Ritual and Myth
Months ago I took notes as I listened to Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyer on TV discussing The Power of Myth:
• By participating in a ritual you are enacting a myth
• Woman is a vehicle for life/nature / Man is a vehicle of society
• A ritual pitches you out
• A ritual must be kept alive
• Artists are the ones to keep ritual alive and in mystery
• Artists are the myth makers of our day • Impulse comes from above
• A shaman is turned inside out as unconsciousness is opened up
• A shaman falls into unconsciousness
Black Elk and The Sacred Hoop
I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy...but anywhere is the center of the world. Black Elk - Oglala Sioux
From The Power of Myth introduction by Bill Moyer: He agreed that the ‘guiding idea” of his work was to find “the commonality of themes in world myths, pointing to a constant requirement in the human psyche for a centering in terms of deep principles.” “You’re talking about a search for the meaning of life?” I asked. “No, no, no,” he said. “For the experience of being alive.”
On page 142 of The Power of Myth is the diagram of a circle: “Pedagogical stunt.” Plato said the soul is a circle. I drew a horizontal line across the circle to represent the line of separation of the conscious and the unconscious. The dot in the center, below the horizontal line, represents the center from which all our energy comes. Above the horizontal line is the ego, represented as a square: that aspect of our consciousness that we identify as our center. But it is very off-center. We think this is what is running the show, but it isn’t.
• By participating in a ritual you are enacting a myth
• Woman is a vehicle for life/nature / Man is a vehicle of society
• A ritual pitches you out
• A ritual must be kept alive
• Artists are the ones to keep ritual alive and in mystery
• Artists are the myth makers of our day • Impulse comes from above
• A shaman is turned inside out as unconsciousness is opened up
• A shaman falls into unconsciousness
Black Elk and The Sacred Hoop
I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy...but anywhere is the center of the world. Black Elk - Oglala Sioux
From The Power of Myth introduction by Bill Moyer: He agreed that the ‘guiding idea” of his work was to find “the commonality of themes in world myths, pointing to a constant requirement in the human psyche for a centering in terms of deep principles.” “You’re talking about a search for the meaning of life?” I asked. “No, no, no,” he said. “For the experience of being alive.”
On page 142 of The Power of Myth is the diagram of a circle: “Pedagogical stunt.” Plato said the soul is a circle. I drew a horizontal line across the circle to represent the line of separation of the conscious and the unconscious. The dot in the center, below the horizontal line, represents the center from which all our energy comes. Above the horizontal line is the ego, represented as a square: that aspect of our consciousness that we identify as our center. But it is very off-center. We think this is what is running the show, but it isn’t.
posted by Community Threads @ 5:42 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home