Answering the Call of 2024

It’s only January and 2024 already feels like a year of consequence. Crazy weather and climate change, war, elections, ideological, religious, and cultural conflicts, and Pluto’s move into Aquarius, heralding a long underworld journey of transformation in our communities, social contracts, technology, idea of service, and visions of freedom.

What role might mythology and myth-making play in the cultural and personal changes underway? Are our inherited narratives an obstacle to overcome or an aid in imagining the future?

These are questions I take up in this episode as an opening meditation on endings and beginnings in 2024. Thanks for joining me in this reflection. I’d love to hear from you if this opening foray sparks thoughts in response.

Transcript of Answering the Call of 2024

Hello, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology and what myth can offer us today. I’m your host and personal mythologist Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, you are part of this story circle…

Hello. Here we are in season six of Myth Matters and the new year 2024. Now, 2024 feels weighted with consequence, already. It’s January and yet the combination of the upcoming elections, the weather and climate change, the ongoing wars, the possibility of expanded war, all of the ideological and religious and cultural conflicts– it feels like 2024 is already a year like no other. 

And if you use astrology as one window in to your perspectives on the present and the future, then you know that Pluto, named after the Greek god of the underworld, has just made a big shift out of the sign of Capricorn into the sign of Aquarius, signaling, perhaps, a change in the transformations underway, from the revelation of the weaknesses in our institutional structures (Capricorn), to questions of our social contract, and the future. The health of our communities, innovation, liberation, and technology. All of those themes constellated around the sign of Aquarius.

Each of us by virtue of being here, is part of this moment. Each one of us plays a role in what will unfold and what is possible. As a mythologist, I think about what will be the obstacles to this. The primary obstacle I see is the tyranny of our dominant cultural narratives, the stories that we tell and keep telling and keep telling and keep telling about why we’re here, what it means to be human. What’s important. How we must live in. The way that those narratives frame the important questions in front of us. As long as we continue to accept except that framework, as long as we continue to have our conversations within the confines of these stories, we are going to be limited in our ability to see the opportunities and the potential for a new and different future. 

Now, thinking with a myth and thinking mythically is an essential part of our response to this situation. And yet, ironically, myth often reinforces those dominant narratives because our myths underlie them. And because we have a tendency to make a dogma from them, because we fix the meaning of them. Or because we turn to mythology, looking for the myth, the story that contains the solution for our present. 

One way that this works, I think, is the fantasy of a better time. Of a golden age or good old days, the Garden of Eden, the Lost Paradise, and I see this across the board. I want to avoid the narrative that we have right now of “us and them” and the two sides and the left and right as if that’s all that’s going on. So, I’ll say that in conversations about our current moment that are taking place in a in a variety of frameworks— the historical, the political, the economic, the artistic– there’s this thread of, you know, we need to go back. We need to return to something, or we need to recover something. You hear this language of recovery or return, and the belief that the solutions to our present are found in the past. 

This is interesting because there are myths about the lost paradise. One of the most familiar to you may be the Garden of Eden. When everything was perfect, and then we made a mistake and we got thrown out. And the interesting thing about those myths is that the longing to return to this imagined state of simple, good, perfection is part of the myth. It’s part of the myth. The longing for that return is part of the myth. And what that tells us is that it is inherently unattainable. In other words, you can’t go home again.

I see this longing in the culture, in my country, and also in individual lives. And of course, a collective group, a society, is a collection of individuals. So, what I’m talking about, we can see in the rhetoric and news, for example, but it also plays out in our lives. And I don’t think it’s surprising, because we are experiencing loss. We are experiencing loss, personally and collectively, on a huge scale. And that generates a longing and nostalgia for what was that’s very difficult to navigate. And yet, we’re called to do that, aren’t we? 

What will come next? Are we going to believe that somehow, the solution to an uncharted future is found in the past? In some ways, this is kind of a funny thing for a mythologist to be saying. Mythology, in some ways, is inherently conservative because it’s concerned with the preservation and the exploration of our inherited narratives. But once again, there’s a big difference between turning to mythology to look for the story that holds the answer and turning to mythology to better understand our propensity for this type of thinking, our need for this imaginative/metaphorical bridge between our consciousness of reality, for lack of a better word, and the outer world, and our inner world and the meaning and feeling of experience. 

And there is a big difference between looking for the story and surveying mythology, in its great variety more broadly. When you look at the field of mythology more broadly, when you look at all of the stories in their tremendous variety, I think two things happen. One is that you realize the necessity of a mythological perspective on life, because it is something that we’re doing all the time. And it also reveals the tremendous adaptability of human nature and human culture and the relative arbitrariness then, of certain ways of living. They evolve in response to particular circumstances. And as those circumstances change, the myth can change. And so, what you can find in the variety and the nuances is a sense of creative possibility, a range of options and ideas. 

I want to unpack this by turning to a really familiar mythic pattern, Joseph Campbell’s hero’s adventure. In brief, the hero’s adventure begins with a call. The individual, the hero, hears a call to a change. The hero responds to the call and crosses a threshold from what is familiar and safe and known into the unknown. Once in this unknown realm, there are a series of tests and challenges and confrontations with the self. There is usually a death of some sort, a death of the ego, and an awakening, an awakening to an expanded sense of self, and possibility. Armed with this insight and in this transformed state, the hero returns to the community, and in that return, shares that renewal more broadly. 

I wonder if we can, as individuals and also together, see ourselves in this story, at the moment of the call. Because in the nostalgia for the past, there is the opportunity for turning our back on it, right? A call offers the possibility of going back, of refusing it, and also moving forward. The call is a beginning and an end. It’s an end of everything that existed before you heard it. And the beginning of life, having heard it. The difference between those things is one of emphasis. The call brings a quickening and in that fear or excitement, in that mixture, which one will win out. 

So, I’m suggesting that 2024 is a year of consequence, and imagining that you are feeling that along with me. And I’m noting that there is a desire and a longing to recover or return to a better time, a good time. To find a solution in the past, and that this makes a certain amount of sense. And also, that it is a mythological position, that it’s a place in myth. I am also suggesting that being in this place is a form of call. That we have the opportunity to look back and to indulge in the nostalgic or to look ahead. 

Now I also said, I guess what precipitated all of this, was my claim that our dominant narratives, our habitual ways of looking at things, the stories that we tell are going to be an obstacle. And I think there is one such obstacle around this moment of the call. So, I want to look at that a little bit more closely next. 

Lots of our stories, in particular the stories that we tell consciously as “stories” in our novels and movies and the myths that we work with, use this pattern of the hero’s adventure. And we tell lots of different stories. There’s lots of variety. And yet, when we talk about the call, and this often happens when I am talking with clients, that moment of the call is generally imagined to be this magical, joyful moment when something opens up. In other words, the opposite of what many of us might be feeling right in this moment. And it’s further imagined that when you hear the call, not only are you uplifted by this sense of possibility, but that it comes with an absence of doubt and a certain clarity about the outcome. 

Again, I think this makes a certain amount of psychological sense, given our fears of the unknown and real transformation. And yet, if you do what I was suggesting a moment ago, which is to look at our inherited narratives as a group, to not look at one story, but take up a handful of stories, then you see that this isn’t necessarily the case. The call can come about in a variety of ways and it can elicit a variety of responses. 

So, on the theory that at least some of you may be feeling as I am, that there is a call to something new, something forward looking underway in your life right now, I want to offer you a brief survey based on a handful of stories. All of these stories I have told on this podcast, either Myth Matters or my earlier podcast Myth in the Mojave, and I will post links to those stories with the transcript of this episode, if you don’t know the storie, and you want to go and listen to them. 

So. One example that we have of the call, one that fits this “Aha, oh my goodness, the world is big. I’m so excited, I’m gonna run off and and see what I can make happen,” is the story of the knight Percival and his quest for the Grail. In the story of Percival, you have this young man who has been living a very sheltered and isolated life in the forest with his mom. He knows nothing about the world. And one day, he’s out riding his pony, hunting, and he encounters a group of Knights of the Round Table. He is so amazed at the site of the knight. He’s never seen anything like it– their glinting armor, their flags flying, their powerful horses.

At first, he wonders if they might be angels and he even asks them if they are angels. Well, they’re not. And when he discovers that there is such a thing as a “knight” and that King Arthur can make him one, he leaves home and sets off for that destiny. Lots of things happen. It is predictably, not quite what he expected. And yet, for our purposes here, on that morning, in that moment of the call, he is elevated and excited, and inspired by the prospect of a future that he previously had no clue about. 

Now, to pick up another story, Iron John. In this instance, the call takes the form of a mistake, or something that appears to be a mistake. Here you have a little boy, he is a prince, the son of the king, and he breaks the rules and steals the key to the cage that holds the wild man, and ends up letting the wild man out. And then when he realizes what he’s done. He is so afraid of punishment, that he runs after the wild man and begs him to go with him, and then finds himself being carried off by this creature that is, itself  scary. So, in this case, you have this child who really doesn’t have anything and he’s not running towards any possibility He’s running away from a spanking.

That is another form of the call. In some ways similar is the fairy tale of The Frog Prince, where the princess loses her golden ball. It rolls into the well. Oops, something has happened. There’s been some accident. And then the frog appears. She makes the frog promise. Yes, get my ball and I’ll be your friend and then she runs off. She reneges. So, here we have an accident, something that seems to be a mistake or failure character, all of these things. At no point is there really a sense in our hero, that anything great is waiting in the future. And yet, a transformation is underway. 

Now, a call can also be the result of something truly awful. In the case of the fairy tale of the Handless Maiden, for example, a young woman is outside standing under an apple tree one day, and her father, a miller makes a deal with the devil. The devil says, “Hey, give me what’s standing out behind the back of your mill and I’ll make sure that you are wealthy man for the rest of your life.” And the Miller/father, not realizing that his daughter is out there, says “sure!” He thinks he’s giving the devil the apple tree. 

Well, now, he has just bargained away his daughter. In what is a truly horrifying moment, the father ends up chopping off his daughter’s hands, and he does this to save himself, basically. Well, she decides that she cannot stay in a home where that’s the calculus, and sets off without hands on a long journey of transformation. So, sometimes what compels us can be an act of cruelty, a form of suffering that is in and of itself, beyond imagination until it takes place. And yet that is also a call. 

Sometimes, what might be construed as a call finds us in moment when we don’t expect it and plunges us immediately into an adventure that precludes any kind of decision making on our part. You could look at the Celtic story of The Cave of Cesh Corran in this way, where Fionn and his men are captured by the fairy people one afternoon. And they were not, you know, didn’t even hear anything. And yet, were propelled into a transformative experience. 

Now, we often talk about the call as a matter of destiny. And sometimes, it can first appear to us as fate. There’s a very interesting story called Abu Kasem’s Slippers that explores the relationship between destiny and fate, and the way in which our attachments to our identity, and the meaning that we give to the public roles that we play, can put fate in motion. Fate as the call. In this particular story, we have a very stingy merchant who is attached to a really tattered, shoddy pair of slippers. And these shoes are so central to his identity that they become a real problem for him. It’s a really amusing and interesting story. In the end, Abu can only move forward in his life when he is willing to give up the identity associated with those shoes. 

Another thing that I’d like to suggest is that how things play out for us when we answer the call, and whether or not we do answer the call, can be a matter of timing that is beyond any of our conscious decision making. The fairy tale of Briar Rose, which is the original Sleeping Beauty, is a good example. In our best-known version of the story, the prince comes along and battles the dragon, and through his bravery and courage and determination to save the princess manages to do so and becomes the hero. 

In the origin story Briar Rose, however, many princes try to cut their way through this huge hedge of roses that’s grown up around the castle and the sleeping princess, and they all fail. Until one day, a prince comes along, just so happens on the day that the 100 year curse has ended, and he succeeds. He succeeds because he’s there at the right time, not because he is any more brave or brawny than any of those princeses who preceded him. 

So, there’s a lot of variety and possibility around the call. It may not present itself as an exciting moment. It may be a deep and uncomfortable sense that something needs to change. I offer you this brief survey today because I suspect that many of us will need a variety of models in this coming year, and that by honestly engaging with and living through the many possibilities of this moment, we can be part of dismantling that tyranny of the dominant cultural narratives that I spoke of at the beginning of this podcast. 

Now I’d like to share some information with you about an opportunity to do some exploration. Maybe this is part of your call. It’s called Mapping your Hero’s Adventure, A Mythogenesis Playshop. This is being offered by Bob Walter at Esalen Institute in California, March 24th- 29th. Bob was a friend of Joseph Campbell’s and an editor of his works. He was also the founder of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. Bob has a deep understanding of the patterns and also the potential in working with myth. His six-day workshop is really inspiring and enlivening, and the Esalen Institute is an extraordinary place to have this experience. 

I’m going to post a link to information about Mapping your Hero’s Adventure, A Mythogenesis Playshop with the transcript of this episode. If you are looking for a catalyst for change in your life, I do hope that you will investigate Bob’s offering.

A big welcome to new email subscribers:  Johnny, Luca, Diana, , Meagan, Gail, Stacy, Robb, Kirk, Rachel, Alfredo, Sade, Dave, Teresa, Lisa, and Kirsty. Welcome!

If you’re new to Myth Matters, I invite you to head over to the Mythic Mojo website. You’ll find a transcript of this episode with all the links that I’m mentioning, and information about the ways that you can work with me if you would like to unpack the mythic dimension in your life. And you can also join the email list if you’d like to receive links to new Myth Matters episodes in your inbox.

Thank you to the Patreon patrons and Bandcamp supporters of Myth Matters and a shout out to Arne who joined me on Patreon in January. Thank you so much! If you’re finding something of value here at Myth Matters, I hope you’ll become a patreon. Your few dollars a month make a big difference to me.

In closing, my friend, if we have a better understanding of our need for myth, and all that our old stories offer, we can live more satisfying lives. We can inhabit a better story and create a more beautiful, just and sustainable world. Maybe this will be the year that more of us will break out of the inherited frameworks, set aside our nostalgia and our fantasies of what has been, and answer the call.

And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself and until next time, keep the mystery in your life alive.

Links to stories discussed in this episode:

Perceval

Life is an Adventure: Perceval’s Grail Quest

Iron John 

Iron John and finding the wild man

Handless Maiden

Winter Solstice and the energy of regeneration

Cave of Cesh Corran

Mythic Sensibility: The Enchanted Cave of Cesh Corran

Abu Kasem
“Conscious Evolution: The story of Abu Kasem’s Slippers”

Briar Rose

Briar Rose: Rethinking the hero and the 13th fairy