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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 approaching life with a sense of adventure, and to cultivating the curiosity and compassion that we need to stay open to the marvelous richness of our experience.

A sense of wonder is what inspires me to share the story that I have for you today. It's a Norwegian fairy tale called "Valemon the White Bear King," and it begins with a great and beautiful mystery, a powerful dream.

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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 to name a pathological love of self, "narcissism."

Narcissism can be a very serious problem, and many psychologists say this disorder is prevalent in our times. But does this concept accurately reflect the myth or contain all that it has to offer us today?

The Greek myth of Narcissus, like the still pond in the story, can offer us a place to reflect on the mysteries of self, other, love, beauty, and more. 

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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 speak of our yearning for soul, for depth, for the direct experience of our own inner unfolding. This process is guided by that part of us that knows our unique place in the grand scheme of things. 

Many of our myths and stories describe this quest for a vision and relationship to self that satisfies our longing. In this episode, I tell you  "The Six Companions" fairy tale.

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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 lessons from birds, about intelligence, cognition, and language.

"The Nightingale" is one of Hans Christian Andersen lesser-known stories. It's quirky and funny and an interesting reflection on the difference between art and artifice, nature and culture. I hope you enjoy the story.

“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”-- Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

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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 companions, and offer us a way to think creatively about our place in the world and human nature. 

The exploration in this episode revolves around two stories, "The Tigress" jataka and a fairytale called "The Three Languages."

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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 comedy, and the mythological history of frogs.

I hope you find something entertaining and useful.

“We are rag dolls made out of many ages and skins, changelings who have slept in wood nests or hissed in the uncouth guise of waddling amphibians. We have played such roles for infinitely longer ages than we have been men. Our identity is a dream. We are process, not reality, for reality is an illusion of the daylight — the light of our particular day.”
-- Loren Eisley, The Unexpected Universe

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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 his work titled The Relevance of the Beautiful,philosopher Hans Gadamer writes "[...] the experience of the beautiful, and particularly the beautiful in art, is the invocation of a potentially whole and holy order of things, wherever it may be found." 

Attention to beauty is one way to find the quiet eye in the middle of our collective storms. I need the perspective and peace of mind that communion with a poem offers. Maybe you do too.

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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 death brought by war. 

I imagine the time that we spend together here today with these poems, as an offering to such a culture.

I hope these poems bring you some respite, inspiration, a deeper appreciation for the beauty in your life. Perhaps you'll find a new poet to investigate on your own.

April is National Poetry month here in the United States.  Let's celebrate.

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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 love. No psychic phenomenon can be truly dislodged from its fixity unless we first move the imagination into its heart..." 

In this episode, I approach Hillman and "A Terrible Love of War" with these questions:

What is "the terrible love of war?" 

How does Hillman ask us to imagine it?

What can an archetypal perspective on the phenomenon of war tell us about its nature, and our own? 

Can this perspective help us, as citizens and mortal humans, to create a culture of peace?

I welcome your comments and questions. Thanks for listening.

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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.

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