At critical moments in the life of individuals and of societies, it is not necessarily the facts that are needed as much as a profound narrative that makes sense of life’s conflicts and misunderstandings. When all seems to be falling apart and becoming less rational and more chaotic, it is usually a different story that is needed to make things whole again. Mythic imagination can break the spell of time and open us to a level of life that remains timeless. Myth is not about what happened in past times; myth is about what happens to people all of the time.
Tag: myth
Quote from Anonymous
Quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality
Doubt as sin. — Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature — is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.
Quote from Konrad Lorenz, Lads Before the Wind: Diary of a Dolphin Trainer
Quote from Stephan Delbos
[On Jason Mashak’s book SALTY AS A LIP, as reviewed in The Prague Post:] Mashak amalgamates various national, historical and religious traditions into a myth-mash that illuminates many sects’ fanatical compartmentalizing, and the fact that so many religions and philosophies share similar goals, if not roots.
Quote from Jeaniene Frost, Eternal Kiss of Darkness
Quote from Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
Quote from Rick Riordan
Can you surf really well, then?”I looked at Grover, who was trying hard not to laugh.”Jeez, Nico,” I said. “I’ve never really tried.”He went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? (I didn’t answer that one.) If Annabeth’s mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn’t Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for asking that one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.)
Quote from Simona Panova, Nightmarish Sacrifice
Oh, he did look like a deity – the perfect balance of danger and charm, he was at the same time fascinating and inaccessible, distant because of his demonstrated flawlessness, and possessing such strength of character that he was dismaying and at the same time utterly attractive in an enticing and forbidden way.