Emergent

Friday, April 9, 2010 9:48 - 7 Comments

Alice and the Rabbit Holographic Universe

Dreams are private myths and

myths are public dreams

~ Joseph Campbell

Myths and Stories: Our attempts to describe the phenomenal world in a coherent and intelligible fashion. I use two basic categories of stories for the purpose of this article.  There are stories about individual journeys and there are stories about the collective’s journey. Collective to mean beyond the regionalism of tribes or nations.

Stories applicable to the collective of humanity because the message is universal in scope. The theme of a universally valued story is about a quest relevant to and involving the whole. In other words the well being of the whole is at stake. Certain actions must be carried out in order to insure a continued and brighter future for the collective.

Stories containing universal values and themes are known to us as myths. A myth is a true story told in symbolic terms. A corrupted myth is a symbolic story understood in literal terms (Judeo-Christian). This brings us to the crux of this article.  We live in age of mythic illiteracy and subsequently we are unable to derive the meaning and therefore the deeper value of mythic stories unless we are hit over the head with the obvious. Think Avatar.

Story telling was once how we conveyed the mystery, awe and workings of our world.  Stories were vivified in the language of metaphor, imagery, archetypes and symbols. Motion pictures approach the ritual of ancient story telling much more so than books.

Neo's rebirth and awakening. Every mythic story contains metaphors reflecting the point at which we awaken to some new reality as a result of what we have learned and/or has happened to us. We are dealing with instances that shake or alter our perception of reality. Such an infusion then triggers other behaviors and the hero's journey begins in earnest.

Most of us go see a movie and unless we are familiar with the meaning of symbols and archetypes we are apt miss out on much of what is being conveyed and/or we take the movie literally. Think The Matrix. Many believe The Matrix is a sci-fi account about machines that have taken over the world.

But when viewed through the lens of mythos The Matrix is a near perfect reflection of the human cultural condition in which our robotic nature has gotten the best of us. The reality is that there are flesh and blood humans at the controls and they are robotically committed (encultured habit) to the horror we now live. Continue…