Myth & Fairy Tale Podcast: How Stories Shape and Change Our Lives

In this episode I'm exploring the idea or the ethos of "punk," delving into the spirit of the word itself, what it means for us, and where we go to find it. I imagine the idea of punk as being an underground movement, primarily. This corresponds with mythic ideas of depth and the underworld. Punk as an idea and as a movement presents an adverse response to the values and ideas of our upperworld lives, where we live and work. Whatever directions our upperworlds are moving, along with whatever ambitions we ourselves have planted there, the punk impulse wants to move into the opposite direction. In the middle of one of the most tumultuous and chaotic moments in the history of our species, the idea of punk may provide as with an answer to the darknesses of the upperworld other than fear or despair. It shows us, rather, its own form of darkness down in the depths, where we remember our roots, and perhaps where we must look to in order to reclaim our own humanity in a world where hatred, division, and the will to power over all others feels like it is winning the day.

With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, or A.I., humanity has now embarked upon a new Promethean fantasy of the soul. It has also opened up a new "Pandora's Box," with which we now have the tools and the power to make ourselves, the human race, obsolete. Amongst the very real existential crises and challenges this new technology potentially brings to our daily living, the quesiton of where soul is to be found is perhaps more prescient and vital than ever. An exploration of the Anima Mundi, or "soul of the world," may have something to teach us about how we can bring soul back, not just to our own species, but to the earth and all its various inhabitants as well. We will explore why soul, which can only be discovered in the imagination, is something that cannot be replicated or replaced artificially...and why this is where our hope lies. Join me for Part #2 of this 2-Part series on A.I. & The "Anima Mundi."

With the advent of Artifical Intelligence, or A.I., humanity has now embarked upon a new Promethean fantasy of the soul. It has also opened up a new "Pandora's Box," with which we now have the tools and the power to make ourselves, the human race, obsolete. Amongst the very real existential crises and challenges this new technology potentially brings to our daily living, the question of where soul is to be found is perhaps more prescient and vital than ever. An exploration of the Anima Mundi, or "soul of the world," may have something to show us about how we can bring soul back, not just to our own species, but to the earth and all its various inhabitants as well. We will explore why soul, which can only be discovered in the imagination, is something that cannot be replicated or replaced artificially...and why this is where our hope lies. Join me for this 2-Part series and A.I. & The "Anima Mundi," and welcome to Part #1. 

Through the lens of James Hillman's theory on archetypal psychology, I explore the phenomenon of "fundamentalism" as a psychological one, primarily. Arguing that this is an aspect of a monotheistic vision of the soul, I explore the implications of its cultural, religious, and political impact on the world, and how this relates to the rise of an authoritarian impulse we are currently witnessing worldwide.

As a species, we humans traditionally do not handle paradoxical tensions well. Whether in the individual human soul or in relationship to each other, our failure to understand the wisdom of certain tensions and learn how to balance them well inevitably leads to war. History bears all the scars of our repeated cycles of war and peace (or breaks from war). We live in a moment of history where unbridled power, cruelty, dehumanization, and a collective insanity are exerting themselves in a way that is overwhelming, violent, deadly, callous, and indifferent. In this episode I explore the aspects of power and eros, what each of them has to offer us, and why these two energies are diametrically opposed to each other.

Philosophers, theologians, and storytellers alike have been grappling with the phenomenon of the 'Self' since time immemorial, trying to describe what it is and what it is not. We all experience the paradoxical sensations of both separateness and unity. The Tale of the Half-Man is an exploration into what happens when part of a unified whole chooses to separate itself and make itself a distinction. In the case of this story, taken out of a chapter of my book, "The Fire That Never Dies: Dragons of the West," and retold here; it is envisioned within the context of a paradoxical tension between the archetypal energies of the "Divine Femine" and "Divine Masculine," and how the tension between the two offers us many choices on what to do with it, and the implications of those choices. 

In this final chapter of my religious deconstruction journey, I talk about how my relationship with the faith and religion of my past looks and feels today, particularly in the context of tumultuous social and political upheaval in the United States. I acknowledge both the gifts I have received from the faith and religious community of my past, as well as a continued and growing anger and frustration in the face of the rising popularity of Christian Nationalism. I also express my raw and candid thoughts about the institutions that have seeded and nurtured the obsession to replace liberal democracy with religious theocracy and oligarchy, such as the Religious Right and the Moral Majority in America. Originating in the early 70's, they have together formed a religious/political super PAC, and have been the vehicle for neo-conservative think tanks such as Focus On the Family and the Heritage Foundation, the group responsible for the drafting of the "Project 2025" document/manifesto. 

As my religious deconstruction story continues, I come full circle to the memory of my father, David, where nearly 20 years after his death I find an opportunity for inner reconciliation and peace. With the help of a good friend to walk me through a healing ceremony out in the wild deserts of Southern California, I find forgiveness, healing, redemption, and release. This episode concludes with a song...the only song I have ever written about my father directly. It walks through all the complex emotions I've had in relationship to him over the years. The children's voices at the end of the song are my own lovely children, recorded when they were much younger than they are today! 

In this episode I recount the years where I was getting ready to graduate from college but having little to no direction as to where to go in life and what to do next. A serendipitous chain of events in my senior year of college opened the door to an unexpected pathway which led me to go to graduate school where I studied to become a therapist. This proved to be a frutiful time of personal, spiritual, and educational enlightenment and renaissance for me, and I still recount those years as some of the most fulfilling and illuminating of my life to date. In this period, new questions were appearing to me I had not yet considered, but were compelling for me to follow and unpack. Many discoveries I made during this time contributed to my ongoing journey of deconstruction in ways I had not yet anticipated.

In this episode my story resumes around my early college years and the particular struggles I was having and developing around that time. Having covertly lost my faith in the church of my upbringing and my larger faith in God beginning to erode rapidly, I set out to look for answers and the truth beyond the familiar confines of my religious community; outside the borders of its theological tenets, assumptions, and presumptions. Giving myself the gift of this freedom did come with a cost. I had left my community and its various safety nets behind. This episode concludes with a prophetic dream I had that helped me to open the doors to my own sense of self-efficacy and confidence in ways I had previously been unable to develop.

Religious deconstruction is a path of transition, like so many other transitions that all of us go through in life. It has the components of loss, crisis, confusion, grief, and anger. It also includes catharsis, wisdom, joy, anticipation, and the opportunity for new life to arise out of the ashes of an old one. My deconstruction journey begins for me at the age of 10, when our family learned that my father was diagnosed with cancer and ends in the middle of my high school years, particularly at the age of 16, when my father lost his battle with cancer, and everything that occurred in the aftermath of that.

Laura Lewis-Barr is an award-winning screenwriter, stop-motion filmmaker, and educator. Laura writes comedy features. As a filmmaker Laura's focus is on animating fairy tales and mythic stories that explore personal and collective transformation. She is inspired by the work of Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Jack Zipes, and Marie-Louise von Franz. Laura creates her short films in the basement of her house in Chicago, IL, where she resides.

Laura Lewis-Barr is an award-winning screenwriter, stop-motion filmmaker, and educator. Laura writes comedy features. As a filmmaker Laura's focus is on animating fairy tales and mythic stories that explore personal and collective transformation. She is inspired by the work of Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Jack Zipes, and Marie-Louise von Franz. Laura creates her short films in the basement of her house in Chicago, IL where she resides.

The term Apokalypsis is a Greek word that denotes a "revelation" or an "unveiling." It is the term from which we derive the modern word apocalypse. Unlike modern, fundamentalist religious movements that interpret this idea to mean the literal end of the world, the original term denotes something different, if no less harrowing. The moment of revelation, in both Biblical and mythical literature always heralds a change to come, and typically no small change, but rather something very big and profound which will impact an entire people, nation, or in our case today, yes, the entire world. It hearkens not to a literal end of the world, or the planet itself, but something closer to the end of the world as we have known it. It is indeed a time of great turmoil for everyone. We stand, right now, in a moment of apokalypsis as an entire species. However, fear and despair, while laying heavily on our hearts and in the air all around us, are not the only invitations to response that the work of apokalypsis beckons us to. What we choose to do with such moments is important not only for ourselves, but for the overall health and sustainability of the planet we call home.

In this episode, Bear shares some of his experiences interacting with the Aboriginal communities he met with during his time Australia. Bear also introduces us to the concept of being "hollow-boned," as he recalls his work in facilitating sweat lodges, which is a stance that a person must take in order to "hold space" for others. We also explore the power of intention and balance as mechanisms for both growth and healing in our lives, as Bear talks about using past traumas as more of a "springboard rather than an anchor," as he puts it. We end our time talking about the importance of community, not just as people, but the idea of community as it relates to the plants and the animals that we share this earth with. 

The human race is in the middle of treacherous, tumultuous, and dangerous times. We are in the middle of what the Greeks called "Apokalypsis," which means a moment of "revelation," or a "lifting of the veil." Such moments in human history are accompanied by fear, confusion, and chaos. In this episode I talk about the psychological realities of hell, and how we can learn, collectively, to walk through such difficult times together. 

In this third and final installment of my conversation with Dr. Amy Ferrell, we explore together how the human Shadow provides us with a potential path into the deeper wisdom of ourselves, as well as exhibiting a warning to us, should choose to ignore it. We explore how our current culture and society have been neglecting to deal with its own collective shadows and our observations of the results of this choice.

A continuing conversation about apprehending the nature of the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine archetypes where we explore how different stories we have each adopted throughout our lives have shaped us both for good or for ill, where those stories came from, as well as exploring an aspect of the nature of the Divine Masculine as our capacity as human beings to "hold space," both for ourselves and for others. The conversation continues to further explore how our perception of these binaries points the way toward more complex and non-binary realities of human existence as we all strive to embody both sides of these powerful, archetypal energies in our own lives.

The Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine archetypes in myths and fairy tales are both powerful symbols and powerful binaries, between which the human race investigates more of its own fullness and wholeness in the underlying unity of non-binary spaces. These archetypal symbols and energies are qualities which belong to all human beings, regardless of sex or gender, and as such are capable of being manifest and nutured in all of us. In part one of this three part series, Dr. Amy Ferrell and I engage in meaningful dialogue about our own experiences and encounters with each of these powerful energies, as we also acknowledge how the backdrop of our cultural and societal values, particularly those rooted in patriarchy, have both influenced and attempted to redefine what each of these timeless and primordial energies are and how they should or should not be used.

The stories which invoke such powerful, archetypal imagery as that of the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine energies are both timeless and ageless. These images, or symbols, are divine forms of energy that belong to all human beings. In this sense they are not restrained to either gender or sex. What happens, however, when we as a species begin to impose our own ideas of sex, gender identity, and patriarchal demands on these timeless images? The Tale of the Half-Man is a story which can invite us into this particular conversation. This episode is an introduction to a four part series where, in the next three episodes I will be in conversation with a dear friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Amy Ferrell, as together we will be exploring the deep mysteries of both the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine, and what we think each of those are, or more importantly, can be. 

The work of inner reconciliation is not the work of getting rid of different parts of ourselves, including our own darknesses. The work, instead, is about accepting and taking responsibility for every part of ourselves, continually learning to bring them into balance with each other.

Daniel Gray Bear, or "Bear" Calderon is a healer, elder, and wisdom figure who comes to us from the Mescalero Apache community. He is a master storyteller and a holder of space for those on a journey of healing and wholeness, having facilitated many sweat lodges and working one on one with individuals learning to listen, embrace, and follow their own paths of curiosity, healing, and growth. In this episode Bear shares with us some wisdom from the medicine wheel, a story about a grandfather and a grandson learning about love and commitment and ending our time with a fascinating story about coyote as an archetypal trickster figure. 

There are many different ways to engage and interact with stories. In this episode I provide but one example of the interpretation of a story where each character and component of the story itself is understood as being an aspect of the protagonist's personality, in this case, Dorothy from Kansas. From this perspective, the land of Oz is a metaphor for Dorothy's unconscious self, and all the characters in the story, from the cowardly lion to the wicked witch, are all different aspect of Dorothy's own personality. 

Wholeness is not something we achieve. Wholeness is what we already are. Our individual and collective journeys to realize and retrieve a connection with our own inner wholeness is a journey of re-remembering that which we have forgotten, that which we have lost sight of. Much of the first part of life consists of ego-building; learning to skills, trying new things, and figuring out our own identities as we grow and develop. At some point, the call changes in our lives, away from ego-building and back into re-remembering the full essence and truth of our individual selves...the truth of our original wholeness as human beings.

Living in a world that feels as though it could not be more polarized, introducing the concept of balancing the tension of the opposites feels more crucial than ever. This episode investigates the purpose of learning to balance these tensions and why that is important to us as individuals and as communities. The Trickster motif will be introduced to observe the crucial role it often plays at luring us into these stories of tension that lie within, and how these tensions get projected outwardly into our world.

In an effort to recognize and embrace the sanctity of living stories, as well as the sanctity of the human individual, this episode explores the nature of the different parts of the human psyche as well as the different stories of ourselves those parts are carrying for us. In addition, I reintroduce the concept of the human Shadow, and why it is important to understand its nature and role in our lives as we learn to see and work with more of our own hidden stories.

The Latin root word HUMUS means "of the ground," or "of the earth." In this episode I explore this idea related to the concepts of humbleness and humility, inviting us not only to reimagine those words differently, but also to explore why our capacity to delve back into the Humus is important in our efforts, not only to engage our own inner stories, but stories from myth and fairy tales as well.

In this episode I wanted to expand a little more on the concept and practice of curiosity, specifically in contrast to the experience of shame, and shame stories that we can collect over time and read ourselves into. This episode concludes with how we can begin to utilize the tools and practice of curiosity to find healing for ourselves from our own shame stories. 

Welcome to this podcast! In this episode I will be introducing myself as well as some of the foundational ideas and concepts that form the heart of what this podcast is about and where the journey of engaging with stories more deeply and meaningfully can lead us. This episode is the first of a six-part series where I lay out these concepts and principles more in depth, and talk a little more about how engaging specifically with myths and fairy tales can help us shed some light on our own hidden worlds and the hidden stories we carry about ourselves.