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Title: Mythic Cartography Explained Author: Willem Larsen Date: Feb 21, 2006 Language: en Topics: rewilding, primer, tracking Source: Retrieved Dec 31, 2013 from http://www.mythic-cartography.org/2006/02/21/mythic-cartography-explained-part-one/
An abundance of resources exist, at this point in history, to explain
and set the stage for this fundamental understanding, here on heels of
climate change, mass extinctions, and reckless expansive human
population growth:
Something has to change. The way we live here, on the Earth, has to
change. Our situation has become perilous.
Now, you can look at this in two ways. One way involves breast-beating,
despair, panic, doom-and-gloom prophesying, and focusing on all that we
must give up to survive and atone.
The other way involves finally giving ourselves permission to belong,
and claiming all that our hearts, spirits, and bodies have starved for
since civilization first started its relentless march.
Have you ever taken a walk through a park, a wilderness, or any wild
space, and reflected on how much you feel you belong there? Do you see
yourself as a stranger? A trespasser? Do you feel welcome? Do you feel
apologetic?
Do you feel celebrated?
The time has come to reclaim our birthright, that we held and cherished
for three million years of human history, to belong to the wild places,
to celebrate and receive celebration in return. To receive life in
return. Nothing less than the Story we tell about our relationship with
the world must change for the most fabulous, mystical, and revolutionary
healing to happen. A return from the brink, into the waiting, rioting,
helplessly joyful and dancing embrace of the Family of Life.
Do not count yourself alone, with your thoughts and fantasies of another
world filled with magic and meaning, of something better than the
emptiness delivered to your door every morning, like a newspaper clad
with headlines of disaster and tragedy. Despair and depression attack
those who most keenly feel our culture-wide absence of spiritual
nourishment and meaningful relationship to the family of life.
I use the word Family very consciously. Until we choose to take it back,
we lose more and more of our relationship to everything Family means,
every day. Everything about this culture urges us to leave our family,
to go away: to distant colleges and careers that promise to fulfill us
and make us happy, far away from the homes where our mothers gave birth
to us. Consider the possibility, that leaving the land of our childhoods
behind us, silently steals a wealth of daily meaning. I know when I
rarely get the chance to visit the faraway places of my early childhood,
as I walk the familiar yet unfamiliar streets, a strange kind of golden
curtain descends over my vision, and I see the world as I saw it then,
across the impossible gulf of time.
We can’t always turn our lives upside down to go back to those places,
but we can take a stand. We can stop the hollow nomadism of modern life,
and choose to stay where we’ve stopped, to reconnect with the magic in
the place we find ourselves right now. To work with each other to
recreate a MYTHIC MAP of the land all around us.
--
http://www.mythic-cartography.org/2006/02/21/mythic-cartography-explained-part-two/
I developed the term Mythic Cartography to describe “the act of creating
and maintaining sacred places, sacred paths, and sacred maps”. Some call
these places, paths, and maps “sacred geography”. And the relationship
we have to them defines our relationship to the entire universe. So
Mythic Cartography involves the ongoing relationship with creating and
maintaing sacred geography and thus our relationship to all the world.
Every indigenous culture, rooted in place, has (or had) a basket woven
of sacred stories that maintains their relationship to the land around
them. This basket encourages their care and affection to the land, which
supports health and vitality in the people. When this relationship
degrades, so do the people. This basket I call the Mythmap.
Nothing tells the story of Mythmaps and Mythic Cartography better than
the maps and cartographers themselves.
From Invincible Warrior: A Pictorial Biography of the founder of Aikido,
by John Stevens:
Morihei Ueshiba was born on December 14, 1883,..in…Tanabe, Japan…at the
foot of the Kumano Mountains….Kumano is Japan’s Holy Land, the sacred
place where the Shinto gods descended to earth; the gateway to Amida
Buddha’s Pure Land is also believed to be hidden there. the entire
district of Kumano is venerated as a mountain mandala–home, over the
centuries, to a host of ascetics, wonder-workers, and sages….The grand
shrines of Kumano and the sacred waterfall of Nachi are the meccas of
Shinto, and every Japanese true believer, including the emperor, longs
to make at least one pilgrimage to worship at those sacred sites and
perhaps catch a glimpse of one of the Eight Great Dragon Kings who sport
in the Nachi Falls.
Morihei Ueshiba, founder of the martial-art Aikido, had a grand
reputation for skills and powers beyond belief, and his aging live-in
students of more than half a century ago recount marvelous stories to
this day. Often present in their recollections you can hear a question:
how did he do these amazing feats? As students of Aikido, why don’t we
have these magical abilities?
Centuries ago, En-no-Gyoja, the Grand Wizard, practiced Taoist
meditation techniques in the surrounding mountains and used his magic to
fly from peak to peak; modern-day yamabushi (mountain ascetics) insist
that En-no-Gyoja appears to them in vivid visions. It is said that
colors and sounds can be perceived in their original state in Kumano,
and that ascetic practices conducted there result in unparalleled
clarity of mind and clairvoyance. In the year of Morihei’s birth one
such yamabushi named Jitsukage leapt from the top of towering Nachi
Falls as a final act of sutemi-gyo, the total abandonment of body and
soul to the Divine. From birth, Morihei was immersed in an atmosphere in
which the supernatural, the mysterious, and the holy were palpably
present.
When you live in the embrace of a MythMap, you have the chance to see
the whole world with magical eyes. But…do some places have “the magic”,
like Kumano, Japan, and others not?
From Long LIfe, Honey in the Heart, by Martin Prechtel:
The people of Santiago Atitlan had no concept of their town being part
of somebody else’s country. As far as they were concerned, everything
real in the world was inside their territory.
Their land was the world to them. Guatemala as a country was a
mythological spirit realm distant and unfamiliar to most Tzutujil people
and categorized by them no differently than Japan, Jerusalem, Germany,
or the United States…There was no possible way of saying “leaving home”
in the Tzutujil language. The people called the placement of their own
town the Canyon Village. The surrounding land that was their world, the
land that fed them, they affectionately called the Flowering Mountain
Earth. This was their homeland. The village itself was known to all
Tzutujil as Ch’jay, meaning literally “At Home.”
This Homeland was bound and embraced on all sides but one by three
forested volcanic peaks, and on the remaining side by the Mother Lake
herself. Named for parts of the human body, this land was concentrically
circumscribed by still more forested ridges, valleys, and bluffs
radiating out some ten to fifteen miles on either side.
Though appearing relatively small on a modern map, this land of the
Tzutujil was the world of the Canyon Village people and to them it was
enormous. The Canyon Village was subject to an ancient way of
understanding I call Internal Bigness. This way of being and seeing
permeated every aspect of Tzutujil life. In the same way little children
can magically turn the ten-by-ten area of a sandbox play area into the
farthest reaches of the Universe, the Canyon Village understood the
internal bigness of their world. Because every rock, trail, mountain,
stump, spring, and incline was either the back bone of a dead giant in
an old story, or a rock placed there by a Goddess who in her grief could
go no farther, the land opened up into an internal immensity that was
known only to the people whose world it was. The road map to this
internal Tzutujil Kingdom were the myriad of stories, mythologies,
legends, and histories taught to them during ritual meetings and village
initiations.
This sandbox knowledge was not held by one or two children but handed
down and added to by the twenty-eight thousand individuals of all ages
who lived in this landscape of ancient Tzutujil story dream.
Because of this, their land was so big and magnificent that no human
could comprehend it all. Only the Gods knew how to measure it. Its tiny
physical size was simply an abbreviation of a cultural enormity that was
carried inside each Tzutujil. Though it appeared to outsiders that the
people lived off of and inside their land, the entire earth lived inside
each villager.
And so we can perceive our task: to look around us, at the hills,
rivers, streets and cemeteries, the parks and playgrounds, to remake
them and retell them anew, and have them live inside us, magical and
alive. For wherever we live, it lies at the foot of the Sacred
Mountains, and wherever we stand, we stand in the midst of the Holy
Land.
The central mountain is everywhere. – Black Elk
--
http://www.mythic-cartography.org/2006/03/01/mythic-cartography-explained-part-three/
maintain Mythmaps?
Well, now we get to the meat of it.
In Lovesick Gods of Heaven and Earth we talked about the line our modern
culture crossed, however long ago, from the living world as Family, to
the abstract rule of Gods. From natural gods and spirits as our parents,
grandparents, children and siblings, to Farming Gods, who rule over us
from a distance, from unreachable mythic mountaintops, or from another
realm of existence.
We want to cross back over that line. We want to get our Family back.
How do you rebuild trust with someone with whom you’ve damaged that
bond? You court them, of course.
ALL REALITY AS COURTING
You will have to romance your relations in the community of life, whom
your ancestors rejected. You will have to put on the healer’s robes and
do the work that has so long remained undone. In order to renew former
ties, you will play heartsick songs of affection and love without
conditions or qualifications. You will have to fall in love with Life.
ALL REALITY AS RIDDLES…
All riddles challenge you to learn the language of eloquence. To
understand the poem-speak, and glimpse the heart of that whom the riddle
courts. When you glimpse that heart, you’ve touched its spirit.
All the riddles worth telling, to Mythic Cartographers, concern sacred
places and those wild children who live there. They concern our love
affair with the goddess, the Earth Mother.
--
http://www.mythic-cartography.org/2006/01/07/lovesick-gods-of-heaven-and-earth/
and earth]
[Darkness. The void at the beginning of time. A SPARK enters, dressed in
flowing white robes, androgynous, wearing the mask of an ancient face
with long hair.]
SPARK: Small, I wander, playing alone amidst the VAST DARK. My bright
feet step here, and there, touching nothing as I drift. In sweet
loneliness, I have seeded my belly with a yearning, which becomes an
ache, and the aching grows into fullness. What magic will this belly
make?
[SPARK pulls out a large red cloth heart, as big as a bed, from beneath
its white robes. It lays it on the ground, and sits on the floor, next
to it.]
SPARK: I see the center of the universe, right here, and I hear your
song, and sing to you in turn….
[With its index fingertip, SPARK pulls a blue handkerchief out from the
eye-hole of its mask, and studies it for a moment as it hangs.]
SPARK: My first tear….
[SPARK cast the tear with solemn joy to the left side of the heart. Then
pausing, SPARK pulls its index finger off its hand, the finger that
touched the tear.]
SPARK: Oh little finger bone…I hear you sighing…you’ve kissed the tear
haven’t you…go then, join her. I too love: right here, my heart, at the
center of all things.
[SPARK tosses the bone to the right side of the bed. Both tear and bone
turn suddenly into blue-water woman and grey-stony man. They come
together tenderly on the heart-bed and embrace. A flash, and a rumble of
thunder, and stars appear in the void...]
SPARK: [dancing]
I didn’t know
that my first wound would open me up
that spilling forth
would come one I love
a ground for my bright feet to touch
and in loving the first one
the children of my heart and me
would themselves seek out each other
they’ve seeded the void with stars
life has begun
For the first time in my memory
I rub my hands
Warmed by their Love
I call it: the First Fire
[Drums. SPARK dances off stage. Quiet for a moment, as STONY MAN and
WATER WOMAN embrace on the heart-bed. A figure emerges out of the
darkness, moving and looking like a marionette, with a bland smile
painted on its face and rosy cheeks.]
PUPPET: Cold fills all I can remember. Alone I wander. Perhaps once I
had someone to share my loneliness with. Now, solitary do I stumble
here, and there. And there they lie. Envy fills my empty space within. I
want what he has. The coldness inside gnaws at me. I will take her
spirit and swallow it down.
[PUPPET MAN approaches WATER WOMAN and touches her. Her eyes open...she
hugs her arms to her side, shivering, while STONY MAN remains asleep...]
WATER WOMAN: So…cold…
PUPPET MAN: [Miming pulling in some invisible essence of her into his
mouth, licking his fingers.] Yes, delicious, all for me!
[WATER WOMAN dies, falling back to the ground.]
PUPPET MAN: More. I want more! [looking out at stars, laughs
mirthlessly] I have a lot of eating to do… [PUPPET MAN
dances/stalks/slithers off stage, humming and grinning to himself. A few
moments pass and then STONE MAN wakes up, rubbing head.
STONY MAN: Water! [as if speaking for first time, inventing language as
it comes from his mouth. STONY man suffers silently, hanging his head].
You crashed against me
wave against rock
and wore my rough edges away
ever since I tasted you
with that first salt-water kiss
I began to wake
I found my purpose:
Holding you against the dark
And making the first sunrise together…
Now left alone, perhaps
but your scent still hangs heavy on me
I will never forget
though touched now by loneliness
I will make it back to your embrace
here where it all began
but first, I will hunt it down
dark power that did this
behind every star, and all about the new forming world
I’ll catch it and cast it back into the Abyss
Though ruin stalk me every step of the chase
Here I come.
[darkness again as STONY MAN exits, determined.]
--
http://www.mythic-cartography.org/2006/03/01/mythic-cartography-explained-part-four/
The Universe consists of two kinds of beings:
those we call Living….
and those we call Living, Growing.
Everything in our community, Rock, Tree, River, Sky, Dandelion, Fox, all
of them pulse with Life.
All beings that Live, have Needs. All beings that have Needs, have
Feelings.
When you need rest, you feel tired. When you continue on to exhaustion,
you may feel despair, annoyance, sadness. Your feelings and emotions
tell you about your needs, alert you to them. Without feelings we would
die.
In order to Court all our nonhuman relatives surrounding us, and the
sacred places that all together make the one great mythic-story body of
the Earth Mother, we have to have empathy for them. We have to recognize
our kinship with them as living beings.
When our bodies need water, we feel thirsty, until we drink, and then we
feel joy.
When a oak tree needs water, it feels thirsty, until the oak drinks, and
then feels joy.
When we need companionship, we feel lonely, until we meet a friend, and
feel relief and happiness.
When a wolf needs companionship, he feels lonely, until he finds a pack,
and feels relief and happiness.
Take care to not project human needs onto our nonhuman relatives. Know
instead, that they have their own needs, each according to their
natures. Learn their needs, by observing their feelings. No one can tell
another what to feel or what to need. This understanding applies to all
life
Can you do it? Can you take the mask of dumbness and blindness off of
our nonhuman family, and hear them cry, hear them laugh, see their fear,
their anger?
Try it. Next time you look at a stone, a tree, a lawn, a bird, the sky,
ask yourself: what does it feel right now? And what need does that
feeling point to?
Or go in the other direction – what need does it have, and how might it
feel about that need? A leaf with a hole chewed in it, a songbird
singing in the dawn, a cat staring out a window.
So goes the empathic way of needs, and feelings.
Anthropomorphize, v.: to ascribe human characteristics to things not
human.
[American Heritage Dictionary]
Anthorpomorphize, v: to ascribe human values to things not human.
[Mythic Cartographer’s definition]
Lisa Wells Says:
March 5^(th), 2006 at 4:29 pm
What about desks and ironing boards? Seriously, what do you think?
Willem Says:
March 5^(th), 2006 at 4:35 pm
You mean do they have needs and feelings? You could say that we have an
even greater obligation to the things we humans make with our own hands,
and what we’ve made out of them, than almost anything else. The children
of our hearts, minds, and hands. How do you feel about that?
--
http://www.mythic-cartography.org/2006/03/02/mythic-cartography-explained-part-5/
Everything that Lives, has Needs. Everything that has Needs, has
Feelings that signal those Needs.
To meet its Needs, every living thing has chosen a Way.
You can also call this Way, a “strategy”. For example, cougars live
solitary lives, and hunt mostly through sight and the dance of the stalk
and pounce. Wolves live social lives, and hunt mostly through their
noses and ears, using the dance of the chase and wearing down.
Both animals eat other animals, but do it in different ways, according
to their needs. Their Needs, Feelings and Ways influence each other as
they evolve and adapt to a changing world.
Sometimes a living creature will follow a Way that doesn’t meet its
Needs. Sooner or later, this being will die from its Way.
Wild animals role model for us a rigorous commitment to living in
elegant Ways that work to meet their Needs. Their lives keep them close
to instant and powerful feedback when a Way does not serve them.
A being’s Needs, Feelings, and Way, taken together, you can call its
spirit bundle, the totality of its true nature.
For countless generations humans have looked to these spirit bundles in
the community of life, all around them, and learned from them.
Willem Says:
March 5^(th), 2006 at 7:25 pm
Hey Lisa. I see it as straightening a bent bar – to make it straight
again, you actually have to bend it past straight.
In this sense, I don’t claim any sole causes for anything. I agree if
you consider that foolhardy. I do think though, that once again it comes
down to the Grave of Right and Wrong. One of the things implicit in a
worldview that “works” invovles the idea that the sum total of your
behaviors foster life: life for you, life for your habitat and nonhuman
family. Abuse can happen in any context. But a mahine that runs on
abuse, like our culture, cannot sustain itself. It does not foster life.
Indigenously, abusive cultures could not survive. How could they? To
waste energy on behaviors that do not directly contribute to the life of
the family means throwing energy away. You can only do that if you have
surplus energy to spare. This may mean that in indigenous contexts where
a surplus of energy existed, and something trigged an abusive cultural
cycle, that the community could indeed sustain it. I welcome any further
thoughts you have on this – I consider it part of my job to say the
crazy thing, and generalize shamelessly, when it has a use. :)
--
http://www.mythic-cartography.org/2006/03/04/mythic-cartography-explained-part-6/
Places have Needs, Feelings, and Ways too. Life on a mountain, differs
from Life in a valley. Life in a desert face different challenges than
Life in the ocean. A vital aspect of Mythic Cartography involves seeing
the spirit bundle of a place.
To live in a place, you must live with the place. This requires three
things: awareness, acceptance, choice.
Awareness of what the place tells you, its feelings and needs, of what
you feel, and what needs those feelings signal.
Acceptance of these feelings and needs as happening, without resistance
or denial, completely embracing them. We truly understand only that
which we fully embrace. What we always keep at arm’s length, we will
never understand.
Choosing, what action to take that will meet your needs, and the needs
of the place. You might call this “flowing”, a cooperation with your
loving relatives, who get angry, who may even hurt you, but who will
always love you. I call it creating your Way, and the evolution of your
own spirit bundle.
Those three steps: awareness of the reality, accepting the reality,
choosing what to do about the reality. Each time you make a choice, you
observe the results….staying Aware of the results, Accepting them, and
Choosing what action to take to better meet your Needs.
This describes an upward and expanding spiral of healing, growth, and
possibility. The creation of a beautiful Way that works. With this mind
we can approach the Land, learn its spirit bundle, and hear the stories
it wants to tell, without judgement or fear.
With this under our belts, we can learn to Dance with the land. Both of
us Lead, both of us Follow, staying aware of our partner’s movements,
accepting their energy, choosing how to flow with them. By Dancing, we
also Court the Land, showing our intention: love, reconciliation,
healing.
In this way we discover Life leads to Empathy, Empathy leads to Dancing,
and Dancing leads to Courting that which gives Life.
What do you call the Courting of the Place that gives you life?
A Mythmap.