What if we reframed “living with uncertainty” to “navigating mystery”? There’s more energy in that phrase. The hum of imaginative voltage. And is our life not a mystery school, a seat of earthy instruction?

There are few tales worth remembering that don’t have uncertainty woven into them. Without uncertainty we have mission statements not myth. We... See more

What this means for me is starting over with the stories. I have to re-vision them, publicly, all over again; I have to grope furtively into my imagination till I brush the curls of the stories’ salt-stiffened fur; I have to stumble and leap and generally make myself exceedingly vulnerable. But for an authentic encounter, this is the only way.

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

Refuse to be a hologram or engage in acts of ventriloquism.

If your life feels peculiar, flamboyant, occasionally shameful, then those are the markings of that emerging authenticity. The more you settle back into your naturalness, the less likely you are to be endlessly buffeted by unease and unseated by paradox.

The Underworld is the place where you broke bread with Baba Yaga, made peace with limit, were fed small scraps of meat by crows when you needed it the most. It’s the deep dip in a myth, the katabasis , the descent, the mischievous, startling bewilderment of irrational energies. Logic has little traction at such a moment. Successful returnees of the... See more

Hebridean story I call Cinderbiter

Hebridean

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.

The old stories say, enough ; that one day we have to walk our questions, our yearnings, our longings. We have to set out into those mysteries, even with the uncertainty. Especially with the uncertainty. Make it magnificent. We take the adventure. Not naively but knowing this is what a grown-up does. We embark. Let your children see you do it. Set... See more