“Wherever the poetry of the myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed. The living images become only remote facts of a distant time or sky. Furthermore, it is never difficult to demonstrate that as science and history mythology is absurd. When a civilization begins to reinterpret its mythology in this way, the life goes out of it, temples become museums, and the link between the two perspectives is dissolved. Such a blight has certainly descended on the Bible and on a great part of the Christian cult.” Joseph Campbell
I know several people who would be upset with me for saying this, or at least disagree; but, the same is true with much of Paganism. People are taking ancient Myths and attempting to interpret them as custom, even taking the characters and elevating them to the status of gods. I’ll tell you….I don’t see a lot of (though there is some) overlap between what is found in the archeological record here in Ireland and what is actually recorded in its Mythical manuscript tradition.
“To bring the images back to life, one has to seek, not interesting applications to modern affairs, but illuminating hints from the inspired past. When these are found, vast areas of half-dead iconography disclose against permanent human meaning.” Joseph Campbell
Myth speaks to us on a subconscious level. As tempting as it is – especially for me – to look for cues to folk and lifeways within the narrative tradition, I remind myself to let go, and allow the images to dance – revealing hints of ancestral whispers and wisdom.
“…according to this view it appears that the wonder tales – which pretend to describe the lives of legendary heroes, the power of divinities of nature, the spirits of the dead, and the totem ancestors of the group – symbolic expression is given to the unconscious desires, fears and tensions that underlie the conscious patterns of human behaviour. Mythology, in other words, is psychology misread as biography, history, and cosmology.” Joseph Campbell
Myth and folklore are therapeutic narrative. Let them seep in and share their wisdom, but let your Talker mind, with its search for puzzle and answer, sleep.
Confessions of a Hedge Witch 
I had two problems here. “Myth and folklore are therapeutic narrative” is much too simplistic, and is actually inaccurate. I encourage you to read more about “myth” and general “folklore” before making this kind of oversimplification. Dundes has written on Myth as Sacred Narrative, and give me some time to consider texts in the more general “folklore.”
The other matter is with the suppression of Talker in the general consideration of myth. I think Talker (poet) gives voice to Aumakua (muse) here, and the best reconciliation is balancing all three in one’s work.
Point taken as regards oversimplification. I will visit Dundes work on sacred narrative. Much of my lens has a psychological, even sociological, focus. Perhaps after I have taken Dundes approach onboard I will revisit this. I still take issue with much of the literal interpretation I hear within pagan circles.
I don’t want Talker to stay sleeping, just to sometimes nap. In a culture so “top” heavy, embodiment has to be stressed. It is too easy for pagans to sit behind a computer, or in front of a TV, engaging their imaginations and view that as encounter. Perhaps I am a cynic or Luddite, to some extent. My disdain for modernity is a strong bias……as I sit here typing on this tablet. The ridiculousness is not lost on me.
I really liked this post. I have been trying more myself to see and understand more with my intuitive mind than my rational one (it already gets plenty of exercise as it is). Letting it seep in is a great image. I have taken a few workshops with RJ Stewart and one of the things he taught has really stayed with me, it reminds me of this post.
RJ talks a lot about “Empowered Visualization”, his word for Pathworking as I understand it. He says:
“Modern interpretations frequently miss the basic patterns inherent in myth, legend, and folklore. They do so by forcing the material into a psychological, sociological or materialist mould that simple did not exist in human life, in human consciousness, when the myths were part of daily experience. Curiously, if we find the right key or ground-plan to the mythic traditions, we can bring the inner force alive for contemporary use, even though we are far removed culturally from their sources. . .
The visions act as a medium for energy: they give form to forces within both ourselves and the environment. There is no suggestion . . . that the images within it are ‘real’, but neither are they ‘unreal’. By environment we mean a total environment, the holism of space, energy or consciousness, and relative time. It may be a purely local concern with a local energy or consciousness, or it may be the the environment of our Lunar, Solar, or Stellar realms, the Three Worlds of ancient tradition. Empowered visualization crosses all boundaries, dissolves all filters and sets of limitations, if it is used properly.”
These concepts have been a revelation for me in how I relate to myth and Pathworking. One of the other things RJ talked about was the imagery of dreams. In ancient times there were places that were deliberately set aside where people would go to dream. The curious thing was that these dreams were *not* interpreted. The dream itself was the healing, the images of the dream being seen as a medium of energy that healed/blessed the dreamer.
I am convinced that modern interpretation layers a lot of “stuff” onto myth, legend and dreams, that can actually impede our understanding of them. Especially if we are trying to understand them from an indigenous point of view.