Myth Matters

The Wild Braid: Stanley Kunitz for National Poetry month

09 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“The universe is a continuous web. Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers.” ― Stanley KunitzI always dedic...

Change perspective and change the story: thought experiment with "Briar Rose"

21 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"But people must be taught lessons. Without them, none of them will ever learn.People are dreams and awkwardness and...

Disruption, creative edges, and the fairy tale "Tatterhood"

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe Norwegian fairy tale of "Tatterhood" begins as many stories do, with a kingdom that lacks something essenti...

2MM8 The King and the Corpse

13 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars. "-- Jack Gilbert from "Tear it Down" This epis...

Joy, courage, and the Tigress Jataka

16 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in...

The Goose Girl and what matters most

12 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe end of a year and our seasonal holidays invite evaluation, reflection on what the future holds, and longing for some ...

Inner Emptiness: The Japanese story "The Golden Axe"

14 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“He who runs after two hares will catch neither.” Japanese proverbFeelings of emptiness, lack, greed, dishonesty--- a...

Gifts from the Otherworld: The Adventure of Bran

10 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe existence and importance of other worlds populated by other beings, non-human beings, is consistent across mythologic...

Song of the Bricoleur: Rags Rosenberg

19 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"We are all taking everything that we've learned from the past, and we're reformulating what we want to do...

Not Knowing the Way: Rich Peter the Peddler and leaving home

06 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"Leaving home" is an interesting metaphor for the call to significant change. This episode is a reflection on i...

Leaving Home: Adventures of a trickster tailor

22 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageIn this episode, we take a look at the fairy tale "The Valiant Tailor" or the "The Brave Tailor," col...

In the dark woods: what myths say about leaving home

01 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.”-- Joseph CampbellIn this e...

Transformation and awakening: Dumuzi's Dream

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThis is the last episode in a 4-part series on the Sumerian myth of Inanna: Dumuzi’s Dream and The Return. After Inanna...

Greater Mysteries: Transformation, music, and the myth of Inanna with singer-composer Kelli Scarr

03 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageSpecial episode with guest singer-composer Kelli Scarr!Scarr released her new album Greater Mysteries, a musical journey ...

Inanna's descent to the Underworld, part 3 of 4

13 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageShe goes downAs we go downWe follow her undergroundHail to InannaWho diedTo become born.— Chant from the writer Starhaw...

Inanna and Dumuzi: The eros of the cosmos (part 2 of 4)

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“The Church says: the body is a sin.Science says: the body is a machine.Advertising says: The body is a business.The Bo...

The Sumerian myth of Inanna: In the first days 1 of 4

08 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageIn the first days, in the very first days, everything needed was brought into being and the goddess Inanna, Queen of Heav...

Joy and Poetry for National Poetry month

11 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"We need joy as we need air." Maya AngelouJoy. Joy is my motivation, my desire and object in sharing some poetr...

Finist the Bright Falcon: Baba Yaga, soul quests, and shamanic journeys

22 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe final episode in a three-part exploration of the mysterious Baba Yaga, a scary crone in Russian and Slavic fairy tale...

Initiation and Meeting the Baba Yaga

07 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe Baba Yaga is a complex and scary crone in East Slavic and Russian fairy tales. She's a face of the earth goddess...

Fierce wildness and the Baba Yaga

14 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageWelcome to episode one of the new (7th) season of Myth Matters! A new year and a time of change. Is this, as some say, t...

Flying Together: The Conference of the Birds by Farid ud Din Attar

06 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“These lofty words are an antidote for anyone sickened by extremism’s poison.” Farid ud Din Attar, translation by S...

Catastrophe: What myths show us about the way of the world

15 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageEndings, loss, and uncertainty. Fears of a catastrophic future. Many of us are living with this right now or wondering ho...

Effort, Uncertainty, and Cerridwen's potion

01 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"It is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception and compassion and hope." –Ursula K. LeGuin T...

Allegiance to the Inner Life: The. Nixie in the Millpond part 2 of 2

04 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”― Joseph Campbe...

Allegiance to the Inner Life: The Nixie in the Mill Pond part 1 of 2

20 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageTo what do we owe greater allegiance, our outer life in the material world of human conventions, or our inner life and th...

The Bricoleur

22 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageHow we imagine our lives is how we live our lives, and mythologies provide the images and ideas in this process. But imag...

Shifting Images of Human Being with Dr. Craig Chalquist

19 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageHow we imagine ourselves is how we'll be. And where do we receive these images of the human? They're in our my...

Making creative choices in art and life: 3 fairy tale variations

05 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageSifting through options to make a decision is something that each of us has to do at some point. When our choice is part ...

Creativity: An Inner Alchemy of feathers and toads

13 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“We would do well… to think of the creative process as a living thing implanted in the human psyche.”  --- C.G. Ju...

Myth and Images of Creativity (Beginning with the new Apple ad)

10 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageApple's ad for the new iPad has evoked some very strong reactions, reactions that illuminate old links between image...

National Poetry Month: Humor and the unexpected turn

15 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"Well, that's the trick: the sudden unexpectedness inside the over-known." --- Heather McHughWhat type of ...

Fate, free will, and 3 Swords

04 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageFate and free will, and the longing for purpose and prospect of destiny that hangs somewhere in-between. How do these for...

The Bhagavad-Gita and yoga of awareness with Gabriella Nagy

15 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message “A yogi sees Me in all things and all things within Me.” Krishna in the Bhagavad GitaThe Bhagavad-Gita is an import...

Fee-fi-fo-fum: Outwitting the Ogres in Life

01 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageLast Monday, February 26th was Tell a Fairy Tale Day. I began preparation for this episode with the intention of telling ...

The Problem of the Return and the End of the Hero's Adventure

09 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageWe have an ever- increasing wealth of myths and stories, fueled by new discoveries and ongoing mythmaking. There are also...

Answering the Call of 2024

25 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageIt's only January and 2024 already feels like a year of consequence. Crazy weather and climate change, war, election...

Endings and Beginnings: Odin's Quest for Wisdom

14 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe solstice will soon be upon us, followed by the arrival of a new year. A time of endings and beginnings. Reckoning.  ...

Living your heart's desire: The Tale of the Doomed Prince

01 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"I am destined to die either by a crocodile, a serpent, or a dog; it is the will of the gods. Then let me go forth a...

Beowulf and why we need Monsters

17 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe existence of monsters, alongside gods and goddesses, is a distinguishing feature of myths, fairy tales, and legends. ...

Mythic Sensibility: The Enchanted Cave of Cesh Corran

27 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe season around Halloween and Samhain is a liminal time when shadows grow and lengthen in the world and psyche. The old...

"Those Who Live Beneath Us": Sedna the Inuit Woman of the Sea

13 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageSedna is the goddess mother of the sea, marine animals, and the underworld in the myths of the Inuit people, an indigenou...

The Story of Tuan Mac Cairill and the Salmon of Knowledge

22 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"I went out to the hazel wood,Because a fire was in my head,And cut and peeled a hazel wand,And hooked a berry to a ...

Mythical Bonds: Dogs, Kinship, and the Irish tale of Fionn and the Birth of Bran

07 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“Dogs are our link to paradise.” -- Milan KunderaSometimes a "little" detail in my day triggers thoughts ab...

Churning the Cosmic sea: Joseph Campbell, meaning, and the rapture of being alive

11 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"I don’t think the meaning of life is what we’re seeking. I think it’s an experience of being alive, so that o...

Myth, science, and the creation story: Mr. g by Alan Lightman

04 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"Rationality and logic can be spiritual." -- Alan Lightman, Mr. gThe antagonism between Western science and myt...

Gates of Babylon: The Enduring Legacy of Ancient Creation Myths

20 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe Babylonian Enuma Elish, also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation, is one of the oldest surviving creation myths. T...

Creation Myths: In the beginning

30 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageHow did all of this-- what we call reality, the universe, the earth, life, begin? What do you think? This question is a p...

Myths of the Father

16 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe proper way to be a father or mother, questions about who can father or mother, and what these parental roles mean are...

A psychology of craft: the shirt of stinging nettles

26 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageOur appreciation of mythology as a symbolic language is central to the contemporary relationship to myth. As people bound...

"The Wild Swans"--- Powerful Words and Living with Wings

12 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageOn the surface,  "The Wild Swans" is a fairy tale about cursed brothers who are saved by their sister.  This ...

The World's Wife, Contemporary Myth Poems by Carol Ann Duffy

28 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageIn The World's Wife, Carol Ann Duffy offers myth poems that are also myths for today in the form of a poem.  These ...

Myth, Poetry, and the Power of the Word

11 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageApril is National Poetry month!Myth and poetry have a long, shared history. In fact, our oldest known myths are poems. H...

Athena, goddess of Reason ?!

23 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe Greek goddess Athena was a warrior, the patron of cities and mentor of heroes, clear-eyed, practical, and strategic. ...

Myth, History, and the Woman Warrior

04 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageMyth has an interesting and complex relationship to history. Myth is part of the historical record of our species, and p...

Free to Love: Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid

17 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe freedom to love and individuality. The difference between spiritual love and carnal love. Love for the self and love ...

2023 and the Year of the Rabbit

27 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageA new year is a time of beginnings and possibility. A fresh and hopeful creativity infuses our aspirations. This is a goo...

Christian saints, Norse gods, and magic mushrooms: myths of Santa Claus

22 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageYes, Christmas is grossly commercial, a taint that touches other year-closing holidays as well. And yet this time, and th...

A Winter Story: Raven Steals the Light

08 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageWhatever your ancestry, wherever your people had deep roots, winter was the time for storytelling. To gather together ins...

Questions, Connection, and Perceval's Quest for the Grail

26 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to ask questions.”  -- Mary OliverThe ...

Prince Lindworm and the Unembraceable

10 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageIn this Norwegian fairy tale, the queen makes a mistake.That's not the whole story.  There's also a dragon.  ...

Meeting the Baba Yaga: Witches, magic, and mystery

29 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageI recently overhead an exchange between a little boy and his mom. The subject was witches and magic. Which got me thinkin...

Psyche and Eros: Our Initiation through Aphrodite

13 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“Loving is an authentic psychological task, the most demanding there is, just because it activates in us new ways of kn...

Love and Soul: The classical myth of Psyche and Eros

29 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“I have always thought of a myth as something that never was but is always happening.”-- Jean Houston, The Possible H...

What Love Inspires: The Greek Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice

14 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hop...

Briar Rose: Rethinking the hero and the 13th fairy

02 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe hero is a central figure in our myths and stories. The hero can often provide inspiration or comfort. These stories c...

Conscious Evolution: The story of Abu Kasem's Slipper's

19 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“Always you will find that within you the shadow and the light go together… It is up to you to know how to utilize th...

Ecological Consciousness and "The Queen Bee" fairy tale

05 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"Noting these tokens and examples some have saidthat a share of divine intelligence is in bees,and a draught of (a)e...

Wonder and "Valemon the White Bear King"

18 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.” ― Ray BradburyThe impossibilities of our existence are more th...

Mysteries of Self, Other, and the Greek myth of Narcissus

06 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"He is now struck with wonder by what's wonderful in him..."----Ovid's Myth of Narcissus, translated ...

Our Quest for Self: "The Six Companions" fairytale

16 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageOur notion of "self" is one of the deep and enduring mysteries of human existence. The concept of self is both ...

Celebrating the World: "The Nightingale" by Hans Christian Andersen

02 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageBirds have a unique place in our cultural imagination. Observing their habits, our ancestors learned about home building,...

Listening to our animal kin

19 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"The spirit wanders, comes here now, now here, and occupies whatever frame it pleases. From beasts it passes into hu...

Fables, frogs, and philosophy

06 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageFables are probably the best known and most widely used stories in our mythological traditions. These are simple stories ...

A Strange Feather: 10 Poems for perspective and peace of mind

21 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThis is our second and final podcast in celebration of National Poetry month. I devote the April episodes to National Poe...

With the night falling we are saying thank you: 10 poems for National Poetry month

07 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"Let the beauty we love be what we do.There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."  --RumiIn the ...

A Terrible Love of War, a Culture of Peace

17 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageIn 2004, James Hillman published a difficult and though-provoking investigation of war titled A Terrible Love of War.  H...

A Not Just About the Ukraine

04 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageNations. Sovereignty. War. Democracy. Citizenship. I. We. Unconscious monotheism. Polytheistic consciousness. Diversity...

Sometimes you've got to laugh

18 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow, and there is no humor in heaven.”  ~ Mark TwainWhen we get stuck,...

Trickster lessons and "Don't Look Up"

04 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageMy jumping off point today is a story that's generating a lot of heated debate right now, the movie "Don't...

"The Shadow" Knows Everything

21 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole.” ― C.G. Jung...

The New Year and Happily ever after

30 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageHere we are, on the cusp on the new year, 2022. Around the world, throughout history, this is a time to rest. To pause a...

Winter Solstice and the energy of regeneration

18 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe cycle of material and psychic life is often encapsulated as life, death, and rebirth. This cycle is the mythological ...

Iron John part 2 Owning your gold

02 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message Part 2 of "Iron John," a fairy tale popularized by Robert Bly, and a meditation on outer riches, inner reward...

Iron John and finding the wild man

18 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe words "this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours" have been part of my introduction for this podcast for ye...

Precious Bones- Aztec mythology in the 5th world

05 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageA myth from the Aztec creation cycle, the mythology of bones, and what it might mean to be in service to life today.Suppo...

Cerridwen's cauldron of inspiration

21 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe Celtic story of Cerridwen and her cauldron calls to me as Halloween/Samhain approaches. She's a witch in search ...

The myth of Arachne and the mysteries of transformation

07 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessagePersonal transformation. Do we really want it? What can inspire that deep change, and how far are we willing to go in c...

The Bacchae: How do you imagine the dark?

23 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"He is a young god.Mythologically obscure,always just arrivingat some new placeto disrupt the status quo,wearing the...

Into the Labyrinth and the myth of Ariadne's Thread

10 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThis episode is devoted to the Greek god Dionysus, whom Walter Otto aptly named “the epiphany god,” and his wife Aria...

The Greek god Dionysus and the titanic

20 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageWhat does the mythic relationship between Dionysus and the Titans suggest about our titanism and titanic culture, and way...

Styles of Imagination and Mythic Methods: Zeus and titanism today

06 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"Let Zeus, born in the open, awake to all under the sky, ever-watchful, ever-noticing, be exemplar for responding to...

Power, justice, and the Greek. myths of Zeus, Far-seeing Ruler of the gods

22 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"I shall sing of Zeus, the best and greatest of the Gods; far-seeing, mighty, fulfiller of designs..." Homeric ...

Meaning is magic: the trickster Hermes and radical change

05 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageMeaning is a very powerful thing. The meaning of something is intimately connected with the nature of the thing itself, w...

Make Room for Magic: Celtic tales about fairies

24 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, pass the wit of man to say what dream it was."  --Shakespe...

Ask the Dwarf

10 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageThe help that we need often comes from unexpected sources, if we have the wisdom to recognize them. We're surrounde...

Radical Change and The Water of Life

28 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text MessageWhen the king is fatally ill and radical change is required, you need to make a journey down unfamiliar paths into the sy...

Leaps of faith: The story of "Jumping Mouse"

13 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"I’ve been terrified every moment of my life—and I never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do...

Beyond Conventional Wisdom: Poetry and the Imaginal Realm

29 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"Imaginal knowing is the only way that the unconscious can move into consciousness [... it happens through pictures,...

Poetry and Soul, A conversation with Brian Michael Tracy

15 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Send Catherine a text Message"Art is the informed translation of soul." ---Brian Michael TracyApril is National Poetry month in the United S...