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Our notion of "self" is one of the deep and enduring mysteries of human existence. The concept of self is both obvious and unfathomable, the meanings elusive and diverse. It can range from the concrete "me" to the illusory-- the self as a shifting fabrication of preferences, experiences, and perceptions. To speak mythologically of the "self" is to speak of our yearning for soul, for depth, for the direct experience of our own inner unfolding. This process is guided by that part of us that knows our unique place in the grand scheme of things. Many of our myths and stories describe this quest for a vision and relationship to self that satisfies our longing. In this episode, I tell you  "The Six Companions" fairy tale.Support the show

Birds have a unique place in our cultural imagination. Observing their habits, our ancestors learned about home building, foraging, and partnership. Their presence inspired our earliest art forms and culture. Today birds still teach us about sorrow and death, love and joy, and the beautiful power found in song, in singing. We're also learning new lessons from birds, about intelligence, cognition, and language. "The Nightingale" is one of Hans Christian Andersen lesser-known stories. It's quirky and funny and an interesting reflection on the difference between art and artifice, nature and culture. I hope you enjoy the story. “Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”-- Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on VoiceSupport the show

"The spirit wanders, comes here now, now here, and occupies whatever frame it pleases. From beasts it passes into human bodies, and from our bodies into beasts, but never perishes." ----Joseph Campbell Animals have a significant presence in our mythologies. The meanings we ascribe to them illuminates our uneasy relationship to our other-than-human companions, and offer us a way to think creatively about our place in the world and human nature.  The exploration in this episode revolves around two stories, "The Tigress" jataka and a fairytale called "The Three Languages."Support the show

Fables are probably the best known and most widely used stories in our mythological traditions. These are simple stories that frequently include animal characters. What is their appeal? Do they offer us more than a laugh? In this episode we make some leaps, from a fable about frogs to practical philosophy, to an angry goddess, an ancient Greek comedy, and the mythological history of frogs. I hope you find something entertaining and useful.“We are rag dolls made out of many ages and skins, changelings who have slept in wood nests or hissed in the uncouth guise of waddling amphibians. We have played such roles for infinitely longer ages than we have been men. Our identity is a dream. We are process, not reality, for reality is an illusion of the daylight — the light of our particular day.”-- Loren Eisley, The Unexpected UniverseSupport the show

This is our second and final podcast in celebration of National Poetry month. I devote the April episodes to National Poetry month, to honor and recognize the shared origins of poetry, myth, and song.  I also want to share some of the power of poetry. A poem, like a song or a story, can evoke a deep and necessary sense of the rightness of things. In his work titled The Relevance of the Beautiful,philosopher Hans Gadamer writes "[...] the experience of the beautiful, and particularly the beautiful in art, is the invocation of a potentially whole and holy order of things, wherever it may be found."  Attention to beauty is one way to find the quiet eye in the middle of our collective storms. I need the perspective and peace of mind that communion with a poem offers. Maybe you do too.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

"Let the beauty we love be what we do.There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."  --Rumi In the last podcast, "A Terrible Love of War, A Culture of Peace," I talked about the need to build a culture and societies that are so satisfying and compelling that we are unwilling to sacrifice them or our precious lives to the destruction and death brought by war.  I imagine the time that we spend together here today with these poems, as an offering to such a culture. I hope these poems bring you some respite, inspiration, a deeper appreciation for the beauty in your life. Perhaps you'll find a new poet to investigate on your own.April is National Poetry month here in the United States.  Let's celebrate.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

In 2004, James Hillman published a difficult and though-provoking investigation of war titled A Terrible Love of War.  He writes: "I believe that we can never speak sensibly of peace or disarmament unless we enter into this love of war. Unless we enter into the martial state of soul, we cannot comprehend its pull [...] To know war we must enter its love. No psychic phenomenon can be truly dislodged from its fixity unless we first move the imagination into its heart..."  In this episode, I approach Hillman and "A Terrible Love of War" with these questions: What is "the terrible love of war?"  How does Hillman ask us to imagine it? What can an archetypal perspective on the phenomenon of war tell us about its nature, and our own?  Can this perspective help us, as citizens and mortal humans, to create a culture of peace? I welcome your comments and questions. Thanks for listening.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

Nations. Sovereignty. War. Democracy. Citizenship. I. We. Unconscious monotheism. Polytheistic consciousness. Diversity. Complexity.Fluid myths. Culture building. Trickster.Multiple meanings. Art. Some thoughts and two poems.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

“The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow, and there is no humor in heaven.”  ~ Mark TwainWhen we get stuck, when life hands us a challenging situation and there's no clear way out, our best tool is the ability to shift perspective. To see things from a different angle.Laughter can help us make such a shift.  So can a story. The answer might not come immediately and yet, the shift is essential. In this episode, we'll explore this process with the aid of a fairy tale called "The Bee, the Harp, the Mouse, and the Bum-Clock." Whatever you're dealing with right now, I hope you find something useful in this episode. Thanks for listening.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

My jumping off point today is a story that's generating a lot of heated debate right now, the movie "Don't Look Up."  I'm going to make some references to this movie, but this podcast is not about it, per se. So, if you haven't seen the movie, no worries. And if you have, and are perhaps tired of or already feel deeply embroiled in the conversation that it has catalyzed, I hope to take you in a somewhat different direction.  We're going to wander with the Trickster and see what he/she can tell us about the process of cultural change....Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole.” ― C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul The creation and maintenance of a shadow aspect of the personal and collective psyche is an inevitable part of psychic life.  When consciousness and a sense of personal identity emerges, so does a shadow. Recognizing your shadow and maintaining a healthy relationship with it is a central psychospiritual task. Owning your shadow is essential to self-awareness, ethical behavior, and psychological wholeness. The dangerous machinations of the psychological shadow are revealed in this creepy adult fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.  "If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against… Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day." --- C. G. Jung, “Psychology and Religion” CW 11Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

Here we are, on the cusp on the new year, 2022.  Around the world, throughout history, this is a time to rest. To pause and take stock. To restore dreams of harmony. To hope. To begin again. In this episode, I offer a few thoughts on the ancient ritual of this sacred pause, the role of myth, and our need for "happily ever after." Thank you for listening and warm wishes for a very happy New Year.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

The cycle of material and psychic life is often encapsulated as life, death, and rebirth. This cycle is the mythological context of the solstice. But in her formulation of the ancient triple goddess, Marija Gimbutas writes of life, death and regeneration. Rebirth and regeneration are not quite the same, are they?  This is the starting point of this episode, which includes the fairy tale  "The Handless Maiden" and reflections on the importance of a regeneration mindset as 2021 comes to an end.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

  Part 2 of "Iron John," a fairy tale popularized by Robert Bly, and a meditation on outer riches, inner rewards, self-worth, and the quest to own your gold.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

The words "this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours" have been part of my introduction for this podcast for years. In my experience, this is an accurate picture and yet the meaning and context for the descriptors: "wide," "beautiful," and "crazy,"--especially "crazy," ---has changed over time. Many things happen that surprise me. Developments in all areas of life that I didn't imagine, let alone predict. A level of chaos and uncertainty that I never expected to entertain in my lifetime.  Among the pieces of good news, and there are many, is this: we're in the boat together my friend. Called to re-evaluate and re-imagine what has importance and value. Called to change. The company that you keep and the places that you look for guidance will determine how you feel about this present moment. This line of thinking brought me to the story that I want to tell you today, a fairy tale called "Iron John," or "Iron Hans" if you look for the Grimm Brother’s version. This fairy tale resurfaced in the popular imagination in early the 1990s when Robert Bly shared it with men in need of story work. Bly also published a book under that title that you might find interesting.  I'm going to tell the story in two parts over two episodes, so you and I both have some time to let the details and images of the story sink in. Time to imagine with and through it. This is part 1.  I'll tell the rest of "Iron John" in the next episode. Now on with the story....Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

A myth from the Aztec creation cycle, the mythology of bones, and what it might mean to be in service to life today.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

The Celtic story of Cerridwen and her cauldron calls to me as Halloween/Samhain approaches. She's a witch in search of a potion and yet, the tug of the story is deeper. Seasonal changes amplify the energies of betwixt and between that give rise to current challenges. This is a good time to examine your creative dreams.  What do you long to bring into the world? Who are you willing to become in the process? Where will you turn for inspiration and guidance? Your ideas and expectations about creativity, and the images of the process that you hold in mind, determine the way that it will unfold. Cerridwen's story has helped me shift my perspective and listen more carefully to messages from the imaginal realm, from soul.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

Personal transformation. Do we really want it? What can inspire that deep change, and how far are we willing to go in courting those powers?Support the show

"He is a young god.Mythologically obscure,always just arriving at some new placeto disrupt the status quo,wearing the start of a smile." --from Ann Carson' translation "The Bakkhai" In the northern hemisphere we began our collective descent into winter's darkness, with the fall equinox on Wednesday September 22nd. This is a good time to meditate on the most famous myth of the god Dionysus, intoxicating god of the night. It's a play written by Euripides in the 5th century BCE called "The Bacchae." Athenians found the cautionary message of this play subversive. It disturbed their image of Greek reason, democracy, social order, and power. The women don't stay in their place. It ends on a gruesome note. A few years after the play was performed, Athens fell to Sparta and their empire building was over. Euripides was in self-imposed exile, and perhaps he saw something that his fellow citizens could not...Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/mythmatterspodcast)

This episode is devoted to the Greek god Dionysus, whom Walter Otto aptly named “the epiphany god,” and his wife Ariadne. Dionysus was called “the Loosener” or lysios in Greek, the loosener of limbs and of minds. The Greek word lysios comes from "lysis," which means “setting free" or "unraveling.” I want to pick up this thread to reflect a bit more on the nature of Dionysian loosening and epiphanies, by spending some time with the myth of Ariadne. Who was Ariadne, to be partner to this god? Ariadne like Dionysus, is likely an older deity than the Olympians, one with much more significance than her place in Greek mythology suggests. Thanks for listening. "If the horizon hadn't swallowed you, I'd believe in it still, let it hold me like a wall..."  ---Ioanna-Veronika Warwick  from "Ariadne Thanks Theseus for Abandoning Her"   Support the show