Review of Mythic Journeys - A Film from Imaginal Cells, Inc. - by Willi Paul, PlanetShifter.com Magazine

Draconian winter unforetold.
One solar day, suddenly you're old.
Your little envelope just makes me cold,
Makes destination start to unfold.

Our documents are useless, or forged beyond believing.
Page forty-seven is unsigned, I need it by this evening.
In the space between our cities, a storm is slowly forming.
Something eating up our days, I feel it every morning.
Destination, destination.

It's not a religion, it's just a technique.
It's just a way of making you speak.
Distance and speed have left us too weak,
And destination looks kind of bleak.

Watch the Church, Destination

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I created a bunch of titles for this piece and I list them below as primer:

+ The Soul Call!

+ What's in Our Mythic Tool Kit?

+ Making the Puppets Mouths Move

+ Riddles, fairy tales, mythology, oh my!

I have been charged to translate Campbell's Code for the Sustainability Age! Charged by whom you asked? By the collective love and power of the Earth's universal consciousness, my dear friend! Telling stories and listening to yours. If you question the status of your own journey, then it has yet to begin. Just say Yes.

First, the film weaves many powerful symbols into the message including full moon, flying gargoyles, the bone orchard, tomb stones, a magical hang man demon muse, a cloaked devil, winter snow, a barren and sickly Mother Earth Tree, crows, ashes, rope, and more!

Under counter weight, academic and literary jargon abounds: encode, analogy, mysteries, human soul, binding us in community, the Spirit, Emergent truth, evolution and impulse. These words underscore the huge challenge in kick-starting mythology in Age of Sustainability. Symbols are too diffuse, words often too political. Paradoxically old and modern language is juxtaposed in the Boe's work. Cemetery to star stage.

I do not mention the individual stars in this film because this would be anti-myth: at best, we are the collective voice and one spirit.

The hero, journey and the feedback is prominent theme. In stories and in the presenters on stage J. Campbell is very much alive in this clique. But how much is his message getting out through the established channels?

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"We are our stories." But what is the story, Dad? The destination? Our collective soul is hurting. New mythology is needed. We need deep memories not soundbytes. We have lost our connection to our ancestors and to our children. Rites of passage are crumbling; adolescence is extended – perhaps for a life time? Our birth to death with little experience in-between? Is there a fairy tale to explore this chasm?

We are dying from literalism. Over-belief in metaphors? The Brands? Scarcity vs. abundance – are the gears and myths of the Sustainability Age emerging? Gratitude vs. Fear. Dialogue not debate. Go deeper, deep. Create and share meaning. Feel the power of myth in your body and then the feelings of love and empathy can emerge.

The life cycles are the same as the old days but the costumes have changed. Instinct – based on what? How is this source contaminated? Is forgiveness a mythic act? Mythic tools must include empathy and respect.

Key: it is not about the experience but the story about our experiences.

What did you learn? What is your experience in Mythic Journeys?