CreativeMythology

Chaos

I am going through a lot of personal chaos at present. A couple of days prior to shifting house I was on my mountain bike when a van pulled in front of me. I’m not sure whether my attention was elsewhere or whether he’d suddenly veered but in braking suddenly I was cartwheeled over the handlebars. The van driver came to see if I was alright and one of the women I work with also saw the accident and was concerned. I seemed to feel ok and any pain I was experiencing I imagined to be normal considering what had just happened. I went to work and got through the day. Biking home was a bit of a stretch but I managed it. Went to work the following day and that was ok too. The time I was experiencing the most pain was when I was in bed and shifting my position. On the Saturday I went to the clinic and after a consultation and xray the news was a broken rib and a small puncture in my lung.

Shifting house is acknowledged as one of the most stressful situations we can find ourselves in and yet the last couple of times we have shifted it has been almost stress free. A sense of detachment helps and just doing it. Having done it several times over the last few years it is accepted by my psyche and I’m not having to create a new thought pattern around it.

What has been chaotic has been the shifting of the telephone service. We had cable service at the previous house and were told that the house we were moving to was also in a cable area. When the guy came round to hook us up he discovered that they had cable on the other side of the road and there was an engineer’s report required before they could consider hooking us up. That was two weeks ago. I’ve been exploring other options and have got another service provider for the phone. Still negotiating on internet. I’ve noticed myself getting frustrated as I’ve talked to the company on the phone and not being given the different options that I am aware the company provides to the point where I want to talk to someone in the flesh and not some faceless voice on the other end of the phone.

Greek mythology opens with the story of Chaos. Chaos arose from Mist. And from Chaos, Nyx (Night), Erebus (the darkness of the Underworld), Tartarus (the place of punishment in the underworld and also the source of all waters), Gaia (Mother Earth), and finally Eros (Love).

I find this particular myth fascinating as it points to ways of coping when I’m in chaos. Night is the place of dreams and sleep. Both of these are essential when dealing with chaos. To ensure I’m well rested and to become aware of not only my night dreams but to maintain my focus on the dream or purpose I have for my life.

Erebus reminds me of the gifts of the underworld. By allowing the darkness of the experience I’m able to fully appreciate the coming of the light. And wealth is associated with the underworld through the earth being home to precious stones and metals.

Tartarus indicates the ways that I can be depressed when I’m in that chaotic space. How I beat up on myself. It also prompts me to allow full expression of the emotions in the experience. To allow the anger to be anger, sorrow to be sorrow; and then to let them go once they’ve been manifested and acknowledged.

Gaia invites me to ground myself and to also to let the beauty of nature touch me, to stop and smell the roses when chaos bites.

And beauty leads me to love and allowing Eros to connect me to my community however that is experienced in my world. We need not suffer alone and need to let ourselves be held by family or community. Being honest about our feelings will help as we go through personal Chaos.

The saying, “And this too shall pass” is comforting as I sit with what is happening.

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Functions of Mythology

Joseph Campbell suggests four functions of Mythology. The first he says is to “reconcile consciousness to the preconditions of its own existence”. This means a merging of our day to day consciousness with what he refers to as the mysterium tremendum. In cultivating a sense of awe and fascination around our perception of life and fully participating in whatever way we are called we find a mythic sensitivity to life itself.

The second function is interpretive. In this the myth is “presenting a consistent image of the order of the cosmos” . Cosmos means ‘a place of adornment’. On a personal level how do we see our own cosmos? Are there things we know about ourselves we can rely on come what may? If you’re not sure you have a cosmos how would you imagine it to be? What are the ways in which you adorn your world, create a beautiful space?

The third is to “validate and support a specific moral order, that order of the society out of which the mythology arose”. The question I ask myself here is how do I create a moral framework for my own life? What is it about my life that has created my sense of ethics.

The fourth function is to “carry the individual through various stages and crises of life – to help people grasp the unfolding of life with integrity, meaning that individuals will experience significant events in accord with first themselves, second with their culture, third with the universe, and lastly with that mysterium tremendum beyond themselves and all things. What is arising within when you read this? What have you experienced within your life that has given you the tools to deal with the crises that unfold. If all is perfect at all times then we can look for clarification of what is happening now in what has already come to pass. We may be called to honour something that was important in our past that has slipped into the background – something that engendered a sense of awe and fascination at the time.

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