Thursday, July 13, 2006
A New Definition of Myth
Science, drawing from what Kant called the synthetical realm of the senses and the analytical realm of mathematics.
But all these cold hard facts leave us cold and hard.
When we were younger, Myth was Natural.
When told stories about God, or Angels, or Satan and the Fallen Ones, or Gingerbread Men and Riding Hoods, you didn't need to verify any of it by use of scientific empiricism.
Unless you were a budding scientist.
Somehow, it all just had the ring of Truth to it, and you knew it was true. Somewhere.
Just like it made sense that the Young Earth was the center of a Young Universe. And that the stars were not so far away.
Then, in our age, one grows up in a world where it has been deemed that knowledge should be cast in scientific terms.
No more room for the Ptolemaic Universe of Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, where the Earth is the center of it all.
No, now we must live on a rocky, miniscule blue dot of a planet that is one of ten in a solar system which in turn is one of millions, inside a galaxy, which in turn is one of millions, inside a cluster which - well you get the picture.
So we go from Significance, as a child, to insignificance as an adult.
And as we get older, and have gone on without practicing intuition, and have traded the Solid Mythical Truths for the Conditional, Empirical Truths, where Rationality has been overthrown for Skepticism, our souls become deserts....lack of water or any other sustenance.
The Answer.
To realize that there is a realm where the Ptolemaic Universe is Real.
Where the Red Sea parts for the Children of Israel.
Where all manner of impossibilities such as floating into the air or rising from the dead, is completely possible.
And to realize this Realm is not accessed by the coldness of intellect, but by the warmness of intuition.
Where to start...
I recommend starting with the painter Marc Chagall, who painted objects that behaved as if they were taken from the Biblical Universe.
In Chagall, Goats and all manner of animals can defy gravity and float around willy nilly.
As can people.
And houses.
This sets the mind to thinking.
And at the bottom of the thinking is the realization that as whimsical as the picture seems, it has the ring of Truth to it on some level.
Thankfully, the Heart remembers it's childhood.
Then try remembering the Nature of your youth.
Turn the air conditioning in the car off, turn the stereo in the car off, and listen to the crickets as you drive through the night.
Remember when you thought the noise from the crickets issued from their throats and not their legs?
Go for a walk through the woods.
Remember feeling like the trees had eyes?
And the wonder of hearing the hoot of an owl.
Or the quiet lilt of the whipporwhill?
The fact it all seems so distant is good, in that it is a diagnosis.
You've just been to the doctor and the doctor has told you you are ill.
So now, you must begin the healing, or the long journey back.
Back to the days when the Sun truly did rise, and the moon truly did change shape, and the Earth didn't move.
I'm not asking you to delude yourself, as the Skeptic will charge.
I'm asking you to shift from scientific to mythical thinking.
This is a start.
Science, drawing from what Kant called the synthetical realm of the senses and the analytical realm of mathematics.
But all these cold hard facts leave us cold and hard.
When we were younger, Myth was Natural.
When told stories about God, or Angels, or Satan and the Fallen Ones, or Gingerbread Men and Riding Hoods, you didn't need to verify any of it by use of scientific empiricism.
Unless you were a budding scientist.
Somehow, it all just had the ring of Truth to it, and you knew it was true. Somewhere.
Just like it made sense that the Young Earth was the center of a Young Universe. And that the stars were not so far away.
Then, in our age, one grows up in a world where it has been deemed that knowledge should be cast in scientific terms.
No more room for the Ptolemaic Universe of Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, where the Earth is the center of it all.
No, now we must live on a rocky, miniscule blue dot of a planet that is one of ten in a solar system which in turn is one of millions, inside a galaxy, which in turn is one of millions, inside a cluster which - well you get the picture.
So we go from Significance, as a child, to insignificance as an adult.
And as we get older, and have gone on without practicing intuition, and have traded the Solid Mythical Truths for the Conditional, Empirical Truths, where Rationality has been overthrown for Skepticism, our souls become deserts....lack of water or any other sustenance.
The Answer.
To realize that there is a realm where the Ptolemaic Universe is Real.
Where the Red Sea parts for the Children of Israel.
Where all manner of impossibilities such as floating into the air or rising from the dead, is completely possible.
And to realize this Realm is not accessed by the coldness of intellect, but by the warmness of intuition.
Where to start...
I recommend starting with the painter Marc Chagall, who painted objects that behaved as if they were taken from the Biblical Universe.
In Chagall, Goats and all manner of animals can defy gravity and float around willy nilly.
As can people.
And houses.
This sets the mind to thinking.
And at the bottom of the thinking is the realization that as whimsical as the picture seems, it has the ring of Truth to it on some level.
Thankfully, the Heart remembers it's childhood.
Then try remembering the Nature of your youth.
Turn the air conditioning in the car off, turn the stereo in the car off, and listen to the crickets as you drive through the night.
Remember when you thought the noise from the crickets issued from their throats and not their legs?
Go for a walk through the woods.
Remember feeling like the trees had eyes?
And the wonder of hearing the hoot of an owl.
Or the quiet lilt of the whipporwhill?
The fact it all seems so distant is good, in that it is a diagnosis.
You've just been to the doctor and the doctor has told you you are ill.
So now, you must begin the healing, or the long journey back.
Back to the days when the Sun truly did rise, and the moon truly did change shape, and the Earth didn't move.
I'm not asking you to delude yourself, as the Skeptic will charge.
I'm asking you to shift from scientific to mythical thinking.
This is a start.
