DIALOGUE

Replies to questions I didn't get to the other day:

What about the spider's web symbol gives you hope/comfort? For some reason, Indra's net comes to my mind -- the whole reflected in each part, each interconnected and reflecting the all.

--Part of our current breakdown and pathology, culturally, is the result of intense compartmentalization and splitting. Systems experts often say that by contrast, healthy systems can connect to more of themselves. No major blockages. So the Net or Web image reinforces how borders all over the world give way to communication channels between very disparate groups of people making common cause.

I kept hearing you mention the phrase "the underworld as an energy source". Couild our reliance on oil be an indicator that we are not actualiziing energy from our own underworld? I.e. not accessing enough archetypal interaction, differentiation?

--Definitely. We neglect the Underworld and turn the surface of our planet into what we neglect. Pluto was demoted as a planet, but plutocracy runs Earth now, politically. As Jung pointed out, what we refuse to encounter inwardly reappears outside.

Does mythic activism help provide hope? I’m an environmentalist and the more I look at this topic, the more depressed I become.

--I think it does. Especially if we look at the big picture of Earthrise, which Joseph Campbell spoke of as the mythic image of our time. A time of a very difficult planet-wide birth of consciousness.

Isn't "myth" really humanity trying to explain something in their environment? As such, what is the need to go back to the old myths.  Why not just talk about new myths?

--Because the old plotlines recur. I gave several examples: the mythology of Hades clinging to oil production; Moloch as the bull god of Wall Street. Jung's emphasis on archetypes reminds us that the old patterns persist; he wrote about the need to "dream the myth onward by giving it a modern dress." (I sometimes receive a similar question when I talk about the need to understand intergenerational trauma. It's what faces us whether we like it or not.) Bear in mind too that myths are only partly created by humans: the place the myths appear and the archetypal forces within them provide the deep driving forces.

Is myth a more effective tool for change than religion?

--It can be at first when things are in flux. Religions tend to assume the same old ossified and dogmatic forms after a while, and then they resist change. Perhaps we live in a time of finding out what a healthy religion would be like? One that's diverse and just and sustainable?

Craig's definition of activism highlights how activism as a system is breaking down as well - possibly too tied to the hero's Journey as monomyth?

--Yes, unreflective activism can be very Heroic. "Save the Planet." "Revolution." Etc. Jung's Red Book was an antidote to that kind of being caught in the Hero archetype: the need to descend. Mythic Activism begins with the descent, not with imposing the heights on the depths.

The power of the myth is in the truth behind the myth. Is it possible to achieve unanimity about the truth behind the myth?

--The more layers of meaning and interpretation, the richer the discourse. I don't think there's a single truth behind any myth. Interpretations of myths in terms of single meanings kill the myths. An ideology is a myth that forgot it is a myth.

What myth would you say underlies Environmental Illness?

--One possibility: Uranus lying so close to Gaia that she can no longer give birth to her children. Our skies are becoming very heavy. People with EI suffer the sufferings of Gaia.

Comment: This is not a question. I am an Archetypal Astrologer who uses the names of the mythic characters in relationship to the movement of the planets. There is a connection with the description of the mythic god, Saturn to the way the planet moves in the Universe and our lives.

--I'm reminded of the Neoplatonic image of what we now call archetypes as dreams in the imagination of the World Soul....

Comment: The new image is "The Day the Earth Smiled Back" from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.  Just shows how small we are compared to infinity.

--Very small. Our little Solar System neighborhood sits on the Orion Arm near the Orion Nebula that produces stars: one step beyond the nursery. That's just in our galaxy, one of billions in a universe that now looks like a daughter to uncounted others. How tragic, though, if our unique perceptions and appreciations were to disappear forever because of our own folly in allowing the wrong people to run the show on Earth.