screamed, and loved their way back to the divine. Then came 2,000 years of ideology that installed shame between us and our own bodies, our own power, our own direct experience of the sacred. Capitalism inherited that structure and kept it running. The antidote isn't permission. It's sovereignty.The King and Queen Were Never Meant to Rule Alone. Every true mythology pairs masculine and feminine — active and receptive, power and love, strength and empathy. A ruler disconnected from the soul force — the virgin princess in the tower, the yin inside — becomes narcissistic and abusive. Power without love is abuse. Love without power is passivity. They were always meant to be together.Shiva-Shakti and Cocreation. The feminine-masculine dynamic isn't about gender — it's about listening before acting, being receptive to what the world is telling you before you move. Martin guides groups this way: 70% listening intuitively before he leads. The Shiva-Shakti principle is the composition of wisdom.Zipolite and the Living Dream. And then there's the place itself — the last bohemian village, a hillside above the Pacific where people have been living freely since the early 1970s. No rules, no structure, naked on the beach at night, no violence. LGBT community, hippies, artists, locals, expats, tourists — all coexisting. The New York Times writes about it every year. And into this, Martin has built a utopia. Not finished. Expanding. Buying land, building with stones so the iguanas keep their nests, preserving what's real before the commercial wave arrives.We close with Joseph Campbell's line — dreams are private myths, myths are collective dreams — and the question it raises: what is the shared dream we're missing right now? What would it look like to stop begging for meaning from the outside and start imposing a little vision on reality?This is that conversation.Chapter Timestamps0:00 Welcome Back to Mythic — Recording Live from Zipolite, Mexico01:00 Introducing Martin Bilodeau: Author, Social Psychologist, Tantric Guide02:00 Pachalegria: "I Created Boston" — On Being Recreated by a Place02:30 The Four Spiritual Emergencies as Ariadne's Thread03:00 First Emergency: Buddhism — Alexandra David-Néal and the Call of Tibet04:00 Consecrating to the Path: Two Hours of Meditation, Temple Visits, Annual Retreats05:00 Bringing the Dharma into Daily Life — The Real Challenge06:00 Bodhicitta: The Belief That Changes Everything07:00 Ego as Attachment and Aversion — vs. Compassion as a Way of Seeing08:00 "The Best Way to Feel Love Is to Love"09:00 Why It's an Emergency: 15 Years with Homeless and Addicted Youth10:00 Putting Love Back at the Center — The Heart vs. the Mind11:00 The Mind as Dissector; Love as Radical Return to Essence13:00 Om Mani Padme Hum: Compassion as the Ultimate Protection14:00 Tantra and the Body: The Body as Portal to the Present Moment16:00 We Were Never This Disconnected From Our Bodies17:00 Mexico as Sensual Reconnection — Sweat, Stone Walls, Fish from the Ocean19:00 The Tantra Workshop at Pachalegria: Movement, Community, Breath20:00 The Minotaur in the Labyrinth — Kundalini as Primal Life Force21:00 Ariadne's Love: What Guides Us Back to Our Own Power22:00 Freeing the Minotaur: The Primal Force Needs to Devour the Ego, Not the Self24:00 The Real Fear Is Not Powerlessness — It's Power25:00 Leaving the US: The Machinery of Fear and Division, Seen from the Outside26:00 Shame as a Tool of Control: From Invocators to Beggars for Salvation28:00 Capitalism Inherits the Shame Structure of Religion29:00 "Where Is the Adult?" — Outsourcing Dignity and the Crisis of Sovereignty30:00 The Father Archetype and the Dearth of Authentic Leadership31:00 The King and Queen Were Never Meant to Rule Alone — Mythology as Template32:00 The Knight and the Princess: The Soul as the Virgin in the Tower33:00 Power Without Love Is Abusive. Love Without Power Is Passive.34:00 The Mind Separate from the Ego — Tantra, Breath, and Reconnection35:00 Shiva-Shakti: Cocreation and the Art of Listening Before Acting36:00 Martin's Vision: Building a Utopia at Pachalegria37:00 Zipolite: The Last Bohemian Village38:00 Coexistence, Impermanence, and Preserving Authenticity39:00 Is There Anything We Haven't Covered? — We Need to Be Dreamers40:00 "Dreams Are Private Myths, Myths Are Collective Dreams" — Campbell40:30 Our True Mythology Is Caring, Loving, and Sharing — That's It41:00 Pachalegria as a Living Dream — and Our Responsibility to Keep DreamingResources & LinksPachalegria — Retreat & healing center, Zipolite, Mexico: pachalegria.comMartin Bilodeau — Awaken Your Inner Buddha: A Practical Guide to Modern Tantrism (French)Martin Bilodeau — Chronicles of an Urban Buddhist (French)Alexandra David-Néal — Explorer and writer; first Western woman to enter Lhasa, TibetChögyam Trungpa Rinpoche — Tibetan Buddhist teacher; founder of ShambhalaYogi Bhajan — Kundalini yoga lineageOsho — Mystic and teacherJoseph Campbell — The Hero with a Thousand FacesThe Minotaur myth — Daedalus, Theseus, Ariadne, and the labyrinthBodhicitta — The Buddhist teaching of awakening mind; compassion as the pathOm Mani Padme Hum — The mantra of compassion in Tibetan BuddhismShiva-Shakti — The divine masculine-feminine principle in TantrismAbout Martin BilodeauMartin Bilodeau is a Québécois author, speaker, and spiritual guide whose work bridges social psychology, Tibetan Buddhism, indigenous shamanism, and modern Tantrism. He spent nearly half his life in India, Asia, and traveling the world, and worked for nearly 15 years as an organizer for services supporting homeless, addicted, and delinquent youth. He is the bestselling author of Awaken Your Inner Buddha and Chronicles of an Urban Buddhist (both in French), and the founder of Pachalegria, a retreat and healing center in Zipolite, Mexico. He is also

What does it mean to return to the village?Boston Blake chats with Michael DiPietro and Marcey Donnelly, coauthors of 'The Inside Guide: Breaking Through to Intuitive Wisdom and Inspired Living.' They delve into key themes such as intuitive wisdom, the hero's journey, integrating peak experiences into daily life, and understanding the role of desire and purpose. The conversation also covers their approaches to personal development and their vision for a more conscious, interconnected world. Tune in for practical insights and inspiring stories from two seasoned guides in the realm of inner work.00:00 Introduction of Guests and Their Backgrounds00:40 Michael's Journey and Approach to Inner Work01:41 Marcey's Spiritual Awakening and Transformation03:28 The Birth of Their Collaborative Book07:19 Exploring the Hero's Journey and Integration09:41 Living the Mountaintop Experience in Daily Life19:50 The Role of Myth and Archetypes in Personal Growth22:09 Synchronicity and Flow State26:47 Purpose and Desire in Life37:55 Connecting with Michael and Marcey45:40 Final Thoughts and Closing RemarksThe Inside Guide website: https://insideguideus.comDiscount Coupon Code: GROUP25Learn more about Boston’s free Mythic Burning Man workshop series at https://bostonblake.com/mythic-burn

About This EpisodeThe hero fights. He defeats the villain. He wins — and sometimes that's exactly when things start to fall apart. Cultural mythologist Dr. Jody Bower has been tracing a different story structure for decades, finding it across centuries of women's fiction, in biographies of famous women, in ancient myth, and now in Barbie. The heroine's path moves differently: not through conquest, but through learning. Not by destroying the witch — by going to her, humbling herself, and asking to be taught.Jody is the author of Jane Eyre's Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroine's Story and The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties Become Warrior Goddesses. She holds a PhD in mythological studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute and has spent years tracing what she calls "post-heroic" patterns of power — ways of moving through the world that don't depend on winning, but on discernment. On knowing what has value and choosing more of it.We covered a lot of ground: the shift happening right now from individual to collective heroism in film and story; why Barbie functions as a descent myth; the difference between a leaving story and a descent story and what each one requires; and the deep problem with applying heroic thinking to social and political activism. Near the end, Jody described a near-death experience from a couple of years ago — and what it showed her about the soul, about death, and about the fullness of life.What We CoverJody's mythic origin story. Growing up without religious affiliation but with deep curiosity about how the world came to be — spending weekends at reservation dances with her family, visiting churches and synagogues out of fascination rather than faith. Discovering Jung and dream work in college. The serendipitous meeting that led her to Pacifica and the book that became Jane Eyre's Sisters.The shift in heroic stories. How the last twenty years of superhero cinema have quietly transformed the hero's journey. Love is no longer what the hero earns at the end — it's what distinguishes him from the villain at the outset. Harry Potter wins because of the love held in his heart, not because of his power alone. And the hero is increasingly not a lone individual but a fellowship: Stranger Things, Spider-Man, The Lord of the Rings, even the new Masters of the Universe. The mythic shift from "I" to "we."Barbie and the descent story. Why the Barbie film works as myth and which kind it actually is. Jody draws a distinction between the leaving story — a woman who escapes a constrictive situation to build something new — and the descent story, in which someone who has been over-protected must go down into the dark to find what was missing. Barbie is the descent story. Not everyone needs the same map.Heroic thinking and what it costs us. Heroic thinking — right versus wrong, the single wondrous act, hero worship, the belief that one victory settles things permanently — shows up everywhere in our politics and our activism. Jody traces where it leads: to burnout when the load becomes impossible to carry alone, and in the worst case, to something far darker. The hero who wins either becomes a tyrant or discovers that winning didn't fix it.The heroine's alternative. The heroine doesn't fight the witch. She goes to the witch, humbles herself, and asks to be taught. She's handed impossible tasks — sorting a pile of seeds, separating what has value from what doesn't — and what these tasks teach her is discernment. Not what is evil, but what feeds people. Jody calls this "blameless discernment." The focus isn't on destroying what's bad. It's on choosing and growing what's good.On near-death, mystery, and ecstasy. Jody describes a catastrophic medical event and what she found in the darkness of it — complete peace, a choice, and something she couldn't explain. She also talks about what ecstasy has meant in her life, and why mystery isn't a problem to be solved.Chapters00:00 Welcome01:42 Jody’s mythic origin story08:13 Love as the mark of the hero vs. the villain12:18 From “I” to “we”: the collective hero14:22 Barbie and the descent story18:51 Heroic thinking in politics and activism30:26 The heroine’s alternative31:48 She goes where they tell her never to go33:04 Sorting seeds: discernment over judgment34:22 Blameless discernment43:02 Jody’s near-death experience50:59 On ecstasy53:18 How to find JodyMemorable Quotes"She goes exactly where they tell her never to go." — Jody Bower"She humbles herself before the witch, and she says, teach me." — Jody Bower"The difference between them is that the hero can love." — Jody Bower"Heroic thinking is right and wrong thinking. I'm right. You're wrong." — Jody Bower"Blameless discernment. What do you want to foster in life?" — Jody Bower"The descent to the Cave of the Dark Goddess has no meaning for me because I grew up in that situation." — Jody Bower"I don't have to go down to the cave. I've been there." — Jody Bower"I was present in nothingness. And I was given the choice to go or stay." — Jody Bower"It's a chosen path chosen not out of belief, but out of experience." — Jody BowerResources & LinksDr. Jody Bower: jodybower.comJane Eyre's Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroine's Story — [Amazon / Indiebound]The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties Become Warrior Goddesses — [Amazon / Indiebound]Maureen Murdock — The Heroine's Journey [add link]Kim Hudson — The Virgin's Promise [add link]Christine Downing — [add link]Pacifica Graduate Institute: pacifica.eduSupport the show: bostonblake.com/contribute/More episodes: mythicpodcast.comAbout Dr. Jody BowerDr. Jody Bower is a cultural mythologist with a PhD from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is the author of Jane Eyre's Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroine's Story and The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties Become Warrior Goddesses. She lectures, teaches workshops, and works with writers and filmmakers on archetypal story structure. You can find her at jodybower.com and on LinkedIn.About MythicAncient myths don't stay in the past. They are retold again and again in contemporary media. They also play out in the real world — our relationships, our politics, and in the moments when life suddenly feels larger than ordinary explanation can account for.Mythic is a podcast about meaningful living through the power of myth. I'm Boston Blake — a certified coach, a lifelong student of depth psychology, and someone who has spent most of his adult life studying what makes humans tick. Sometimes I sit down with mythologists, Jungian scholars, artists, and practitioners to trace the archetypal patterns alive in our world right now. Other times I go in alone — following a myth or an archetype wherever it leads, into ancient legend and modern headlines alike.If you've ever felt like there's more going on beneath the surface of your life — and that the right story, told in the right way, might help you understand what it is — this podcast is for you.Journey on.

Author David Berger discusses Task Force Gaea and his mythic influences. Ovid's Metamorphoses, Clash of the Titans, Wonder Woman, and more!About David BergerDavid Berger was the boy under the blanket reading books by flashlight when he should have been sleeping, and he hasn’t stopped reading since. His creative fires started by reading Greek mythology, the stories of Olympian gods and heroes sparking a conflagration of learning that took him through novels—sci-fi, fantasy, or whatever he could find—and that, coupled with his love of comic books, especially Wonder Woman, brought him to writing. The act of putting pen to paper gave him an outlet he had never had, and the inspiration of the Muses pushed him forward.His love of fantasy prompted writing a Greek myth fantasy series, Task Force: Gaea, a Celtic fantasy trilogy beginning with The Quest of Wyndracer and Fyrehunter, as well as an anthology of his own short fiction and poetry, Hippocrene’s Promise. When he’s not teaching or writing, he’s living his best fantasy life playing Dungeons & Dragons.www.davidbergerbooks.comTwitter: CaptW0nd3rKey Moments04:49 - David Berger's origin story09:44 - Task Force Gaea17:19 - Reversing Ovid's Metamorphoses: Artemis and Actaeon, Perseus and Medusa20:38 - Year of Redemption: reflections on teaching high school during the 2020 Covid shutdown26:35 - Clash of the Titans, Perseus is a dick.34:46 - Odysseus, the rise of humanism, and the twilight of the godsRelevant LinksThe Great Greek Myths (Les Grands Mythes) - TV Series - IMDBDavid Berger's official websiteJLA: League of One by Christopher Moeller DC ComicsClash of the Titans (1981) - IMDbMetamorphoses - WikipediaD'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths by Ingri d'Aulaire | GoodreadsHow a Medusa Sculpture From a Decade Ago Became #MeToo Art - The New York TimesMusic composed by Kevin MacLeodHow You Can Support the ShowShare it with friends and on social mediaLeave a review wherever you get your podcasts.Become a patron by making a one-time contribution or sustaining subscriberSupport Mythic