{"id":364,"date":"2009-09-08T11:37:56","date_gmt":"2009-09-08T11:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-nature-of-myth-and-more-good-stuff-by-robert-bringhurst.html"},"modified":"2009-09-08T11:37:56","modified_gmt":"2009-09-08T11:37:56","slug":"the-nature-of-myth-and-more-good-stuff-by-robert-bringhurst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-nature-of-myth-and-more-good-stuff-by-robert-bringhurst.html","title":{"rendered":"The Nature of Myth – And More Good Stuff by Robert Bringhurst"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pagan cultures have always made use of two sources of knowledge about the world, which Karen Armstrong defined in her book The Battle for God<\/a> as mythos<\/i> and logos<\/i>.  Modern societies, including most modern religion, limits itself to one, logos<\/i>.  We need both.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nLogos<\/i> is knowledge arrived at through evidence and reason as we
\nusually think of it.  It gives us knowledge about things, but not
\nwhether they have interior dimensions of meaning and awareness.  You
\ncannot measure consciousness.  <\/p>\n

Mythos<\/i> addresses the meaning in the world, the value that exists
\nthere intrinsically.  When it is abandoned, the world slides towards
\nmeaninglessness.   Being myself schooled in logos, that is, modern ways
\nof knowing, it took me many years even after I became Pagan, to realize
\nits limitations as well as its strengths.<\/p>\n

Pagans will do themselves well to help revitalize the missing dimension
\nof knowledge about the world.  It may seem that myths are primitive
\nbecause they are related as stories.  But stories are how we express
\nmeanings that are interior to people and things.  The best stories
\nalways point to much more than they say, which is why they fascinate
\nlong after their first reading.  Poetry also describes more than the
\nliteral meaning of its words, and many myths are not only stories, they
\nare poetry.  <\/p>\n

What makes a poem or story mythic?<\/p>\n

As part of my project to bring Robert Bringhurst’s writing to <\/i>the attention of Pagans, I will give two brief quotations from his essay “The Meaning of Mythology” in his book Everywhere Being is Dancing.<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

… a myth is not exactly a work of literature: it is
\ninstead a kind of story which a literary work can only partially embody
\nor contain.  A myth is a theorem about the nature of reality, expressed
\nnot in algebraic symbols or inanimate abstractions but in animate
\nnarrative form. (63)\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

Myths are stories that investigate the nature of the world
\nfrom the standpoints f the world, whereas novels, for example,  more
\noften look at questions of proprietary interest to human beings alone.
\n(67)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I think we will only really be able to help offset modernity’s slide
\ninto nihilism when we have come to understand and honor mythic ways of
\nknowning as well as those our own time has come to master.  <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pagan cultures have always made use of two sources of knowledge about the world, which Karen Armstrong defined in her book The Battle for God as mythos and logos.  Modern societies, including most modern religion, limits itself to one, logos.  We need both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pagan-culture","category-pagan-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Nature of Myth - And More Good Stuff by Robert Bringhurst - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-nature-of-myth-and-more-good-stuff-by-robert-bringhurst.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Nature of Myth - And More Good Stuff by Robert Bringhurst - A Pagan's Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pagan cultures have always made use of two sources of knowledge about the world, which Karen Armstrong defined in her book The Battle for God as mythos and logos.  Modern societies, including most modern religion, limits itself to one, logos.  We need both.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-nature-of-myth-and-more-good-stuff-by-robert-bringhurst.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Pagan's Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-08T11:37:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gus diZerega\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Nature of Myth - And More Good Stuff by Robert Bringhurst - A Pagan's Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-nature-of-myth-and-more-good-stuff-by-robert-bringhurst.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Nature of Myth - And More Good Stuff by Robert Bringhurst - A Pagan's Blog","og_description":"Pagan cultures have always made use of two sources of knowledge about the world, which Karen Armstrong defined in her book The Battle for God as mythos and logos.  Modern societies, including most modern religion, limits itself to one, logos.  We need both.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-nature-of-myth-and-more-good-stuff-by-robert-bringhurst.html","og_site_name":"A Pagan's Blog","article_published_time":"2009-09-08T11:37:56+00:00","author":"Gus diZerega","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-nature-of-myth-and-more-good-stuff-by-robert-bringhurst.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-nature-of-myth-and-more-good-stuff-by-robert-bringhurst.html","name":"The Nature of Myth - And More Good Stuff by Robert Bringhurst - A Pagan's Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-08T11:37:56+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-08T11:37:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#\/schema\/person\/d94ab0155d2780a0526af373b5c543f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-nature-of-myth-and-more-good-stuff-by-robert-bringhurst.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-nature-of-myth-and-more-good-stuff-by-robert-bringhurst.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-nature-of-myth-and-more-good-stuff-by-robert-bringhurst.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Nature of Myth – And More Good Stuff by Robert Bringhurst"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/","name":"A Pagan's Blog","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Gus diZerega","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#\/schema\/person\/d94ab0155d2780a0526af373b5c543f2","name":"Gus diZerega","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/4f6\/4f6b5a87d91376eaf8d126df301ab8cdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/4f6\/4f6b5a87d91376eaf8d126df301ab8cdx96.jpg","caption":"Gus diZerega"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/author\/gdizerega"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}