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The Myth Workshop - April 10, 1991 Beth started off by saying that she went to write up a plan for this workshop and as she did, she decided that no, she did not want to write anything for us, she just wanted to start. Beth said she didn't want to give us any examples or instructions because these might limit us. "So let's start," she said, "and write a myth." There were some verbal fumbles: "But where do we start?" "One thing you said last time was using myth to document some of our learning in a non-academic way." "Is absolute freedom really free?" "What is a myth - what makes it a myth and not a fairytale?" But Beth was sure that we would do just fine without any examples or definitions. "Write whatever you want - a story, a myth, a fairytale, these words are all interchangeable here." Beth assured us that she once took a workshop where the facilitator only said "write a myth." Beth said: "at first things were weird because people wanted to know more, but then we all just started writing...so let's just start." And we did... And we wrote. Our pens had no problem - they knew all along that there were plenty of stories just bubbling to be written. We wrote for an hour or so, and then went around the room to read our writings, flowing in and our of conversations on writing, education, and experiential learning.facilitator: Beth W present: Beth W, Katherine, Jessica, Natasha, Chris, Vanessa minutes: Vanessa
Katherine: I started with one idea that totally took its own path and became what it was. Myth: Existing upon all time there is a strange and beautiful creature. This creature can be as lovely as the flowers exploding when the sun turns warm, and as dark and foreboding as the deepest secrets tucked under the earth. This creature is vibrant. To look directly at it is blinding and makes one's heart skip a beat sensing the power and exhilaration contained withing the creature. But this happens rarely, for largely the creature is ignored. This was not always the case. There was a time when people not only looked directly at the creature, but danced with the creature, letting their soul and body be consumed with the fiery essence that was the creature. Oh how the people sang and danced and wept and raged. The beauty that people lived bathed the entire earth in a broad spectrum of colors, and brought the most beautiful beings from the great belly that was the earth. It was a happy magical time, and no one can know how long it lasted, for back then people did not chop their days up into time. But somehow things changed. Maybe it began when certain groups of people called themselves same and others different, forgetting the creature that brought life force to all. Maybe it began when people stopped dancing with the creature long enough to judge the dances of others and call some good and some bad. And maybe people just began to take the creature for granted, in the process forgot how to be one with the creature. Probably it was a combination of these and other unknown reasons. The sad truth of today is that the creature, the bringer of the life force, the creature that is creativity, stays largely ignored, wandering aimlessly from the belly of the earth to the stars of the sky, waiting to be engaged.
On Myths by Beth W
I facilitated a journal writing workshop on myths for several reasons. One, I love myths. Two, I thought that writing myths would be a good creative writing exercise, to help get some creative juices flowing. And it would also serve to help people to think in different ways about something they wanted to include in their journals. When I was in Kenya I wanted to write a paper on the relationship between culture shock and the creative process. I had observed by own process, and had done a lot of interviewing. I had developed tons of ideas, but I couldn't sit down and write. It didn't seem time to write a traditional essay on such a subject. But the end of the semester was approaching; I needed to write something. So I sat down at a typewriter and a story came pouring out of my fingers. I wrote of a girl travelling in a strange land, who has trouble with her process and has to deal with all of the things I asked about in the interviews. I used all of the information I had obtained, and used it in the myth. It communicates even better than an essay would have about the difficulties in creating that many students went through. By writing a myth about a subject students are including in their journal, they can express their ideas in a different way, and maybe even discover different dimensions of their subject that they hadn't consciously realized previously. Sometimes our minds are so goal oriented we have tunnel vision, and don't explore other ways of thinking, other dimensions. Myths can help loosen those self-imposed rules. I have always personally enjoyed writing myths. They work especially well for me because I can treat them the same way I treat art. Myths are simply symbols for things that are tougher to name and articulate. I can use symbols to write about things that I might not be able to write about in essay form. Symbols also have a way of drawing out dimensions that I might not realize consciously. Often I find images in my art that I hadn't meant to draw, and that hadn't even crossed my mind. Only upon seeing the symbol do I realize that I had been thinking about it on another level. The same thing tends to happen in myths. I am able to write without as much conscious control as essays require. This gives more freedom for my unconscious to come up with some symbols of its own. My unconscious does this well. It does it every night in my dreams, it does it in my drawings, it does it every time I lift the control of my conscious. I have found that in this semester of giving lots of attention to my process, I have written quite a few stories and myths. I am enjoying writing more than ever. I have been doing less visual art. Writing is becoming my art, instead of an exact science.
Workshop Discussion Sparks
Inspired and Creative
Rigorous Training
AAAAAGGGHHHH!
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