Customer Reviews

Living Myth: Personal Meaning as a Way of Life

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Living Myth...
dear individuals with the courage to live your own lives,
... subtitled "Personal Meaning as a Way of Life", is a great book. On page one, the author writes, "A living myth is in many ways a fantasy that has become a way of life. To me, the most vital aspect of mythology is not found in the stories of gods and goddesses of long ago, nor in the psychological truths those stories reflect, but rather in the contemporary framework of images and meaning that are found in our own lifestyles." This book goes a long way to helping individuals bring their fantasy life into harmony with reality, so they can truly understand themselves and their psyche and the amazing synchronicities (meaningful coincidences), that while seeming meaningless to others, help illuminate our individual lives. This is a really great book.
kyela,
the silver elves

This book could possibly be the most powerful resource I found during my journey out of a worn out ideology. He lays out, with quiet inspiration, the importance of myth in our lives and empowers us to create a new mythology when we've watched an old, familiar one die. In the spirit of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung.

What gives meaning to our lives, down at the deepest roots? That's what genuine myth is all about: the guiding narrative that enables us to make sense of the universe & our place in it. It's not about dogma or fossilized ritual, imprinted upon us by family, society, religion -- although that's where we all start -- but about the meaning we find or make for ourselves, the reasons we have for living, and not merely existing.

D. Stephenson Bond delves into this rich & complex subject in these pages, first exploring the ways in which myth has worked in the past -- usually in some organized form, binding a culture together -- and then investigating something newer & even more compelling, the notion of personal myth.

Now, what does he mean by that?

It's no secret that many traditional belief systems have splintered & faltered in the past couple of centuries. Many people respond by immersing themselves even more deeply in traditional religions & ideologies, which can either lead to a solid & sustaining faith, or else the cramped & destructive prison of fundamentalism. We've seen the horrific results of the latter too many times in recent years.

But some have begun to find or forge personal myths -- a meaning, a pattern of understanding the world, that's unique to them, born of their own experiences in the world. Artists were the first to do so, going back to such visionaries as William Blake & the English Romantics. In more recent times, writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien created their own myths, informed by their inner lives & knowledge, in order to negotiate the losses & randomness of existence -- something Bond explains in fascinating detail.

As he makes clear, this isn't necessarily a conscious process. Nobody just sits down & says, "Well, I'll create a meaningful myth for myself today." No, it's something that develops inwardly & naturally, as a seed opens & grows into a flower or tree. Certain images, patterns, ways of seeing the world strike a chord somewhere within us, and we find ourselves developing an explanation of life for ourselves -- one that's born of both reason & emotion. This is an ongoing process, allowing for the twists, turns, reverses & surprises of life.

Bond explores this process clearly, making the sometimes difficult mysteries of Jungian thought easy to follow, without ever dumbing them down. What he offers isn't an airtight system or one more self-help plan -- nothing so shallow & simplistic -- but a new way of looking at the world, and your own being. He shows a possible path ... but it's up to each of us to walk it in our own way, each of us going to our own goal. As always in real growth, the work is up to us.

Most highly recommended!