An Offering to the Sustainability Age: Souvenir as Mythic Alchemy (in Willi's Green Box) from PlanetShifter.com

Play Soundtrack Now - R.E.M. - Cuyahoga


Let's put our heads together and start a new country up
Our father's father's father tried erased the parts he didn't like
Let's try to fill it in bank the quarry river swim
We knee skinned it you and me we knee skinned that river red

This is where we walked this is where we swam
Take a picture here take a souvenir
Let's put our heads together, start a new country up,
Underneath the river bed we burned the river down.
This is where they walked, swam, hunted, danced and sang,
Take a picture here, take a souvenir

Cuyahoga
Cuyahoga, gone

* * * * * * *

I. Define Souvenir
Souvenirs are connected and collected, then kept somewhere special for future enjoyment, sharing and reflection.

Souvenirs are akin to mementos or keepsakes that a traveler brings home for the memories associated with it.

They may be marked to indicate their origin such as "Yellowstone - 1969".

Souvenirs are also gifts for friends or relatives who did not make the journey. For connection to a place and a memory to share. They are paradoxical: souvenirs are artifacts of active <> memory; a mental map from the current to the past and back to the future.

Consider why we capture and save the past for the future:

• Emotional place holding or re-imaging and artistic framing
  
• Family scrap book making
  
• Building an idea reservoir

If souvenirs represent our best experiences, then it follows that souvenirs help build the best stories in our culture and can support new themes and myths in the Sustainability Age.

II. Examples of Common Souvenirs

• Old records
  
• Songs
  
• Photographs
  
• Ticket stubs from concerts
  
• Clothing from special events
  
• Family Jewry
  
• Maps
  
• Keys

III. Proposed Role of Souvenirs in New Story and Myth Making

From , the following expanded recipe is proposed to explain how new myths can be generated:

Step One: survival behavior
life critical feedback from the environment that forces change in beliefs and actions

Step Two: new pleasant or valued routines that work with the new constraints
the shift from oil based agriculture to permaculture?

Step Three: a new practice is created
or a new valued routine

Step Four: new practices are linked to spiritual well-being
souvenirs are a part of an alchemic change for new ideals, values and new symbols and emotions

Step Five: global mythic stories are envisioned , disperse through the media and morph into great lessons
Souvenirs are held in our hearts and hands and play an emotional connecting role in the creation of transitional stories and myth.

How did you get that scar on your knee?