Click here to listen to Imagination and Hanging by a Thread in the season 2 archives on buzzsprout
“Imagination is destiny.” James Hillman
Your greatest gift in times of change is your imagination. What is your vision? Are you ready to live it?
In this episode, a story about the Hopi creatrix Spider Woman and a poem by Diane di Prima offer inspiration to feed your imagination and creative power.
” history is a living weapon in yr hand
& you have imagined it, it is thus that you
“find out for yourself”
history is the dream of what can be, it is
the relation between things in a continuum…”
-Diane di Prima, excerpt from “Rant”
Transcript of “Imagination and Hanging by a Thread”
Hello, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology and why myth matters to your life 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.
Well, here in the United States it feels like we’ve averted some forms of disaster, and yet you know that we are in a long and protracted period of change, of which politics is only a part. This could be a good time, as the Hopi Elders said decades ago, a time to nurture your vision and do what you need to do to bring it about and be capable of living it, to plumb the depths of your heart and mind to find the fears and expectations that continue to tether you to the old world and to an old version of yourself.
People have lived through times like these before, times when they faced the end of their old world. These experiences are recorded in the old myths and in what we now call history, biography, art. That we have these narratives, these words and images and collective memories, is testament to a truth that I’m sure you know but may not reflect on much– that creation and destruction are intertwined necessities. This is the nature of the living world. It is the definition of life, visible in everything around you and in your own body, in the breath by breath transformation of your cells. Nothing stays the same. Everything, even what many humans see as inert, without life, is part of the cosmic dance of creation and destruction.
How do you enter into this understanding and make this abstract concept a living reality? Through imagination my friend, and the images that guide it.
The role that each of us plays in the ongoing creation of the world depends upon the quality of our imagination. James Hillman writes “Imagination is destiny.” Imagination is destiny. This is true for an individual, for a community, a country, the world. Your imagination determines the facts that you accept as truth and the story that you weave from them. And so, what you do.
The story that I have for you today is feeding my imagination these days, and my consciousness. It’s my variation of one of the Hopi creation myths about Grandmother Spider.
So, I invite you to sit back and relax and let the story take you wherever you need to go right now. Note the moments or details that catch your attention. This is an opening into the meaning this story holds for you right now.
My variation from the Hopi creation myth of Spider Woman & story of Tiyo
A long, long time ago, before there was time, there was Spider Woman. From her body she spun two silver strands. One strand connected East to West. The other connected North to South. In this way she made the four corners of the earth, with herself at the center.
Spider Woman sent her breath into this space. The sun appeared, followed by the moon, and stars, and light pierced the darkness of the universe for the first time.
When the sun appeared, Tawa, god of the sun, came into being, to wield the life-giving power of the sun. Between them they held all of the mysteries and powers of Above and of Below. There was no living thing, no woman or man, no bird or plant or beast, until these Two came together conceived it in their minds.
The universe was beautiful, vast and glittering. But it was also barren. “This isn’t good,” said Spider Woman, “There must be warmth and color and dancing.” First Spider Woman and Tawa created other gods to share their labors. Tawa split himself in two and Life Germ God came into being. Spider Woman split herself into two and the goddess Hard Substances Woman came into being. These new powers beings carried the rain and soft flesh and blood and moist dirt, the turquoise and red rock, the white shell and yellow stone, the matter and mulch that make up the living world.
Now Spider Woman and Tawa had a great thought, a mighty thought. The thought of the Earth. They imagined putting this earth in between the Above and the Below. At that time the in-between was only endless shining waters. Spider Woman and Tawa sat side by side at the edge of the water. They swayed together and they began to sing. Spider Woman and Tawa swayed and sang together and out of their mingled breath came the First Song.
The magic of the First Song was flowing waters (shwoo) and rushing winds (whoosh, whoosh) and the rhythm of things coming together (clap) and moving apart. Spider Woman and Tawa sang this song of light and the earth was born.
The earth was beautiful. Spider Woman and Tawa saw purple mountains, broad rivers, and golden deserts. This beauty stirred their imagination. “Many strange thoughts are forming in my mind,” Tawa said, “I see birds flying in the air above the earth.” “I see fish swimming in the waters,” Spider Woman replied, “I see deer and rabbits, wolves and foxes, snakes curled in the rocks.” They imagined all of the plants and creatures of the earth. What they envisioned in the eye of the mind, Spider Woman fashioned out of colored clay, red, yellow, white, and black. She covered the clay figures with a white blanket woven from the breath and light of Tawa. The two sang over the creatures and they began to breathe and move. They came to life.
Now Spider Woman said to Tawa, “Let us make creatures like ourselves to join the others and enjoy the Earth.” Tawa thought of man and woman. Again, Spider Woman fashioned each thought into form using colored clay, red, yellow, white, and black. She covered them with the white blanket woven from the breath and light of Tawa. The two sang over the human beings. But they did not breathe.
They didn’t move. They didn’t stir. “This isn’t good,” said Tawa. Spider Woman gathered the figures up and cradled them in her arms. She held them close and warmed them with her body and her breath and Tawa bent his glowing eyes upon them. Now they sang the magic Song of Life and the human beings began to breathe and move. They came to life.
“The world is complete,” sang Spider Woman, and Tawa agreed. “I will ride across the sky every day and shed my light and warmth upon them all,” he sang. “Each will multiply.” Tawa took his place high in the sky Above.
It was time for Spider Woman to tell the people how to live. “The woman of the clan will build the house” Spider Woman said. “She will make the jars and baskets. She will grind the corn and the grain. The family name will descend through her. The man will build kivas and pay homage to the gods. He will fashion weapons and provide his family with game.
Take care of each other. Be good to each other and all will be well. If you need help, call me, Kokyawuhti. Grandmother Spider, and I will come.”
The new people gazed wide-eyed at Spider Woman with her shining beauty. She smiled at them and touched the human beings. To each she attached a thread of her web, spun from the doorway at the top of her head. Then she raised her hands and twirled in the sand. Suddenly she was gone….
The world was very beautiful. But as the people lived and moved about, problems developed and needs arose. Far, far, far back in the mists of time, when people-eating monsters still roamed the earth, Kokyawuhti, Grandmother Spider helped the Hero Twins of many nations slay these monsters. Another time, almost as long ago, there was a long drought and the people were hungry. Grandmother Spider sent the hummingbird to show the people where to look for food.
And another time, Grandmother Spider taught the youth Tiyo how to work with the powers of the rain to encourage it to fall. Tiyo thought about many things. One of them was water. People need it to drink and grow their corn. But the rain was scant. Tiyo noticed that much of the rain that fell flowed into the Far-Far-Below River and down into the Underworld before it could be used by the people.
When Tiyo told his father that he planned to go to the Underworld, his father said, “No one knows much about that place. It might be too far.” But he helped Tiyo make a box from the trunk of a cottonwood tree so he could float on the water. Tiyo’s mother gave him food and a bowl with the image of Grandmother Spider painted inside. His father gave him four prayer sticks and a handful of down from the thigh of an eagle. “Grandmother Spider will show you how to use this,” he said. And she did.
With the help and guidance of Kokyawuti, Grandmother Spider, Tiyo made his journey. Whenever a new ceremony has been required, Grandmother Spider has appeared to teach the people songs and prayers.
Even when the people forget the meaning of life and disregard the web that connects us all (and this has happened several times) Grandmother Spider comes to guide the good hearted into the next world.
In times of need, she emerges from a small, small hole in the ground or appears overhead, hanging from a slender thread.
Some say the world hangs by this thread.
Before I go, I want to share a poem with you, by Diane di Prima. Diane di Prima was an extraordinary poet, activist, and woman. She died last month at the age of 86. In a reflection published in the New Yorker this week, Amber Tamblyn describes di Prima as ” a woman who wrote dangerously, lived wildly, and loved daringly, right up to her very last breath.” in Tamblyn’s words, I hear a description of a woman, of a person, who understood the power of imagination. This is the subject of her poem. It’s a source of inspiration for me right now. I hope it provides this for you too. It’s titled “Rant.”
Rant
You cannot write a single line w/out a cosmology
a cosmogony
laid out, before all eyes
.
there is no part of yourself you can separate out
saying, this is memory, this is sensation
this is the work I care about, this is how I
make a living
.
it is whole, it is a whole, it always was whole
you do not “make” it so
there is nothing to integrate, you are a presence
you are an appendage of the work, the work stems from
hangs from the heaven you create
.
every man / every woman carries a firmament inside
& the stars in it are not the stars in the sky
.
w/out imagination there is no memory
w/out imagination there is no sensation
w/out imagination there is no will, desire
.
history is a living weapon in yr hand
& you have imagined it, it is thus that you
“find out for yourself”
history is the dream of what can be, it is
the relation between things in a continuum
.
of imagination
what you find out for yourself is what you select
out of an infinite sea of possibility
no one can inhabit yr world
.
yet it is not lonely,
the ground of imagination is fearlessness
discourse is video tape of a movie of a shadow play
but the puppets are in your hand
your counters in a multidimensional chess
which is divination
& strategy
.
the war that matters is the war against the imagination
all other wars are subsumed in it.
.
the ultimate famine is the starvation
of the imagination
.
it is death to be sure, but the undead
seek to inhabit someone else’s world
.
the ultimate claustrophobia is the syllogism
the ultimate claustrophobia is “it all adds up”
nothing adds up & nothing stands in for
anything else
.
THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST
THE IMAGINATION
THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST
THE IMAGINATION
THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST
THE IMAGINATION
ALL OTHER WARS ARE SUBSUMED IN IT
.
There is no way out of a spiritual battle
There is no way you can avoid taking sides
There is no way you can not have a poetics
no matter what you do: plumber, baker, teacher
.
you do it in the consciousness of making
or not making yr world
you have a poetics: you step into the world
like a suit of readymade clothes
.
or you etch in light
your firmament spills into the shape of your room
the shape of the poem, of yr body, of yr loves
.
A woman’s life / a man’s life is an allegory
.
Dig it
.
There is no way out of the spiritual battle
the war is the war against the imagination
you can’t sign up as a conscientious objector
.
the war of the worlds hangs here, right now, in the balance
it is a war for this world, to keep it
a vale of soul-making
.
the taste in all our mouths is the taste of power
and it is bitter as death
.
bring yr self home to yrself, enter the garden
the guy at the gate w/ the flaming sword is yrself
.
the war is the war for the human imagination
and no one can fight it but you/ & no one can fight it for you
.
The imagination is not only holy, it is precise
it is not only fierce, it is practical
men die everyday for the lack of it,
it is vast & elegant
.
intellectus means “light of the mind”
it is not discourse it is not even language
the inner sun
.
the polis is constellated around the sun
the fire is central
-Diane di Prima
And that’s it for me Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for your support of this podcast in whatever form that takes, from sharing the episodes, to contributing a few dollars a month on patreon or bandcamp, to spending a few of your precious minutes on our beautiful planet listening to these stories. Take good care of yourself. And until next time, happy mythmaking and keep the mystery in your life alive.
Links to more info about Diane di Prima
