LIVING MYTH*

I want the wild animal
not the pelt,

the mystery

not the allegory.

I want to hear 

the story spoken

not read from

the pages of 

a dog-earred book.

Myth knows 

what it is.

It doesn't need

us to tell it

how wily 

it can be or

how it doesn't

play nice, now 

and then.

It knows it is

the dreamer

and not the dream.

Yes, it is the one

that left snow prints

in the sand. 

It is the one

that moved 

from village to village,

from mouth to mouth

century after century

taking us from rupture

to rapture, from terror

to transformation,

from grit to wonder

again and again and 

again. Myth is our most 

treasured possession,

our best worn-out

hand-me-down.

It moves us from

seeing to beholding.

It lures us into 

and out of time.

And, when we

are lonely

it will urge us

to trade in our I 

for a We, so a bigger

story will work us.

It returns us to

the wide and wilder 

world of soul

that lives outside us

in the mountains,

in the birdsong, 

in the rivers

and tides. 

Everything 

out there is 

what tells us 

who we really are 

in here, in our 

secret inside flesh.

In the mud and breath

within our bones.

*Inspired by Martin Shaw's, Liturgies of the Wild