- Light and Dark Personal Mythology in Current Events
by Arthur george
These days we ponder what should be the “new myths” in light of our modern-day reality, but upon reflection we can see that many already exist and are playing themselves out on the public stage, in the form of people’s “personal myths” that drive their words and actions. In our Internet age, “personal mythology” is not merely a private matter of each person’s individuation process. The manifestations and consequences of personal myths are often bizarre, tragic, and dangerous to society. We have seen this recently: in the minds of the shooters in the massacres in Charleston and elsewhere, the takeover of Oregon’s Malheur wildlife refuge by an armed self-styled militia, attitudes toward Muslims, the debate over immigration, race relations, and in much of the rhetoric of the current presidential campaign. In order to understand events and control our future, it has become more urgent than ever that we be able to recognize and understand myths when they see them, which is the first step both to controlling their dark side as well as to developing healthier new myths that will inspire individuals and society in a more positive way.
Note: In The Bear, the Harlot, the Magician and the King Lloyd D. Graham explains the source of Carnaval and the period of change from winter to Spring.
The “ insurrection “of january 6th 2021 in USA Capitol is an expression of the deep rooted origins of the folklores of Carnaval and Krampus,
6 january is the feast of Epiphany
HERE FOLLOWETH THE FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY OF OUR LORD AND OF THE THREE KINGS from Golden Legends
On this day we are making King cakes . They come with cardboard “crowns” to be worn by whoever gets the slice with the token and becomes monarch of the event.
The Bear, the Harlot, the Magician and the King by Lloyd D. Graham
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the seduction of the wild man Enkidu by Shamhat the
harlot symbolically causes his death as an unreflective animal and his rebirth as a
human – an Eden-like fall into self-awareness. Created as a match for king
Gilgamesh of Uruk, Enkidu goes on to become the king’s beloved friend. In
European folk traditions, the Wild Man is interchangeable with the bear, and
parallels can be drawn between Enkidu and the Candlemas Bear associated with
Carnival. Since Enkidu symbolises our pre-human nature, one can perceive a
figurative truth to the pan-European folk belief that people are descended from bears.
Thematic overlaps exist between some Gilgamesh narratives and European folk-tales
about a Wild Man whose father was a bear (the Bear’s Son / Jean de l’Ours motif) or
about twin boys, one of whom was raised in the wild by a female bear (Valentine and
Orson). Perhaps surprisingly, the roots of Santa Claus lie in the Wild Man. So too do
the origins of Merlin, the wizard of medieval Arthurian romance. Merlin has
elements in common with Enkidu, while King Arthur can be seen as a metaphorical
“Bear’s son.” Over time, the status of the Wild Man has changed from a wholly
inhuman monster to a “noble savage” who today might even be cast as a salvific ecowarrior. Read here
The Wild Man or the Masquerade of Orson and Valentine – Brueghel
At the most basic and broadest level, a myth can be thought of as nothing less than our psyche’s construction of reality, or parts of it.
As psychologists have shown, myths, like dreams, are essential to our psychic well-being; we can’t do without them. The challenge becomes how to tend them.
Historically, myths were developed, taught, and ritualized in a public manner, so that everyone in a community shared the same myths and therefore the same essential vision of reality. Myths thus bonded societies together and served to enforce society’s rules and control its members. But this is no longer the case in our modern world where the old myths have lost their hold on most people. Among other things, science now explains things formerly explained by religion and myths; globalization has taken hold, breaking down the cultural walls that supported traditional religions and mythologies; technology and media have a dominant role in culture; there has been unprecedented migration and intermixing of cultures and of people themselves; and the rise of women has been unsettling and threatening to many men. The pace of change in society and culture has accelerated, to the point where it has outpaced the possibility for the traditional kind of public myths to develop and take hold.
Many elements of this process have been going on in Europe for centuries, where the various nations with differing languages and cultural traditions and myths lived closely together and worked out and minimized their differences at the cost of many wars, followed by integration.
But in the USA we were more isolated from this dynamic. Even after WWI when we emerged preeminent on the world stage, we imposed on others’ cultures rather than exchanged with them, and the Cold War rendered our relationship with the rest of the world rather one-dimensional. We have felt the shock more acutely since the end of the Cold War. Without a superpower enemy to unite us, we had to look more inward to find our identity. For this we needed new mythmaking, but in the new era the traditional public mythmaking could no longer work so well. Enter personal mythology, which when practiced at its best is what Joseph Campbell called “creative mythology” (see below).
“Personal mythology” is one way to describe the result of a person’s psychological individuation process (or failure in that process) as visualized by Carl Jung. As a mythologist, I like looking at individuation in terms of mythology, because it results in one’s own “story.”
This perspective begins by recognizing that our view of the world, including ourselves, is shaped fundamentally by common unconscious patterns within our psyches called archetypes (together forming our collective unconscious), together with elements of the unconscious accumulated from our personal experience, especially from childhood. This is the ultimate source of mythological symbols and motifs.
Our waking, ego consciousness, interacts with what wells up from the unconscious to produce a somewhat coherent (to ourselves) narrative or construction about ourselves and the world. In that process, our shadow asserts itself, with our ego rejecting what doesn’t match its image of our self (suppression/repression), resulting in corresponding projections of the same onto the external world (e.g., scapegoating). If this process is left to proceed on its own, we become passive prisoners of our archetypes and are carried through an unaware, unenlightened life, living according to corresponding myths, with pernicious, destructive consequences to our psychic balance and the outside world (in Star Wars terminology, going over to the dark side, which indeed has power).
Historically, when myths were imposed by society, they served to control people’s individual actions, while resulting pernicious behavior was often collective (e.g., witch trials, the Inquisition), but when the controlling function of the old myths is lifted in society at large, anti-social individuals with their own destructive mythologies can more easily surface to wreak their damage directly, which we see increasingly today.
Not only Campbell (from the perspective of the mythologist) but also a number of psychologists including David Feinstein, Stephen Larsen, Stanley Krippner, Rollo May, and Jean Houston recognized the problem and developed methodologies for proactively developing one’s personal mythology along a more enlightened path.
This is a centering/individuation process that involves identifying what one’s initial personal myth has been, as well as competing myths, integrating them, and then living out the new vision (Feinstein and Krippner). At bottom, this is an exercise in self-mastery. Such well-balanced, self-aware, integrated individuals in turn can help generate a healthier society. Campbell agreed. He wrote that creative mythology springs “from the insights, sentiments, thought, and vision of an adequate individual, loyal to his own experience” (pp. 6-7, emphasis mine). Such people are able “to relate to the wealth of mythological images and meanings in a creative and life-enhancing way” (Larsen, p. 15). In the end, argued Campbell, the new myths will come from such inspired individuals, who most commonly will be artists. Jung viewed this process as the most fundamental and important thing a person can do, and in fact described his whole lifelong journey as one of finding and developing his personal myth (Jung).
Don Quixote following his errant personal myth.
Returning to the course of history, we can see how chaos in our public myths results, at least initially, in chaos in our personal myths. The roots of this unsettling process go back at least to the Renaissance, and it is interesting to compare today’s situation with the similar impact this chaos had on people’s psyches centuries ago. As an example, Joseph Campbell, in his book Creative Mythology, used Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote, as interpreted by him, with help from José Ortega y Gasset’s Meditations on Quixote.
Campbell observed that by 1600 when Cervantes was writing, the Renaissance and science had just changed the world, but Quixote would not and could not recognize the cold facts of this new outer reality. Rather, he was a captive of old myths and his personal myth. Riding for the honor of his lady Dulcinea (a projected, imaginary form of his real-life farm-girl neighbor), he sees (projects) windmills as enemy giants to be overcome, but in the event he winds up in a heap. His aide Sancho Panza cries, “Anyone could have seen that these are windmills – not giants – unless he had windmills in his head!” But Quixote’s myth still drives him, creating a scapegoat shadow figure: “I am sure it was that necromancer Frestón who transformed these giants into mills, to deprive me of this victory. He has always been my enemy, this way. However, his evil arts will have little force, in the end, against the virtue of my sword” (my emphasis). Quixote’s will, remarked Campbell, had become “reality in itself” (p. 605).
- Note: The Perfect Individual as a Mirror
- The Perfect Individual, as a perfect reflection of God, is given special status in the world. The Perfect Individual is the only creature that manifests all the Names or Attributes, of God, and therefore is the only creature that fully manifests Being. The question arises: “if the Perfect Individual perfectly and completely reflects God or Being, then is this individual somehow more ‘real’ than other individuals?” The answer to this question will always be yes and no. The reason for this paradoxical answer/non-answer is evident within the mirror analogy employed by Ibn al- ‘Arabi. Read more here
- Polishing your heart, Virtues Ethic for a modern Devotion in our times
- Ego rules the world: Anti-“God”, Anti-“Humanity”, Anti-“Nature
Our civilization is in decay. Because we have blown-up our ego. Cosmic Balance has been disturbed. The Origin – Cosmic Womb/Vacuum – “doesn’t tolerate” this. With the help of Her two Cosmic Forces of “Death and Rebirth” (“Stirb und Werde” – “Die and Become”-J.W. von Goethe) She breaks down our ego-accumulations, thus restoring the Original Balance.
see Crisis of the modern world and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Current decadence, greed, evil, falsehood, corruption, violence, injustice, exploitation, thus have a Cosmic undertone. It is a “Cosmic Law” that civilizations which have become megalomaniacal will inevitably collapse. Because all levels of existence are corroded – including the religious realm – only a Dimension that is beyond – META – God and the world can redeem us. “God hasn’t created the world out of nothingness, but Nothingness (Cosmic Womb) is giving birth to God and the universe, the latter continuously returning to the Origin”.
One of the many disastrous consequences of an ongoing repression of this trans-personal Ground of Being – and the mistaken assumption of the Absolute by a relative entity or self – is epitomized in our techno-industrial pursuit to convert the earth into one large global factory – reinforced by multinational monopoly. Herein, nature is viewed simply as exploitable “raw material” for a “manufacturing” process aimed at churning out “products” for the “consumer.” This apparent narrowing of human perspective is the logical result of paradigmatic trends linking back to the so-called Age of Enlightenment. Read more here
Modern-day Quixotes living out their errant myth.
Fast forward to the recent siege in Malheur, Oregon, where we have: a self-styled militia visualizing themselves as heroes and patriots, knights if you will, in cowboy hats instead of a knight’s helmet, fighting not for an imagined lady but for an imaginary version of the Constitution and against an imagined tyranny, attacking not a windmill but an empty federal wildlife sanctuary building, riding in pickup trucks and SUVs rather than on the imagined steed Rocinante, and wielding, instead of a lance, an American flag on a standard and automatic weapons.
They imagined that ex-Navy Seals and other veterans would rally to their cause and join them, but no one came, and their self-perceived heroic exploit likewise ended up in a messy heap. While their actual motivations have been shown to be selfish economic ones, they were able to suppress that fact into the background and instead created and elevated for themselves and to the public their own dark myth, or more accurately became the prisoners of it. Their angst and that of like-minded people is an outcome the accelerated breakdown of their old myths and inability to adjust, prompting them to project enemies everywhere and construct new myths, which seem not to have been developed or held in a self-aware manner.
Because the underlying process is psychological and largely unconscious, the manifestations are varied and in the end constellate into a whole complex of interchangeable vehicles that reflect the same underlying fears, leading such people to rally to multiple, interchangeable causes to vent them. Thus, for example, one of the Malheur militia protesting federal “tyranny,” Jon Ritzheimer, also maintains an anti-Muslim website and recently led an anti-Muslim rally in Arizona wearing a t-shirt saying “F**k Islam.” We can multiply the examples of (and vehicles for) tragic wayward personal and group myths, such as that in the mind of the crazed Charleston shooter, Christian (and Islamic, and Jewish) fundamentalism, Confederate flag lovers, extremist gun culture, the Tea Party, climate change denial, rising religious intolerance, and proposals to ban immigration by targeted ethnic and religious groups.
So looking ahead to the near future, it becomes important, for example, to evaluate the messages of the current presidential candidates in the above mythological terms, dysfunctional myths become more dangerous when held and promoted by those in power. What dysfunctional myths does Donald Trump hold and ask us to buy into when he wants to ban Muslim immigration (and throw them out of his political rallies), stereotypes unauthorized Mexican immigrants as drug dealers and rapists and proposes sending them back to Mexico, characterizes various people as “losers” (and himself as a winner), and more vaguely vows to “make America great again”? (What mythological America is that?) And what about the evangelical Ted Cruz seeking to reinstate the old religious myths? But, then, what underlying myth has caused Trump (at least in some polls) to enjoy nearly as much or more support than Cruz among evangelicals? (Since seemingly competing manifestations derive from the same underlying myth, cognitive dissonance can be at work so that both of them can be held, even if one of them, well, trumps the other.) So beware not only of Greeks bearing gifts, but also of politicians bearing myths. And let’s do our myths the right way.
- 2 February: the mythology and ritual behind groundhog Day
by Arthur George”
Groundhog Day is our first holiday that formally looks forward to spring weather, optimistically reminding us that it will come sooner or later, the interesting question being which it will be. The equivalent holiday worked likewise for our ancestors centuries ago, with one difference: Technically the date actually was the beginning of spring. Today we regard this holiday as quaint and secular, but in centuries past it was mythological and religious, featuring rituals that were taken seriously. This holiday, Carnival, and Valentine’s Day are actually related, as we shall see, so this is just the first in a trilogy of posts about our interrelated February holidays.
The importance of what is now the beginning of February goes back even to Neolithic times. In Ireland we find in Neolithic monuments alignments for the rising sun on this date, which became the festival of Imbolc. According to the Irish myth Tochmarc Emire (“The Wooing of Emer”), the maiden Emer named the calendar points of the year, including Imbolc, when setting up a challenge to her half-divine suitor, the hero Cú Chulainn, to remain awake for an entire year in order to win her. She divided the seasons of the year according to the four days which fall roughly halfway between the solstices and equinoxes (called cross-quarter days), now the first days of February, May, August, and November.
Emer called the opening of spring Imbolc, after the lactation and milking of ewes which began at that time of year . Thus, for Ireland anyway, was created what is commonly called the Celtic calendar. Our practice of dividing the seasons at the equinoxes and solstices is relatively recent, coming to full fruition only in the 20th century, following the lead of America. But even today in America, we still have at least three holidays marking the old seasonal divisions: Groundhog Day, May Day, and Halloween. (The first-fruits or harvest festival of August 1 is not observed here in our industrialized society, but it continues in some places, such as Lughnasa in Ireland.)
In Irish mythology, the Lughnasadh festival is said to have begun by the god Lugh (modern spelling: Lú) as a funeral feast and athletic competition (see funeral games) in commemoration of his mother or foster-mother Tailtiu.[
Before the advent of the Gregorian calendar, this beginning of spring occurred on February 14, which is now assigned to Valentine’s Day .
All four cross-quarter days were considered days of transition, when the veils between the normal and supernatural worlds were thin. So it was natural that people practiced divination on these holidays, which pertained not just to when the warm weather would arrive, but also more generally to the season’s crops, prospects for marriage, and other matters of concern. People also sought supernatural blessings for protection against sickness, blight, evil spirits, and other nasty things. For this purpose, protective fires, in the form of bonfires, torches, and candles were also part of rituals. In Christian times the Irish thought that St. Brigit traveled around Ireland on the eve of her holiday (Christianized Imbolc, called St. Brigit’s Day, thought of as her birthday, appropriately at the start of spring), conferring blessings on people and their livestock, and visiting their homes. Accordingly, the Irish had home rituals designed to welcome her into their homes and receive her blessings
When it came to divining the weather, people used various mediums to determine what was coming, including animals, which is natural: Any farmer or herdsman can predict the weather by watching the animals. Most important were hibernating animals, which emerge from their winter sleep in the spring.
In Ireland, just to see a hedgehog (the European holiday equivalent of our groundhog) on February 1 was a good sign ; not surprisingly, the hedgehog came to be connected with St. Brigit, and its behavior on her day was thought to predict the weather. The focus on the hedgehog (or badger) for divining the weather was most pronounced in Germany, however, which is how this holiday ritual made it to America via the so-called Pennsylvania “Dutch,” which was originally “Deutsch” since these immigrants were really Germans (who then used the American groundhog as the oracular animal). It was from Germany that the idea spread that the animal seeing his shadow on February 1 meant a continuation of winter for several weeks, whereas seeing no shadow meant that the warm weather was about to come, in which case the animal should remain out of hibernation.
People are often puzzled why a sunny Groundhog’s Day, when the groundhog sees its shadow, means that winter will continue, but cloudy or bad weather portends that spring weather is nearly upon us. Doesn’t this seem backwards? The answer, I suspect, lies in the original mythology lying behind the holiday ritual.
Originally in Europe, the animal associated with this holiday was not a hedgehog, but the bear. See The Bear, the Harlot, the Magician and the King and changed by the church as Candlemas (Bear)
Only when the population of bears in Europe was diminished did people resort to hedgehogs as a substitute for divination on this day. Bears were the largest, most powerful and magnificent creatures in Europe, the king of beasts, like lions in the more southern climes. Venerated since prehistoric times, the bear was the oldest zoomorphic deity (Campbell, p. 127), and they have figured prominently in myths, folktales, and art. Some of their traits are similar to humans, so they were viewed in anthropomorphic (including totemic) terms, often viewed as the ancestors of humans. They also could move between worlds, and thus were thought even to instruct shamans. Importantly, they also were considered spirit or soul animals, and their shadow was thought of as their soul.
The process of hibernating in the winter and emerging back into the world in the spring was thought of in terms of death and rebirth , much like the seasonal death and rebirth of plants.
In the winter, life goes back into the womb of the earth (death), only to be reborn. When the bear “dies” and for so long as it is dead before it is ready to be reborn, its soul must remain in the underworld. So, if it emerges from hibernation (its “little death” ) on February 1 and sees its shadow (soul) on earth, this emergence is premature: It must return for a few weeks because it has not yet completed the sleep of death and rebirth, so spring weather must await. On the other hand, if he sees no shadow, then he has truly completed the full cycle of death and rebirth, so spring can begin and he can remain above ground. Such seasonal, cyclic processes of nature also resulted in spiritual analogues in the form of ancient mystery rites such as the Eleusinian and Mithraic mysteries, where candidates were initiated in underground caverns and experienced (spiritual) rebirth.
In the Film Groundhog Day, the “dead” Phil undergoes rebirth like the holiday animal and the season according to the original mythology of the holiday, but not before he/the groundhog (literally together, and “driving” the point home) enter into the abyss.
The above hibernation mythology helps us to understand the meaning of the famous and insightful Bill Murray film, Groundhog Day. There Murray’s character is equated with the groundhog: He is named Phil, like the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, and like the groundhog he is a weatherman. But appropriately he fails to predict the wintry weather that descends upon him that day, setting up his personal ordeal. Phil is stuck in Punxsutawney in the winter in a hotel, so he is figuratively in hibernation, in a state of spiritual death. This is paralleled by the groundhog in the film seeing his shadow. In one scene in the breakfast restaurant, when another customer learns that the weatherman’s name is Phil, the customer says, “Watch out for your shadow.” This is a psychological reference: In order to escape his fate Phil must confront his own shadow.
Thus, while potentially Phil could emerge from his self-induced plight on Groundhog Day in accordance with the mythology, he is not yet spiritually ready to do so. Therefore, he is fated to re-emerge from his hotel-room lair each morning to re-live Groundhog Day over and over again, like the bear whose soul has not yet undergone transformation. He must keep returning to re-hibernate until he gains in wisdom and is worthy, such that his old soul can be left behind when he emerges into the outdoors on holiday morning. His process is much like that of karma and reincarnation; indeed, in one phase of the film, he literally does die each day and is reborn each next morning, only to keep trying until he figures out how to live. In the end, by eventually learning to love and be authentic, he is finally reborn, both physically and spiritually, into a new day and a new way of life.
Today, Groundhog Day is but a shadow (so to speak) of its former self: It is no longer observed at the beginning of spring, there is no bear, the original mythology has been lost, and the ritual is simply taken in jest. But at least we have a fine film to remind us in part of what this occasion originally meant to people, and what the holiday can still mean for us.
- 14 februari : St Valentine
The most original and enduring symbol of Valentine’s Day is a heart pierced by the arrow of Cupid, Eros in ancient Greece. It is not obvious, however, what this pagan image and the mythology that lies behind it should have to do with the third-century CE Christian martyr St. Valentine. The road from Eros to the Saint and then on to our holiday that bears his name is as tortuous as it is fascinating. As we shall see, at all points along the road – except for Valentine himself! – the ultimate idea has been about celebrating the spring season and the various themes that it has evoked in myth, literature, philosophy, and art, love being not the only such theme.
In Greek myth Eros was not originally the cute cherub that people visualize today. In fact, originally he could not be visualized at all because he was not even a deity, and so at first was represented simply by a herm. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Eros self-generated into existence once Chaos and Earth came into being (lines 116-23). Eros was the driving force behind the universe responsible for every other created thing, the motor of generation and procreation. Eros is usually translated as “Love” because Eros as a force manifests itself in humans as the passionate desire that drives physical love, and hence procreation. Eros was thought to strike our hearts because in the ancient world the heart was considered the repository of thought as well as of the affective powers (e.g., emotions, intuition, wisdom), as evidenced by our heart pounding when we are excited and inspired. The primal power of Eros was overwhelming and could not be resisted by humans, gods or goddesses, or anything else. The result is what we see in nature: fertility, life, and the seasons.
Eventually Eros came to be represented as an Erote, a type of winged sprite (ker) that both symbolizes and mediates the coming of life, and so also spring. Hence Theognis (Eleg. 1275) wrote:
Love [Eros] comes at this hour, comes with the flowers of spring, . .
Love comes, scattering seed for man upon earth.
Indeed, Eros as an Erote was usually depicted holding sprigs of foliage or sprays of flowers, and also could be seen watering flowers in a garden (Harrison, pp. 633-35). Eros later evolved from an Erote into a fully formed, handsome youth (ephebos) with golden wings, and his power was then represented by the arrows that he sent into the hearts of humans and gods alike.
Eros portrayed on a red-figured cylix, holding a spray of flowers, as the creative spirit moving upon the waters. Cf. Genesis 1:2, and so likewise Sophocles (Ant. 781): “O rover of the seas, O terrible one/In wastes and wildwood caves,/None may escape thee, none.”
The Greek philosophers also got ahold of Eros, making him the inspiration of lofty philosophical ideas. The most famous example is the discussion about the nature of Love (Eros) in Plato’s Symposium. To understand that dialogue properly we must put aside our contemporary notions of love and appreciate that Plato’s symposiasts were debating the question against the traditional mythological background of Love as Eros; Hesiod’s above-mentioned creation myth is even quoted at near the beginning (178b).
At the end of the dialogue, the prevailing idea emerged that the primal power of Eros can serve as a starting point to inspire and guide a person in realizing beauty in earthly nature, and from there shed these illusions and eventually realize pure, heavenly beauty – “beauty’s very self” – so that when such person “has brought forth and reared this perfect virtue, he shall be called the friend of god, and, and if ever it is given to man to put on immortality, it shall be given to him” (211e-212a). Somewhat analogously, in the Orphic tradition (where Eros had similarly self-generated, but from the cosmic egg), Eros as a fertility figure played a key role in Orphic mysteries, mediating the initiations .
Having discussed Eros as leading to an experience of God, we can turn to that man of God said to lead to love, St. Valentine. In fact we know almost nothing reliable about this murky figure. Most probably he was a bishop in Terni, Italy, who was martyred about 269 CE, supposedly on February 14. Catholic tradition also posits a second St. Valentine, a priest in Rome who also was martyred the same year, also on February 14. The prevailing view among scholars today is that the bishop of Terni is the real historical personage, but that his figure was then cloned in Rome and mythologized onto that of the nonexistent Roman priest. The stories about this priest were then attributed back to the bishop, which explains why the oldest stories about them are so similar. Both were said to heal people, whom they converted, thus arousing the ire of Roman authorities, as a result of which they were beheaded, both on February 14, which became the Saint’s feast day.) But none of the earliest stories, nor those of the next thousand years or so, contained or even prefigured any of the love and matchmaking themes and customs that we now associate with Valentine’s Day. We had to await the genius of Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400), who has been called “the original mythmaker” in this instance , to make the connection and put us back on the path to Eros.
Chaucer put Valentine’s Day on the map in his poem, Parliament of Fowls, in which birds gather on February 14 to choose their mates:
You well know how on Saint Valentine’s day,
By my statute and through my ordinance,
You come to choose your mates,
As I prick you with sweet pain,
And then fly on your way. [Lines 386-90]
Scholars over the centuries have tried long and hard to figure out how Chaucer got the idea to link the Saint with the coming of spring, but they have never been able to find an earlier tradition that he could have relied upon . The troubadours, for instance, wrote about love, birds, and the spring, but never mentioned or made a connection with St. Valentine. Rather, it seems that Chaucer’s creative genius simply combined existing bird lore and traditions of spring with the coincidence of St. Valentine’s feast day falling on the appropriate date of February 14. There was already a tradition of spring beginning on February 1, while other medieval calendars and sources marked the beginning of spring in mid-February when the sun moved into Pisces . Indeed, by then signs of spring were appearing, not only birds singing and mating but also some spring flowers, and some farming activity such as the pruning and grafting of trees. An observant poet like Chaucer would not miss this.
Once Chaucer had penned his poem, a cascade of other literature followed connecting the Saint with love. John Gower (1330-1408) and John Lydgate (1370-1451) both wrote that birds choose their mates on Valentine’s Day, Lydgate also making Valentine a type of poem. Sir John Clanvowe (1341-91) wrote The Book of Cupid. Soon members of the aristocracy in England and France started writing love notes on Valentine’s Day, and the custom had reached the commoners by the mid-to late 17th century. From the outset these valentines were decorated, most commonly with hearts and cupids.
Once Valentine’s Day had become a holiday and tradition, further mythmaking about the Saint followed. For example, while an old 5th or 6th century account told that the Saint had healed the blind daughter of his jailer and then converted the whole family to Christianity, now a detail was added that on the eve of his martyrdom the Saint wrote a farewell note to the young lady (implying that he was in love with her), thus accounting for the origin of Valentine notes.
As another example, the idea of connecting the origin of some Valentine’s Day traditions (matchmaking and love-notes) with the Roman pagan mid-February festival of Lupercalia also surfaced, beginning in a 1756 century book by Alban Butler and embellished in 1807 by Francis Douce, a notion that scholars disproved long ago but which nevertheless persists in contemporary books and on the Internet .
Quite apart from what Saint Valentine really did, today we have an image and dynamic of Valentine’s Day that harks back in important ways to the Greek concept of Eros. The occasion of this holiday can encourage us not only to celebrate our bond with our beloved but also to turn the force of our love and compassion toward the highest spiritual ends. At the same time, and quite apart from themes of romance, history shows us that the holiday is also a celebration of the coming of spring, like Groundhog Day and Carnival.
- The Bear, the Harlot, the Magician and the King by Lloyd D. Graham
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the seduction of the wild man Enkidu by Shamhat the
harlot symbolically causes his death as an unreflective animal and his rebirth as a
human – an Eden-like fall into self-awareness. Created as a match for king
Gilgamesh of Uruk, Enkidu goes on to become the king’s beloved friend. In
European folk traditions, the Wild Man is interchangeable with the bear, and
parallels can be drawn between Enkidu and the Candlemas Bear associated with
Carnival. Since Enkidu symbolises our pre-human nature, one can perceive a
figurative truth to the pan-European folk belief that people are descended from bears.
Thematic overlaps exist between some Gilgamesh narratives and European folk-tales about a Wild Man whose father was a bear (the Bear’s Son / Jean de l’Ours motif) or about twin boys, one of whom was raised in the wild by a female bear (Valentine and Orson). Perhaps surprisingly, the roots of Santa Claus lie in the Wild Man. So too do the origins of Merlin, the wizard of medieval Arthurian romance. Merlin has elements in common with Enkidu, while King Arthur can be seen as a metaphorical “Bear’s son.” Over time, the status of the Wild Man has changed from a wholly inhuman monster to a “noble savage” who today might even be cast as a salvific ecowarrior. Read here
- The Wild Man or the Masquerade of Orson and Valentine – Brueghel
Valentine and Orson is a romance which has been attached to the Carolingian cycle.
Synopsis
It is the story of twin brothers, abandoned in the woods in infancy. Valentine is brought up as a knight at the court of Pepin, while Orson grows up in a bear’s den to be a wild man of the woods, until he is overcome and tamed by Valentine, whose servant and comrade he becomes. In some versions, the pair discover their true history with the help of a magical brazen head. The two eventually rescue their mother Bellisant, sister of Pepin and wife of the emperor of Greece, by whom she had been unjustly repudiated, from the power of a giant named Ferragus.
Early Modern Versions
The tale is probably based on a lost French original, with Orson originally described as “sans nom” i.e. the “nameless” one. A 14th-century French chanson de geste, Valentin et Sansnom (i.e. Valentin and “Nameless”) has not survived but was translated/adapted in medieval German as Valentin und Namelos (first half of the 15th century).[1]
The kernel of the story lies in Orson’s upbringing and wildness, and is evidently a folk-tale the connection of which with the Carolingian cycle is purely artificial. The story of the wife unjustly accused with which it is bound up is sufficiently common, and was told of the wives both of Pippin and Charlemagne. The work has a number of references to other, older, works, including: Floovant, The Four Sons of Aymon, Lion de Bourges, and Maugis d’Aigremont.[1]
Like nearly all popular romances of chivalry of the period, the French chanson de geste was adapted into a prose romance by the end of the 15th century;[2] several versions from the 16th century are extant; the oldest prose version dates from 1489[1] (published in Lyon by Jacques Maillet).[2] An English-language version, The Historye of the two Valyannte Brethren: Valentyne and Orson, written by Henry Watson, printed by William Copland about 1550, is the earliest known of a long series of English versions – some of which included illustrations. One such illustrated variant of the tale was prepared by S R Littlwood and accompanied by the illustrations of Florence Anderson when published in 1919. It is known that Richard Hathwaye and Anthony Munday produced a theatrical version of it in 1598.
Other Renaissance versions exist in Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch,[1] German, and Icelandic. The number of translations show a European success for the tale.[1] The works of François Rabelais have a number of echoes to the romance.[2]
- Carnival
The festival’s inventive costumes, float parades, and jovial and irreverent atmosphere was not only great fun but also piqued my interest in the holiday. As it turns out, a lot of myth underlies Carnival’s rituals, and also explains why this holiday originated in southern Europe. Carnival is usually thought of as a last chance to feast and make merry before the privations of Lent, but the roots of the holiday’s rituals are deeper and older. Carnival also has to do with the seasonal transition from winter to spring.
Carnivals typically include such rituals as an irreverent parade/procession, excessive feasting and drunkenness, masks and costumes (masquerade), contests, sexual license, and role reversals in which people of lower social rank gain stature and authority and are free to speak their mind and are served by their usual masters who now must obey them. This reversal also typically includes the temporary removal of the ruler and appointment of a temporary mock ruler, who is then ousted at Carnival’s end (in some ancient cultures he actually may have been killed as a sacrifice).
Holidays having such rituals are known as festivals of dissolution (or of reversal or inversion). They normally occur during a seasonal transition from one state of being into another, whether astronomical in nature (e.g., solstice, equinox) or in terms of human activity (e.g., sowing, harvest). The biggest and most important of these festivals of transition and dissolution is the New Year’s period, but they also occur at other times of year, including the transition from winter to spring, when we witness the rebirth of nature and the increased light of the sun.
The concept behind festivals of dissolution derives from ancient creation myths. The ancients conceived of the creation process as one of instilling order and structure to the cosmos, which features pairs of opposites, multiplicity, and hierarchy. In the human sphere this meant, among other things, social distinctions and stratification, and in particular the institution of kingship, thought of as a form of order that keeps order. Before the creation existed chaos, which was eliminated as a result of the creation. Thus, for example, Genesis 1:2 depicts a formless and dark void existing before God begins the creative process. The annual progression through the seasons and astronomical alignments was thought of as a journey through distinctive stages and modes of being. The coming into being of a new stage (e.g., a new year, spring) also was viewed as a new creation, though a more modest one in terms of the particular seasonal changes that occur. But in order for such a new creation to be possible, the prior stage (e.g., the old year, winter) had to be dismantled and reduced to chaos. This recurring pattern of a reversion to primordial chaos and new creation in mythic rituals/holidays is known as “the myth of the eternal return” (Eliade). Such are festivals of dissolution.
Note: Spring Rejuvenation ritual, St george and the Dragon, Mariage of May queen and king in Folklore
-Spring Rejuvenation ritual : Carnaval of Binche in Belgium
-Carnaval of Nurembergh
- -St george and the Dragon: The “Doudou” of Mons in Belgium
- –World War I Miracle? The Angels of Mons
Doomed to death
While the Battle of Mons raged and they had lost count of the number of British soldiers who had been killed by enemy fire, the 8th brigade was fighting tooth and nail to defend Mons. On the evening of 23 August, as night was falling, the situation was serious. The 21,000 Germans involved in the battle had made it to Mons from the East. They were occupying the city and threatening the British rear. On the right, the situation was just as dire, the Commonwealth soldiers had to tackle the 7th Bremen Regiment, which was holding Spiennes. Despite all this, the 8th Brigade miraculously made their way out. They managed to find their way through the darkness to get to their camp. The story might have been left there, if a rumour hadn’t started to spread among the soldiers. Some claimed to have seen angels in the form of archers. They supposedly stopped the Germans in their tracks so that the British could retreat. Fiction or reality? Of course it’s hard to say. The Great War gave rise to plenty of legends. On some parts of the front line, soldiers are said to have been helped by celestial figures to stay alive.
A legend that has gone down in history
The church and then the British government used this event to motivate soldiers to continue to fight. Shortly afterwards, the fantasy writer Arthur Machen published an article in the London Evening News about the event. He told the story of a British soldier who was helped by archers to escape from the claws of the German army. He alluded to Saint George, the patron saint of soldiers and a legendary character for Mons. Although he quickly admitted that he had made up the whole story, there was no longer any doubt. The legend took on different forms. The angels were presented in different ways, either as a cloud of light or a winged horseman. The famous legend of Mons is still widely written about today, 100 after years after the war began.World War I Miracle? The Angels of Mons read more and look also “The Great and Holy War”
-Mariage of May queen and May king in Folklore: “Boerenbruiloft” in Venlo,Holland
The most fundamental holiday ritual is that of New Year’s, which in many ancient cultures was literally considered to involve the re-creation of the entire cosmos. The classic case was the New Year’s festival in ancient Babylon, celebrated near the spring equinox. Its rituals featured elements of dissolution, including the confining of the creator god Marduk in the underworld among criminals, resulting human chaos in which the populace roamed the streets looking for him, the temporary humiliation and removal of the king, the eventual battle for creation in which Marduk defeats the chaos monster Tiamat, and finally a triumphal procession and the restoration of Marduk’s and royal power (i.e., order). Other seasonal transitions constitute miniature versions of re-creation, so their festivals also feature elements of dissolution.
Carnival has its origins in the ancient Greek and Roman world. In Greece the principal festival of dissolution was the Kronia, held after the summer harvest and thus representing the transition into the post-harvest regime of life heading towards winter. It is named after the Titan Cronos, who according to myth ruled the universe during the Golden Age of mankind, where there was no hunger, death, sickness, or social distinctions or oppression. But then Zeus established the later order of the cosmos by defeating Cronos in battle. Zeus imprisoned Cronos for a while in the underworld realm of Tartarus, but eventually let him out and assigned him to rule over the Elysian Islands, a paradise of the dead where, among other things, again there was a primordial equality with no social distinctions, and other features of the Golden Age. Kronia reflects this legacy of Cronos (as well as perhaps his originally being a harvest god – he did, after all, wield a sickle). During the festival the usual order of society was suspended. Among other things, slaves banqueted and played games with their owners, who waited on their slaves, who ran riot through the streets making noise. This represented a reversion to the Golden Age of Cronus when oppression and social distinctions did not exist . At the end of the festival, a criminal who had previously been condemned to death (a mark of chaos and disorder) was led out, given wine, and slain. This marked the end of dissolution and the moment of transition into the next seasonal modality of being.
The Romans identified their god Saturn with Cronus (an exile after being defeated by Zeus, landing in Italy (Virgil, 8.320-25)), who as a historical matter may have landed in Rome through Greek influence on Etruria, where he may originally have been an agricultural deity, especially of sowing. Saturn’s festival, called the Saturnalia, was traditionally December 17-23, which was both just after the winter sowing and at the winter solstice. After 153 BCE, when the civil New Year was transferred from March 1 to January 1, the Saturnalia also served as the winding down of the old year. As a result, the holiday became the classic Roman festival of dissolution. At the start of the festival in Rome, the cult statue of Saturn, who was bound by woolen fetters all year, was released, signifying a time of liberation. After a sacrifice to him and a banquet open to all people on December 17, the celebrations became a festival of reversal, which like in the Kronia was a reversion to the Golden Age. Masters waited on their slaves, who ate before their masters did. The formal toga was shunned in favor of colored Greek-style clothing (the synthesis), and both master and slave wore the conical felt cap (pilleus) which was the mark of a freedman (i.e., slaves, being not free, could not normally wear it, meaning that he was “free” for the period of the festival). Slaves were also entitled to free speech, and they could disrespect their masters. Slaves and masters played gambling games together, and there was also gambling on the streets. Women played a more prominent role than usual. People also wore masks and costumes. Overeating and drunkenness was the rule. In the imperial period (though not before), a mock “king” (actually princeps, perhaps in response to this informal title adopted by Augustus) was appointed for the duration of the festival, whose orders had to be followed.
Portrayal of Roman Saturnalia
Rome also had another old festival in late-February, the Regifugium (“flight of the king”), tied to the coming of the traditional March 1 New Year and the coming of spring. There the real king (this was the ancient time of the kingship) temporarily abdicated in favor of a mock king, who at the end of the festival fled (or originally might have been sacrificed). During the festival people held costumed celebrations and dances . This was also the time of year when epagomenal days were inserted after the end of the year in order to readjust the calendar, thus creating a liminal period out of normal time. (Originally, the Romans had no months between December and March.) This period of the Roman calendar, the same time as European Carnival, appears to be the true Roman source of the Carnival-type rituals that later appeared in the Saturnalia after January became the beginning of the civil New Year.
The European Carnival originated in Italy and harks back to these local traditions. When Christianity took hold, the Lenten season leading into Easter matched the transition into spring in timing and in spirit. Carnival became an institutionalized pre-Lenten festival of dissolution. At the practical level, it was an opportunity to eat up the last winter stores of meat which would soon be spoiling. (The word Carnival probably comes from the Italian carne levare, meaning to take away meat )). Likewise, it was a last chance to eat cheese, milk, and eggs, which were forbidden during Lent. This was accomplished by making pancakes for the occasion, which also symbolized the spring sun.
Carnival spread form Italy into southern France (of which the Nice Carnival is a legacy) and the Iberian Peninsula. From France it spread to New Orleans (Mardi Gras) and from Iberia to Rio. On Mardi Gras, we still have a mock king who rules the French Quarter of New Orleans until midnight on Ash Wednesday. In the north of Europe, Carnival as such did not become such a typical tradition, but equivalent rituals of dissolution, including masquerades, developed on Shrove Tuesday, especially in the British Isles. The Jewish festival of Purim gained its masquerading and general dissolution tradition among Jews in 15th-century Italy, influenced by Carnival there.
So as we don our Carnival masks, it is instructive to remember that the mask entails not only our own personal temporary transformation into another archetypal being in sacred time, but also that doing so sets the stage for (and according to older mythical thinking, assists in) a more fundamental transformation of the season and stage in our normal life.
Note: The Masks of God:
The Masks of God is the summation of Joseph Campbell’s lifelong study of the origins and function of myth. In volume 1 of the series, The Masks of God, Campbell examines the primitive roots of spiritual beliefs among our ancient ancestors. Drawing on anthropology, archaeology and psychology Primitive Mythology confirms the fundamental unity of mankind (not only biologically but in shared spiritual history).
In volume 2 of the series, Oriental Mythology, Campbell examines Eastern mythology as it developed in the distinctive religions of Egypt, India, China and Japan. Campbell examines Eastern mythology as it developed in the distinctive religions of Egypt, India, China and Japan. While Western religions dwell on good and evil, Eastern religions focus on the promise of eternal life. Oriental Mythology explores how Eastern religions came to manifest their varying modes of thought and expression.
In volume 3 of the series, Occidental Mythology, Campbell examines the themes that underlie the art, worship and literature of the Western world. , Campbell examines the themes that underlie the art, worship and literature of the Western world. Occidental Mythology traces European consciousness from the Levantine earth-goddesses of the Bronze Age and the subsequent tribal invasions that shaped Judaic and Greek myth before examining the influence of Persia, Rome, Islam and Christian Europe on ancient beliefs.
In volume 4 of the series, The Masks of God, Creative Mythology, Campbell examines the entire inner story of modern culture, spanning its philosophic, spiritual and cultural history since the Dark Ages and investigating modern man’s unique position as the creator of his own mythology.