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" in this myth. The cuneiform tablets containing the poem were lost for centuries. Nevertheless,  Marduk exerts considerable influence over the...

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 perspective on human nature, purpose, and social organization as well. Your inherited myths influence how you live and what you value, even if you...

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 myths and fairy tales exert influence over us whether or not we believe in them or know the specifics of the stories. In this episode, we take a look...

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 are named in a given story, are more than artistic details. Investigation into the scientific as well as the mythic biography of these elements can...

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 showEmail Catherine at [email protected] Post a positive review on apple podcasts! Learn how you can work with Catherine at https://mythicmojo.com

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 the perspective of the women who are largely silent in the older and more popular versions. This episode includes a handful of my favorites from...

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 the aid of a handful of contemporary poems that reference myths. These poems also give us a chance to plumb the questions at the heart of these...

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 invitation to meet Athena and reflect on the conundrums she presents. She's present today and she's at work--- in what form and to what end, I...

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 important revelations and new understanding, and it can create blind spots.  I started thinking about this after watching the movie "The Woman...

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," at least not with a conscious agenda. And yet this story about a mermaid, a figure with a long mythological history, offers an interesting...

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 particular character, set of opportunities, and challenges. 2023 is the  year of the Rabbit. What is the quality of the year of the Rabbit, and how...

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 of some of his origin stories adds interest and inspiration to your holiday season. Warm wishes for a wonder-filled season. See you in...

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 the uncanny.  They are myths about the beginning times, when everything came into being and found its rightful place. Stories of the mythic...

“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 of unlucky damsels, but the mysterious loathly lady is the key. Support the showEmail Catherine at [email protected] Post a positive...

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

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 "Vasilisa the Wise." On one level, this is a story about a young woman and a witch called the Baba Yaga. On another level, it's an invitation to...

“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 bring us into relationship with someone or something in particular.  The story tells us something about the demands of this type of love, and what...

“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 century AD, drawing on ancient Greek sources. I've worked with this story many times. I often feel that I am living some part Psyche's journey, or...

“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 explore of the power of love to sustain and inspire us.  Support the show

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 the solo actor, the person who battles against enemies or the odds alone. The hero we imagine today, feeds the terrible loneliness of our time.  And...

“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 this is where the concepts and the jargon begin to obscure understanding, right? The Persian tale of Abu Kasem's Slipper's is a humorous story that...

"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 today. Are there stories in the European tradition that can help those of us in that cultural mindset reconnect with our nature and the earth, and...

“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...

"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...

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...