Traversing the Underworld: What Myth can Teach us During the Pandemic

The most inspiring work in the world today is being performed by those who have undergone this initiatory passage, those who have returned with precious resources for a soulcentric or life-sustaining society. This is the descent of which Thomas writes, the mature hero's journey described by mythologist Joseph Campbell, the descent to the goddess po

These are difficult questions, but there is a shimmering silver lining here. After all, if we are dreaming our own stories, we can always dream others. We can tell new stories. We can develop new myths, perhaps even myths that point back to the myth-maker. We do not have to keep living in stories that have long ago spent their shelf lives. We do no

When we mourn the extreme levels of suffering in the world together as a community, we can be held and hold others as we each go through our own personal cycles of grief, or what the Germans refer to as Weltschmerz (a deep sadness about the imperfection of the world). Such communal solidarity can get us through our darkest moments and ensure we red

We are creatures of story, at our strongest when we tell of how the forces of good can conquer evil, and at our weakest when we allow others to tell our story for us in terms of false virtues and little more than what makes us content.