The More of Myth : a A Pedagogy of Diversion

This book uses a nine-year experience of teaching world mythology to art students in order to discuss why and how such ancient stories provide significance today. Myth’s weird images and metaphors recall Wyrd (Word), the goddess of the cauldron. Students can be guided into the cauldron of mythic language to feel the stirring of new awareness of what it really means to be human. Psychologically, myth offers insights into family relations, memory, imagination, and otherness. Ecological insights from myth teach the connection among human-animal-plant relations and the organicism of all life forms. Cosmological insights from myth surprisingly echo findings in new science, with its emphasis on quantum mechanics, force fields, black holes, subatomic particles, chaos, and the possibilities of time travel. Two areas often considered completely opposite -- myth and science—actually reflect one another, since both propose theories, albeit in different ways. Myth cannot be laughed away as “mere” fabula, since, like science and psychology, it has long explored adventures into unseen, unknown worlds that yield necessary knowledge about the place of humans in the scheme of things big and small. The “more” of myth will be of interest to teachers and students of curriculum studies, to those seeking to go beyond Oedipus and Gutenberg, and to readers who know that all forms of life (including fingernails and rocks) are wondrous, diverse, alive, capable, purposive, and necessary. "This book uses a nine-year experience of teaching world mythology to art students in order to discuss why and how such ancient stories provide significance today. Myth's weird images and metaphors recall Wyrd (Word), the goddess of the cauldron. Students can be guided into the cauldron of mythic language to feel the stirring of new awareness of what it really means to be human. Psychologically, myth offers insights into family relations, memory, imagination, and otherness. Ecological insights from myth teach the connection among human-animal-plant relations and the organicism of all life forms. Cosmological insights from myth surprisingly echo findings in new science, with its emphasis on quantum mechanics, force fields, black holes, subatomic particles, chaos, and the possibilities of time travel. Two areas often considered completely opposite--myth and science--actually reflect one another, since both propose theories, albeit in different ways. Myth cannot be laughed away as 'mere' fabula, since, like science and psychology, it has long explored adventures into unseen, unknown worlds that yield necessary knowledge about the place of humans in the scheme of things big and small. The 'more' of myth will be of interest to teachers and students of curriculum studies, to those seeking to go beyond Oedipus and Gutenberg, and to readers who know that all forms of life (including fingernails and rocks) are wondrous, diverse, alive, capable, purposive, and necessary."--Publisher's website. Front Matter....Pages i-xviii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Strange Wombs....Pages 3-7 The Eye in the Well of Memory....Pages 9-14 The Living Stone....Pages 15-22 The Monster as Other, as Self....Pages 23-31 Front Matter....Pages 33-33 The Breathing Bark....Pages 35-41 Reading the Textured World....Pages 43-50 Once Below A Time1....Pages 51-64 Eco-Wisdom, or, Mind the Dog....Pages 65-69 The More of Less....Pages 71-78 Front Matter....Pages 79-79 Dance as Life Force....Pages 81-87 Shape Shifting....Pages 89-97 The Cosmic Mouth....Pages 99-106 Old Myth/New Science....Pages 107-120 Myth, the New “M” Theory of Education Offering Eleven Universes....Pages 121-137 Back Matter....Pages 139-154 Introduction: moreness, myth and the pedagogy of diversion Myth as psychological pedagogy. Strange wombs The eye in the well of memory The living stone The monster as other, as self Myth as ecological pedagogy. The breathing bark REading the textured world Once below the textured world Once below a time: writers in the mythic mode Eco-wisdom, or, mind the dog: natural roots to unconscious knowing the more of less Myth as cosmological pedagogy. Dance as life force Shape shifting The cosmic mouth Old myth/new science Myth, the new 'M' theory of education offering eleven universes.