Carl Jung: “What is the myth you are living?”
Hardly had I finished the manuscript when it struck me what it means to live with a myth, and what it means to live without one. Myth, says a Church Father, is 'what is believed always, everywhere, by everybody'; hence the man who thinks he can live without myth, or outside it, is an exception. He is like one uprooted, having no true link either with the past, or with the ancestral life which continues within him, or yet with contemporary human society. . .
So I suspected that myth had a meaning which I was sure to miss if I lived outside it in the haze of my own speculations. I was driven to ask myself in all seriousness: 'What is the myth you are living?' and found that I did not know. So, in the most natural way, I took it upon myself to get to know 'my' myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks, for—so I told myself—how could I, when treating my patients, make due allowance for the personal factor, for my personal equation, which is yet so necessary for a knowledge of the other person, if I was unconscious of it? I simply had to know what unconscious or preconscious myth was forming me, from what rhizome I sprang.
. . .
Many of us, me included, are guided by a myth, a deeply held story, that we don’t fully understand or perhaps understand at all. Nevertheless it guides our lives. It determines our potential to create the life we envision, and it can also limit that potential. The process of understanding our myth is one of writing out our life story with an emphasis on key events and patterns, including those associated with the flowering of that potential and those associated with recurring negative patterns. Writing out our story can help us understand the deep roots that make us who we are.
What four beliefs have you based your life on?
Have they served you well?
Zen Mountain Journal is in the process of creating a binder that will hold art, poetry and reflections on the human journey — creating a life based on inner peace, and on the nurturing a friendship with yourself. It will also have room for your own journal notes and art. In fact, if you want, it can contain just your own journal notes and art. If everything goes as planned we’ll be able to ship these binders and their inserts in about a month. As soon as we have a date certain we’ll offer them on pre-order for a discount.
Available inserts will include:
Blank heavyweight premium writing paper (the same Mohawk Superfine 100lb text weight paper as is in the Tao Te Ching Journal), both lined and unlined.
Watercolor paper.
Journal notes, art and poetry — the work that evolves out of our Substack:
Journaling as a tool in creating a life.
Wild Waters and the Tao - an updated edition of our book first published in 2013 that quickly sold out. It explores the insights the Tao offers into life in wild nature, paddling wild rivers and waters’ way of getting where it is going through surrender.
Creativity as a Way of Life — the inner work underlying creative work, with the journals of artists, novelists and poets: Steinbeck's working days, Anne Truitt, Robert Henri's The Art Spirit.
The Heron Dance Book of Love & Gratitude — the most popular book we’ve published: gratitude as a spiritual practice and philosophy of life.
Thoreau and the Art of Life — Thoreau’s journals totaled two million words and offer an insight into the early thinking behind Walden and his other books.
Emerson's Laws of Nature, and Whitman's Leaves of Grass: Reflections on nature by two of our greatest writers.
Meditations on Nature, Meditations on Silence. Reflections on the beauty and mystery of the natural world.
The Pausing for Beauty Poetry Diary. Poetry celebrating the beauty and mystery of nature and of life.
The Journals of Archibald Campbell, Wild Artist. The misadventures of artist Archibald Campbell who lives alone in the woods and paints nude models, and reflects on a life he kind of understands.
The Journey Itself is Home - art, poems and reflections on a life lived on the edges of our culture. From the book arts collection published in 2012.
The Man Who Planted Trees — Jean Giono's shepherd, and my interviews with Frédéric Back, who received an Oscar for his animated film of Giono’s work. The book and film celebrate generosity as a philosophy of life.
Life is Daring Adventure or Nothing, An adventurer’s journal.
Supporting members will receive PDFs of all of this work free. It will arrive in 11×8.5 format so can be printed out on a home printer and inserted in a standard binder that can be purchased inexpensively at any office supply store or Amazon.
Or you can purchase the Zen Mountain Journal binder and inserts all printed on beautiful premium paper (Mohawk Superfine 100lb text).
The plan, over the next month, is to offer a painting and short quote or reflection every day or two on Substack. Supporting members will have access to the deeper explorations of these subjects on the Zen Mountain Journal website.
There is more on these plans on the Zen Mountain Journal website homepage here.
Nurturing The Song Within explores the inner work out of which creative work and a unique human life evolve. It contains key insights from hundreds of interviews Heron Dance founder Roderick MacIver has conducted over the last thirty years of people who choose their own path in life, and persist through the challenges and setbacks to make their dreams real.
Those interviewed include artists, adventurers, activists, and people who devote their lives to serving others. The book explores the murky waters of deep imagination, friendship with one’s inner world, and how those inspire creativity. In the interviews, and through reflections on both those interviews and his own life, the author seeks to understand the hidden wellsprings that guide and provide the clarity and courage required to create a unique life. This is a book by someone who has done it –- who has been a fulltime working artist for thirty years. Over ninety of the author’s full color paintings accompany the reflections and interview excerpts in each volume of the two-book set.
A human life is an expression of ideas, of dreams, of courage and of discipline. Or the lack thereof. A life fully lived, a unique life, grows out of something deep – the essence of a human being. It evolves out of that which is sacred inside each of us. Its exact source is difficult to explain; it can however be sensed and understood.
There are still a few copies of the first edition of Nurturing the Song Within available. This is a premium art book with a Smyth-sewn lay flat binding printed by on high quality art paper. Each two-page spread includes a painting and journal notes on living a creative, meaningful life.