Mythology

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Mythology

• Narrating the Sacred

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For the ancient Greeks
Myths defined the powers that drove the universe.
They personified these powers, to make them more
comprehen-sible to humans
Poseidons AU VRoma
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Myths gave examples of what happened when humans
encountered these forces. For example Artemis is
the virgin goddess of the hunt, who embodies the
dangers of nature. When the hunter Actaeon
encountered her as she bathed, she turned him
into a deer and his own hounds killed him.
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The many different versions of such myths show
different ways of understanding these continual,
basic interactions and conflicts.
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Myths defined primal conflicts The
centauromachy shows humans overcoming beastial,
chaotic force
Amazons battles with them reflect fears and
fantasies about women who challenge the gender
roles and way of life the Greeks embraced
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Myths linked natural processes, human experience,
cosmic, spiritual insights, and social/religious
practices
When the Hades, king of the Underworld, kidnapped
Persephone, her mother Demeter, the grain
goddess, caused all the crops to fail. When
Hades finally released her, the crops could grow
again though Persephone had to spend half the
year with her husband in the underworld.
Persephones kidnap-marriage reflects girls
concerns over leaving home and parents for an
older, unknown husband, and mothers sorrow over
losing their daughters to marriage.
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The myth explains the seasons, barren when
Persephone is with Hades but flowering when she
returns It is linked to religious practices which
insure fertility, and harvest / sowing festivals
which promote communal solidarity and
prosperity It is a key locus for individuals
mystical connection with the soul, hopes for a
joyous afterlife and happy life, and hopes for
rebirth as the crops are reborn
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Myths defined your local community . . .
Local heroes gave a sense of community and shared
history for people who lived most of their lives
in one small town
And your national identity.
Myths such as the Trojan War stories or the
exploits of Herakles gave the diverse poleis of
Greece a common history
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Naïve Stories?
Our society has traditionally favored a religion
which is (a) based on unchanging sacred texts,
(b) hierarchically organized, and (c) whose
ceremonies take place on a set schedule, in set
locations marked off for that purpose alone. Our
explanations of the natural world are based on
science, devoid of ethical content.
Sometimes science and religion clash.
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If we think of myths as naïve stories, we
misunderstand them. We often tell the sacred
stories of other cultures in simplified form, as
childrens tales, oblivious to their deeper
meanings. We often misread a myths etiological
hook (which ties its ideas in with the
experienced world) as its main point. (e.g.
Narcissus). We think of less hierarchical
religions as primitive or simple.
We think of story-based rather than proof- or
fact-based learning as naïve. We think of people
with less materially advanced culture as being
somehow more simple or less intellectually
advanced than ourselves.
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All of these ideas are our own misconceptions. To
have any hope of understanding myth, you must
believe . . .
. . . that it is an effective, valid, mature and
reasoned way to interact with the world. . . .
that the people who created and believed it are
your intellectual and spiritual equals. . . .
And you have to be ready to learn from it even
to apply its lessons to your own life.