Page 76 - ECOlogic Book

Century, it’s clearly been shaped as much by unconscious myth as by
conscious science.” 9091

Stanley krippner noted that “Myths are the primary . . . psychological
mechanism by which human beings order reality and navigate their way
through life . . . personal myths and cultural myths converge to govern
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every important sphere of human activity.” Hannah Arendt once said that
a people without a story is lost; that there can be no civilization without a
story.

“There is a kind of speech and envisioning in story,” we learn from In
Context that can animate the invisible, giving shape and pattern and
meaning to things that otherwise lie hidden. It seems we are all charged in
our capacity as human beings and Tellers of Stories (new and old) to stand
at the horizon between the heavens and earth, the point between the
overarching issues, values, and patterns – the Sacred – and our actions
within smaller, more focused reference points – the Mundane – and bind
them together. This task, to remember the connections, is the task of the
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Story Teller.”

As we gather around our winter fire, we ask ourselves, what is our story? A
diverse people such as ours might have difficulty agreeing on the answer to
this question. We each bring a different story to the council fire,
remembered from our youth. For some, it is a story of divine intervention at
times of repression, of exodus and promised land. For others, it is a story of
God entering human form and redeeming us from our sins. For some, a
story of a great battle, and for others, one of a prince who attained
enlightenment. These stories are rooted in older stories of how we can to be
here at all, and there are as many accounts of our cosmic beginnings as
there are people to tell them.

In former times, everyone within a tribe could agree on their story. Our
time is different. Ours is a time when even the stories seem chaotic. There
are so many, all vying for status, so many traditions, all worthy of honor.

90

91 IBID.

92 Feinstein, David, Krippner, Stanley, “Bringing a Mythological Perspective to Social Change,” Summer,
1988 Revision, Vol. II, No. 1.

93 Spangler, David, ”New Story, New Storyteller,” Winter, -‘86/’96 In Context.

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