Living Myth

Living Myth
Author: D. Stephenson Bond
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2019-06-25
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0834842033

Living Myth explores the dilemma of how to live life creatively at a time when the dominant myths of our culture are losing their power to give meaning to our lives. Using C. G. Jung's idea of discovering a "personal myth," D. Stephenson Bond reflects on the psychology of mythic imagination, as a force in both culture and individual life. He argues that meaning is experienced subjectively through the stirring of imagination and fantasy in the individual, which touches the larger impersonal, archetypal patterns. The book offers hopeful insights into the possibilities of cultural renewal and individual meaning through the restoration of the imagination.

Living Myths

Living Myths
Author: J. F. Bierlein
Publisher: Wellspring/Ballantine
Total Pages: 257
Release: 1999
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345422074

Reveals how key myths of the world present timeless truths that enrich our understanding of the world and the role humans play today.

Living Myths

Living Myths
Author: J.F. Bierlein
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2010-02-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0307434389

An intriguing exploration of the enduring significance of the world's great myths--from the dawn of time to the present day As ancient as speech, as essential as law, myths are the stories we tell to find our identity in the cosmos. It is through mythology that we attempt to unravel not only the meaning of our actions and impulses but the significance of human existence itself. Now in Living Myths, classical scholar J. F. Bierlein explores the enduring patterns and messages of myths from every culture. Myths, writes Bierlein, are "the eternal mirror in which we see ourselves." Living Myths delves behind the mirror and brings to light the imperishable and transcendent forces common to the myths of the world. Juxtaposing myths of fathers and sons--the Greek myth of Athamas and Phrixus, the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, the Algonquin tale of Grandfather, Father, and Son--Bierlein uncovers essential lessons about human nature and divine will. In the Indian story of Nala and Damayanti, the Greek legends of Aphrodite, and the haunting Irish tale of Etain, Bierlein examines the transforming mystery of romantic love. Here too are tales of the world's great heroes--the Greek Theseus, the Irish Cuchulainn, and the Mexican Quetzalcoatl--and their common desire to break through the masks of appearances. Steeped in wisdom, brimming with insights into human nature and behavior, Living Myths is a luminous exploration of the meaning of mythology through the ages and today in each of our lives.

Myths We Live by

Myths We Live by
Author: Colin Grant
Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
Total Pages: 195
Release: 1998
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0776604449

Colin Grant challenges the popular use of "myth" as a dismissive designation of the superstitions and falsehoods of "other" cultures. The author maintains that myths occupy a place in our present-day lives that is every bit as important to us as the divinities and heroes of classical antiquity were to the ancients. The myths themselves are in a constant state of flux and transformation. They ebb and flow, both within the context of wider culture and individual experience.

Storied Lives

Storied Lives
Author: Craig Chalquist
Publisher: World Soul
Total Pages: 112
Release: 2009-05-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780615270388

Most books on discovering one's "personal myth" focus on uncovering the general patterns or scripts of a life. STORIED LIVES by depth psychologist Craig Chalquist, PhD goes much farther by showing how specific myths play out from cradle to grave. Personal accounts of discovering and working with these myths enliven the book's emphasis on refashioning these plot lines from the inside out.

Happy Ever After

Happy Ever After
Author: Paul Dolan
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2019-01-17
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0241284457

'A passionate, provocative book. It isn't just a self-help book. It is a manifesto for a better society' Sunday Times 'One of the most rigorous articulations of the new mood of acceptance...a persuasive demolition of many of our cultural stories about how we ought to live' Oliver Burkeman, Guardian Paul Dolan, the bestselling author of Happiness by Design, shows us how to escape the myth of perfection and find our own route to happiness. Be ambitious; find everlasting love; look after your health ... There are countless stories about how we ought to live our lives. These narratives can make our lives easier, and they might sometimes make us happier too. But they can also trap us and those around us. In Happy Ever After, bestselling happiness expert Professor Paul Dolan draws on a variety of studies ranging over wellbeing, inequality and discrimination to bust the common myths about our sources of happiness. He shows that there can be many unexpected paths to lasting fulfilment. Some of these might involve not going into higher education, choosing not to marry, rewarding acts rooted in self-interest and caring a little less about living forever. By freeing ourselves from the myth of the perfect life, we might each find a life worth living.

Allegorical Architecture

Allegorical Architecture
Author: Xing Ruan
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2006-11-30
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0824861388

Allegorical Architecture offers the first detailed architectural analysis of built forms and building types of the minority groups in southern China and of the Dong nationality in particular. It argues that Dong architecture symbolically resembles its inhabitants in many ways. The built world is an extension of their body and mind; their experience of architecture is figurative and their understanding of it allegorical. Unlike the symbolism of historical architecture, which must be decoded through a speculative reconstruction of the past, the Dong tell stories about inhabitants in their living state in the recurrent process of ritualistic making and inhabiting of their built world. This book thus offers architectural analysis of both spatial dispositions (building types) and social life (the workings of buildings). Xing Ruan likens the built world to allegory to develop an alternative to textual understanding. The allegorical analogy enables him to decipher minority architecture less as a didactic "text" and more as a "shell," the inhabitation of which enables the Dong to renew and reinvent continually the myths and stories that provide them with an assurance of home and authenticity. Attention is focused less on the supposed meanings (symbolic, practical) of the architecture and more on how it is used, inhabited, and hence understood by people. Throughout, Ruan artfully avoids the temptation to textualize the built world and read from it all sorts of significance and symbolism that may or may not be shared by the inhabitants themselves. By likening architecture to allegory, he also subtlety avoids the well-worn path of accounting for rich traditions via a "salvage ethnography"; on the contrary, he argues that cultural reinvention is an ongoing process and architecture is one of the fundamental ingredients to understanding that process. Ruan offers "thick description" of Dong architecture in an attempt to understand the workings of architecture in the social world. Paying attention to Dong architecture within a regional as well as a global context makes it possible to combine detailed formal analysis of settlement patterns and building types and their spatial dispositions with their effects in a social context. Architecture, in a broad sense, is assumed to be an art form in which the feelings and lives of its makers and inhabitants are embodied. The artifice of architecture—its physical laws—is therefore analyzed and contested in terms of its instrumental capacity. Allegorical Architecture is a work of refreshing originality and compelling significance. It will provide timely lessons for those concerned with the meaning and social sustainability of the built world and will appeal to architects, planners, cultural geographers, anthropologists, historians, and students of these disciplines.

Exploring the Life, Myth, and Art of Native Americans

Exploring the Life, Myth, and Art of Native Americans
Author: Larry J. Zimmerman
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
Total Pages: 147
Release: 2009-08-15
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1615311955

Written by distinguished plains archaeologist Larry J. Zimmerman, this richly illustrated text is an introduction to the life, myth, and art of the indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada. The author ably conveys the profound appreciation the native North Americans had—and continue to have—of life, death, and the cosmos, and the interconnectedness of all things material and spiritual.

The Myth of Sisyphus And Other Essays

The Myth of Sisyphus And Other Essays
Author: Albert Camus
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2012-10-31
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0307827828

One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide; the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity and authenticity.