We sail the ships of our lives on deep oceans of story, moved by narrative currents that we might not even be fully conscious of. Mythic themes like the Hero’s Journey help us make sense of our experiences and connect with the greater story of humanity’s search for meaning. That archetypal journey is the arc of storytelling with cyclical action, tension, release and resolution mirrored in the great cycles of nature and human events. Inspirational sources like nature, art, or story can bring us into transpersonal experience, a connection to something much bigger than ourselves. It’s more than looking at art, standing on mountaintops, or visiting sacred places. It’s plugging into Source energy, a well of sacred memory that nourishes our souls with inspiration.
Inspiration is healing; it helps us break through stagnancy and revive our perspective on life. Myth is inspiring to me because it invites a conversation between our own souls and the world-soul. We relate to the themes of the stories, we care about the characters and the outcomes of their journeys. And since myths are living tales, they invite us into themselves, not just as actors, but as co-authors.
I’m enthralled by the “mytho-somatic” possibility; what happens when we read a story deeply, find our identification with it, then express it through embodied mediums like dance, sacred drama, or somatic practices. The image below shows me and my students from Rio de Janeiro at the Museum of Fine Arts, embodying the victorious spirit of women unified; inspired by mythic themes and imagery.
My great teacher Isadora Duncan was inspired by the movement of waves and the swaying of trees in the wind, forces of nature that underlie all world mythologies. When she journeyed to Europe, she fed her creative soul at a deep well of inspiration through classical, renaissance, and neo-classical art depicting great mythic moments and themes. In the museums, she met the deities through artistic depictions of sublime grace and proportion. In the Greek landscape and ancient temples, she danced ancient stories of tragedy, surrender and resurrection. With the Myth as her Muse, she danced what we can’t put into words, a deeply-sourced connection that our souls and bodies understand. “If I could say it, I wouldn’t have to dance it”, she said, referring to the power of movement to express the mysteries of the human soul.
Works of art such as Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” connect us to something so essential and timeless that we feel energized by the same current of inspiration that drove the creators. They transport us to deep reservoirs of collective human creativity, the stuff of dreams, downloads, epiphanies. In the Venus of Boticelli, Isadora Duncan recognized the great universal wave-like motion. Venus is not standing “straight”, her whole posture is wavelike, befitting a Goddess of Love borne of the ocean’s waves. She is still, but there is movement in her stillness, a hallmark of Duncan dance technique.
Myths have always inspired me with themes, images, and meanings that drive my embodied artistic expression. Moving “mytho-somatically” helps us discover how archetypal energies live in our bodies – what parts of the body they rule, how they walk and gesture, their archetypal presence. With these embodied tools, we connect to the transpersonal epic of our soul’s journey to create meaning, catalyze transformation and express the message of the soul through the movement of the body.
