the inward darkness of the shamans, within ourselves, nightly visited in sleep
memories wake and stir when we venture into wilderness
myths as powerful guides to life of spirit
echos of the first story(s)
we too enact ritual
our body’s destiny of death
myths and rites to harmonize mind and body, how to live in this life
stages of human development same today
the transition from childhood to maturity and on to autumn of life
the task of middle age: identify self NOT with body but with consciousness which will rejoin consciousness, of which body is but the vehicle
the image of death is the beginning of myth
burial caves and animal shrines (covenant, atonement, appeasement, gratitude)
an invisible plane supporting the visible, unknown supporting the known
participation mystique: buffalo, salmon, eland, whale
recognition of dependency, the hunt becomes a ritual, ceremony, more than respect, the animal is a messenger, carrier of divinity, a model of how to live; guilt wiped out by myth, by ritual -- you are part of nature, the animal is in many ways superior
Blackfoot buffalo: we’ll teach you our dance of death and resurrection
the sacramental violations of 1880s slaughter
from Thou to It
Lascaux: temples, cathedrals/caves/wombs/tombs -- landscapes of soul -- spiritual images -- relation of time/eternal
beauty of art -- beauty of spirit, instinctual? beauty of intention, conscious, aesthetic?
initiation rites/rites of passage
Bushmen
artist/shaman/storyteller: modern artist function to keep myth/mystery alive -- Joyce, Klee, Picasso
Axis mundi
whose center is everywhere, circumference nowhere
Black Elk Speaks
And the Voice said: "Give them now the flowering stick that they may flourish, and the sacred pipe that they may know the power that is peace, and the wing of the white giant that they may have endurance and face all winds with courage."
Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.
... as I lay there thinking about the wonderful place where I had been and all that I had seen, I was very sad; for it seemed to me that everybody ought to know about it, but I was afraid to tell, because I knew that nobody would believe me, little as I was, for I was only nine years old. Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.
And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, - you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead. Black Elk
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