MonoMyth.org

I am happy to announce that MonoMyth.org has a book on the way! Every so often we’ll be sharing an excerpt for you all to read and hopefully comment on. Here is the one for the day:

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Heroes in Myth vs. Fairy Tale

Pan’s Labyrinth

Contains Featurette:
Power of Myth

Sometimes you sit in your chair and you grab a book. It might flop open to a page and if you’re curious of what you see on that random page it might just ensnare you. Some people have a sense of wonder, while others call it chance. To be fair to whatever this inner impulse is (call it your unconscious or an inner sprite, challenge yourself to let go of labels, the first step on the Zen circle) give it the benefit of the doubt, take whatever it is calling your attention to seriously and see where it takes you.

Last night I attended the San Clemente Joseph Campbell RoundTable (I’ve been traveling) and saw the special feature on the Pan’s Labyrinth DVD called ‘The Power of Myth’. Guillermo del Toro referenced Bruno Bettelheim so that was the book I was reading.

In Bruno Bettelheim’s The Art of Enchantment I spotted the following words:

The Uses of Enchantment

“Myths and fairy tales have much in common. But in myths, more than in fairy tales, the culture hero is presented to the listener as a figure he ought to emulate in his own life, as far as possible.

A myth, like a fairy tale, may express an inner conflict in symbolic form and suggest how it is to be solved - but it is not necessarily the myth’s central concern. The myth presents its theme in a majestic way; it carries spiritual force; and the divine is experienced and is present and experienced in the form of superhuman heroes who make constant demands on mere mortals.

Much as we, the mortals, may strive to be like these heroes, we will remain always and obviously inferior to them.“

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Want to find your Living Mythology? Let me introduce your new friend: Hero Projection

Now I don’t necessarily agree with everything Bruno says. To me, the difference between a Myth and a Fairy Tale is that one was a religion. I’m sure one could spend a Faustian lifetime etching out all sorts of other differents and if you’d like to, feel free it might be your calling.

Atlas Shrugged

The focus I have is on the idea of Heroes being ungraspable to us. I agree with that. In fact, I had a difficult time as a young teen reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand because I wanted to be John Galt, as his prowess seemed to permeate me so. It was as if something jumped out and that inner thing could make my heart resonate like the strings of a harp. and it was very dejecting to realize it was damn near impossible.

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The folly and reward of Hero Projection - Literalism sores where Metaphors soar

Now we’ve all done this at one point or another. You may smile as you recall dressing up as your favorite hero, the child wishing he or she could fly or walk through walls, be invisible. And as kids we were so literal* we had no patience for not being able to truly live out the stories our imaginations had clothed us in.

The amazing beauty of the finding of a Hero (literary or in real life) is that the Heroes you are drawn to are symbolically representative of new elements of your being you have yet to discover, develop and integrate into your being. I don’t know if that is refreshing at all for you but the idea gets me all excited.

Think of it! Its a prophecy, a puzzle, a journey to become who you are to be! This is of the first steps in realizing your inner mythology (the myth which your unconscious is continuously living out.) Of course it isn’t an easy thing to learn, is it? “So I like Hero X, what then?” Well, that is that little child with the cape on talking; wanting me to snap my fingers and poof! you’re a Hero.

* Not that we aren’t taught to be very literal still, but I see that as a failure of proper initation rituals forging metaphoric thought in the corpus callosum… another rant for another day.

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Want to know what this Journey of your Life is all about?

Let’s do this. I want you to think of a Hero, a movie you positively love. I’m not a mind reader and besides, I wrote this before you read it so now I’ll just use the catch-all three. I’ll use three examples because I’m in the mood to smash you in the head a bit… so you get it.

1. Star Wars

   
   Story #1 - Star Wars
   So we sit down to watch Star Wars, you and me (good ol’ Ovid). You put in the DVD. And we’re watching it yay! Fanfares, Scroll Credits, Vader, Droids. Good, now look, Luke is longing at the sun. OH NOES! I run up and PAUSE it, turn around with that horrid grin of mine and say “yeah he blows up the death star” I’d probably then laugh a little bit too.
2. Lord of the Rings

   
   Story #2 - Lord of the Rings
   So we sit down to watch Lord of the Rings, you and me (yeah its Ovid again.) You put in the DVD ooh boy. And there’s Rings and Armies and the guy from the Matrix. Ooh! Look! Frodo is about to OH NOES! I run up and STOP it. “HAHA Gandalf falls in a pit.” and then again you get that grin.
   
3. 
   
   Harry Potter

   
   Story #3 - Harry Potter
   SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE oh man I had to do that. I am sorry and I also just could not resist.

And you want to skip your journey. Sheesh.

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Superman and Batman

The other day I broke a woman’s heart at the Dog Park. You see, I have been wandering aimlessly for the last 9 months or so rambling here and there and making wonderful friends, allowing life to put me where it wants, or perhaps I’m curious to see if all my foolishness holds up to that despicable harsh reality people keep telling me about. It seems good so far.

This woman told me how wonderful it was I was “Letting go and letting God” (she was a pastor’s wife and I was happy to speak to her in the language which she best understood that sense of wonder with, these ideas are prevalent in all the major religions. Taoist wu wei, even the word Muslim means surrender to the will of Allah.) But this is how I broke her heart you see. She told me “you are so close to following Jesus but you haven’t accepted Jesus as your personal savior.”

I’ll let you hear the rest of the story (because its funny) after you suffer my point.

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Sweet Jesus! The Point - Superman vs. Batman

Joseph Campbell once gave a talk where a nun asked him if he believed Jesus was the son of God. He said “Only if we all are.” which is a great point here.

Batman: Year One

David Miller also told me a story once of having lunch with Joe in the early 80s where they discussed Superman and Batman. David described how the new Frank Miller stories focused more on the development of Batman from normal person to becoming a hero rather than hey look at all these saucy things he can do. Joe lit up and began classifying all the myths based on Superman or Batman myths. He said that in a Superman myth, the Hero is simply divine and has special powers and thats that, but a Batman myth would be where the Hero learns to develop their inner gifts along their journey (usually the Road of Trials.)

The Death
of Superman

I had attended a showing of Godspell where the man playing Jesus was dressed half as Superman (his shirt) yet his pants were slacks (Clark Kent.) This is the mixture of the spirit and the body, a heavy theme in myth.* And I realized that was my difficulty being raised catholic way back when. Jesus is untouchable because to liken yourself to him is blasphemy.

Gospel According
to Jesus

I like Campbell’s quote because very simply he deflates the Hero Projection upon Jesus by realizing Christ is a symbol for something transcendent but also achievable. This is also why he believed Buddhism would outlive Christianity, because we’re all Buddhas unrealized and they don’t have to deal with the death grip of literalism.

Here is a jewel of insight: If you understand the idea of the Threshold Guardian, with these ideas in mind ALL Heroes now in this light are Threshold Guardians. The Threshold Guardian is an Archetype which tests Heroes at a point to be able to filter only those who are truly ready to go on the Hero Journey, Our Heroes act as our Threshold Guardians as to both giving the Call to Adventure.

*see my Snakes on a Plane Article eventually — sorry it isn’t published here yet, I’ll get it back up.

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The End of the Dog Park Story: Fire with Fire (or Politics or Literalism for that matter)

So I promised you the rest of the story. I had a good 3 or 4 hours sitting there answering the woman’s questions, yet I confess I did feel guilty as her questions were very heavily pointed so it was very easy for me to answer in such a way that she looked a fool if she continued on her customary speech. I was able to wave my finger at catholicism for being political and their tendency to tell others what they should think to keep her from that and also I was able to shame the measure/quantification happy scientists from keeping her from being too literal.

You see, it isn’t that I disagree with any of it. Don’t get me wrong. My core belief is I don’t know and I secondly believe its not anyone else’s damned right to shove their belief system down someone else’s throat. In fact, I sometimes wonder if I’m noticing a pattern of insecurity and thus overcompensation in that regard.

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But I’ll need a better Conclusion to get this published eventually…

The Power of Myth

So another way of easily summing this up is that I have a hard time reading Campbell anymore. I realized that my draw to him was he was such an eloquent bastard. Wow! what a great storyteller. But that doesn’t come off in TOO many of his books, much moreso if you see recordings. That moment I needed was where I said “He is eloquent and that makes something in my jump. If its trying to tell me something, maybe I can learn to be quite eloquent as well, and learn to communicate my ideas using metaphors too.”

But I still have a long road ahead, and yes even I wish I knew the ending some days. =]

~Ovid
San Clemente, CA 2007