Navigating the Mysteries

So what could that look like in our lives? It means rescuing little ideas that gleam for a second in our soul then disappear. Coaxing them back. It means attention to not this or that but possibly both or some other way entirely. This isn’t necessarily easy, being so conditioned as we are to yes or no, black or white. And sometimes that third posit... See more

What if we reframed “living with uncertainty” to “navigating mystery”? There’s more energy in that phrase.

The useful is the invitation to depth that myth always offers. Because if there’s uncertainty, then we are no longer sure quite what’s the right way to behave. And there’s potential in that, an openness to new forms. We are susceptible to what I call sacred transgression. Not straight-up theft but a recalibrating of taboo to further the making of c... See more

The correct response to uncertainty is mythmaking. It always was. Not punditry, allegory, or mandate, but mythmaking. The creation of stories. We are tuned to do so, right down to our bones. The bewilderment, vivacity, and downright slog of life requires it. And such emerging art forms are not to cure or even resolve uncertainty but to deepen into ... See more

So as I approach the mystery of telling these stories again, the uncertainty of working into my mythmaking, I wonder if we could do something similar with our own narratives. What are we bored by, what needs to stay buried? What deserves to be re-imagined, re-seeded, re-beheld? That’s where the joyful work is. I’m handing you a spade.

To know, tell, and create stories is a wonderous skill that keeps faith with the traditional and beauteous techniques our ancestors used when faced with the sudden mists and tripwires of living.

We get older, we find life is riven with weirdness. We should be weird too.

Don’t brush your tastes away. Take your delight seriously. You could reach out towards historical figures, cloud formations, and badger tracks in the snow. Claim them as familial instructors. They have a kind of warmth attached. These are useful, odd ideas. Uncertainty requires such expansiveness, requires some flex, some curiosity.

Reaching out to nature and history: The notion of community is a breathless affair when we imagine it as solely human.