[Johanna Fisher]

This loss of a binding national mythology is both good and bad. Certainly in relationship to a national one that has left out so many groups- native Americans, African Americans, women, etc. However, I also think it has produced a loneliness that is crippling and at times dangerous. It is the existential crisis of our time and witnessed this past week with so many mass shootings. And in relationship to the personal, the pandemic has forced us to really look inward-I find myself dreaming more about my life up to this point and as Stephen mentions-it is painful to do so. The questioning is the most difficult part -the recognition that what we thought we knew about ourselves is challenged just in the consideration of that herethereto “truth” of self. We are much more or less that we thought we knew. The life we had prior to the pandemic kept this realization at bay because we simply did not have the time to think about self. I think about Campbell’s heroic journey cycle and I am at the point of “the dark night of the soul”, trying to find a way to that transformation. What helps is knowing that it is possible because the myths have told us so.

There are insights in myth that can help us-we need to find them-to read them-hear them- talk about them. Stephen and Norland, what myths do you find helpful in speaking about what we are witnessing in these days?  Where shall we begin?