Archetypes and Mythology. Why They Matter Even More So Today | Kristina Dryza | TEDxKaunas

[Applause] when the word myth is used today in common vernacular it's come to mean lies and falsehood but I want to share with you the transformative aspects of classical and ancient mythology and why these stories are more relevant today than ever say we're struggling with an issue whether it be in business society our health or an emotional concern anything the so-called left brain is attempting to make sense of myths is often the last place or actually a place we never look for guidance we want normative science behavioral experts financial gurus we want research we want data we don't turn to the universal stories that put us in touch with the sacred dimensions of life inherent within us stories that can hold us at a deeper level of truth of power and of wisdom today were often obsessed by the science of the physical brain but it's logical linear and rational aspect well it has a very necessary role can't easily enter this mythic archetypal dimension as the poet WH Auden wrote we are lived by powers we pretend to understand amongst other things myths are descriptive of our personal and societal unconscious processes they link our inner and our outer worlds via personification move us from the conceptual to the experiential and a metaphorically meaningful like we find in the stories of Eros and Psyche Prometheus Pandora Gilgamesh Anana and Thor to name just a few myths in dwells the psyche the Greek term for soul and Psyche mediates our perception of the world myths are not soundbites and they are not life hacks they are inner chronicles of who we are and so it requires a true being with them being with their beauty the grace the nobility the majesty the mystery of them eternal truths are best understood when incarnated in stories as the writer Goethe said he who cannot draw on 3000 years is living from hand to mouth now the classical world used myths to make sense of their lives and the world around them but what about us today say we're ill and we have to go see a new doctor and fill out a new patient form is there ever a question there that asks what myths is currently living in us is it Cinderella waiting to be rescued Odysseus on a long arduous journey Icarus flying too close to the Sun myths are one of the unseen influences shaping us and when we fail to perceive the mythic in there every day of our lives we forget that our myths can either enslave or liberate us life experience has taught me that to truly know thyself we must know the gods and goddesses and the archetypal figures in myths legends and folktales we must meet them face them metaphorically invite them out to dinner get to know them for each of them structures a style of consciousness and is a metaphor for our actions myths in their ancient impersonal and universal nature help us make sense and meaning of our lives because they provide a roadmap to the human psyche we recognize the plot we know the storyline and the characters and so we can perceive similar movements within our own psyche and the action or non action to take there's something in us that instinctively responds to the imagery in myths and the need to connect to these deeper archetypal patterns when we turn our gaze to the myths we begin to connect to something much larger than our everyday selves when we can perceive the underlying myths to our personal challenges they provide a cradle to view life as a divine drama and that our lives are lived on the back of a bigger story when the personal meets the mythical myths provide a larger container and context for our personal experiences as there's so many characters so many dramas and there's room for them all our own internal inherent contradictions need not tear us apart we don't go to the myths for the answer singular but for wisdom and deeper Universal insight which we can't access when we're trapped in our own personal narrative I'd like to share with you how a myth helped me through a really difficult time in my life but I'm sure you know a similar time to when it felt like the proverbial rug got pulled out from underneath you when the earth opened up below your feet and swallowed you whole whether it was through an illness a betrayal a relationship breakup an accident or a loss it's a Greek myth involving Persephone and Hades but why is this myth relevant today because it illuminates the human condition in a way that modern life simply can't and it Prime's us to appreciate the cyclical and transitory nature of life one day the spring made in Persephone daughter of Zeus king of the gods and demet at the goddess of the harvest was out innocently picking flowers in the field when all of a sudden hades god of the underworld bursts out of the ground driving his chariot of black horses and abducts her back down to the underworld sefa knee screams for help but only her Katey the goddess of magic and Helios the Sun God hear her cries as does her mother but she's too far away to do anything da Matta is frantic and she just anxiously Anand in the city complete distraught sense of being wanders the earth for nine days and nights searching for her daughter Demeter is also associated with the Eleusinian mysteries at this stage eventually Helios tells Demeter that Zeus gave Persephone to Hades to be his bride in the underworld Demeter is absolutely livid and she bounced that nothing on earth will grow again until she sets eyes on her beloved daughter and so a terrible famine assaults the earth and people everywhere are starving zeus alarmed by the famine sends amis the messenger guard down to the underworld to order Hades to let Persephone go Hades agrees but before he lets Persephone go he persuades her to eat some pomegranate seeds now there's debate as to whether she willingly or unwillingly ate the seeds Hermes and Persephone then fly out of the land of the dead and they are greeted by an over joyed and an open armed Demeter in the upper world but then she anxiously asks her daughter if she ate anything when she was in the underworld for if any it's the food of Hades they are bound to remain there it was agreed that as she only ate a handful of seeds Persephone would only have to spend part of the year in the underworld with Hades as his queen Demeter reluctantly agrees but she says when her daughter is in the underworld as death's bride that nothing on earth will grow and so this is what we know is winter and when Persephone returns to the upper world it is springtime and so this myth is used to explain the origin of the seasons the Homeric hymn to Demeter is one of the oldest Homeric hymns it dates back to approximately the 7th century BC now while this myth is western death and rebirth myths exist in all cultures in various forms for descent and descent is a continuous and universal theme this myth is an allegory of the seasons but it is also a metaphor for the descent to the unconscious to psyche and to all her depths Hades as both a figure and a terrain is felt as those dark times in our lives the abyss of avoid emotional hell most of us do not voluntarily enter the underworld we resist as hard as we can for the FIFA entering is tremendous being ripped from the familiar known world confronting death shattered expectations identity disintegration despair disillusionment depression loss and never ending endings Hades though birth the bringer of transformation and the crucible of our becoming we're taken down to Hades to have a conversation with our power our hubris a misguided illusions of control who and for when there's something requiring maturing within us and to transform our relationship to humiliation and its capacity to control us we're also there to be with sadness to be with loss to feel it to become present to it to accommodate this part of the experience it's not about trying to get rid of the uncomfortable feelings and fix the symptoms it's not about rationalizing our way out of Hades but learning to dwell in the mysteries of the underworld of course we want to stay in the upper world we want to avoid the shame and the shadows that lie in the underworld and to confront what is unseen and unknown a descent to Hades often requires the chaos of life to unfold often as were over prioritizing the material literal and scientific over the abstract poetic and spiritual we're living so fast our emotions barely have the chance to catch up to us we're so mentally and physically busy we don't digest and assimilate our experiences before we're on to the next thing finally finally finally in Hades everything catches up to us there's space for expression we can finally hear our hearts and listen to our souls we think something is wrong when we're in the underworld but there is no process of growth that doesn't demand a sacrifice and it's all too often sacrificing those parts of our identity with which were most closely associated with for Persephone it was her naivety and only knowing one dimensional surface living like her we must sacrifice our linear consciousness for one that is both spherical and holographic the underworld also asks us to release what the Western culture places value on namely things like status certainty and productivity it can't always be springtime we cannot always be in the spring of our lives but we don't know how to consciously make space for the destroyer archetype ourselves as much as the planet's resources cannot exist in constant creation in constant spring we must come to know that underworld death winter what is barren as the equal partner to upper world creation and to respect the cyclical nature of life we often experience the severity of the underworld due to our imbalance in our unwillingness to give the dark half of the cycle decay decomposition stagnation emptiness nothingness helplessness hopelessness loneliness it's due and rightful place today were often obsessed by the shiny shiny happy happy up a world of Instagram or the pursuit of the light had all costs to the total exclusion of darkness but that is not how life really is and the pressure to hashtag live our best life only increases anxiety but as I mentioned earlier we don't turn to the myths for an antidote to our suffering when we experience the absence of light for an extended of period of time like Persephone did it gives us confidence to move from the no end to the unknown certainty to uncertainty from what is Villas visible to trusting the invisible from what is fallow to be able to sense emergent life and to move from either/or thinking to embrace both and we can both be a child of the upper world and a companion of the underworld we can exist in both worlds there's often a fear of the interior life before we believe it will cost us our exterior life but in fact it only enriches it I mean who could we be if we only allowed our descent to touch the very depths of ourselves and to bring back what we learnt for our own expansion and the benefit of society yes we want to nurture our potential and we want to grow and develop but authentic transformation comes out of the time spent in in the underworld where we learn to balance order in chaos to appreciate that which disintegrates as much as that which blossoms and to revere the lunar as much as we do the solar this myth helped me through a period of transition knowing I would return from the underworld empowered by the experience to rebirth ourselves we often have to go through hell to do it the descent is the very catalyst that awakens you me us to our potential we descend so we can ascend as a more higher and refined octave of our former selves it's a continual death and rebirth process just like the seasons there's also the chance when we're in Hades to awaken the vertical dimension of eternity within the horizontal dimension of personal space and time and to come to know that wisdom doesn't always lie in the sunny fields of surface living but in the depths of a soul that knows both light and shadow myths help us better understand our shared humanity but also honor the diverse ways an honor the way we live and make meaning they bestow on us a map of our psyche which enables us to navigate ourselves and the world around us so can we cultivate a consciousness that perceives life in mythic terms can we sense when an archetypal figure as a pattern of behavior is attempting to make itself known to us can when we're in the underworld Persephone's journey give us hope that spring always follows winter our challenges and our graces have the gods and the goddesses and the myths alive in them so how will this now shift the power we bring to our sinking feeling our choices and our actions thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 61,606

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Consciousness, Faith, Fear, Ideas, Psychology, Self improvement

Id: 2o4PYNroZBY

Length: 19min 0sec (1140 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 03 2020