Finding Our Mythic Voices

Coming Waves ~ ©2018 ML Monroe

Myths are bigger-than-life stories filled with beautiful symbols and strong characters. They provide lessons about life, creation, and existence along with a sense of community, belonging and wonder.

Myths are also beautiful, subtle lies. They create magical auras of superiority and difference. As much as we may deny it, we are culturally, and some would say biologically, programmed to accept and believe this too. We want to be important, significant, recognized, acknowledged.

The false side of some of our most precious myths still flash with diamond-sharp light. The Crusades were a result of believing one group was Chosen and another was Heretic. The Holocaust. The Islamic State. The Armenian Genocide. We understand those big ones. Most of us do not subscribe to them.

Some myths are more subtle. Black males as inherently violent. Women created to be subservient. Racial/ethnic/cultural purity as important. Poor people as lazy. Rich people as arrogant. They may even be individual or family myths. Even though these myths may have some flash and sheen to them, they are significantly cutting, damaging and maybe even dangerous. The subtlety of these myths sweeps over us like an ocean wave. We feel its presence and even some of its power. Until it builds to the point of knocking us over, we often don't recognize the full force of impact.

The upside is that we have agency. We have the ability to change the stories, to rewrite the myths. The #MeToo movement is doing that. As is the #NeverAgain movement. And #BlackLivesMatter. We have the opportunity to reach within ourselves and rediscover the truth. Both our personal truth as well as the cultural and communal truth.

In the arena of personal myths, many have been passed to us by the community around us. We believe we are important or unimportant because that's what has been imparted to us. We believe we have control over others ~ often a myth inadvertently passed to the eldest child. We believe we are only popular if we are the captain of the football team or the mathletes. We believe we will not amount to anything or we have the right  us because of where we were born. Individual mythologies are numerous.

We have agency over these too. When we discover them and name them, we own them. They no longer own us. It takes focus and work after that to use our own mythic voices, those inner whispers that pointed out the fallacies in the myths, to rework and rewrite them. Doing so gives us a renewed strength with the bonus that it also bolsters our creative, mythic voice.

How do you know what myths have influence over your life? What personal myth have you believed that no longer serves you? What communal myth have you believed that no longer serves you? What steps will you take to change those myths? How loud ~ or quiet ~ is your mythic voice?

Celebrating Birth and Death Days

What a lovely surprise recently when going to Google's search page. It was personalized for my birthday! On the one hand, sweet and touching to see. On the other, scary that Google wishes its clientele a Happy Birthday ~~ because it does know the birthdays of all who use Gmail or Google+ or Hangouts.... the list goes on.

My birthday was an incredible mix of celebrations ~ birth, life and death. I celebrated my own birthday in person with my partner; received greetings via mail, email, text, phone and social media; and spent time alone, contemplating my life. I played with my new 'toy' ~ a Samsung Galaxy S tablet ~ that I received as a gift. What fun!

My life has been a lovely string of events orchestrated by my parents, by my choices of partners, career and friends and by my daughter. Currently, I imagine hearing Frank Sinatra's voice singing, "Regrets. I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention." Or to remember. It's all been a most amazing blessing.

Lately, including on my birthday, I've been in and around several conversations about aging and about death. One friend posted a picture of her unsolicited AARP card (oh, dear!) bemoaning her aging. Another commented on the number of people she's known lately who've died (or passed over, if you prefer). One wept over her son who committed suicide; another laid a spread of Fall flowers on the ground for a daughter-of-the-heart who died too soon. One spoke about not being able to be around a mutual friend dying of AIDS; another about her fears of her own mortality. One spoke softly about missing her deceased husband; another ranted about her dead father. All of these conversations happened within the past week.

That's the season that occurs around my birthday as well. Death and dying are part and parcel of Fall. Yet there's beauty and harmony in the circle and cycle of life that happens too. We're coming closer to Halloween, All Souls' and All Saints' Days ~ Samhain, the time of year when the veils between the worlds are thinner, easier to pass through. All this is what I love about my Fall birthday.

What do you think of Fall? What do you celebrate on your birthday? Do you think about the fullness of the cycle of your life? How do you feel about it?

Well-Burning Life

On my list of things I've never considered: whether or not my life is burning well. If I had thought about my life burning at all, I would not have considered it a great option. Under most circumstances, burning and life are not positively associated.

If my life is burning well ~~ what does that even mean? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that, for me, it means that I am living from my passion, living with passion. My expectation is that my life would shine with excitement. If that's the case, then I haven't been burning well. I don't think that is the case. I believe that passion is what keeps us in forward motion, what keeps us breathing. It doesn't have to be big and exciting. It can be simple ~ and bring us joy. When I find that place, that moment, that space between the breaths, I pause and write. What shows up is poetic and revelatory. I want to capture the moment in words and in images.

My well-burning life keeps me posting on this blog. It keeps me in motion. Speed matters less than intensity and continuity. I am grateful for every breath, every flame, every ash.

What does a well-burning life look like to you? How does it express itself? What is its definition and shape?