As I watch the renewing, generative energies of spring wrestle with the lingering insistence of winter in the mountains of Northern Arizona it might be apt to remember Freyja, the most familiar and powerful of the Norse goddesses and whose…
What is myth… and why should anybody care? What do you think? I ask this because that one of the most marvelous ways to play with mythology is to assess our own answers to this question. And I love this question because…
In April, 1999, I was at a crossroads. I had just left a job that I loved running a theater school because it no longer served my family’s needs. I knew that I wanted to start editing again (I had…
¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo! Cinco de Mayo is a holiday that began to be celebrated in California in the 1860’s marking the Battle of Puebla. It is not, as it is commonly misunderstood to be, the same as Mexican Independence Day which…
American poet T.S. Eliot opens his masterpiece The Wasteland with a section titled “The Burial of the Dead”: APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. — T.S.…
A few nights ago, spring returned. In the Catskill Mountains of New York state, where I live, it’s a distinct moment, at dusk on the night when the spring peepers erupt into song. If you’ve not had the pleasure of…
The most important and oldest date on the Christian calendar is the celebration of Easter, the death and resurrection of Christ. The whole of Christianity rests on this event and without it, Christian mythology simply doesn’t work. The name, Easter,…
April 1st, April Fool’s Day, is a day traditionally set aside for playing tricks on people or hoaxing. Pranks and hoaxes range from the very clever, like the BBC’s “spaghetti harvest” or an article in the April 1998 issue of…
In the Zoroastrian religion Nowruz, the new day, is perhaps the most important day on the Zoroastrian calendar (it also marks the Persian new year) and is celebrated on, or near, the spring equinox. Much of what is known about Zarathustra,…
Why do we tell stories about quests? In traditional, warrior cultures, such tales make a certain practical sense: they’re a way to give a sense of purpose to young men who have nothing to do except wait around until it’s…
A week ago, I found myself at that hard moment of freeing my eighteen-year-old cat from a body that was failing her. From the moment of her choosing me at a California animal rescue, our lives have been a dance…
We are all familiar with the trope of St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland, but the real St. Patrick was even more remarkable in real life than the pied piper we have come to know through a rather…
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, we read story after story of a human (or demi-human) encountering the gods and being literally transformed by the experience. The stories generally come in one of two flavors: the human is ready for the experience and transcends his…
Shivaratri, The Great Night of Shiva, is celebrated this year on the 24th of February, the 6th night of the Phalgun, and devotees fast and maintain vigil all night. This, the largest of Shiva celebrations, centers on the tradition which allows that on…
The origins of Valentine’s Day are a bit murky, but they seem to reach back far into the early Roman celebrations of Romulus and Remus and the fertility festival of Lupercalia celebrated at the ides of February, or the 15th…
New Year’s is, traditionally, the time set aside for reflecting on the year just past and setting goals and making resolutions for the year to come. It is a curious emotional position in which to find oneself, not quite out…
Finding the Gold Within, a film that, according to the director, “probes what it means to be young, black, male, and ‘other’,” enjoyed its world premiere this week at the Mill Valley Film Festival in Marin County, California. In Finding…
Subscribe to JCF’s email list to receive a weekly MythBlast newsletter along with occasional news and special offers from JCF.