Creation Myths
by Marie-Louise von Franz
As a writer, I am a pilgrim who travels, staff in hand, across the borderlands to foreign places and new countries. My spirit is a gypsy who roams seeking inspiration. Needless to say I need a strong sense of direction, clear purpose and a myth to live by if I am to survive in these frontier lands.
So, whenever I find myself crossing a new border, entering a new territory and worry that my words will not flow freely, like an experienced Medicine woman I draw out my trusty bible, a well marked copy of Marie-Louise von Franz's Creation Myths and solemnly re-enact and retell the creation myths that have endured. You see I have learned from Von Franz that in order to create I need a conscious order. I need to remind myself how I am to be, my reason for being here and what my task on earth is.
Creation Myths helps me to draw upon cosmological myths and timeless mythology to lay the foundation stone of my writing life and recreate my writing world all over again. Creation Myths is literally jam packed with rich insight into the fabric of creativity. The myths that are told embody vital life saving knowledge for the creator.
Von Franz shares that some primitive tribes refuse to tell their secret myths to white people because "if a white person were to come in and interfere in a hurtful and disrespectful manner . . . he would seriously and deeply hurt the soul of these primitive people."
For similar reasons most writers are loathe to share their secret myths. Yet they must have a myth and a solid idea about the meaning of life if they are to write. Myths express vital, instinctive knowledge and truths that provide writers with fuel to touch their readers.
But, hey! You will have to go and find a copy of Creation Myths to gain understanding and insight and receive Von Franz's tools for "understanding creative processes in the depths of the human psyche." You will have to use them in your own way and carve your own rock, your authentic creation myth, the myth that you as a writer live by.
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Heather Blakey.
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