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.

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.

Hebridean story I call Cinderbiter

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

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

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?

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 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

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