The Power of Myth and Storytelling: Part 2 – Creating Myths for a New World
Thursday 9th April, 2009
Castle Cove Lookout, Glenaire, Victoria, Australia
And the sign says… “About 100 million years ago it would have been a lot colder! This land was much further south, only a few hundred kilometres from the Antarctic. It formed part of Gondwana, the great southern landmass. Dinosaurs roamed the Earth then. The remains of at least five dinosaur species, including one named Leaellynasaura, were found just west of here in the 1980’s and early 1990. Gondwana broke up and drifted north. Sandstones and mudstones laid down over the following 20 million years preserved the dinosaurs’ bones as fossils. Uplift and erosion exposed the fossils and sculptured the land giving it craggy features like Castle Rock to the west. The plant eating Leaellynasaura stood only about 60cm tall. Its skull had large optic lobes, suggesting that it had large eyes to help it see in the dim winter light near the South Pole. It is thought to have been a warm blooded creature, roaming active right through the long dark Gondwana winters. Note that like living plants and animals, fossils and rock structure are protected by law in National Parks.” The Southern Ocean surges, Glimmering in the dreaming light Cascading rays caress my brow, redden my ears As wild, yet soft, a starry wind whispers to me Echoes of the flame robin’s song Melting wind to song to murmurs of other songs yet to come As it skims across the water, cooling my skin And evening blushes over the flaming west, Glimmering across my breast; Inhaling deeply, I fill my heart and give thanks, Amber sunset lingers on my lips As the familiar sign in the silver blown grass catches my eye And once more evokes my imagination, About 100 million years ago… MM
Myth and Myth Conception
This story board is at the lookout across the road from where we live. It has always kindled my imagination – not that I need much help living on this spectacular coastline. But what it does is provide me with an insight into the story of the land – like the old sagas and legends and the dindshenchas of Ireland – where the land holds the story – it runs through the very fabric of the place. As we tell the stories we keep them alive, we keep our culture and our place in it alive and we keep the energy of creation flowing. Like the ancient songlines of this land we call Australia. Out of the story the myth grows. The great mythologist Joseph Campbell once said that “myths are clues to our deepest spiritual potential.” So what is your story? What aspect of your myth are you living out? How does the land you love relate to this myth? What of the land where you live?
Nature and Storytelling
Wilderness has always called me, always sparking a great yearning within me. Surely the preservation of the world lies in the preservation of wilderness. Whenever I spend time in wilderness I experience all different consciousnesses all relating and I am part of it. The vital and necessary force of wilderness is taught in mythologies the world over. I feel that it’s essential for individuals to get out into the wilderness and experience it. Our energy fields naturally expand when we’re in nature, allowing us to be relaxed and open in a way we can’t in the busy cities where our energy fields tend to contract. In nature, especially wilderness, we are open to receive. The inspiration and clarity, the “truth”, comes as we immerse ourselves in the space that “nature” provides. Imagine right now Standing on the shores of the Southern Ocean: Breathe of the now and ancient ways As frothing white horses rise up Ears red in the crimson light And crashing hooves crest the heaving waves, The ninth swells bigger, Stronger than the rest, Aflame it races towards you Melting hues of late sunlight Incandescing through it’s unfurling splendour; The southerly air fresh, salty, Breath of Antarctica! Sweet throated bird on the wing Dewy eyed; You are the water and you are the wind And you are the light; You are the dreaming wisdom that is yours as you dance silver soled upon the wave. MM Once a person has experienced themselves this way they can no longer truly turn a blind eye to what is happening to wilderness and beauty the world over. The Celtic mystical pathway embraces the principles “as within so without, as above so below”. And so the wild reflects back to us our own capacity to be wild. To be unfettered and to feel our own massive potential for growth. Early Irish poetry and stories expressed such experience of our capacity: I am the wind that blows across the sea I am a wave of the deep I am the roar of the ocean I am the stag of seven battles I am a hawk on the cliff I am the wild boar I am a salmon in the river I am a lake on the plain I am the word of knowledge I am the point of a spear I am the lure beyond the ends of the earth I can shift my shape like a god. Song of Amergin Nature is the great mystery and once we realise we are part of it magic happens. This yearning has compelled me to reach out to the unknown. To seek and to follow my passionate heart. This powerful desire is within us all. If you follow its call it inevitably turns out to be the calling of spirit, urging you to self discovery, to understanding how you can be of service, to deepen your sense of place and belonging in the world. To discover your own mystical pathway. And your myth is your guiding light. Your life and your myth are inextricably entwined – I have come to realise this as I continue to distill the ingredients of my own myth. Some key features for me are my relationship with wilderness and the vital role it has in my life’s work, travelling both inner journeys and through outer landscapes since childhood and continually seeking to understand mysteries, talking with the spirits and communing with otherworldy energies and feeling what others are feeling. Dreaming answers, outcomes and about the future – mostly as the story. Having a family with many mysteries of identity and hidden secrets, of which I was one. This is all topped by my colossal imagination.
Land of the Giants – Re-weaving My Story
Moving to Australia as a child was an epic journey of the soul and one that is forever etched in my mind. And here, in the land of the giants, the pulse of the Dreamtime is still strong – not polished almost beyond reach as it has been in many places. My journey carried me across the ocean, to the other side of the world, where I grew with a yearning to know my ancestors and more of their stories, spurned on by living in a land where the indigenous culture know their stories still and revere their lineage. The currents of my journey carry me back to my ancestral home frequently and nestled there, in those wild western lands is an ancient continual culture amongst my own people that has never failed. That has, in fact, endured against all odds and interfaces with the way I live my own life, and which welcomes me to be part of it. ( Read: Sean Nós, Dreaming Back and The Cailleach and the Myth ). This epic travelling is not unusual for my culture. The Irish and Scottish Highlanders are scattered all around the world – especially in Australia and the USA. These wild lands colonised by the English became home to many Irish and Scottish. Many of the first white people here in Australia were Irish political prisoners of war. The “Celts” are travelers. Explorers and seekers and not just in the distant past, but even in recent history; captives, refugees and escapees of the oppressors hands, rebels and adventurers. And there are many ancient sagas of our ancestors travelling to other lands, far off and close to home, this world and the otherworld. Travels to the mysterious islands of the Otherworld that lay off the west coast of Ireland…
Migration Myth
Part of my myth then, is the migration myth. The long journey from a green land bountiful in water, grey stones and pyramid mountains, and the bones of my ancestors. Through sun drenched lands and tropical worlds, navigating the Suez Canal, crossing the equator in the intense heat into the mysteries of the Middle East; the traders in their striking garbs with wares of never before seen treasures, the palm readers of Yemen, the vibrant colours and exotic smells of the spices and animals filling my senses, and on to the monsoon season of Sri Lanka with misty mountains, golden topaz and creamy dahl, and still on, until finally we reached Fremantle, Western Australia, where we watched nut brown children diving for silver coins. At last, after three and a half weeks at sea we crossed the Great Australian Bite to dock in Melbourne – a city of burnt umber and olive greens, with light full of golden dust and the scent of warm mysteries waiting to unfold. A place where more exotic adventures awaited me as we took up residence in an area filled with other newcomers to the country and their own wondrous cultures and customs; Italian, Irish, Greek, English, Chinese; Madonna, Quan Yin, Mother Mary, chickens, shepherds pie, spaghetti, green tea, fennel and bunches of garlic hanging in the kitchen… A land where the worlds oldest continual cultures still survive, where the richness of the Dreamtime is still tangible and which is home to perhaps the most culturally diverse population in the world. This was a mythic journey where, as a five-year-old, I traversed many worlds, and seemingly, many eras of time. And touched many lifetimes. Before long I found myself camping out beside the Southern Ocean under the southern milky way and I knew that I was home – it was then that I began to dream my dream of now. For now I live beside that same ocean under that blazing milky way.
Imagination
The ancient practice of story telling is a living breathing organic art form that grows and changes with each telling, with each generation and with each era. Because we have lost touch with our myths in many ways, the weaving of stories as our safety net has been frayed and even broken. This is true of my own family tradition where, for a long time, my ancestors had to be spiritually invisible. Their ways had to be disguised, or kept secret, if they were to survive at all. Of course many aspects of the traditions were lost. But there are threads that were preserved and handed on. How were they handed on to me? Through stories of course. My challenge – or gift – has been to have the courage to grasp the threads that I recognised – gems that sparked a yearning in me to take hold and follow – and of course they were often broken and then it was up to my own imagination to begin the reweaving. I think that has been the biggest struggle – to trust the inner knowing that interfaced with the stories I was told and then in turn, to take hold of the magic and work with it in my own ways as there wasn’t any one available to explain it more. My greatest asset has been and still is, my imagination. And the knowing without knowing how I know. This is powerfully strong in me and I have learnt to trust it. And I had to overcome the type of prejudice that accused me of having a “vivid imagination”, as though it were a curse, or suffering the put down of “it’s just your imagination”. Something that we have to reinstate in our culture is the power of the imagination – without which we could never dream, create, travel the inner journey, converse with spirit, receive inspiration or be visionary. And without which we would never have the stories. The power of myth lays in its ability to connect us to a continuity that is endless, timeless and beyond the bounds of the imagination. It allows us to enter the mystery. What is your story, I wonder?
REFERENCES
1. The Power of Myth Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, Doubleday, 1988, pg 55 2. The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, Joseph Campbell, Harper & Rowe 1988, pg132 3. www.gandhi-manibhavan.org 4. www.sacredtexts.com/neu/celt/vbwi/vbwi03.htm