Stephen Gerringer
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Kristina,
I love the image of “chaos being done with me” – a state of grace I have yet to obtain. On the other hand, I don’t find chaos as personally disruptive as I once did.
As for regretting past missteps and worse, that’s not so much a factor anymore, either. Of course there are occasional moments of chagrin when I wake in the middle of the night and find myself thinking of the embarrassing thing I said to that pretty girl at a party thirty years ago – but I’m much more comfortable with my gran mal failures than I once was, an attitude I attribute to Joseph Campbell.
Now Nietzsche is the one and he’s my boy, if you want to know; he says if you fail to affirm everything in your life that has come to you with amor fati (‘the love of your fate’), you have unraveled the whole life. Any significant moment in your life, if it had been the least bit different, the whole life is different from there on. If you say no to any detail of your life, you’ve said no to the whole web because everything is so interlocked. And if you want to get in the way of affirmation, just say no to the failure . . .”
This observation surfaced as I was compiling and editing a book drawn from Campbell’s many interviews and question-and-answer sessions (slated for publication next year). He had just been asked a question about whether he regretted giving up his track career:
I was on the point of making a decision to start into scholarship when I lost one race, and it was the one I really wanted to win. And I’d never lost a race before. I’ve rerun that race five times a week, you know. If I had won that race I would not have given up running, and I would have stayed there as a jock for two or three or four years.
The 1928 Olympics were the next year, but I broke off. In 1928 I was in Paris when all my friends were in Amsterdam. After the games they came down and we had a party, but I wasn’t there at the Olympics. And it was the failure at that point that, from the standpoint of a career—I mean, I know the chap who won the half mile at the Olympics that year. I had run against him many times. And you think, ‘Oh jeez,’ you know? So I didn’t get the Olympics. Thank God I didn’t is what I’m saying now. I have to see that . . .
I would not have had the life I’ve had if I had won that race. I know it.”
Someone asked Campbell if his experience, “affirming what comes to us with amor fati,” requires a leap of faith that in the end it will be better. Joe’s response?
No, no. Not that it would have been better. That it’s good. You affirm it. It may be a mess, but you’re affirming the mess too.”
Now that messed with my New Age sensibilities, that sense of life will be better if we follow our bliss. Joe’s sense of amor fati includes “saying yea to it all” even when life is a disaster and doesn’t get better.
That was a difficult pill to swallow – but saying “yea” to everything that happens, without the expectation that will make life better, actually proves liberating. It doesn’t always lead to a change in external circumstances, but does foster a change in perception that makes one’s reality easier to bear – there is less reacting, and more a sense of self-acceptance, and fully participating, in life, which does feel a damn sight better than the default victim mode so many experience today.
Thanks, Phil for those kind words. It can be touchy discussing astrology, given the long held popular assumption that it’s all about the stars and planets controlling our fate (in the same way that alchemy is popularly understood to be about literally turning lead into gold).
Jung wrote at length about alchemy and astrology – and many Campbellophiles forget that Joe himself used to cast horoscopes (eventually stopping because, in his words, “it gave me a feeling I knew too much about people; you know you get these intimate things . . . “), but that focus is more on metaphor and an imaginative reading of the symbols, rather than a literal interpretation.
Many mythologists and depth psychologists today are drawn to the field of archetypal astrology. Though this can be traced back to the writings of Jung, the catalyst for this movement was the 2006 publication of Cosmos and Psyche, by Richard Tarnas (Richard wrote his first book, The Passion of the Western Mind, while manning the front gate at Esalen back when Joseph Campbell was regularly in residence); that book is well-researched and worth the read.
Here is a brief description of this nascent field from mythologist Keiron Le Grice (author of The Rebirth of the Hero):
Archetypal astrology . . . is based on an observed correspondence between the planets in the solar system and specific themes, qualities, and impulses associated with a set of universal principles and thematic categories known as planetary archetypes. Each of the planetary bodies, as well as the Sun and the Moon, is associated with a distinct archetypal principle. Thus, the planet Mars, for example, is related to a complex array of themes and qualities associated with the warrior archetype and, more generally, to the principle of assertion, action, and aggressive force; whereas Venus, understood in its simplest terms, is related to the principle of eros, romantic love, beauty, and pleasure. Rather like the ancient mythic conception of the gods, and as in the Platonic conception of archetypal Forms, the archetypal principles associated with the planets are recognized to be not only psychological but also cosmological in essence, exerting a dynamic formative ordering influence on both the interior and exterior dimensions of reality.” (Keiron Le Grice, “The Birth of a New Discipline”)
Over the course of a few millennia in ancient Mesopotamia, the planet we know today as Venus was associated with Inanna or Ishtar (incarnations of the goddess of love). No surprise that – as both the evening and the morning star, this planet presided over late night lovemaking sessions, and was often in the sky before dawn as lovers made their way home from their trysts – so there are thousands of years of near universal collective projections on that celestial body. Does the planet Inanna/Ishtar/Venus determine one’s love life? Hardly – but nevertheless, there is an ancient association between that planet and romance which continues to this day.
When it comes to Mercury retrogrades I imagine the key phrase should be “actual user experience will vary.” If you’re inclined to pay attention to that kind of thing, it can be a fascinating and, at times, useful exercise – but if not so inclined, don’t feel a need to alter your behavior (though I am curious to see if you notice an uptick in weirdness during retro Merc, though granted that might well be the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy so to speak).
I don’t disagree with Shakespeare when he has Cassius say, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves”; at the same time, it takes examining the projections we make outside ourselves (including onto the heavens) to come to know oneself.
Shaheda writes
To Campbell a convincing mythology is one that is in sync with the cosmology of the the time.“
An essential point, indeed! (Campbell might be more likely to use the phrase ” a living mythology,” but he would agree with your thought).
To the scientific sources of a fundamental change in our perception of the world (the discoveries of relativity, quantum mechanics, the expanding universe, and the space program), I would add the Information Age – specifically, the invention of the internet and cyberspace. These have impacted us in ways both good and bad: on the one hand, making the world a smaller place in many ways, creating a universal monoculture often at odds with local culture; and on the other, upending norms and fostering a divided society.
In my daily life I am often caught up in the fray – the “fighting over sandwiches” that Campbell notes marks the priority of most humans – but I’m also aware, on a deeper level, that it’s all an amazing Dance.
Had not noticed this post when it first appeared, Sunbug, likely because it landed amid the holiday swirl (so much disappears into the vortex that stretches from mid-December through the first week of the New Year), but you raise a fascinating point.
I’d add to your list the Homeric hymns to Hermes, Aphrodite, and the other Olympians, not to mention the Psalms of scripture, and the tales of the troubadours (aka Minnesingers, in German) of the Middle Ages, which were performed as song.Rhythm preceded the emergence of speech for our early ancestors – and once language did appear, rhythm, along with the repetition of formulaic phrases (e.g., “the wine-dark sea” and “there spoke clever Odysseus in Homer) made it easier to memorize lengthy, epic tales told around the communal campfire and passed down from one generation to the next.
David Abrams (in his elegant volume, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World 101-109), notes that Homer may well have been an oral bard, or rhapsode (from the Greek rhapsoidein – “to stitch a song together”), those who sing the myths; drawing on a rich oral tapestry of traditional stories and formulaic phrases, and stitching them together in performance – which would explain how he could be blind and still create these detailed epics in verse). Indeed, the Iliad and Odyssey are composed in dactyl hexameter, which has much in common with the rhythm of modern rap.
Forgive my rhapsodizing about the resonance between the rhythms of rhapsodes and rap – but the connection between myth and music (both of which are associated with the realm of the Muses) is worth exploring.
Well said, johnsroost (love that cybermoniker – both unique and comfy). Finishing old business before moving on to new certainly makes sense, though not so easy in our contemporary multitasking climate. I definitely have trouble adhering to that standard, which I blame on my Gemini Sun sign (which is the true value of astrology to me – not that it’s “literally” so, but presents an opportunity to re-mythologize my life).
And thank you for your posting. Some COHO participants (including yours truly) tend towards excessive verbosity, but one doesn’t have to write a book to make a compelling point. The more who weigh in, the better – sometimes we’re not sure if anyone, other than a handful of semi-regulars, are paying attention, so your kind words are much appreciated.
Please feel free to poke around the forums and look at any threads that intrigue you. Conversations here do not move at the speed of social media – it can take a few days or longer to digest a post and formulate a response – but even those discussions that appear to have faded off are easily revived with the addition of a new voice and a fresh perspective. And if you are drawn to a subject you don’t see covered in any of our forums, definitely introduce it in a post of your own (generally, if a topic interests you, there are no doubt others who share that interest and would love a chance to weigh in).
Namaste!
Thank You, Mark! Though we only ask MythBlast essayists to spend the week with us, you always give more, despite all the other demands on your time. Of course, JCF’s hope is that the conversation continues on, beyond the MythBlast authors’ participation (some threads have continued to unfold over the course of many months, sometimes morphing in unexpected directions and taking on a life of their own – and then a couple have been revived as much as a year later).
I’m already looking forward to next “TIME”
Until then, thanks for coming to play with us in COHO!
Hey There, Sunbug,
Considering Mark’s reply to your comment, seems he doesn’t have a problem with your “stony” response. Indeed, our playfulness does highlight an essential point about engaging symbols; while there is no objective, undeniable, standard meaning to any given symbol, aural and visual associations to the imagery offers a multilayered approach. That’s why symbol and dream dictionaries can be a hindrance if we assume an entry is the one exact meaning of a symbolic image, and a useful tool if we take that entry as a starting point – a tool, if you will, to jog one’s own imagination.
As for my mention of Rainbow Gatherings, the Rainbow Family of Living Light is a counterculture gathering, precursor to Burning Man, that has appeared in a different national forest every summer for half a century now (I think of it as sort of an acoustic Burning Man, with more of a low tech hippie vibe), where money does not work and everything is “in all ways free.” It’s not easy to get to – definitely off the beaten track, with hard core camping skills a plus. Several national gatherings I’ve attended have drawn between 10,000 to 20,000 people (some nationals have occasionally occasionally reached as high as 30,000) to remote alpine settings, where dozens of volunteer kitchens, cafes, and tea houses feed everyone relatively sumptuous meals. Alcohol is discouraged, though psychedelics (cannabis and various “teacher plants,” from shrooms to peyote and such, along with LSD), are welcome.
The gathering is a mansion of myth and ritual, with a yoga meadow, sweat lodges, Hindu fire ceremonies, storytelling circles, vision quests, drum and dance circles, massage centers, multiple elaborate structures and stages built from fallen logs, elaborate bath and shower set-ups, and such. There is a central meadow where everyone gathers on the Fourth of July, but the entire encampment is spread out over several square miles, resembling a cross between the Shire and Rivendell (from Tolkien), a “mountain man” rendezvous, and a Native American jamboree.
The food is surprisingly incredible. Everyone brings their own cup, plate or bowl, and utensils. It’s not unusual to wake in the morning, wander around the trail’s bend, and find a camp serving gourmet coffee – then continue down the trail and enjoy mango pancakes at another kitchen, refresh oneself during the day and evening wanderings with herbal tea and/or snacks at all sorts of venues, maybe eat a multi-course dinner at Main Meadow late in the day, and visit Loving Ovens around midnight to enjoy exotic pizzas cooked in huge dome ovens built from mud.
The focus of the gathering is on healing – for oneself, for all peoples (whether two or four footed, winged, warm-blooded, cold blooded, lung breathing or gill breathing, etc.) and for the planet. I have met aboriginal Australians, Hindu gurus, Christian missionaries, Goddess acolytes, and a slew of environmental activists at various gatherings.
Anyone can speak at council in the main Meadow, which is less cumbersome in the beginning, when there are only a few hundred individuals on site, most focused on building the encampment, but a touch more awkward once thousands have gathered – especially since Rainbow is governed by a consensus of those “on the Land.” If 4,999 people in council agree we need to create a fire road along a ridge to allow emergency access, but I am concerned the proposed route will damage a stand of endangered wildflowers, I can withhold consensus – and we then either continue to talk for hours until I am convinced, or we come up with some alternative. (Sounds cumbersome, and it is – but actually, it’s not that difficult for a group mind to coalesce in such a setting, as there is no power to fight over, no “president” of Rainbow, no treasury – every individual is considered sovereign, and feeding and caring for children, nursing mothers, and those who are or might become sick are primary concerns.)
Though there are people on site between six weeks to two months, the highlight of the gathering (and maximum population) occurs on July 4th. Silence is maintained in all camps until high noon on July 4th; in the half hour or so before noon most of the encampment, thousands and thousands of colorfully clad counterculture types, gather to pray for peace and healing, holding hands in a circle that rings Main Meadow (it can take one half-an-hour or more just to walk around that circle of people if so inclined).
Just before noon everyone starts chanting “Om” (aka “Aum”); being out in nature on a mountaintop holding hands and feeling the vibration of the swell of the chant from 20,000 voices is almost indescribable. At noon, the children whose families have camped in Kiddie Village (which has playground equipment and swing sets constructed from fallen logs) parade in elaborate costumes from their camp (which is usually one of the closest to Main Meadow) on through the outer circle to the Peace Pole at the center of the meadow, usually while singing.
That marks the end of the silence and the central ceremony; everyone then moves closer to the Peace Pole and the party begins, with multiple elaborate drum circles (often with flutes, horns, didgeridoos, washboards, melodicas, and such), beautiful colorful yet scantily clad individuals of all genders swirling and dancing to the rhythms, and thousands seated in circles with friends on the grassy meadow feasting on watermelon and other treats while passing bowls, bongs, and blunts around (not to mention a fair share peaking on psychedelics). The celebration continues into the wee hours of the morning, visiting multiple outlying villages with different specialities (from baking gourmet cookies, to acoustic performances, improv theater, storytelling around campfires, etc.). Rainbow is both mysterious and surprisingly beautiful at night.
Of course, that many people do have an impact on the land, and Rainbow is an illegal gathering where no one signs a permit. There is a permanent National Incident Command Team operated by the Interior Department that monitors the national gathering, though courts have so far supported the right to peaceably assemble; the government team is composed of Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) with the Forest Service and BLM, along with natural resource specialists more focused on care of the forest; how much the gathering is harassed in any given year seems a function of the ever shifting balance of power between the LEOs and the resource management side (many of the resource specialists are much more in tune with the principles guiding Rainbow, whereas many on the law enforcement side think of any unpermitted event as a criminal enterprise – but even in the absence of a permit, there is an operating agreement all parties accept regarding resource management).
So hundreds of Rainbows stay on site after the bulk of the participants have left, visiting every campsite and fire pit (only community fires are allowed, no individual campfires) to make sure all structures have been removed, every stone returned to roughly where it came, all shitters completely filled in, and every sign of human habitation disappeared. Trails and other areas where the ground has been compacted and pounded by foot traffic are broken up and re-seeded (initially with Kentucky bluegrass, which prevents erosion but is short-lived – then the following spring volunteers return to seed the area with native grasses and vegetation). Usually – as long as the feds allow the Rainbow restoration teams to do their work (in the early days those doing the clean-up have been harassed, arrested and driven off) – the site is fully restored to within a year to 18 months, with no evidence tens of thousands had been in residence for an extended period.
Locals in the nearest towns are concerned when they hear the Gathering is in their area – the assumption seems the Hell’s Angels are arriving en masse – but locals are invited to attend, and those who do return to their communities with positive impressions that tend to mellow the initial resistance (the huge financial boon to surrounding communities, where individual food and camping supplies are purchased by many on their way into the event, certainly helps change minds as well).
There is of course a lot more to it – but the seasonal rhythm (along with the emphasis on ritual and storytelling) is what prompted my passing mention in this thread.
James,
If you don’t mind, perhaps this quote will help set the tone for the question you are posing to Leigh:
Furthermore, the old in many societies spend a considerable part of their time playing with and taking care of the youngsters, while the parents delve and spin: so that the old are returned to the sphere of eternal things not only within but without. And we may take it also, I should think, that the considerable mutual attraction of the very young and the very old may derive something from their common, secret knowledge that it is they, and not the busy generation between, who are concerned with a poetic play that is eternal and truly wise.” (Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, Vol. I: Primitive Mythology, 2021 Collected Works Edition, 114)
The Prologue to Primitive Mythology, along with Part One (“The Psychology of Myth”) should be essential reading for every Campbellophile: here Campbell focuses on the relationship of play to the origins of myth and ritual, drawing on the work of historian Johan Huizinga (author of Homo Ludens – “Man the Player”), among others.
Mark,
I’m experiencing major synchronicity in yours and James’ observations related to the link between the seasons and the mythic imagination – and not just in the regularity of the seasonal cycle, but also, as you note, the disruption that often occurs during periods of transition.
Currently I’m about a quarter of the way (125 pages – not counting the dozen or so pages of detailed, comprehensive contextual endnotes accompanying the text, so far) into The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber (the late professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics) and David Wengrow (professor of comparative anthropology at the Institute of Anthropology, University College of London).
Published this past November, this is the impressive, exhaustively researched work lauded by scholars that is upending traditional historical perspectives. (In many ways, it’s a pointed response to 2018’s bestseller, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Harari – a book that presents a compelling grand narrative that appeals to me, but, like all before it, one aligned with a Euro-centric worldview).
I expected some sort of Marxian critique, which I generally find a little tiresome (Graeber, who died at age 59 in September, 2020 just three weeks after the book was completed, was a key intellectual figure in the Occupy Wall Street Movement), so I held that tension in the back of my brain the first several pages. The reality is far from there; instead, the authors draw on the latest groundbreaking (pun initially unintended) archaeological and anthropological finds, along with cultural and sociological research, to oppose an “indigenous critique,” outside the European canon, to the prevailing historical narrative – and darn if they don’t bring the receipts!
In the section I’ve just read, Graeber and Wengrow (I think of them as “the Davids”) challenge the traditional view of the social evolution of our species following distinct stages: nomadic hunter-gatherers, then agriculturalists settled in villages, and then, early civilizations – a trajectory accompanied by the development of hierarchy and an exponential growth in inequality – always in one direction, eventually arriving where are today. (This is an aside, but I don’t completely subscribe to the idea that contemporary culture has no prevailing myth to which all members are party; a myth is not necessarily recognized as such by those who are living it, but simply as ‘what is” – and ours is the myth of progress).
“The Davids” begin by asking questions about the monumental structures of Göbekli Tepe, which indicates “strictly coordinated activity on a really large scale.” The nomadic pre-agriculturalists who built it did not live there, but appear to have regularly gathered at this site for feasting and related ritual activities.
Then they turn to Claude Lévi-Strauss, who in 1944 highlighted the Namboikwara – “part-time farmers, part-time foragers” – in northwest Brazil. Theirs was a hybrid society: during the rainy season, they gathered and lived in in sizable communities and practiced agriculture, but the rest of the year broke up into little bands of foragers – with two different sets of laws, traditions, and practices. The chiefs of these small nomadic groups exercised near autocratic powers during the dry season – but when the entire population was gathered together in the rainy farming season, that authoritarianism melted into a gestalt much more chill and relaxed, with the chief’s leadership grounded in influence, example, and consensus, rather than force.
Thanks to an abundance of recent archaeological discoveries, along with cultural studies, this “double morphology,” a pattern of seasonal variation – large gatherings in one place part of the year dissolving into small bands on the move the other part of the year – appears all over, from Durrington Walls at Stonehenge on one end of the time continuum, to Aboriginal Australians, the Cheyenne and Lakota on the Plains of North America, the Kwakiutl in the Pacific Northwest, Innuit in Alaska, the Nuer in the Sudan.
These hybrid societies are difficult to place on the traditional continuum: nomad part of the year but settled the other part, loosely anarchistic but at other times strictly hierarchical with the rigid structures of a nation-state, in some settings patriarchal and authoritarian, in others more matrifocal and diffuse. In many instances (whether those gathering at Durrington Walls and Stonehenge, or the Plains tribes), they had actually abandoned cereal agriculture, turning back to foraging as their staple source of food. And there is often a contrast between the values and forms that dominate these two wings of the year.
And, or course, in tandem with that are seasonal festivals – which on the one hand align us with the rhythms of nature, but also present the opportunity for “people to imagine that other arrangements are feasible, even for a society as a whole, since it was always possible to fantasize about carnival bursting its seams and becoming the new reality,” which in turn really can upend society (the authors note several revolutionary movements and peasants’ revolts associated with seasonal festivals, like riotous May Day festivals). And, indeed, they do note that “seasonality is still with us,” such as in the midwinter holiday season of the Christian world.
I’m not sure where the authors are going from here, but they do have my attention. I’m reserving reconciling this new perspective and the information that supports it with Campbell’s worldview for after I complete the book and have time to chew and digest what’s been presented. In many ways they are challenging major planks of Campbell’s perspective, particularly the stages he presents in the Historical Atlas of World Mythology (where history follows major stages, from hunter-gatherers, to early planting peoples with the advent of agriculture, then hieratic city-states, and so on – and the mythologies and culture of these various peoples in harmony with the particular stage of their period).
And on the other hand, so much is in harmony with Campbell’s thought, which has much in common with the “indigenous critique” (not to mention my own decades-long experience with seasonal counter-culture gatherings, such as the Rainbow Family).
Though at best we seem to pay lip service to the idea of Father Time and the Newborn Year, the absence of powerful serious ceremonies does not mean the energies associated with seasonal changes don’t still surge through the blood in our veins every bit as much as the sap in the trees. The mythic image of the seasonal cycle isn’t just in our heads – it’s a story we’re still living, whether we are conscious of it, or not.
Just throwing the spaghetti (or Göbekli?) against the wall, seeing what sticks.
Food for thought.
Esther – a thread (no pun intended) on Ariadne is a brilliant idea! (So much to explore beyond just Theseus and the Minotaur in the Labyrinth!) That might work well in the Awakening the Mythological Mind or Personal Mythology forums, depending on what direction you take, or the catch-all Conversation with a Thousand Faces form.
Esther – a thread (no pun intended) on Ariadne is a brilliant idea! (So much to explore beyond just Theseus and the Minotaur in the Labyrinth!) That might work well in the Awakening the Mythological Mind or Personal Mythology forums, depending on what direction you take, or the catch-all Conversation with a Thousand Faces form.
Mark,
Love the comparison of Zeus assigning his father Cronus a role to Prince Five Weapons (an incarnation of the being who would become the Buddha) doing something similar with the Sticky Haired Ogre. Clearly these mythological figures have read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals.
Great point as well about Cronus mistaking a stone for a newborn. I am often intrigued by the physics and logic of myths, which diverge from mundane reality much the same as was the logic of dream – but of course Zeus swallowed his children whole – otherwise, Zeus’ brothers and sisters may have been nothing but chewed and digested pulp when freed from Papa’s belly.
But failing to notice one is swallowing a hard stone instead of a soft babe does seem difficult to fathom, at least here in the workaday world. Nevertheless, “inattention to detail” does seem a trait common to gods – that’s the phrase Campbell uses to characterize Osiris’ faux pas when he didn’t notice he was having sex with Nepthys instead of his sister-wife, Isis – but that’s another story)
I am reminded of the Egyptian creation myths, where the sky goddess Nut and the earth god Geb conceive seven children, with Ra and Thoth (Sun and Moon) emerging first – but Ra, out of jealousy, does not allow his mother to give birth to their five siblings (Horus the Elder, Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys), who then reside in their mother’s womb for thousands of years until Thoth wins their release. There certainly seems some resonance between the delayed birth of the gods of the Olympic pantheon mirroring those of the Egyptian; in a sense, Cronus’ belly serves as a second womb – gestation in the Father, as well as the Mother.
Intriguing. I trust others in COHO will come play with us, tickling their own ideas and understandings out of your essay.
Robert & Norland,
I am very much enjoying your exchange (Robert – I especially appreciate your description in your first post in this thread about cultivating “sustained engagement” with a mythological image over one’s lifetime, rather than arriving at a firm and hard set interpretation of that image, though my sense is that Norland does not really take issue with that stance).
Just in case the reference gets lost amid the discussion, I’d also like to thank you, Robert, for bringing up The Innateness of Myth: A New Interpretation of Joseph Campbell’s Reception of C.G. Jung, by Dr. Ritske Rensma. Ritske, like Norland, was the recipient of Joseph Campbell Foundation research grant that allowed access to Campbell’s archives, and he was a very active participant in an earlier iteration of Conversations of a Higher Order, where he spent much time working out and sharing some of the core ideas included in that work. (Here is a link to one such entry: unfortunately, the dates and the order of discussion entries are incorrect – one of the many reasons we eventually shuttered that version of COHO: https://www.coho-archive.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=3082&p=54044#p54044 ).
I heartily recommend Ritske’s rigorous, well-researched volume to all Campbell scholars.
Thank you, thegoaloflifeisrapture (aka Esther), for sharing these passages from two amazing authors. Jules Cashford’s The Myth of the Goddess: The Evolution of an Image (written with Anne Baring) is one of my favorite post-Campbell works – a comprehensive study drawing on Campbell, Jung, and Hillman, among others. And Marina Warner’s From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers is an essential work on fairy tales (and winner of a Mythopoeic Award).
Of course, I know you know that, but it’s worth mentioning for those who don’t (which just scratches the surface of these authors’ contributions to the field of mythological studies – not to mention how important their voices are in a field once dominated by a masculine perspective).
Warner’s point especially resonates, given the tendency among the general public to assume a text in print represents the definitive version of a myth, as if such a thing exists. Fortunately, that’s an attitude more difficult to maintain today than in the past, thanks to the multiple reimaginings of myths available today (e.g. the many retellings of episodes from the Odyssey – from Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad to Madeline Miller’s Circe).
Thank you, thegoaloflifeisrapture (aka Esther), for sharing these passages from two amazing authors. Jules Cashford’s The Myth of the Goddess: The Evolution of an Image (written with Anne Baring) is one of my favorite post-Campbell works – a comprehensive study drawing on Campbell, Jung, and Hillman, among others. And Marina Warner’s From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers is an essential work on fairy tales (and winner of a Mythopoeic Award).
Of course, I know you know that, but it’s worth mentioning for those who don’t (which just scratches the surface of these authors’ contributions to the field of mythological studies – not to mention how important their voices are in a field once dominated by a masculine perspective).
Warner’s point especially resonates, given the tendency among the general public to assume a text in print represents the definitive version of a myth, as if such a thing exists. Fortunately, that’s an attitude more difficult to maintain today than in the past, thanks to the multiple reimaginings of myths available today (e.g. the many retellings of episodes from the Odyssey – from Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad to Madeline Miller’s Circe).
