If you live with the myths in your mind, you will find yourself always in mythological situations. They cover everything that can happen to you. And that enables you to interpret the myth in relation to life, as well as life in relation to myth. ~ Joseph Campbell
I am inspired by the wisdom revealed to me in story, though I need to remind myself to translate it into daily living. Because of my life-long love of literature, leading me to a career in teaching and writing, I listen when people share their stories with me. I contemplate the nuggets of gold mined from within their stories, as well as from world literature, sacred texts, the "book of nature," and the starry heavens--all sources of wisdom to be drawn upon, as far as I am able—falling short, no doubt.
Helpful to me has been the work of Joseph Campbell, who suggests that we think of our "being" as a circle, with a dot at the center representing our self or soul, with a line above it through the circle. Above the line represents our waking consciousness; below it the subconscious. Within the subconscious is what Carl Jung referred to as the archetypal realm of images, symbols, patterns and ideas, which are both personal and universal. They exist at the ground of our being, influencing and informing us in myriad ways, and can come more to consciousness as we see or experience them around us, in nature, art, music, and other sources, including our imagination, memory, dreams and visions. They also appear in myths and literature and are felt in our desires and fears.
I associate Campbell's paradigm with what he also refers to in his The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, a three-volume work in comparative mythology in which he sees confirmation “of the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology, but also in its spiritual history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony.” This unity is expressed in a global distribution of such themes as, “fire theft, deluge, land of the dead, virgin birth, and resurrected hero…appearing everywhere in new combinations….No human society has yet been found in which such mythological motifs have not been rehearsed in liturgies; interpreted by seers, poets, theologians, or philosophers; presented in art; magnified in song; and ecstatically experienced in life empowering visions.” This "deep, deep well of the past” is in our cultural/geographic roots, in our biological, psychological and even prehistoric origins. Wired into our psyche and physiognomy is our ability to both create and respond to images, symbols and stories--the metaphors and allegories of our experience of being alive.
How do we become more aware of the archetypal, subconscious realm wherein that ancestral memory exists? By living our own story with an open mind and heart. Life is a hero's journey, as Campbell has noted, comparable to those in the great epics. We all participate in this heroic "quest" which can move us toward consciousness and conscience, as we live through the initiation of life's vicissitudes, challenges trials, loss, ultimately coming to terms with our own mortality. We also are heirs to the gifts of beauty, wonder, joy and love along the way. Spirituality and psychology weave together when we realize that archetypal images and ideas exist both in us and apart from us. The more we are aware of that realm and explore it, the more we may awaken and begin to be guided to "translate" what we find and be comforted to know we are interconnected--past, present and future with everything that is.
Is this the goal of life? In great part, yes, I believe so. To the extent we are able to think expansively, imaginatively, without boundaries, we may enter that part of the circle which is both individual and universal in wisdom and mystery, sometimes dark, sometimes light. In this way we refine and define our individuality—seeing and becoming who we are and wish to be.
I have learned so much through what is revealed in story through the ages, my own, as well as others' stories. I am inspired by and in awe of how we may travel back and forth across that line, a thin veil, between the waking conscious and the subconscious to discover that, from time immemorial, we have been, are and will be connected, unified in our humanity, sharing this one precious and fragile planet and infinite cosmos.
As I said in the opening of this musing, I have to remind myself to translate, not once and for all, but ever and again what I experience, and what I have learned into every day living practice, however meagerly expressed.
I am striving not so much to live by story and myth, but to live with them, allowing them to live in me.
