Snow snow snow!

Snow snow snow!  Looked outside in the night and saw thick white flakes falling.  This morning the world was frosted white, like Christmas come early.  Car windows opaque with  white crystals:  normal life grinds to a halt.  A sense of hard magic in the air.  Man is not good at dealing with extreme nature, even in a minor form.  Everything is exceptional now.  Friends flying out from Luton were grounded; football practice in the local park banned by council operative.  You should stay at home and light the fire, invite friends round to share their body heat.  (In the recent power cut, a neighbour's husband fainted from a surfeit of scented candles).   
It is only three days to the midwinter solstice.  Savour that seasonal cheer!

Stories and Storytelling

Is the art of storytelling defunct?  This was the topic of an article in the Times last week.  In our modern digital age, there is no place for the slow development of story.  Tweet, twitter, blog, text:  these have replaced the old craft of the bard.  We have such easy access to information that no one wants to wait for a denouement.  If instant gratification is possible, why not just get on with it?
But of course, life is not like that.  In the real world, our lives unfold slowly and with significance.  We cannot see the patterns in our lives as they develop, but that does not mean they are not there.  Tapestries are woven from the back, and the design cannot be seen until the picture is completed.  (Read Tracey Chevalier's 'The Lady and the Unicorn' for a beautiful description of the process).  Electronic messages broadcast what we have been doing, but they do not endow our experience with meaning:  only the deep process of psychic maturation can do that.  Our brains are programmed to perceive pattern and meaning.  This is why we can hear words in the random sounds of speech, and why we see pictures in the clouds.  Humans are hard-wired to seek out stories.  In the past twenty years, there has been a dramatic resurgence in the art of storytelling at just the same time as the dramatic rise in home computing.  The two media are not in competition:  they satisfy different needs.  Since ancient times, people have told stories to make sense of the world.  The oldest of these stories are called myths, and they still resonate for us today.  Storytelling is not threatened by the internet:  narrative lies at the heart of human experience.

The Pergamon Museum, Berlin

The Pergamon Museum in Berlin is one of the great treasure houses of the world.  Walk in and you find yourself facing a massive Greek temple, carefully transported here and reconstructed as it would originally have looked.  Around the walls are fragments of statuary, arranged on a smooth grey background so that the figures seem to be appearing through of a curtain of mist.  At the top of the steps lies the inner sanctum:  here, the frieze tells the story of Telephos, mythical founder of Pergamon and legendary ancestor of the ancient royal family.  The scenes from his life recall themes from so many powerful myths:  the royal princess whose child will endanger the  king;  the infant cast out and suckled by a wild beast;  his triumphant return to save the kingdom;  the inadvertent reward of his own mother's hand in marriage, here luckily averted by divine intervention on their wedding night; the contrived relationships with other major military characters - notably Achilles and Odysseus;  the consultation with oracles, and events leading to the final glorious demise of the hero.  Thus is the power of the mortal order legitimized by its links to the semi-divine.
I last visited Berlin 25 years ago.  Coming from Moscow, the train passed through sleeping suburbs until we crossed the shrouded border line and the city erupted into a permanent party.  Nowadays, it is the east which houses the newest restaurants and late-night bars.  Berlin is the cocktail capital of Europe:  muscled men sip parasolled concoctions whilst their girlfriends nibble the pineapple garnish. Souvenir shops sell pieces of painted concrete claiming to be chipped from the Wall.  But not all the people are in unmitigated favour of the new order.  You can also buy little green plastic men like traffic light symbols:  these are a feature of Ostalgia - the longing for a simpler time, when everyone knew their place.  Whether it was a better time or not is a matter of emotional fealty rather than retrospective analysis.  In Berlin, history is being created and updated   all around you.  The architects of the Pergamon Altar would have felt entirely at home.

Holding Out For A Hero

Inspired by Ranulph Fiennes, but constrained by practicalities:  organized an expedition to see the film 'Up!'.  In case you don't know, this is the story of an old man who fulfils his lifelong ambition of visiting South America... by lifting his house with hundreds of helium balloons.  Even if you don't like chidren's cartoons, the graphics are undeniably superb.  The story has all the elements of the hero's quest:  the initial call to adventure;  the departure from the known, overcoming restraints which try to hold him back; the first test, which reveals the true nature of the hero; the ultimate confrontation, in which the monster is vanquished; and the return to society, bearing the boon which is the fruit of his travail.  The basic pattern is varied by the fact that the wise old mentor and young adventurer reverse roles - it is his promise to a child which invokes the old man's better nature and leads to his ultimate salvation. 
The Greek myths provide the most common exemplar of the hero archetype.  Perseus rescuing Andromeda; Theseus and the Minotaur; Herakles and just about any monster that could be attributed to him.... Hollywood loves to draw on this narrative prototype: the Star Wars cycle are some of the best recent examples of the hero genre.  These stories and films allow us to participate vicariously in the heroic venture, safe in the knowledge that everything will ultimately turn out all right. Like a fairground rollercoaster, we share the thrills of the ride without having to deal with any of the actual dangers involved.  There is a positive aspect to this experience.  Although we are passive, we become emotionally involved in the events related.  Through stories like these, we learn the right way to behave in real-life situations where we have to face problems and fears.  When people need to be heroes, the old stories can provide them with a model for action in real life.

Living Dangerously: Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Holding out for a hero?  Sir Ranulph Fiennes' talk on 'Living Dangerously' was a good start.  For an hour he held a hall of several hundred people hanging on his words.  Under a fine turn of phrase and wry sense of humour, we glimpsed a man with almost superhuman tenacity and courage.  He is a true an ad-venturer:  one who left home and ventured out into the world, to see what he could find.
We all need heroes for our age, people who live just outside the confines of ordinary existence.  A little larger than life, they straddle the bounds of humdrum humanity.  A hero must excel both physically and morally:  strong and enduring, they use their powers for the common good .  He (or she) needs emotional intelligence, the ability to connect with people, even more than intellectual ability.  Heroes are important because they represent the best in us:  they remind us of what we can aspire to.
Few heroes live to enjoy the fruits of their travails: whom the gods love generally die young.  Ranulph Fiennes suffered a major heart attack several years ago.  He has since continued to live dangerously, recently running seven marathons on seven continents, also in aid of charity.  We can all be grateful that the gods realized he still had work on earth to do.  PS Go out and buy his book now!  It is the next best thing to doing it all yourself.

The Great Mother: Demeter and Persephone

Today we studied the myth of Demeter and Persephone.  Demeter is the Great Mother, the Greek goddess who watches over all growing things;  Persephone is her daughter, who is stolen from her.  Or is she?  We tried to see the story from different viewpoints.  Demeter wants to keep her child safe within her loving embrace, but she risks becoming a 'smother mother'.  Persy is on the cusp of womanhood, ready to assume freedoms and responsibilities of her own.  Life is never static:  the balance of reality is constantly shifting.  As we move from one state to the next, doors open ahead of us: the trick is to keep looking forwards, not clinging to what  must be left behind.   Some wonderful poems by group members written from these varying perspectives, relating these conflicting emotions to their own experiences.  Because, of course, myths are not stories about things that might possibly have happened a long time ago:  they are about our lives now.
This is a good exercise to do on your own:  compose a short piece from another person's perspective.  This doesn't have to be written down, although it often helps to do so.  You might choose a character from a novel you've read recently, and give their version of events;  you could try to see things from a friend's point of view;  you could even become the administrator who wrote that letter from the council, giving a running comentary on the community as you walk down the road.  It's fun to try, and can be quite illuminating.

Welcome to Life Works!

Welcome to Life Works!  It's the old-style new year, and last night was a full moon:  seems like an auspicious day to start writing.  The winter hours make it harder to wake in the morning, but also make it feasible for me to be up before dawn.  At first light, the sky was filled with streaks of plum and apricot - probably due to high-level aircraft pollution, but astonishingly beautiful anyway.  For me, this is the best time of day to work.  The street outside is empty;  a cat curls around my ankles seeking warmth;  my  mug of tea sends frail wisps of steam into the air.  It's time outside time, waiting for the world to wake. 
Some of you know me from groups and workshops;  others are 'friends waiting to be found'.  I study myth, using a combination of anthropological approaches and psychological insights.  At the moment, I'm working on how we use stories to construct our lives.  This involves looking at the traditional tales we call 'myths', and the archetypal figures who enact and re-enact them.  Each of us works with this narrative material to compose our very own, personalized life story.  My forthcoming book examines this process in more detail.  Follow this blog to find out when it hits the shops!