Myths: Past, Present and Future

What is a myth? A myth is an ancient traditional story, or a series of stories, usually about heroes and supernatural beings. These stories often attempt to explain the origins of natural phenomena or aspects of human behavior.

Myths are often told as attempts to explain the origins of human behavior, a culture's world view which includes spirituality, natural phenomena, cosmology, aspects of healing and the very meaning of life and human existence. Myths are not just entertaining fables or children's stories told to pass the time. Myths represent a blueprint to the psychology of a people, their understanding of themselves as a group and their view of the world and the universe. Myths therefore, reveal a personal and collective perspective regarding the evolution of history and culture. Our history is mixed with our culture, tangled in our spirituality and is lived in and as our present experience of life.

Who you are is made up of the stories you heard about your family, your background, your culture, your religion, your gender, and the stories of your very existence. This interchange and exchange of concepts and traditions produces a psychology that is truly unique in its simplicity and its universality. This psychology offers a native perspective of wellness which emphasizes, not the importance of the self or individual experience, but rather, collective contributions which now seek expression and recognition in and through your embodiment. In other words, myths offer an explanation for who you are in connection to the universe you inhabit. They explain the reasons why "you" have been created and they also teach about all the previous "others" that it took to make "you".

Myths are so deeply engrained in the human psyche that when tampered with, or right out deleted, they can alter human behavior and the view of life. By integrating a false story that changes the meaning of who you are and what you are worth, you can come to believe that you are unworthy. This is a total distortion from mythical origin tales which express the collective truth of your birth as a direct descendent of the Creator.

Another definition of myths includes the representation of something that is fictitious or non-existent, but whose existence is widely believed by a group to be the truth. As an example, historically Jesus was not born on December 25th as is the commonly celebrated myth. Look up birth of Jesus in any encyclopedia or in any scholarly book on theology or even an internet search and you will read that Jesus was born sometime in September or October. We all celebrate his birth in December, but that is a myth. This celebration in December became popular as a result of the increasing dominance of Christianity over the old Roman religion. Romans celebrated the birth of the Sun gods on December 25th. To most people, it doesn't really matter when Jesus was born as much as it matters that he existed and had a message. Pagan cultures, which were overcome by Judeo-Christian tradition, celebrated the winter equinox and the start of a new year. A December birth combines Judeo-Christian tradition with ancient pagan rituals and creates a new standard practice. The conquered people find themselves celebrating new traditions superimposed on ancient, buried traditions which today have lost or distorted the original meaning.

Another example of an altered myth includes the concept and image of God which was superimposed on native people when the Conquistadores (Spanish conquerors) arrived in the New World. The new arrivals felt better about their actions when they were able to convince themselves that the natives they encountered were somehow less human. Because natives were considered savages, the Conquistadores felt they could "save their souls" by destroying the ancient concepts of the Creator. The native gods, rituals and celebrations were considered "idolatry," an offense against the ONE true religion and thus punishable by death. It is much easier to kill, enslave, colonize and oppress others if you don't have to think of them as human. The problem of identification with oppression does not disappear with time. Today, many descendents of natives from the Americas, from Asia and Africa, still internalize these myths of oppression and consider themselves inferior, largely based on the mythical concepts they have adopted from a dominant culture. How many times have you looked at someone (including yourself) and judged according to color of skin, texture of hair or any concept of beauty based on a Western ideal? Where do you think these thoughts of inferiority come from?

History is written by the power holders and the dominant. That version of history produces one superior myth, one version of reality which is sold to everyone as the ultimate truth. In that process and in that story, the popular view of history typically dehumanizes and minimizes the contributions and moral character of those conquered along the way.

It is no wonder that the children of the Fifth Sun might think there is little value in knowing the myths and stories of their ancestors. Myths of ancestors can be thought to be "superstitious" or "primitive". We might believe that the natives were nothing but savages who had little appreciation for human life, civilization, culture and progress. As the stories of our past disappear, so do the important lessons, the teachings which stress the need for living a harmonious life and living by the principles the ancestors taught to thrive and survive. If we learn to read the stories of the past and recognize their significance in our present lives, we will be able to decipher the messages that are imbedded in the myths and creation stories which have been told for thousands of years.

Myths: The Lessons

Myths teach us a great deal about people and their beliefs. They tell us how people view themselves and the world they inhabit. Myths give us an understanding of a group's aspiration towards fulfillment. The teachings imbedded in these myths show the values and ideals that are crucial in the preservation of a way of life. Myths can provide us with stories to relate to and provide relevant messages to guide our lives. Most of us have heard the myth about Oedipus, the king who married his mother and killed his father. This myth has permeated history and psychology, giving us a theory of understanding (however controversial) about the manner in which boys in Western cultures relate to their mothers and fathers.

At times, I have felt like Sisyphus, a Greek mythological character, who was condemned to roll the same rock up and down the same hill for eternity. Other times I have felt like another Greek mythological character, Icarus, a son of a god, who flew too close to the sun only to come down to earth in a burning blaze. These myths teach me about my thirst for union...