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Welcome to Myth Matters, a thought-provoking exploration of the role myth plays in contemporary life life and the intersection of myth, creativity, and consciousness. Host Catherine Svehla PhD. shares her knowledge of mythology and depth psychology to find insight and explore possibilities. Member of the Joseph Campbell Foundation MythMaker℠ Podcast Network. Learn more at www.mythicmojo.com and keep the mystery in your life alive.
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"Well, that's the trick: the sudden unexpectedness inside the over-known." --- Heather McHugh What type of mood does the word "poetry" evoke for you? Do you associate poetry with the profound and weighty? The concerns of the soul and the seriously sacred? I rarely look to poetry for a laugh and I wonder why, when there are many brilliant moments of…
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Fate and free will, and the longing for purpose and prospect of destiny that hangs somewhere in-between. How do these forces shape our lives? Do we play assigned roles in a cosmic plan or make it all up as we go? These questions weave through many myths and stories. What answers do we find and how can we live with the questions? Support the show Em…
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“A yogi sees Me in all things and all things within Me.” Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita The Bhagavad-Gita is an important Hindu teaching story embedded in the Mahabharata, an astonishing epic poem. Astonishing for its length- 100,000 verses-- and for its beauty. Astonishing for the complexity of the social and spiritual world constructed in the poem …
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Last Monday, February 26th was Tell a Fairy Tale Day. I began preparation for this episode with the intention of telling you a fairy tale, perhaps one that was connected to the holiday. This process opened up reflection on the necessity of a well-developed imagination to meet life challenges in a creative and satisfying way, and the role fairy tale…
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We have an ever- increasing wealth of myths and stories, fueled by new discoveries and ongoing mythmaking. There are also dominant myths and stories, and dominant ideas about myths and stories, that limit the usefulness of this inheritance and the possibilities we entertain. In the last episode, I turned to the Hero's Adventure, a mythic pattern ar…
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It's only January and 2024 already feels like a year of consequence. Crazy weather and climate change, war, elections, ideological, religious, and cultural conflicts, and Pluto's move into Aquarius, heralding a long underworld journey of transformation in our communities, social contracts, technology, idea of service, and visions of freedom. What r…
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The solstice will soon be upon us, followed by the arrival of a new year. A time of endings and beginnings. Reckoning. This passage through winter darkness here the in northern hemisphere leads me to Norse mythology and my fascination with the god Odin. Odin is a god who lives with the prophecy that his world will end and he will die. This is an un…
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"I am destined to die either by a crocodile, a serpent, or a dog; it is the will of the gods. Then let me go forth and follow my heart's desire while I live.". 2023 is drawing to a close. "The Tale of the Doomed Prince," a fairy tale found in ancient Egyptian papyri from 1550 BCE or so, is an interesting companion to year end (year round?) reflecti…
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The existence of monsters, alongside gods and goddesses, is a distinguishing feature of myths, fairy tales, and legends. Defeating a monster is often the test of the hero, the act that makes that individual a hero. And yet, life is full of challenges and dangers. There are plenty of opportunities for various forms of heroism in this everyday world …
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The season around Halloween and Samhain is a liminal time when shadows grow and lengthen in the world and psyche. The old Celtic stories of poet warriors and fairies feel especially potent to me right now, so I'm dipping back into the collection Irish Fairy Tales by James Stephens for this story offering. "The Enchanted Cave of Cesh Corran" is rich…
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Sedna is the goddess mother of the sea, marine animals, and the underworld in the myths of the Inuit people, an indigenous Arctic culture. This episode is an exploration of variations on her origin story, and some of the questions and possibilities Sedna raises in this time of climate change and fundamentalism. Support the show Email Catherine at d…
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"I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread.." ---from "The Song of Wandering Aengus" by W.B. Yeats The Salmon of Knowledge is a mythical creature in Irish folklore associated with poetry and knowledge of deep truths. Any person who ate a bit of the fish would become …
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“Dogs are our link to paradise.” -- Milan Kundera Sometimes a "little" detail in my day triggers thoughts about my mythic orientation and brings stories to mind. This episode began with a short news story about a dog. Which led me to a Jicarilla Apache creation myth and an Irish legend about Fionn MacCool. These stories remind us of the enduring bo…
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"I don’t think the meaning of life is what we’re seeking. I think it’s an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have residences within our own innermost being in reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive." -- Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth The meaning of life isn't what we'r…
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"Rationality and logic can be spiritual." -- Alan Lightman, Mr. g The antagonism between Western science and myth/religion has shaped human history and continues to obstruct the quest for a holistic understanding of existence. In Myths to Live By, Joseph Campbell outlines the conflict and offers solutions to the modern dilemma. Science will provide…
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The Babylonian Enuma Elish, also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation, is one of the oldest surviving creation myths. The story narrates the epic battle between the god Marduk and the primordial goddess Tiamat, which resulted in the creation of mankind and the establishment of an enduring order in heaven and on earth. No one alive today "believes…
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How did all of this-- what we call reality, the universe, the earth, life, begin? What do you think? This question is a primary motivation for our ongoing myth-making. Despite all the tools and technologies, the origins of the cosmos, life, and human beings are still a mystery. In offering us an explanation of our creation, these myths offer a pers…
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The proper way to be a father or mother, questions about who can father or mother, and what these parental roles mean are contentious topics, ripe for creative reflection and renewal. Myths about fathers and fatherhood contain images and meanings that shape society and family life. They're a key part of this cultural conversation. The fathers in my…
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Our appreciation of mythology as a symbolic language is central to the contemporary relationship to myth. As people bound to a psychological view of the inner life, myth as metaphor is the key to understanding the old stories. And yet, myth is more than metaphor. The elements in a story, the specific animals, plants, and features of the land that a…
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On the surface, "The Wild Swans" is a fairy tale about cursed brothers who are saved by their sister. This is a common motif. Closer examination led me to consider the creative power of words and of silence, and how we use and are used, by both. I hope you enjoy the story. Support the show Email Catherine at drcsvehla@mythicmojo.com Post a positive…
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In The World's Wife, Carol Ann Duffy offers myth poems that are also myths for today in the form of a poem. These poems converse with old myths and stories AND they are stories in themselves. They display a deep appreciation for the poignancy of these tales, and a wicked, dark humor. I love them. As the title suggests, Duffy tells her myths from th…
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April is National Poetry month! Myth and poetry have a long, shared history. In fact, our oldest known myths are poems. Have you ever wondered why this might be? I suspect the intuitive rightness of myth as poetry springs from the ancient understanding of the sacred power of the word. In this episode, we explore the creative power of speech with th…
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The Greek goddess Athena was a warrior, the patron of cities and mentor of heroes, clear-eyed, practical, and strategic. What was her great power? She was the goddess of Reason. Yes, the ancient Greek patriarchy, a model of misogyny, imagined "reason" as female. This being myth, there's plenty to unpack and contradicts abound. This episode is your …
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Myth has an interesting and complex relationship to history. Myth is part of the historical record of our species, and part of the history of a given people. And myth shapes history. Myth gives rise to the beliefs and point of view that create our world, determine the present, and influence the future. This blending of myth and history can lead to …
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The freedom to love and individuality. The difference between spiritual love and carnal love. Love for the self and love for a beloved. The fear and fascination elicited by those who don't fit conventional categories and definitions. Hans Christian Andersen was probably not thinking about these ideas when he wrote his fairy tale "The Little Mermaid…
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A new year is a time of beginnings and possibility. A fresh and hopeful creativity infuses our aspirations. This is a good time to make conscious choices about the sources we turn to and the images we hold, as we form our goals, predictions, and hopes for the coming year. According to the ancient Chinese zodiac, each year in a 60-year cycle has a p…
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Yes, Christmas is grossly commercial, a taint that touches other year-closing holidays as well. And yet this time, and these traditions, have deep mythological roots that connect us to important gifts of the spirit. The mythic figure of Santa Claus reveals the tangled history of our year end aspirations and need for community. I hope this snapshot …
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Whatever your ancestry, wherever your people had deep roots, winter was the time for storytelling. To gather together inside, stay warm, relax, and learn together. Winter stories in particular, are stories about the mysteries that bind our earthly world to the other worlds. Stories about the bridges between the visible and the invisible. Stories of…
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“In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to ask questions.” -- Mary Oliver The Arthurian legend of the knight Perceval and his quest for the grail was written by the French Romantic poet Chrétien de Troyes, who reworked Celtic legends and British history. The story includes King Arthur, his knights, and a number…
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In this Norwegian fairy tale, the queen makes a mistake. That's not the whole story. There's also a dragon. And an opportunity to reflect on our fallibility, the tendency to blame, our story inheritance, and the empathy we might develop through imaginative engagement with what angers and disturbs us. I hope you enjoyed the story. Support the show E…
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I recently overhead an exchange between a little boy and his mom. The subject was witches and magic. Which got me thinking. Magic involves perception, changes in the way we see and the manner in which things appear. Magic, like myth, is now a matter of "belief" when it could be practice. This episode revolves around a Russian fairy tale called "Vas…
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“Loving is an authentic psychological task, the most demanding there is, just because it activates in us new ways of knowing ourselves.’" --- Aldo Carotenuto The myth of Eros and Psyche can be read as a myth of initiation orchestrated by the goddess Aphrodite, a personification (or archetype) of love, sexuality, and beauty as enlivening powers that…
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“I have always thought of a myth as something that never was but is always happening.”-- Jean Houston, The Possible Human Eros and Psyche, or Cupid and Psyche to the Romans, a marvelous old myth about love, soul, and what's required to unite the two. Apuleius included this story in The Golden Ass (also called The Metamorphoses) from the late 2nd ce…
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“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” — Maya Angelou What can we do when we are motivated by love? I recently had the great good fortune to see the Broadway production of "Hadestown." This inspires me to revisit the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, to ex…
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The hero is a central figure in our myths and stories. The hero can often provide inspiration or comfort. These stories can help us find our courage or feel a bit more powerful. The image of the hero is also a burden. Hero narratives in the dominate culture have combined with modern myths of the individual and individualism to paint a picture of th…
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“Always you will find that within you the shadow and the light go together… It is up to you to know how to utilize the one to realize the other.” -Sri Aurobindo Each of us is called to change, mature, and take responsibility for our conscious evolution. A central task in psychological development is recognition and integration of the shadow. And th…
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"Noting these tokens and examples some have said that a share of divine intelligence is in bees, and a draught of (a)ether: since there is a god in everything..." --Virgil, The "Georgics," 29 BCE Stories from contemporary indigenous cultures convey an ecological consciousness of balance and symbiosis that is foreign to the way many people live toda…
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“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.” ― Ray Bradbury The impossibilities of our existence are more than a matter of statistics and probabilities. Our stories remind us of the tensions that we are called to live, our impossible longings, and the contradictions that are part of being human. They also tell us that wonder is essential to…
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"He is now struck with wonder by what's wonderful in him..." ----Ovid's Myth of Narcissus, translated by Allen Mandelbaum In the most popular version of the myth of Narcissus, a beautiful young man rejects many adoring suitors and falls in love with his own reflection in a still pool of water. This myth inspired the psychologists Havelock and Freud…
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Our notion of "self" is one of the deep and enduring mysteries of human existence. The concept of self is both obvious and unfathomable, the meanings elusive and diverse. It can range from the concrete "me" to the illusory-- the self as a shifting fabrication of preferences, experiences, and perceptions. To speak mythologically of the "self" is to …
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Birds have a unique place in our cultural imagination. Observing their habits, our ancestors learned about home building, foraging, and partnership. Their presence inspired our earliest art forms and culture. Today birds still teach us about sorrow and death, love and joy, and the beautiful power found in song, in singing. We're also learning new l…
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"The spirit wanders, comes here now, now here, and occupies whatever frame it pleases. From beasts it passes into human bodies, and from our bodies into beasts, but never perishes." ----Joseph Campbell Animals have a significant presence in our mythologies. The meanings we ascribe to them illuminates our uneasy relationship to our other-than-human …
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Fables are probably the best known and most widely used stories in our mythological traditions. These are simple stories that frequently include animal characters. What is their appeal? Do they offer us more than a laugh? In this episode we make some leaps, from a fable about frogs to practical philosophy, to an angry goddess, an ancient Greek come…
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This is our second and final podcast in celebration of National Poetry month. I devote the April episodes to National Poetry month, to honor and recognize the shared origins of poetry, myth, and song. I also want to share some of the power of poetry. A poem, like a song or a story, can evoke a deep and necessary sense of the rightness of things. In…
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"Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." --Rumi In the last podcast, "A Terrible Love of War, A Culture of Peace," I talked about the need to build a culture and societies that are so satisfying and compelling that we are unwilling to sacrifice them or our precious lives to the destruction and…
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In 2004, James Hillman published a difficult and though-provoking investigation of war titled A Terrible Love of War. He writes: "I believe that we can never speak sensibly of peace or disarmament unless we enter into this love of war. Unless we enter into the martial state of soul, we cannot comprehend its pull [...] To know war we must enter its …
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Nations. Sovereignty. War. Democracy. Citizenship. I. We. Unconscious monotheism. Polytheistic consciousness. Diversity. Complexity. Fluid myths. Culture building. Trickster. Multiple meanings. Art. Some thoughts and two poems. Support the show Email Catherine at drcsvehla@mythicmojo.com Post a positive review on apple podcasts! Learn how you can w…
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“The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow, and there is no humor in heaven.” ~ Mark Twain When we get stuck, when life hands us a challenging situation and there's no clear way out, our best tool is the ability to shift perspective. To see things from a different angle. Laughter can help us make such a shift. So can a story. The answer migh…
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My jumping off point today is a story that's generating a lot of heated debate right now, the movie "Don't Look Up." I'm going to make some references to this movie, but this podcast is not about it, per se. So, if you haven't seen the movie, no worries. And if you have, and are perhaps tired of or already feel deeply embroiled in the conversation …
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“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole.” ― C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul The creation and maintenance of a shadow aspect of the personal and collective psyche is an inevitable part of psychic life. When consciousness and a sense of personal identity emerges, so does a shadow…
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