As we begin a new year, our calendar seems to have a magical effect upon us, triggering a certain archetypal response in our souls which may be appropriate for all new beginnings and ends. Thus our Gregorian calendar, with its hidden archetypal background, is preparing us to face the new challenges and problems of the new year. Although no one doubts the cosmic reality of the next sunrise, at least for several billion years, the length of our individual lives is but a flash of lightning. The question of our own mortality, or the mortality of those we love, is thus riddled with doubt and fear. We all know that only a few precious turns around the sun are granted to us, and we never know which rotation will be our last tour. In the words of the mad Ophelia: “Lord, we know what we are but know not what we may be.” (Hamlet  4.5, lines 48–49) Old or young, sick or healthy, rich or poor, no one knows the expiration date that will be added to their epitaph. To mark in advance our own calendar run with the words consummatum est (“it is finished”) remains beyond our mortal grasp ”—the rest is silence.” (5.2, line 395) Although the knowledge of our death may be denied to us by the order of things, it bleeds into that tremendous and fascinating mystery of being alive between birthlife and death. As Shakespeare again expressed it in Hamlet, lacking such knowledge of our death, we must learn to understand the “special providence in the fall of a sparrow”: If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. (5.2, lines 234 -237) The awareness of our mortality is a double-edged sword: it may lead to the realization of profound gratitude, that every day is a gift and a miracle, but it may also lead to a heightened awareness of the immense background of death and nothingness that engulfs every star. To the extent that we are alive, therefore, the light has won its vindication over death’s dominion. But Death, the Unconscious, is all around us, even in the physical form of “dark matter.” Likewise, the beginning of a new year represents an immense gift which opens the door to infinite possibilities—including the ones that may prove to be our downfall. Such is the standard image of the Fool from the tarot deck: a youth happily walking toward a cliff, only one more step to make before falling into the abyss. In its mythic dimensions, the Fool represents a certain archetypal constellation in which great danger is combined with free-spirited naivete. This androgynous figure represents youthful innocence, a childlike stranger free from the cares of this world. They strut down a path, with their gaze to the sky, dancing toward the precipice of life and ruin. The presence of the dog at his side, as if warning the Fool of the impending folly, is an emblem of instinct, the connection to the earth, which the wonderstruck hero sorely lacks. For in its inferior pole, the Fool is indistinguishable from literal foolishness, reckless abandon, and extreme risk-taking. Also closely associated with madness, as in Batman’s Joker figure, the Fool can exhibit a kind of suicidal or even criminal death drive, a compulsion or addiction, which leads the youth to walk over the cliff. The Fool thus contains divine and demonic aspects that must be taken seriously and with great discrimination—lest we ourselves fall into the trap of the Fool! For the edge of this precipice is quite real today for individual egos as it is for nations. Indeed, it involves the entire social collective of humanity at large. In our own times we are dealing with end-of-time questions such as the ones brought out in books like Hegemony or Survival and The Precipice by Noam Chomsky. There are certain ecological and geopolitical conditions we face today that point to a whole constellation of apocalyptic signs, impending catastrophes at scales that have never been imagined. These existential conditions, aloofness of which drives the Fool to the precipice, seriously put human survival into question. For our present world situation is not simply another period of tensions and confusions like the ones we’ve had in the past. Today we face absolutely unprecedented conditions which our ancestors could have barely imagined in their myths about the end of the world. In the present horizon of mythic history, it is not an exaggeration to say that we are living in end times, breathing a toxic cultural atmosphere, with mass-scale disasters looming on every side. Taken together, it is hard to avoid the feeling that we are passing through a possibly terminal stage of human history. Faced with the new horsemen of the apocalypse–Climate Catastrophe (Famine), Nuclear Annihilation (War), New Pandemics (Disease), Social and Economic Breakdown (Death) – our civilization as a whole stands in the situation of the Fool about to walk off the cliff. Thus the Fool perfectly mirrors our current existential situation as a species, the understanding of which is made clear by its mythohistorical dimensions. As Campbell states of the primary functions of mythology: The first function of a mythology is to reconcile waking consciousness to the mysterium tremendum et fascinans of this universe as it is: the second being to render an interpretive total image of the same, as known to contemporary consciousness. Shakespeare’s definition of the function of his art, “to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature,” is thus equally a definition of mythology. It is the revelation to waking consciousness of the powers of its own sustaining source. (The Masks of God, Volume 4: Creative Mythology, 13) Joseph Campbell thus credits Hamlet’s speech with the highest honor that a mythologist can give, that of providing a definition of mythology itself. In the culminating volume of Masks of God, Vol 4: Creative Mythology, Campbell comes home to the creative foundation that makes mythology indistinguishable from art. To the question, what is art? Campbell directly answers: “it is mythology itself.” Creative mythology, whose reflective function it is, like Hamlet’s mirror, to imitate in the medium of consciousness the archetypal powers of its own unconscious source.

Every year’s end, I and the inner female circle of my family draw animal cards as inspiration for the upcoming year. For 2023, my card is the otter. I loved welcoming this joyful creature who, according to the explanation in the book, represents “absolute bliss.” So I was in the playful energy of a child when I started thinking about the challenge of writing this essay. This year, we are invited to consider the images of the tarot. We’re starting the year with card number 0, The Fool. To be frank, it is one of my favorite tarot cards. I got into my hands the familiar Rider-Waite deck, in which The Fool card shows the sun, the universal symbol of the source of life, shining brightly. Despite that the enterprise seems to be blessed by the sun itself, the male figure is standing at the edge of a cliff. As the young man gazes upward, as if lost in thoughts, there is the suggestion of imminent danger. The white dog that is a little behind seems to be trying to alert him of what is coming ahead. Animals tend to be symbols for our instincts, so it would be a good idea to listen to them whenever we need guidance in our life journey. In his right hand and across his shoulder, he carries his possessions in a small bag on a stick. Not amounting to much yet, but certainly things related to power, achievements, goals, and things that matter to him in this phase. This initial reading of the symbol speaks to the first part of life, as Jung wrote in a 1931 essay entitled, “The Stages of Life.” (“The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche,” Volume 8, The Collected Works of Carl Jung) The Swiss psychiatrist uses the sun metaphor to characterize the lifespan: “In the morning it rises from the nocturnal sea of unconsciousness and looks upon the wide, bright world which lies before it in an expanse that steadily widens the higher it climbs in the firmament.” (§ 778) We are talking, therefore, about the floating islands of consciousness that emerge from the child's unconscious and gradually build the ego. As Campbell said to Bill Moyers in The Power of the Myth, in the Western world, we are not intended to neutralize our ego as in the Eastern traditions, for a well-developed ego is necessary to face life's struggles, especially when it comes to having a job, a healthy romantic relationship, raising children, or running a business. But as Campbell says, the ego can become a real dragon, in the sense that it may hold us in and not let us go beyond our beliefs, established objectives, and society’s conventions, pinning us down in a smaller life than the one we could be living. How to slay the dragon in us? Moyers states that Campbell remarked on the “soul’s high adventure,” to which the mythologist replies: “My general formula for my students is follow your bliss, find where it is, and don't be afraid to follow it.” And of all the amazing phrases Campbell uttered, perhaps this one represents the heart of his teachings, which, for me, are both practical and profound. If the individual has the courage to follow this advice, The Fool card has a chance to become tarot card 22—traditionally, it ends with card 21, The World—in a reversal that mirrors the complete journey, the ultimate achievement. As Jung says in the prologue of Memories, Dreams and Reflections, “My life is a story of the self-realization of the unconscious.” So we have the same card in front of us, but the meaning may be entirely different. The man stepping to the edge of the cliff now makes us remember the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the famous Leap of Faith scene. There is a previously unseen path ahead to what seems to be the end of the track. As the way forward is not visible, it is necessary to have a good deal of trust in the unknown to discover what is still veiled, and be open to letting go of things that were important but no longer serve us. Now, if we pay attention carefully, we can see that The Fool is holding a rose in his left hand. In Jungian theory, the left side of the body is always attributed to the feminine, the unconscious, or little things that are not that much praised in our times, but still they express the voice of the soul. And above all flowers, and especially the rose, are connected to love. With Christmas still fresh in our minds, I remember the 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life with James Stewart. What really matters, Zuzu’s petals, takes up very little space. This might be one of the positive dimensions of experience and aging. As Jung wrote: “A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.” (§ 787) In between The Fool card as number 0 or as number 22, the journey of life takes place. In the audio Tarot & the Christian Myth, Campbell recalls the first time he saw a tarot deck at Esalen, and he reminds us that these symbols are referring to a basic principle: the elevation of consciousness and, consequently, spiritual life. Therefore, this journey represents an illumination that is possible and can be achieved. In a sense, it is only one small step away.

I am thrilled to write on the MythBlast Series’ monthly theme, “The Heroism of Failure.” Especially on the failure part, because I feel so qualified in the matter—so much relevant content from my past to choose from! Strange though it may sound, this assessment evokes in me, for better and for worse, an appreciation for myself: for having passed through said terrain, and for the failures for selecting me, so to speak, for deepening. In recent years I’ve begun saying, “The blessing and the curse walk hand in hand.” But this is no new discovery, as all opposites follow this pattern of living together under the same roof: hot and cold in the house of temperature, happy and sad in the house of emotion, and so on. However, by recognizing this phenomenon and embracing the viewpoint that failure and success cannot be wholly separated, we preserve their relationship, and do so within their natural environment. This pattern arises frequently in mythology, in literature, and in life—these successful failures, replete with surprise, ambiguity, and no lack of irony, especially when the narrative involves agents of prophecy and fate. For now, though, the practice of merely seeking the gifts that come with a failure helps one avoid sinking too deep into depression, regret, self-abasement, and the like. All of these, when in excess, are a kind of narcissism: an excessive self-centeredness on content that happens to be negative instead of positive. On the other hand, attentiveness simply to the presence of potential hidden values in failure invites such allies as thoughtfulness, reflection, and hope. But, even more valuable, this attention prompts a conscious capacity to initiate new perspectives, spacious perspectives, which are exceptionally effective in evading the confinement that accompanies one-sidedness. Conversely, this practice conditions one to keep an eye out for the (usually surreptitious) dangers that inevitably come riding in on the coattails of even our most magnificent successes—indeed, especially in our most magnificent successes. I’m reminded of a seminar James Hillman hosted over a decade ago. We had just accomplished something of value, figured something out, though I forget what it was because he quickly followed with: “Well, that’s just great. Now, if we could somehow snatch some defeat from this victory.” Of course we all laughed at this for a long time—this essentially being ourselves and our chronic inability to recognize the gifts in failure. Initially, I had intended to focus on the obvious gifts failure brings like character-building, patience, and wisdom, but now I feel it more valuable to camp out on the expansion of perspective—on taking responsibility for our own liberation (which is the only way individuation works, anyway). The perspective part is straightforward enough, being that we always—as in, “perpetually”—have one. Just as our perspectives perpetually have us. But what of the expansion element that opens more inclusive and comprehensive directions? For this, let’s turn to the shaman, who Mircea Eliade describes as “healer and psychopomp . . . because he commands the techniques of ecstasy . . . because his soul can safely abandon his body and roam vast distances, penetrate the underworld and rise to the sky” (Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy 182). Before proceeding further, it’s important to note that “ecstasy,” which is generally taken to mean something like “magnificently happy,” descends from the Greek ekstasis, literally “to stand outside of oneself.” It is in this sense that Eliade wields the word when describing the ecstasy of the shaman, whose healing-work requires vast travel of a deeply psychic nature—and let me remind, the literal translation of psyche is “soul.” Furthermore, the shaman’s travel to the vast “out there” transpires simultaneously within the mystical geography of the vast “in here”—that is, in psyche. This paradoxical dynamic is addressed in the depth-psychological tenet that psyche is within us and we are within it. Be that as it may, I’m guessing most of us are not shamans by trade, spending our evenings in caves hunched over small fires, periodically sailing out of our bodies to consult the stars. So how do we relate to this figure? Again, psychologically. In Flight of the Wild Gander: Selected Essays 1944-1968, Joseph Campbell highlights this shared ground: “The shaman,” he writes “is one who, as a consequence of a personal psychological crisis, has gained a certain power of his own” (126). We have the standard catalysts for the psychological crises that initiate a shaman into power— severe illnesses, getting struck by lightning, seizures, falling off a cliff—events that most people would categorize as failures. But for those of us who know better, must we leap from cliffs in lightning storms to reap the reward of ecstatic technique? Short (and best) answer: No. Psychological crisis is commonplace enough, even little ones, and provide us ample primateria to work with. Consider the proverbial “troubled artist,” one for whom many believe it’s the trouble that drives the art. I happen to think it’s the earnestness to heal (albeit prompted in no small part by the trouble) that does the driving. Like the shaman, the artist can travel beyond, expand their perspectives miles above the crisis, and often without the need to directly address the crisis. They heal through the simple act of making. Nonetheless, I would be wary in asking to write poetry like Pound and Plath, novels like Tolstoy and Woolfe, or to paint like O’Keefe or van Gogh, lest I invite with it a magnitude of psychological crisis that far exceeds my ambition or calling. But if one is neither artist nor shaman, no worries! Stick with the psychological. All of us have our bittersweet neuroses—those persistent symptoms acting like one long, drawn-out crisis, initiating us into the business of “ecstasy” and self-healing. And let’s be sure to remember: we are not beholden to these catalysts just because they got us “here.” As Jung shares in his Memories, Dreams, Reflections: “If they [those afflicted by neuroses] are enabled to develop into more spacious [emphasis mine] personalities, the neurosis generally disappears” (140). Thank you for reading, and may you have an ecstatic day!

The inscription on the curved aluminum surface reads simply: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” Signed,— alongside signatures from the three astronauts—Richard Nixon. It’s quite a memorial for a President some would consider unworthy of such recognition. Seriously, even if you’re a Republican, this out-Rushmores Rushmore. You know whose name does not appear on the moon? God’s name was excluded from the plaque by the order of NASA’s assistant administrator for public affairs. He absolutely denied Richard Nixon’s explicit order that the plaque should include a reference to the Almighty; a Nixon aide had scribbled the reference to a deity so that the plaque would have read “We came in peace, under God, for all mankind.” “God?” asked the assistant administrator.  “What God?” After all, he reasoned, “this is a universal thing. What about the people on earth who do not worship our God?” And Buddhists. What about Buddhists?They don’t believe in any God at all, or so the assistant had been told. Joseph Campbell was among the billions with eyes glued on his television set that July evening over fifty years ago and his sentiments were in perfect accord with the NASA functionary resisting Nixon’s order. Campbell believed that, quoting Buckminster Fuller, “all humanity is about to be born in an entirely new relationship to the universe.” (Myths to Live By, 253) Myths would die, new ones arise. Prayers would be re-written. There is an attitude, shared by Campbell I believe, that living myth can never be in contradiction to scientific fact. Indeed, the idea is canonized in his second function of myth, the cosmological function which states that scientific perception and mythic response are mutually supportive. Some four thousand years ago, Sumerian skywatchers determined that the sun, moon and five visible planets moved at mathematically predictable rates, and Sumerian priests devised rituals and vestments to reflect this sublime cosmic order. They felt the need to reconcile scientific reality with religious identity, much like Nixon insisting that “God’s name” be included on the lunar plaque. Episcopalians, likewise, were quick in the effort to bring the ancient prayers into line with the realities seen on television in July 1969. They changed their Eucharistic prayer, and some say it was a direct result of the famous “earthrise” photograph sent back from the moon mission. The author of the prayer (and writers everywhere might wonder how you get a gig writing prayers) was named Howard E. Galley, Jr. and I cannot imagine his state of mind. The revised Book of Common Prayer for 1979 included Galley’s oddly moving invocation to God in which the faithful attest that At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home. By your will they were created and have their being. From the primal elements you brought forth the human race, and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill. You made us the rulers of creation. But we turned against you, and betrayed your trust; and we turned against one another. Have mercy, Lord, for we are sinners in your sight. Some call it the “Star Wars Prayer,” an attempt by a member of the Anglican communion to find a myth to live by in the context of an epic shift in human consciousness, from an earth-borne stargazer to a Magellanic voyager looking back at a planet once called home only to realize that the prayers will have to be revised and stories discarded. The moon was in ancient times regarded, and in part of the world still is regarded, as the Mansion of the Fathers, the residence of the souls of those who have passed away and are there waiting to return for rebirth. (Myths to Live By, 235) But cosmologies come and go. “All the old bindings are broken,” Campbell wrote, describing his reaction to a new world order. With the first boot planted in the dust of Tranquility Base, the moon myths seemed to expire as if they were as dependent upon oxygen as the men leapfrogging across its pitted surface. Just as the Church had to re-evaluate its simple cosmology (heaven up, hell down) in the aftermath of Copernicus’ heliocentric theories, so all the great traditions faced a new reckoning that July. When Apollo 11 sent back that single image of the earth rising above a lifeless lunar landscape we saw the writing on the wall. All binary wisdom was turned on its head by the singularity of earth in space, an earth without borders or spheres of religious influence. From this new point of view, in which all people are necessarily joined in common cause to preserve life on a single planet, the idea of mutual survival makes claims of tribal exceptionalism look exceptionally short sighted, even absurd. There were no chosen peoples from this vantage point. There were no sacred centers. “Cosmological centers now are any- and everywhere. The earth is a heavenly body, most beautiful of all, and all poetry now is archaic that fails to match the wonder of this view.” (Myths to Live By, 237) Myth, unencumbered with unreasonable expectations of historicity, no longer confused with scientific truth itself, realized its true role in human affairs telling us “…in picture language of powers of the psyche to be recognized and integrated in our lives, powers that have been common to the human spirit forever, and which represent that wisdom of the species by which man has weathered the millenniums” (Myths to Live By, 14). The stories themselves, arising in the troubled sleep of prehistoric cave dwellers or in the fervid minds of nomads wandering unincorporated deserts, stories which somehow still abide with us in our cities and suburbs, will be repurposed appropriately. There are myths and legends of the Virgin Birth, of Incarnations, Deaths and Resurrections, Second Comings, Judgments, and the rest, in all the great traditions. And since such images stem from the psyche, they refer to the psyche. They tell us of its structure, its order and its forces in symbolic terms. (Myths to Live By, 253) And religious orthodoxy, like a solid rocket booster of which we have no further need, plummets into the sea of discarded belief.

This month's MythBlast Series highlighted text is Joseph Campbell's Myths To Live By. I leafed through my copy in Portuguese and nothing struck me. I like to think about things that make me curious to know more, and apparently there were no triggers there. Therefore, I decided to dive into the English edition, which is richly illustrated. And right away an image from Chapter II, The Emergence of Mankind, took my breath away. There it was, emerging from limestone, a Venus that I had not yet been introduced to: the Venus of Laussel. My mind was filled with images of other elder figurines I already knew. I confess that, whenever I travel, if I know there are any of these Paleolithic ladies nearby, I make certain to pay my respects. This was the case with the Venus of Willendorf, my favorite, at the Natural History Museum in Vienna (Naturhistorisches Museum). Twice I've been mesmerized for hours in front of that tiny 11.1 cm figurine. More recently, in 2020, I paid tribute to the charming Dame à la Capuche or Vénus de Brassempouy, a 3.65 cm miniature in the shape of a female bust, carved in mammoth ivory, with the delicate and precise representation of hair or a cap. It is housed in the Musée des Antiquités Nationales, also known as the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale, one of the main French archeology museums located at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the department of Yvelines, about 19 km west of Paris. On the same occasion, I visited the space where another Paleolithic celebrity is located, the Venus of Lespugue, a 14.7 cm ivory figurine that is in the Musée de l'Homme, in Paris. It was not on display at the time, due to repairs being made to the building next door. The grand old lady was too precious to risk suffering any microfractures due to eventual building shakes. And to my delight, in the original edition of Campbell's book, there was the Venus of Laussel, also known as "woman with a horn”. I immediately tried to find out more about her. It was discovered in 1909 by Dr. Lalanne, in the so-called "Grand Abri," located at the archaeological site of Laussel in the town of Marquay, in the French Dordogne. It is currently housed in the Musée d'Aquitaine in Bordeaux, the center of a famous wine region in southwest France. Dr. Lalanne described it as a 46 cm figurine carved from a block of hard limestone, depicting a naked woman with a bison horn in her right hand. The head, like dolls in the anthroposophy tradition, has no traces of a face – a common link between the Venuses in general. Shaped in profile, it has an elongated and elegant neck. From the chest sprout two long breasts, oval and heavy. Dr. Lalanne defined her belly as something pronounced but well proportioned. The right arm falls naturally along the torso, with the hand finely detailed. Except for the head, the whole body is polished. A naked woman... While reading Campbell's book I suddenly realized that on the previous night I had a dream in which a woman would participate in a female ritual with Indian women. She was unclothed, which seemed natural in such a ritual, but the Indian women were not totally devoid of clothes, since they had their loincloths and headdresses. Feeling exposed, the woman sought to return to a known shelter in search of something to cover her nudity. In the dream, the woman was ashamed and looking to cover her naked body like Eve in the Bible. I freely associated it with the all too many concerns women have these days, immersed as most are in a competitive world of unprecedented speed due to technologies, a world of work, still with its glass ceilings. And not least, to the current world political situation with its turn to the radical right, and the consequences for women in such positions. In other words, I was thinking about the contemporary social powers that are affecting women in general. But Campbell highlighted another aspect related to the Venus of Laussel, with its estimated age of 20,000 years: The female natural powers. And it seems to me important to remark that, whereas when masculine figures appear in the wall paintings of the same period they are always clothed in some sort of costume, these female figurines are absolutely naked, simply standing, unadorned. This says something about the psychological and consequently mythical values of, respectively, the male and the female presences. (xx) Standing unadorned this way, the naked woman of the dream was in her proper state. Would she remain so in the current times? In my point of view, this issue of identification with feminine and masculine might be often misunderstood in Campbell, due to the spirit of the times he lived in. Accordingly, it’s important to understand well his perspective: The Woman is immediately mythic in herself and is experienced as such, not only as the source and giver of life, but also in the magic of her touch and presence. The accord of her seasons with the cycles of the moon is a matter of mystery too. Whereas the male, costumed, is one who has gained his powers and represents some specific, limited, social role or function. (36) Motivated by Campbell's ideas, I rethought the dream. Was the dream an unconscious suggestion that female natural powers should integrate sociocultural powers to help us cope with the huge contemporary dangers we are experiencing, such as the threat to the environment? I continued reading the passage where Campbell addressed the subject: In infancy—as both Freud and Jung have pointed out—the mother is experienced as a power of nature and the father as the authority of society. The mother has brought forth the child, provides it with nourishment, and in the infant's imagination may appear (like the witch of Hansel and Gretel) as a consuming mother, threatening to swallow her product back. The father is, then, the initiator, not only inducting the boy into his social role, but also, as a representing to his daughter her first and foremost experience of the character of the male, awakening her to her social role as female to male. (xx) This dichotomy between the representations of the feminine and the masculine appears, according to Campbell, in the space where the figurines are found: The paleolithic Venuses have been found in the precincts always of domestic hearths, while the figures of the costumed males, on the other hand, appear in the deep, dark interiors of the painted temple-caves, among the wonderfully pictured animal herds. They resemble in their dress and attitudes, furthermore, the shamans of our later primitive tribes, and were undoubtedly associated with rituals of the hunt and of initiation. (xx) I turned back to the dream again. I was sure it was not about returning to the past. The synergy between the two powers would probably be a better conceptualization. Perhaps the oneiric suggestion was for women to be unafraid to bare themselves in order to reconnect with the larger mythical cycles of this ancestral female knowledge. However, they should consider using some of the social clothing related to the masculine principle in order to handle the two powers in the best way possible. I kept looking at the Venus of Laussel's image, and my thoughts turned to the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, whose work Campbell was very familiar with, and with whom he had visited in Switzerland. In Psychologie und Alchemie, Jung defines the horn as a sign of power and strength just as Campbell does. However, Jung goes further, stating that a horn is as much a symbol of the masculine in its power to penetrate as of the feminine, in its capacity as a receptacle or a cup. Therefore, for Jung, it is a unifying symbol, which expresses the bipolarity of the archetype (Jung, 1972, §553). The final card of the tarot, The World, where the representations of male and female are together in harmony in the same body, came to my mind. Maybe the Venus of Laussel, looking at the horn, is a symbol of the new human psychology, with no divisions of sex, gender or anything of the kind. She might be the symbol for the new mythology of human beings to come, that we—or eventually our children, grandchildren, or people we are one with, will be honoring. Next December, if everything goes well, I will head to my first conference abroad since the pandemic began in 2020. Synchronously, it will be in Bordeaux, France. And now, thanks to Campbell, I will plan to pay my respects to the lady of Laussel. By holding the horn absolutely naked, simply standing, unadorned, she might be the perfect representation of the coniunctio, the sacred marriage of the inner principles of masculine and feminine, and therefore help us guide ourselves and others in this troubled times.

Light and dark. Heat and cold. These are some of the primal archetypal polarities that underpin the world and its workings. For example, we experience these archetypes within the natural cycles of the earth. The Winter Solstice: dark and cold. The Summer Solstice: light and heat. And these as archetypes are prominent in many ancient mythologies. In Norse mythology the precursor world begins with a gaping void. On one side of this void is Niflheim, the elemental ice realm of dark and cold. On the other side is Muspelheim, the elemental fire realm of light and heat. Over eons, each realm crept closer to the other. Then, at last, through an explosion of mixed elements, a third realm was created and therein was born the giant Ymir, a precursor to the human being. Though in our digital and screen-based culture we too often forget the cycles of the natural world in which we are biologically and psychologically embedded—a fellowship, if you will. The cycle of the seasons is an expression of our living, breathing Earth. By celebrating the seasons—either through an external ritual or through meditative attention—we may connect with the sacred in-breath and out-breath of the Earth’s soul because the biosphere exists within the planetary rhythmic process of expansion and contraction. The entire cycle of the seasons, with its increase and decrease, growth and decline, is required for the Planetary Organism to present itself in its entirety. The entire natural year is a single animation that manifests itself through rhythm. Spring-Summertime is a soul expansion of the earth, while Autumn-Wintertime is a soul contraction of the earth. Presently the Southern Hemisphere is undergoing the expansion of the approaching Summer, while simultaneously the forces of contraction are strengthening in the Northern Hemisphere as it looks toward its Winter. Across the natural world there is the concurrent process of out-breath and in-breath, exhalation and inhalation. Everywhere reciprocal opposites work in concord for the dynamic whole… and our souls breathe similarly. Other polarities exist in archetypal narratives, too. For instance, the Sun is often employed as a symbol of consciousness and of the fully awakened day, and the Moon is engaged as a symbol of the unconscious and the nocturnal. Within a 24-hour cycle, the literal sun and moon each traverse the heavens along their separate trajectories. In this way, they remain faithful to their individual identities and missions while co-working as a cooperative fellowship. The motif and mission of one completes the motif and mission of the other. Such archetypal pictures go beyond mere duality; there is a polaric process of exchange. Fundamentally, all life and all life-bestowing forces arise through the creative interplay between polarities. Another natural but Cosmic image that we can ponder is the full Solar Eclipse. With such an event we can ask ourselves as to whether the light is renewing the dark, or vice versa? And in this eclipse of Sun and Moon, which is holding the other? And furthermore, what about Sunrise and Sunset? Each rapturous event arrives imbued with its own special hue and mood. Both events are required to give the natural day its round. The Sunrise opens the world with expanding light, while the Sunset leads the world into the gathering dark. Goethe’s studies in colors, including famously those of the rainbow, suggest that colors arise out of an interaction—indeed, a conversation—of the light with the dark. According to Goethe’s color theory, both light and dark are equally substantive. Both are required as contrary, yet supplementary, twins of each other. Manichean spirituality propagated a dualistic view of good and evil. Good and evil were protagonists in eternal opposition. This expressed itself in the ceaseless battle of light and dark. The darkness is not to be despised because, developmentally, we require darkness—both psyche-archetypally and bio-physically. Darkness is essential, whether it’s the darkness of our bowels for the purposes of digestion, or the prima materia darkness of alchemy: the raw, undifferentiated material, which alchemists require for the Magnum Opus to produce the Philosopher’s Stone. A triune approach features in many mythologies. In all true alchemical processes, we don’t tarry with the primary duality, but rather work to birth a third element, one which is born out of the exchange between contrary poles. In alchemy, the sulfur is the masculine, mercury the feminine, and together they birth a salt condition. Symbolically the “salt” may be understood as the resolved, integrated, and individuated human being. In mythological narratives, various key protagonists represent either sulfur, mercury, or salt conditions. It’s in the energy exchange between otherwise discrete poles that gives birth to a third element, the resolution beyond the primary poles. Of course, many things in life appear to display absolute duality. Perhaps they appear so because of our perceptual or imaginative poverty. However, what is important is that we grasp our encounters with polarity in everyday life, and in the lived friction as a means of generating soul, societal, and cultural growth. If faithful to its mission, polarity serves a worthy purpose—a process of leading us towards an integral wholeness in the realms of psyche and of the natural world. As Joseph Campbell states in The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, “It’s a matter of planes of consciousness. [...] There is the plane of consciousness where you can identify yourself with that which transcends pairs of opposites. We always think in terms of opposites. But God, the ultimate, is beyond the pairs of opposites, that is all there is to it.” But our topic is not to remain as a mentalist abstraction. We are to engage with the process of polaric exchange consciously, deliberately, and with deep feeling. Then, polarity may be an enlivening mentor for the soul and we can act in the luminosity of our most integral selves. As such, our presence can fill rooms and streets with an emissive light and the sweet fragrance of life’s variant beauty.

Halloween decorations sprang up suddenly, like giant mushrooms on front lawns all around my neighborhood this week—3 full weeks before the official holiday. (I’m writing this at the end of September so, technically, it’s a full month before the official holiday.) And let’s frame “holiday” with quotation marks in observance of its function as a true holy day, lurking at the end of October as if it were some kind of Thanksgiving warm-up in a, supposedly, secular calendar. (I’ve come around to the idea that there are no purely secular holidays; and there never were. All holidays are holy days. Anyway, people sure do act like they are.) Holidays have a ritual function and, as with all rituals, the function of such holidays is to help humans navigate difficult times (marriage, winters, harvests) and the psychological stressors common to the species—like fear: fear of failure, fear of freezing, fear of starving. Halloween, like the Frankenstein and arm-waving ghoul balloons filling my neighbors’ front yard, looms large in this month’s MythBlast theme of FEAR . All Hallows Day (November 1) celebrates the spirits of departed saints but All Hallows Eve focuses on departed spirits who are supposed to be departed but haven’t departed yet. Boo! This got me thinking about what happens when you bury things improperly. I'd like to suggest that the ritual function of Halloween is to help us mediate, mitigate, and endure the ghosts that arise when, by hook or by crook, we bury things improperly. That’s not something you want to screw up—and yet we do. For practical purposes, there are two ways you can bury something improperly. The first is to fail to observe the appropriate rituals and protocols—designed to facilitate a transition from this life into the beyond—to help the spirit (or idea, or even a point of view, hint hint) recognize its own death, relinquish its ties to this world, and be put to rest where its components can recycle into the hamster wheel of life and death, Heaven or Hell, or ecosystem. When you do that correctly, you don’t create a ghost problem. When a spirit (or idea or point of view) is acknowledged by all parties to be deceased, it can pass away happily without clinging to this world by, say, hiding under your bed, or in your closet, or in the back of your mind, where it will become a terrible nuisance. The other way is way worse. The other way to improperly bury something is to bury something that isn't quite dead yet—and now we’ll have real problems. When you bury something that isn't dead, it inevitably takes exception. It wakes up in the coffin of its hopes, or even your hopes, and comes back as a zombie. Dr. Freud is well known for having pointed out that when you bury or repress something it comes back as a monster. It’s amazing this still happens, since zombies are well understood nowadays. They have their own movies and streaming franchises, and yet people keep making zombies. Every day. Deliberately. Perfectly alive bits of our psyche are buried by desire or fear and left to fester, just below the sodded field of consciousness, until they’re strong enough to claw their way to the surface where, given the chance, they will consume everything in their path—as zombies and ghouls are known to do. Which brings us back to Halloween. A lot of the ghosts haunting us today are the specters of a past we haven’t buried properly, generally because we can’t bear their loss and won’t let them go – as happens when nostalgia for the comfort of an imagined yesteryear, embodied in the metaphors and symbols of that earlier time, is raised like a Golden Calf to become both an object of devotion and a golem of revenge on the world that replaced it. Campbell alludes to this when he says, We must remember, however, that the metaphors of one historically conditioned period, and the symbols they innervate, may not speak to the persons who are living long after that historical moment and whose consciousness has been formed through altogether different experiences.”(Thou Art That, 6) The world is filled, right now, with symbols and metaphors that belong to an earlier or dying era, but they continue to haunt us long after the world that grounded them and gave them flesh has faded away. These symbols, religious or political or social, have lurched from life support in the prayers of those unwilling to face the world as it is today, and have become the walking dead, claiming victims by contact and spiritual ingestion. More bluntly, consider the number of social ills we continue to face, sanctified by the intubation of historical nostalgia, kept alive out of fear, and out there walking around, scaring the living. History, looked at through this lens, starts to look like a Stephen King novel. Boo! Still, in a very real sense all humans, and all cultures, are haunted by the specters, demons, ghouls and ghosts of what was meaningful in the past, the death of which we fear to face. They need a funeral and an Irish wake. We’d all feel better afterwards. In the meantime, you might check your car door for... “a bloody hook!” BOO!! Thanks for musing along.

Sacred realms. It’s so easy to discuss such a topic in the abstract. But how can we discern and honor such places and spaces in our everyday lives, given the many issues and pressures that many of us encounter on a daily basis? For the greater part of our lives we spin fast—both in our exterior and interior lives—as we attempt to keep up with the incessant in-flow of data and demands that pressure our attention. In this swirl, much gets overlooked and forgotten. Especially those deep, internal wellsprings within us that contain the potential to renew us. Joseph Campbell is noted for saying, “Your sacred place is where you can find yourself again and again.” In Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor, Campbell explains that “a sacred space, then, is any area, such as the caves, in which everything is done to transform the environment into a metaphor.” [96] So how may we best manage our time to allow for the re-centering of our bodies and souls, and in so doing, touch the deeper, more sacred and metaphoric rhythms of life? But how do we even recognize the sacred? Or even develop the apposite, inner organs of perception and reception within our psyche? Deep down, or just below the rim of consciousness, most of us have a desperate craving for an encounter—indeed, for an intimacy—with the sacred. Yet frequently we’re caught up in a world-mind-culture that feels full of cold, steely angles and prodding, sharp spikes while simultaneously being assaulted by the bombardment of negative noise and grim news headlines. Where’s the sacred in all of this? Especially, for example, for those people who are caught up in war zones or who are on the brink of starvation. And, of course, there’s the terrains of war and starvation within our own psyches. Often we try to avoid these terrains by distracting ourselves through willful busyness, or on the other hand, on those rare occasions when we do recognize the need to reclaim our more sacred selves, there’s the possibility to actively work towards them. Metaphorically and experientially this is the time to connect to Hestia—the goddess of the hearth—to make sacred, warming spaces within ourselves in the midst of what sometimes appears to be the swirl of mad modernity. The Hestia archetype gathers people together to bring frayed souls back to their center. Observing and absorbing the light and warmth of our soul’s inner hearth, we’re then able to gather the tired fragments of our psyche and lead them towards an integrated communion. In reconnecting with ourselves in this way, we can build faith in a presence and power, which is greater than our mundane selves. In this, we find something of Hestia’s renewing realm within our own psyche and consciousness. With heart warmth and firm confidence we abide in something immovable and unshakeable. From this inner hearth-home we can sustain a place within ourselves of return... a return to integration and poise. This is not a place of escape or mere refuge. It’s a resourceful realm where our authentic self may revisit and renew itself. It’s also a realm where the soul may cleanse itself. The accruing burdens of false belief, façade, and inauthentic life behaviors lead to toxic build ups, both within our systems of body and psyche. This realm isn’t a zone of mere repose. Rather, it’s one of active pause and of vibrant, regenerative quiet. Now for some thoughts about sacred places beyond the above discussion about the structure (mnemonic) of the psyche. The Vesica Pisces was sometimes used by the ancients to design sacred buildings, such as Gothic Cathedrals. And ratios, such as the golden mean and the squaring of the circle can be observed in the human form itself, as has been demonstrated in the sketches and paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. I dare to suggest that there could also be a musical physiology of the human body in its structures of chest, collar bone, arms, and legs (sculptural anatomy)... and indeed between the rhythms that pulse from—and between—the organs. Many of the ancients would say that the human body is a temple for the human spirit. It’s also interesting to recall (as a contrast) that many temples across the ancient world were built primarily not for human beings, but as dwellings for the Gods and Goddesses. We could also remind ourselves that we in the west often make a stark, conceptual distinction between the sacred and profane. But in some cultures, such as the Balinese culture, there’s no such polarity. The Balinese work with a tripartite system in that they locate a third position, one of center and poise between poles. So in everyday experience and custom, their reality is to balance and live productively with opposing forces—not to eradicate them. Hence, the sacred and profane give constructive meaning to each other. Balinese spirituality inhabits the idea of sacred time. While for mercantile reasons (as well as convenience’s sake) the Balinese use the Gregorian calendar, their spiritual-cultural time arises from the intersection of various natural time rhythms, like solar and lunar relations. Finally, and perhaps more importantly, are those zones that include both space and time. These zones are formed by quality, relational exchanges between people. In this exchange realm, transformative processes are generated because there’s transparency and translucency to the whole and holy human. And these are truly our primary, sacred places in contemporary life. It’s here that we each potentially may find a soulful refuge to recenter and renew ourselves and reclaim our inner sight.

Entering a movie theater is a sacred experience for me. My only routine public confrontations are with those that ignore the warnings about respecting the sacredness of the experience. Living in Los Angeles, I have the privilege of visiting classic theatrical palaces that more closely resemble ancient temples than contemporary corporate big box retail venues, which seem to be the reigning aesthetic at modern multiplexes. These temples of cinema are relics of a bygone era when patrons dressed in their finest clothes to see films. There was a respect for filmic art that sometimes feels lost today. Audiences came with an expectation of being moved—yes, emotionally, but also in an imaginative sense where new philosophical and psychological landscapes magically appeared on a screen so large that it overwhelmed all logic and reason, leaving the viewer to think about and explore the mystic and transcendent possibilities they’ve just seen. There are theatrical ceremonial sacraments that remain from the early days of the moving picture shows. We still buy our ritual corn and wine, now in the form of popcorn and Coke, before entering the temple. We still dim the lights, creating a subtle altered state. And, most importantly, we still tell stories. Moviegoers in the early days of cinema didn’t have to be reminded not to treat the theater as if it were their living room. The aesthetics of these cinematic palaces demanded respect and communicated the unspoken sacredness of the space. The stories on screen sometimes resembled real life, but more importantly, they offered the possibilities of what could be. Even the events of the everyday world seemed to foster a larger connection to the transcendent when amplified onto that giant screen. From cave paintings to the pyramids, image has long been a cultural bearer of myth. In his book Creative Mythology, Joseph Campbell says, “…the myth as the revelatory factor by which the incidents of the daylight world are discovered linked to that ground which is the ground of all and gives to everything its life” (373). Another way we might consider what Campbell says here is that myths offer revelation when we observe how divine light shines through everyday events. In the darkness of the theater, which once upon a time was called a dream palace, light passes through single images marked in time, which move at a rate so quickly that we are unable to perceive the still moments, creating the motion of something revelatory on the screen before us. Going to the movies can still convey that religious experience, that link to the ground of all, with the proper intentions. I had such an experience recently in a dim theater watching George Miller’s film, Three Thousand Years of Longing. Miller has been vocal about the impact that Joseph Campbell has had on his work and particularly this project. It should be no surprise then that Three Thousand Years is his most explicit mythological exploration to date. Based on The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, a 1994 collection of five mythical short stories by British novelist, A.S. Byatt, the film follows a narratologist (an imagined female Joseph Campbell-like figure), named Alithea Binnie, her encounter with the mythological Djinn, and the journey that the djinn made over three thousand years before coming to grant Alithea three wishes. As a quick point of reference, a djinn is a spirit figure from pre-Islamic Arabian mythology that is sometimes portrayed as a genie. The djinn has had a long history in myth, from more recent tales of Aladdin, to Charles Perralt’s fairy tale The Three Ridiculous Wishes, to One Thousand and One Nights, and long before that in Mesopotamian and Persian literature and oral traditions. The djinn’s story that unfolds over three thousand years is a love story. It is also a story about our love of story and why story has become so central to our understanding of mythic ideas. A thoughtful examination of the film would require many more words than I am afforded here, and spoil those gripping moments that make Miller’s work exceptional. However, it would spoil nothing to suggest that metaphors for the current motifs in our world abound. Even the landscapes throughout the story speak, telling us of a dying world, a post-heroic world. In Creative Mythology, Campbell speaks of such Waste Lands saying, What, then, is the Waste Land? It is the land where myth is patterned by authority, not emergent from life; where there is no poet’s eye to see, no adventure to be lived, where all is set for all and forever: Utopia! Again, it is the land where poets languish and priestly spirits thrive, whose task it is only to repeat, enforce, and elucidate cliches. (373) The Waste Lands in Three Thousand Years span real and speculative history, but are not unlike our own. They are patterned by authority, not organically emergent from life. They repeat, enforce, and elucidate cliches; these Waste Lands heighten the importance of our cinematic experiences. In our dream palaces, we can imagine a world beyond cliches. We can imagine a world of face-to-face encounters with a divine djinn. We can imagine a world where even when surrounded by darkness and the occasional popcorn-chomping loudmouth, a light suddenly appears, cutting a hole in the darkness, stretching across time and space, and projects an image before us larger than anything we’ve seen before. An image where the Waste Land is renewed, and the poets no longer languish.

Joseph Campbell states in A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living that: Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called ‘the love of your fate.’ Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, “This is what I need.” It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment – not discouragement – you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow. Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see that this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes. The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed. (35) “The love of your fate.” Before we explore this phrase of Campbell’s, it’d be helpful to clarify his use of the word “fate.” Often we align the word “fate” with the idea of brute fatalism. Fatalism as an idea is sometimes expressed in common thought idiom as “whatever will be, will be, and there’s nothing much that we can do about it.” We might resent this circumscribing situation, or at best—with Stoic resolve—just accept our fate. In this Stoic vein we have the opportunity to be reconciled with the horrid stuff of life. We may even accept that it’s all grist for the mill, as it were… and all potentially beneficial for the growth of the psyche. In this sense, we may assume that the “bad” stuff of life is a necessary precondition for the eventual arrival of the “good” stuff. But even this notion of fate is too dire. It’s not necessarily true that “whatever happens is needed.” The tragic suffering in Ukraine is surely not what its citizens require for their civic and soulful flourishing. The gradual swamping of Pacific islands due to creeping climate change is probably not the best way for these populations to prosper. These instances suggest that the word “destiny” is perhaps better than the word “fate.” According to some definitions, destiny is not fatalism. Rather, it bears a malleable template. It allows for some exercise of freedom. Fate derives its authority through our familiarity with the iron-clad necessities within the natural forces that operate around us. Destiny, however, allows us to extricate ourselves somewhat from such stern compulsions. As such, not everything is utterly predetermined and inevitable, especially in the inner realms of the psyche. Because the human psyche is a bearer of both inexorable forces of nature and the human capacity for freedom and creativity, “any disaster you can survive is an improvement.” Contingent, of course, upon our interior response to the disaster. The how of the response can be a matter of choice. We have some agency here, even though sometimes the disaster indwells us so deeply that we undergo what has often been called "a dark night of the soul." With this, the soul often finds itself inhabiting a gloomy soul space. This dark night may take the form of a harsh depression, which hangs heavily for weeks, months, or even years before it disperses. When we haunt this dolor we can find ourselves living a double life—a coping life—where we perform and present for external eyes while our interior life seems to live in a zone of quiet despair, as if we’re enfolded within those shadow people who dwell in the mythical Cimmerian world. They live in perpetual mist and darkness and just a thin distance from the realm of the dead. In this land there is little or no light: no light from the sun, no light from the moon. Even the otherwise faithful stars are clouded. We might blame ourselves for our entrapment. Perhaps our eyes are not trying hard enough to see beyond the mists? Self-doubt, self-criticism, and self-hatred may also ensue. But how to escape? Possibly we’re being held prisoner in this gloomy place by our own out-worn beliefs, entrenched patterns of behavior, and conditioned reflexes—all of which require shedding. But such shedding will be painful because we’re so tethered to these “old” scaffoldings. They give us security and refuge from the untested and beckoning “new.” Indeed, they have become part of our custodian identity, yet we’re invited to accept this soul darkness, even merge with it, and then be open to its guidance. It’s sometimes said that the night’s darkness is densest just before dawn. However, given enough patience and courage, a light emerges, although faintly at first. And with this light there is the dawning of insight—perhaps even of soul-disclosing flashes of revelation. There is an awakening and a renewed engagement with a more authentic self and with the wider world. Using another metaphor for this process, we could say that a seed has awakened and arisen out of the endarkening, yet nurturing, earth. The awakening of every seed, then its stem, leaf, and eventual flower, takes its own form and duration. Its process can be fostered, but never hurried. When we’re overwhelmed by the emergence of old, unwieldy, and unresolved forces in our psyche, our truest nature and purest light has been eclipsed. Yet despite the trauma, the experience also presents an opportunity and a gift. We have to see into our self-created shadow realms and learn from the luminous dark, which shines penetratingly into our psyche’s deep interior. In a sense, Individuation (or Initiation) is about learning to see in—and into—the dark and to recognize our shadow self more clearly. Then we may follow a resolve for the shadow’s gradual transformation. We can’t cast the shadow self out. We’re married to it. There’ll be no divorce. It’s an integral part of us. But we can shed light on it. Love it, even. The shadow can greatly assist us along our journey of self-discovery (though admittedly it can be a rough journey!). But the travel is empowered because light and shadow dwell together, and as such, give perspective along the way. One final thought: While our own individual effort is fundamentally required for the journey, we’re to remind ourselves that we’re not distinct, unrelated persons. We live in social, and sometimes also inter-subjective, networks with other people. And we can reach out for support from fellow travelers, which is why these MythBlasts are so helpful for the Joseph Campbell Foundation community.

Recently I had an appointment with a dental hygienist I’d never met before. Making small talk, he asked me what I do. I told him I’m a mythologist, which means I study stories that have meant a lot to a lot of people. Sacred stories. He thought that over for a few minutes, then asked if I focused on any particular myths. Yes, I said, I focus on creation myths. “Oh yeah,” he said. “Genesis.” “That’s one of them. But there are lots of others too, from all over the world.” He blinked a few times, then he blurted, “But they all start with the man, right?” * * * If you’ve had the good luck to read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, you might recall the story she shares about Skywoman. This sacred creation story comes from the Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois) alliance of Indigenous nations of the forested hills and lake country in what we now call upstate New York. John C. Mohawk’s book Iroquois Creation Story also tells of the divine creator Skywoman, beginning in Sky World, where she falls through a hole in the ground above, then keeps falling, down through the chasm between that world and this one. As her body was sinking through the darkness she saw Fire Dragon (Comet) and he seized her body in flight.… “I will aid you as best as I can in all things so that you can survive when you arrive below." Mohawk, Iroquois Creation Story Fire Dragon accompanies Skywoman a little longer, and then he leaves. She keeps plummeting through the air toward an unlit sea where the primordial water-bird beings who live there, rush upward to lower her down on their wings. But where will they put this surprising new arrival? There’s no land in the world below, only water. “Something must be done,” said Loon, “to keep her body from sinking.” Then Hanoghye (Muskrat) said, “I will dive to the bottom of the water to bring earth for her. It is well known to us that she has creative power and can use this earth.” “It is well known,” the myth says, “that she has creative power.” The ensouled world recognizes in Skywoman a being of great creativity whose medium is earth itself. Soon after this, she creates the land (with the help of Turtle and Muskrat), and gives birth to a divine baby girl. When Skywoman falls into the void, I feel a jolt of adrenaline. Surely she’ll die! But she doesn’t. The chasm turns out to be neither empty nor lifeless. Helpful, intelligent beings inhabit that space, an indication that the emptiness holds consciousness. Fire Dragon—fast, hot, ferocious—swoops in to assist. The bird beings empathize with her and slow her descent. In mythic terms, the void is actually alive and supportive. And Skywoman’s creativity seems to require this separation between realms, to require crossing it. Her difficult downward passage leads her to her deeper work. This scene offers an example of what Joseph Campbell calls “magical aid,” which helps Skywoman discover the pervading “benign power” that supports her. (A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living 75) Skywoman is an Indigenous creator, illustrating the creativity of Indigenous cultures and ideas. Skywoman partners with other beings, and her diverse, ecological creativity arises from an interconnected web. She is a woman, displaying an example of women’s creativity. Not coincidentally, Haudenosaunee nations lived in a matriarchal democracy where women and men both led – a system of government that inspired the founders of the United States. In short, Skywoman is a sacred being in the form of an Indigenous woman who collaborates with the natural world to create a stable, bountiful, beautiful biosphere. What’s missing from this story? For one thing, there’s no commandment to exercise dominion over other beings. And instead of imagining women as an afterthought who exist for men’s pleasure and companionship, Skywoman is a powerful creator in her own right. * * * The dental hygienist and I went on to have an interesting conversation about science, knowledge, and the limits of scientific knowledge. He was obviously no biblical literalist, and yet he still offered a clear example of mythic assumptions at work in the world. Thanks to the Genesis creation story, he believed that he and others of his gender were inherently privileged and entitled to come first. Myths are stories that have meant a lot to a lot of people. In other words, myths hold great meaning. But meaning by itself has no moral valence or value. It is our job to bring conscious awareness to the many levels of meaning that myths carry–both at the surface and their deeper, more hidden, metaphorical values and assumptions. I believe that this is one of the most important reasons to study sacred stories: to identify values and assumptions that might otherwise go unnoticed. Some values and assumptions are harmful. Some are helpful. We do well to listen–respectfully, reverently, and with gratitude–to the values and assumptions that divine creators like Skywoman share through their stories. * * * Have you ever felt like Skywoman falling through the void, in moments when everything changed suddenly? Have unexpected helpers come to your aid? Have you ever bumped up against your own or others’ assumptions that were rooted in myth? * * * For a movie version of the Iroquois Creation Story, visit the Ganondagan Seneca Art and Culture Center in Victor, New York, or stream the video here.

Let’s begin by reminding ourselves that the term “the unseen aid,” along with so many other potentials for that title like “the Great Mother,” “the psychopomp/guide-of-souls,” “the wise old woman or man,” etc., are archetypes. If we are to approach the unseen aid one-sidedly as such, then our journey has failed before it’s begun. And please note that bit about “one-sidedly,” as this qualification is essential to what follows. As mythologists, we work with archetypes to better understand the complex, voluminous content of myth. However, in our sincere efforts to organize and expand our knowledge through their employment, we often overlook that archetypes are (among other things) abstract constructions, theoretical classifications that are deduced after the fact to address sources that precede the fact. And “the fact” is whichever specific mythic figure or image stands before us, so to speak, at a given moment. And so, these figures are lifted from their specificity, from the settings and contexts of their narratives, and dropped into their new (unfurnished) conceptual homes. We then seek out candidates to keep them company, but do so with eyes one-sidedly trained on identifying traits in keeping only with the general category we wish to fill. And here, as a gentle warning, we will do well to reflect on the expression “whatever one is looking for, that is what one sees.” In short, our quest for fuller knowledge is paradoxically narrowed by the generalized breadth we impose upon the content, including the dim presumption that by knowing the archetype we know the figure. These are but a few examples of the collateral damage we incur when dabbling one-sidedly in archetypes, when we lose the concreteness of the original image. Having said that, however, consider the following in which Campbell employs the Buddha-figure as the image: “The Buddha,” he writes, “is not a graven image to be understood concretely. It is a meditation tool, something to be seen through.” (A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living, 190) What does he mean, not to be understood concretely? Don’t we want concreteness—indeed, exquisitely precise concreteness—in the image? Now we come to the subtle misapplication that accompanies the term “concrete,” and to the severe consequences that follow. The problem rests in a failure to recognize that our encounters with images are process. When we approach their manifest concreteness as conclusions, as final culminations of the whole meeting, then we are halted in a process meant to take us farther. This is literalism, the great enemy to deeper insight and to deeper experience. To further illustrate, I have reworked Campbell’s quote a little (and I daresay without diminishing in any way his intention): “The image is not to be encountered and then left as concrete. Rather, it is to be initially encountered in its full concreteness which then opens a way to the depths that reside behind its face”—precisely why Campbell goes on to say that the image is “something to be seen through.” But I’m not done yet. I think the greatest danger that accompanies blunt archetypal application is that it neglects the utterly indispensable exception, which quite contrary to the generalizing-force of the archetype, reveals the unique characteristics of the figure in question. After all, “exception” is the chief criterion that distinguishes uniqueness. This is why amplification is such an important practice for the mythologist. For in surveying a high volume of correlative mythic figures, one invariably encounters more exceptions, more oddities, more that’s not in keeping with a figure’s prescribed archetype. Furthermore, the term “the exception” is itself another archetype—a concept addressing the concept that figures possess uniqueness. Whereas “a” figure’s uniqueness, initially revealed in the specificity of its image, serves as the concrete bedrock of its symbolic potential. I must introduce symbol because it is too often conflated with archetype. Being a literature type, I like to begin my distinction between symbol and archetype through the simplest literary classifications available, wherein the symbol is the image, and the archetype is the theme. Taken together in process, the concrete immediacy of the image gives way to the symbol, becoming the psychic-machinery that speeds the thematic influence of the archetype. Done deal. Well, almost, because as we dive deeper into the inquiry, the two will eventually (and inescapably) be subsumed by grey regions. Take, for instance, the pre-packaged meanings of the more general images we find in dictionaries of symbols (and with “more general” we enter the grey). These meanings accompany images that are concrete, yes, but that are generally-so—images like tree, as opposed to the young maple with her thousand broad palms dishing up the light (which you’ll have a hard time finding in a dictionary of symbols). To these former (general images), which initiate the overlap of symbols with archetypes, Jung advises that we learn them and then forget them. In so doing, I like to think that the presence of their positive absence, like a residue, somehow holds in the mind of the inquirer—somehow lingers in the periphery of the conscious, yet not altogether unconscious. Grey regions, indeed. The practice of learning-and-then-forgetting is applicable also to archetypes, and allows us to handle them without being derailed, or rather, railroaded by them to pre-conditioned, subsuming conclusions. It keeps us attentive to process, while simultaneously activating more pervasive means of perception like intuition and feeling which, alongside our forgetting, nuance the specific image, but do so at a distance—in a way that does not contaminate but rather complements its “suchness.” Here at the end, with room only for a few sentences, I want to address the unseen aid who threw me into this entanglement of archetypal-mechanics. I could offer names like the angel of necessity or the daimon of the Ancient Greek philosophers but as it is with archetypal-prescription, so the act of naming can hardly contain or reveal the totality of a thing. And not wanting to box this figure into a name or concept or even image, I will leave it for now “as is” and, true to its nature, unseen.