Why we need Myths
In times of crisis, we need to call on our inheritance of great stories
“There are good stories and there are bad stories.”
I thought Tyson Yunkaporta was being dramatic when he said that. After all, stories often teach we don’t have to be so black and white.
“Really?” I asked skeptically.
Tyson went on to explain his point: “Good stories come from a place,” you can track them, their creators, and they are born from something living with a soul (my words not his).
“Bad stories don’t.” You don’t know where they came from, and they bring the weapons of distraction and disruption that rupture wholeness by spreading fear, distrust, and lies.
Myths are the earth speaking out loud.
Sean Kane said in his book, Wisdom of the Myth Keepers.
I remember the first time I read a greek myth. Even at eight years old, I could feel a secret language I didn’t understand at the time -- but would come to understand as the power living within our myths.
Even though ancient, I could feel something inside those stories pulsing, an algorithm of life speaking to me about the roles I played, the stories I lived, the lessons I was learning -- in my time.
It is well understood that myths, while now seen as fiction, in the time of their creation were very real renditions of life. Truths and lies were woven into them to serve the destiny of their creator.
What if: a myth is a living being?
And just like the body is a home for the soul, the architecture of a story is the home for the spirit of a story.
And just like the soul’s experience is determined by how well the vehicle of the body is taken care of, the spirit of a story is limited or expanded by the structure of the story it is built within.
Depending on our willingness to learn the language of the story, to humble our thinking minds to open to hear the secrets of the soul they have the power to reveal, determines if the door to the mystery school of story opens.
So many of souls of stories are getting locked into a tiny condos over-lit by fluorescent lights leaving no space for mystery— and for the mind to go on a good walk about in the caverns of the consciousness. So many of the stories produced by Hollywood are now built out of cookie cutter models that lack the depth of a deep basement, or the true unknowable mystery of a hallway that reveals a mysterious door whose key must be found in order to gain access.
“The business of stories is not enchantment.
The business of stories is not escape.
The business of stories is waking up.”
-Martin Shaw
I’ve been enthralled by the idea that our mythical allies were forced out of our world, when magic was banished, and the spell was cast upon humans that led us to believe we needed to technology to speak with the wild ones, and made us all forget that as creators— we were born with the capacity to communicate to all of life, when we know how to use our senses.
That those who contain that kind of magic and mystery no longer tolerated in a world based on consumption - were forced out of this world— but were so strong they never left the field of our consciousness, or imagination. So this is where what once lived and walked among us, now exist.
And I can’t help but wonder how clever they really are— As we engage the animistic perspective that everything is alive, why wouldn’t we give the imagination the courtesy of possibly unicorns and dragons and fairies still live among us— and they have somehow snuck back into this world through stories, stuffed animals of unicorns and dragons, through the plastic formation of gnomes and are very much real as they found another way to take material form.
So many of the myths who live among us have been hijacked, manipulated, and harmed to abide the will of the conquerer of the story; leaving us with stories of women who need rescuing, men with distorted identities of masculinity, and make fun of interspecies communication.
And yet, even though abused, the spirit of the stories remain unbroken, they are still living among us-- ready to be set free, reclaimed, when listened to.
And so in this wild time of change on earth, as a sacred storyteller, this is the time when I feel inclined to return to roots of life, the roots of our stories, and do the deepest kind of listening:
Let me provide a concrete examples of how this might play out:
The Story of Medea came for a visit and asked for forgiveness. It was a strange ask, from the story of a woman who killed her children as revenge for her husband who had slept with another woman.
My partner I was working with to bring this story to life walked away from the project, saying she saw any mother who murdered her children as unforgivable.
And yet the story kept knocking on my door, asking to be worked with. So I brought it to a group of students who wanted to learn performance and ritual, to listen for the story, not just to the story.
And this is what we found: The story was built out of lies. Medea and Jason were known to be true people. Medea was a wild woman, a witch who lived at the edge of life, and had a spell cast upon her by Cupid, at Aphrodite’s request, who wanted Jason to have a powerful ally at his side so he could get the Golden Fleece.
Medea loved Jason, and worked all of her power and magic for his favor. They eventually settled down, and had children. And she became domesticated. Jason continued to travel, and was given the opportunity to expand his kingdom by marrying another king’s daughter. The popularized myth then goes on to tell that Medea in her rage, murdered the king, his daughter, and Jason’s children.
But the ancient scholar Parmeniscus recorded that the Corinthians (The King’s villagers) paid Euripides five talents of silver (a year’s wages for a laborer) if he would blame Medea, rather than their ancestors, for the death of Medea’s children.
Earlier versions of the myth tell a different story: the Corinthian women, not wishing to be ruled by a foreign woman and sorceress, plotted against her and killed her children. And it was therefore due to Euripides, at the request of the Corinthians, that the legend of the sorceress’s wickedness spread, and this lie ended up prevailing over the truth because of the author’s skill
Medea’s story is alive and shifting, and constantly transforming through the people who speak it alive. What we discovered — was a story that was asking for the energy of betrayal to be alchemized. The betrayal of a mother who cast a spell on a younger woman. The betrayal of a man to his wife. The betrayal of a storyteller.
The story was asking to be set free— and was asking to be released of there of perpetuating the energies of fear, betrayal, raw hate. When we listened, we heard a story that was asking to transmute these energies into forgiveness— and so a story ceremony was born where our audience was given the opportunity to work and play with the energy of betrayal— and to explore the energies of betrayal and forgiveness in their own lives.
In a time when the world is unraveling, why do we need to understand myths more than ever?
Before therapy, philosophy, or science, myths were how people processed the big life experiences — grief, transformation, death, the unknown. Jung called them the “collective unconscious” made visible.
A myth about a whale, a river, a mountain isn’t just a story — it’s a relationship that stretches back thousands of years between a people and a place. The story provides us the song lines and rivers of continuity to understand ourselves and our role on earth. Our stories are quite literally what roots us here.
Stories can provide us the time and space to process what isn’t ready to be spoken. But there is something else, is well documented, that there was secret knowledge woven into these stories, bound together by the language of story: symbolism and metaphor. So these stories, when properly listened and related to, hold the keys to unlocking the mysteries of life.
At this crucial time when we are so close to destroying ourselves as so many civilizations have done before, it feels the moment is ripe to learn from the stories we inherited from the past.
Unlike anything else on our planet, stories can sustain through the spoken word, traveling from generation to generation never having to be captured or enslaved by the written word — meaning they are forever allowed to grow and change.
But just because a story is an older, doesn’t mean it is an elder…
…and deserves to continue to live among us. This is where great discernment comes into play, and the storyteller must ask: what am I in service to? And is this story a rightful collaborator on this mission?
When we lose our myths, we don’t stop needing what they provided. So we turn to other places — and too often drama and conflict get mistaken as the same device.
Whereas healthy conflict— that shows us the pain and strength that is required to get through challenges, gets replaced by drama — which is like the cotton candy version. We still feel the sharp pulse of life and excitement in our system when we see it, but there is no redeeming pay off. No lessons learned. And we’re left hungry, needing more to fill some unexplainable hole that just formed in our consciousness.
Drama turns a story catcher into a consumer—leaving us hungry and needing more.
So then it is too easy to turn to celebrity culture, doomscrolling, conspiracy theories, and binge watching. All of these are a hunger for the missing gift of life that is given to us through mythology.
Without the storyteller playing the role as sacred role as guide through our evolving consciousness— the tools once designed to save and protect and educate us about how to live well on planet earth and connect us to all of life — have now been transformed into weapon that are being used against us.
The body knows myth
Ritual enactment of myth — through story, song, and living in an energetic field created by the presence of story and listeners — creates physiological states that purely intellectual information cannot. This is why Indigenous traditions protected these practices so fiercely: they understood what neuroscience can now finally confirm— that when in these states, energy is created that can change those who are in it.
Myths hold the tension between opposites
They don’t resolve paradox — they inhabit it. Light and dark, life and death, human and animal. They make space for the mystery that cannot be solved but must be reconciled. They have the capacity to hold contradiction.
So yes, now I agree with Tyson, there are good stories and bad stories, and now it is time we put on our sacred storytelling goggles and our sacred storytelling elfin ears, and make a study of listening and seeing all that is here.
TWO PROGRAMS TO WORK WITH YOUR MYTHS
If you are feeling the call to deepen your relationship with myths, I am offering two programs this summer:
MALAMA SESSIONS: Begins July 6th: I have partnered with ʻĀnela Gutierrez to bring us closer to bring the rhythms of earth into our understanding storytelling to create a new form of alignment.
We will learn a very respected and revered Hawaiian teaching about the moon cycles, and their short teaching stories. Then you will have time to learn the myths from your own lineage and learn how to create your stories with the natural cycles of the moon. Learn more here.
Alchemizing the Mythic Self begins in July 21 — a journey for 12 change makers ready to discover the story of their soul and learn how to walk it in the world. Over three distinct areas of work — excavating your lineage, transmuting the stories you’ve been carrying or inherited, and embodying the dream that is calling you forward — you will live from your story in such a way that it changes how you lead, how you live, and how you show up for the work you came here to do as you weave your magic into the mundane. This is the work of soul alchemy.
Schedule your discovery interview.
Private 1:1 offering: Soul Stories: If you are doing your soul work, and looking for a tool to help you expand your understanding of yourself, the unseen aspects of your mythos that influence your every day experience, and want tools and practices that you can apply to your every day life, you can learn more about private and integration sessions here.
Reclaiming the Medea myth!!! That was truly EPIC. And the ceremony... a definite PEAK experience for me
Fabulous, my dear friend and muse-inspirer whom I miss and always love to hear! I respect your evolution, your storytelling devotion, your perspectives as a teacher and a weaver of stories, myths, legends, and the telling!
Love this: "Whereas healthy conflict— that shows us the pain and strength that is required to get through challenges, gets replaced by drama — which is like the cotton candy version. We still feel the sharp pulse of life and excitement in our system when we see it, but there is no redeeming pay off. No lessons learned. And we’re left hungry, needing more to fill some unexplainable hole that just formed in our consciousness.
Drama turns a story catcher into a consumer—leaving us hungry and needing more."