Myth Awakens

Mythical Story

I avoided myths throughout my young adulthood. I was neck deep in fundamental Christianity, which, at the time, placed myth firmly in the forbidden zone; evil stories with the power to corrupt. Years later I stumbled on to G.K. Chesterton. In one of his books he describes myth as a universal foundation for belief. I took his comments as an admonition to explore our need to get to the root truths contained in myth and to take care not to dismiss the stories of myth in some misguided effort to contain truth within the bounds of linear thinking, and in doing so limit our knowledge.

I began reading books like Mythology by Edith Hamilton, which focuses mainly on Greek and Roman mythology, then The Norse Myths by Kevin Crossley-Holland, new to me and a real delight. I found these books to be little gems, so very rich. They were the beginnings of my stockpile of resources concerning myth.

Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces helped me to recognize the connection between myth and universal themes that are constant throughout cultures and throughout history. And he reaffirmed Carl Jung’s connection between mythical archetypes and dreams, both speaking the language of the unconscious.

The Cry for Myth by Rollo May is my most recent read. In the opening pages May laments the loss of myth in our current culture or at the very least its trivialization and our failure to recognize myth as a necessary building block for an emotionally, socially and spiritually healthy culture. Without myth as an underpinning, whether Christian, Jewish, Greek or those of indigenous peoples, without myth we lack the depth needed for shaping values and the imagination that has the creative depth to envision a desirable future.

Honoring myth also enables us to recognize the significance of our own identity, our own story and to make the necessary connection between it and the larger story, the universal one; the one we long to understand and participate in.

In the film The Never Ending Story, a young boy finds a magical book and is quite literally drawn into its story. He finds himself living a mythical narrative in which he is inexplicably a participant. In it he discovers that he has a significant role. He can choose to make a difference, which will change everything in the story and which has the power to turn destruction into regeneration.

This is our story too. Every human being has a story, which in some mythical way has a measure of influence on the larger story.

In The Cry for Myth Rollo May says “…empirical language refers to objective facts, myth refers to the quintessence of human experience, the meaning and significance of human life.” For writers this is a lodestar.

Our connection to myth enables us to recognize the universality and depth of meaning already inherent in our world. It allows us to awaken, as though someone has just turned up the volume on high-quality surround-a–sound and the tune we hear is resonating with something in our core. The creative possibilities that open up to us in that kind of clarity are endless.

What mythical story is calling you into its narrative?

Writing Prompt For The Week: Larger Story