Breaking The Curse: Making Myth Our Own

'All we can do is keep telling the stories, hoping that someone will hear. Hoping that in the noisy echoing nightmare of endlessly breaking news and celebrity gossip, other voices might be heard, speaking of the life of the mind and the soul's journey.'

Jeanette Winterson, Weight

In previous posts I have discussed the ways in which myth enables us to reconnect with a different form of knowing, one that is more intuitive and that embraces mystery rather than fact. Using mythic tools/elements in our writing helps us to create timeless and universal stories, living stories that are steeped in authenticity and that encourage us to grow into individuals. In this post I want to look more specifically at ways myth might be used in story, by rewriting old stories, taking specific elements from myth or even simply using the themes that are predominant in myth.

We can use myth overtly in story by taking the structure and storyline of ancient myth and translating it into a contemporary setting or even a different point of view. In the Myth series Margaret Atwood wrote Penelopoid, the story of Odysseus from the perspective of Penelope and her maids, Alexander McCall Smith rewrote a Celtic myth in Dream Angus and Jeanette Winterson wrote Weight, her own version of the Atlas myth. In the introduction, Winterson wrote, 'the Myth series is a marvelous way of telling stories, re-telling stories for their own sakes, and finding in them permanent truths about human nature.' Winterson wrote Weight from her own situation, stating that 'there is no other way'. So Weight became a 'personal story broken against the bigger story of the myth we know'. When we rewrite myth in this way, we inevitably make it ours and we also see how easily any story can carry the timeless themes of myth. The ancient stories of the battles amongst the Norse Gods might be translated into contemporary stories about the battles between the heads of powerful corporations, or the story of Theseus entering the labyrinth to kill the minotaur can be written as a modern day story set in war torn Vietnam where Captain Willard is given the assignment to journey deep into the jungle (psyche) and capture Kurtz (a renegade Colonel). This is of course, Apocalypse Now, a story that was drawn from Conrad's, earlier novel, Heart of Darkness, but whose themes reflect the mythic journey of Theseus to kill the beast.

While Flight is not based on a single myth, it does contain a number of mythic references: to Theseus slaying the Minotaur in the labyrinth; to Orpheus returning from the underworld with Eurydice but unable to resist looking back; to the Babylonian myth of Gilgamesh and Enkidu; to the Greek myth of Cassandra. . . The characters Cassie and Hector represent Cassandra and her twin brother Helenus who as children were left overnight at Apollo's temple, where serpents licked their ears, endowing them with the power of prophecy. Cursed by Apollo for not returning his love, Cassandra found that although her prophecies were true, they were not believed. Cassandra and Helenus share the power of prophecy, but their skills and methods are different. For Cassandra the prophecy is received intuitively, while Helenus reads signs and portents in the things around him in the natural world, for example, the shape of clouds or the flight of a bird. In Flight, Cassie (like her namesake) is overcome by the knowledge she receives intuitively and is disbelieved by others, whilst Hector is a meteorologist, using computers and satellites to forecast the weather. In a sense, Cassie and Hector represent the extremes of the right and left brain modes, or intuitive and intellectual thought. Together they maintain a vital balance.

Curses, or inherited patterns of behaviour are themes that appear in all three of my novels, and again and again in ancient myth. In Nowhere Man, Ivan is psychologically trapped within patterns that he unconsciously repeats over and over. In Gathering Storm, four generations of women have been trapped by a Romany curse, though in actual terms they are trapped in inherited patterns of behaviour. In Flight, the idea of the curse is explored in mythic terms, in relation to the classic pattern of heroic myths, identified by Otto Rank (see Writing Myth). I did not set out with the idea of writing about a curse, instead it arose about halfway through the novel when I stopped what I was writing and wrote the prologue in a different voice and with an explanation of Fern's origins. Fern is born to a powerful man, her birth is accompanied by a prophecy, she is abandoned and brought up by strangers, unaware of her identity. Myths such as Oedipus and Perseus explore the journey of the child to the father. This is generally an arduous journey, involving great dangers, but the greatest danger lies in the meeting with the father, who may or may not deem the child fit to accept. In myth, the child, if ready for the confrontation, generally brings about the death of the father, often without being aware of their father's identity. This is retribution for the father's unnatural desire to halt change. It is only natural for the child to step into the father's shoes in adulthood, or on a cultural scale, for a new king to step into the shoes of the old king. When this potential is denied by the father then the cycles of life have been denied and stagnation sets in. It is the child's role to force change.

For the most part, Flight follows Ranks pattern of heroic myth. In the opening pages, Simple Simon, a gardener in the Botanical Gardens, utters a prophecy, saying that Fern would cause the death of her father. The prophecy quickly becomes a curse as Fern's father, Eric, responds by trying unsuccessfully to kill his unborn daughter, the prophecy 'eating away at him, turning him into its slave'. Although the curse is delivered to Fern and her mother, it is directed at the father. Fern is the arrow, charged with delivering the curse. Eric is a powerful man, born with great gifts, but he has abused these gifts and this is a crime for which he must pay. There is no humility in Eric, no respect for life, no compassion and no humanity. But there is pride. As always it is hubris which activates the curse.

Psychologist, Liz Greene identifies a number of features that appear consistently in myths about family curses. According to her, the curse is usually linked with the abuse of children in a pattern that repeats itself through generations. 'Each generation has the opportunity to reverse or transform the curse by perceiving and acknowledging the pattern of destructiveness and transcending it, but fails to do so because the individual cannot resist indulging in fear, greed, anger, or the desire for personal vengeance'. Instead, the individual responds instinctively, refusing to acknowledge the pattern or take responsibility and transform it. So, as Greene states, a curse can run its patterns through generations, both inherited genetically and taught through the behaviour of the parents. This is something I had already explored in Gathering Storm, but in Flight I looked at patterns of behaviour that have been repeated through many lives, ideas that are expounded by Jungian psychotherapist, Roger Woolger, who suggests that childbirth triggers karmic residue and the choice of parents reinforces the patterns from one life to the next until the person is finally able to break free of that pattern.. This is exactly what happens to Fern who finds herself abandoned at birth, threatened fundamentally by her birth father and psychologically abused by her adopted father, so that she carries a heavy burden of guilt and grief that parallels the burdens she carries from past lives.

Woolger wrote of 'patterns in remembered lives', explaining that they can become compounded into a repetitive cycle of hatred and revenge, the players 'drawn to each other karmicly' in roles from which they cannot escape'. Fern and Eric are caught in a destructive pattern that has persisted for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, and which always involves an abuse of power and some form of injury to a child. In this life, Fern is once again given the opportunity to break free of that pattern. Through the course of the story, Fern is forced to face memories from a number of lives, but it is not the stories of these lives that are important for Fern's transformation. As the Bear Handler tells her, 'only the patterns matter, for it is in those that you will see the places that you are caught, repeating yourself, lifetime after lifetime'.

A good friend and editor, Teresita White, surprised me by pointing out the parallels between Greene's analysis of the family curse and the events in Flight. 'Paradoxically,' she wrote, 'any attempt to cheat the prophecy usually results in its fulfilment'. Eric tries to destroy his own daughter, which results in her mother hiding Fern from him, by having her adopted and not putting his name on her birth certificate. His violent attempt to kill Fern, results in the shutting down of her psyche, so she does not know who she really is. When Eric seeks Fern out he unwittingly awakens her spirit and bit by bit, her memory. When he attempts to frighten her, he awakens her courage. When he draws Fern to himself he unwittingly invites destruction into what he believes is impregnable. When Eric shows contempt for Adam and his qualities, he sabotages his seduction of Fern. And when he causes another's death, believing he can sabotage the prophecy, he provokes the final confrontation in which he is destroyed. Although Eric does not die, he is left hovering on the border of life and death and his power is spent. In the end, following Ranks patterns of heroic myth, Eric is crushed and Fern is liberated.

Myths remind us that life is all about change, that the wheel of fortune turns and we must flow with it. For Eric the prophecy is a warning. He has become corrupted by power and he must let go of it in order to restore the natural flow of life. Instead, he holds onto his power and the result is a living death. For Fern, the prophecy is a blessing as it gives her an opportunity to free herself from a pattern of behaviour she has become enmeshed in, to find the courage to become a fully conscious individual and rediscover the gifts she had turned away from. But myths also remind us that there are no 'happy ever after endings'. Whatever position we find ourselves in, it is wise to remember that 'this too shall pass', that at any moment the wheel may turn and we will be called yet again, to adventure.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Seeking The Paradox Within Story

'Most fables contain at least some truth, and they often enable people to absorb ideas which the ordinary patterns of their thinking would prevent them from digesting.'

Idries Shah, The Sufis

As I have mentioned in other posts on this blog, I am fascinated by the fundamental paradox that I see within story, in that while it encourages us to conform to society, it also encourages us to become true individuals by shedding mindless conformity. And it is this aspect of story that I keep returning to, asking myself how a narrative can enable us to evolve as individuals. I believe there is an alternative knowledge structure deeply embedded within story, a structure that enables and encourages personal transformation, and that echoes thousands of years back to the first stories of the shamans and the ancient myths of indigenous peoples around the world, as well as being evident in many contemporary narratives. People write, read and listen to stories, not because they wish to escape from themselves, but because they wish to find themselves. So perhaps then, a key to self transformation is embedded within story.

The idea that stories might contain hidden meanings is not a new one, stretching back to the interpretation of early religious texts across many faiths and persisting to the current day through continued scholarly analysis of literature. These theories are also rooted in mystical knowledge associated with Sufism and other esoteric groups, some of this knowledge dating back thousands of years. The ancient Aesops Fables which are popular in the West, are an example of stories that are designed to jolt us out of the boundaries that restrict our thinking. In his book, The Sufis, Idries Shah writes that the popular and humorous Nasrudin Stories which date from around the thirteenth century, 'may be understood at any one of many depths. . . and the experiencing of each story will contribute towards the 'homecoming' of the mystic'. Perhaps then, rather than reinforcing blind acceptance of society's constructed realities, stories might use hidden meanings in order to innately question them. Idries Shah goes on to explain the use of humour in the Nasrudin tales, saying that 'humour cannot be prevented from spreading: it has a way of slipping through the patterns of thought which are imposed upon mankind by pattern and design.' While humour is not a strong element in my writing at present, I agree that it has great power, encouraging us to question and laugh at what we hold sacred or simply take for granted.

Much of our interpretation of a text relies on how we read. Joseph Campbell emphasised the importance of poetic interpretation, as compared to literal reading, warning that 'wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history or science, it is killed.' Karen Armstrong too, wrote passionately of the need to re-engage with story, using 'intuitive, mythical modes of thought' instead of the 'more pragmatic, logical spirit of scientific rationality.' When I was writing Flight, I began to wonder how I could layer the story in order to encourage different interpretations on the part of the reader. I wanted my readers to read intuitively, to find a story a that spoke to them in unexpected ways. In the end though I found myself unable to plan a novel in this way and decided instead to trust my unconscious to do this for me through the use of symbols and metaphor, as well as through the way in which the story structure formed itself around the character arc.

While it is clear that stories can and do contain hidden meanings, Campbell went further than this in his analysis of heroic myth, by suggesting that the very structure of story has a hidden meaning, that it is a metaphor for Jung's individuation process or the journey to self. Now that Flight is complete and published, and there has been time to receive reader feedback, it has become clear that the novel does act on a number of levels: as entertainment, as a psychological study and as a document of a spiritual journey, one in which readers can find themselves. I have always felt strongly that in my writing I am holding a mirror up to readers and helping them remember who they are, perhaps because this is what I seek from my own reading. However, my motives are not entirely altruistic, because first and foremost it is myself I am finding, both through the process of writing and through the mysteries of the unfolding story. It is my own past I am exploring and my own scars I am acknowledging and releasing, as I seek to uncover the treasure within me, the essence of self, by breaking down my fixed thinking patterns. Perhaps ultimately this is what stories are for.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Writing Character: Uncovering The Wound

'To release the full potential of the treasure, the wound must be uncovered, delved into, healed to some degree, as if coated with loving layers of lustrous deposits.'

Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft

Earlier this year an astrologer friend looked at my birth chart and winced. When I asked, she explained that my year was full of major transits, meaning major upheavals. Well she wasn't wrong. Until a few weeks ago I thought I'd been through enough upheavals for a year a significant birthday, awarded a PhD, a new novel published. . . but no, there was more to come in the form of an interview in Wales for a position as Creative Writing Fellow at Aberystwyth University. When I was offered the position, I gulped and said yes, then sat down suddenly and began to consider the implications. Moving from Hobart in Tasmania, across the world to Aberystwyth in Wales is a major upheaval, paling all else that has happened this year into insignificance. A new home, new schools, a new job, a new country to become familiar with. . . there's no doubt these are exciting times. Exciting, but frightening too, because like many of us, I am afraid of change.

Change is something we tend to yearn for and then fear as it approaches. It's a natural part of life but not easy to allow. Change is also the major catalyst for story, in fact without it we wouldn't have story, or at least our stories would be extremely dull. Major upheavals tend to signal those moments when a new story begins and are often linked to characters who are afraid to embrace this change - the reluctant Hero, as Vogler calls them. The nature of the change tends to depend on what wounds our characters (or ourselves) are carrying, as often the unfolding drama involves a healing of those wounds.

We all love wounded characters. A wound adds mystery, back story, tension and most importantly, the potential for healing, for as psychologist Jean Houston writes, a wound can be 'an invitation to our renaissance'. A character's wound may be a physical one in the form of a scar or a limp perhaps. Or it may be a psychological wound, a memory of an event that has isolated the character from the world, making him or her an outsider; perhaps the loss of a child or a spouse or some other injustice that is indigestible. This is something that is often evident in the cowboy story or detective genre where the protagonists are outsiders, running on the edge of law, isolated from society and family, and generally carrying a heavy chip on their shoulders. The isolation and pain is revealed through a bad habit, perhaps a drinking problem or perhaps an abrupt manner towards other characters. In more complex stories that carry a good deal of psychological exploration, the wound may be less clear, revealing itself through a number of memories fused together, the scar tissue creating a filter between the character and the world so that each action a character takes is really only a programmed reaction to the past. In story, the character arc often provides an opportunity to change or unravel one or more of these programmed reactions, and if not, it generally reveals the tragedy that occurs when we are unable to do this.

'In many cases in psychiatry,' wrote Jung, 'the patient who comes to us has a story that is not told, and which as a rule no one knows of. To my mind, therapy only really begins after the investigation of that wholly personal story. It is the patient's secret, the rock against which he is shattered. If I know his secret story, I have a key to the treatment.' The story that Jung refers to is one that even the patient may not be consciously aware of. It often resides deep in the unconscious, buried under layers of scar tissue. The process of uncovering this wound can be long and arduous, but it is necessary, for it is the clue, or as Jung says, 'the key' to psychic health. In Soulcraft, psychologist, Bill Plotkin writes that 'the wound does not necessarily stem from a single traumatic incident. Often, the wound consists of a pattern of hurtful events or a disturbing dynamic or theme in one or more important relationships.' This is the case with the two main characters in Flight which explores complex psychological patterns within the main character, Fern, and the man she learns to love, Adam.

For Adam, one aspect of his wound lies in the birth of his brother and the guilt Adam feels for being normal. Another aspect lies in the death of the father and the guilt Adam feels for his part in that tragedy, as well as the loss he felt, growing up without a father. Both of these wounds have created a series of reactions in Adam, sending him away from Tasmania and into the army, where he has tried to follow in his father's footsteps. And it is in the army that Adam wounds himself so deeply he can only withdraw from society and from his family, hiding in a basement in Sydney and attempting to drink himself into oblivion.

Adam's healing begins when he meets Fern who takes his attention away from himself. The healing continues with his return to Tasmania and his family, and then with his return to nature. Adam is of the earth, the wilderness feeds his soul and it is only in the wilderness when he has been brought back from the brink of death by Fern, that he can tell his story. In the telling, Adam makes it conscious and begins to live again, bit by bit, releasing the guilt that he is holding.

Fern's wounds are even more deeply layered. The story opens with her having retreated to an attic room where, like Adam, she is hiding from life. Fern is damaged by her childhood, by the callous treatment of her adoptive family and by the guilt she feels at being accused of trying to kill her father. Through the course of the story, Fern also uncovers pre-verbal wounds that occurred while she was in the womb and just after birth, the trauma of her birth father's violence towards her in his two attempts to kill her, and also the trauma of being abandoned by her birth mother. Then, as the story unfolds, Fern discovers that she has another connection to her birth father, one that reaches back through many past lives and involves a repeating pattern of abuse.

Psychologist and physical healer, Jean Achterberg, writes that 'in traditional shamanic cultures, healing bears little relationship to the remission of physical symptoms. It refers, rather, to becoming whole or in harmony with the community, the planet and certainly ones private circumstances.' This attitude differs greatly from allopathic medicine, where symptoms are almost always treated before causes, and for which healing generally means, a 'return to normal where normal is culturally defined by some measuring standard created by society's members.' Achterberg cites a remark made by an Indian Medicine Man: 'With white man's medicine you only get back to the way you were before; with Indian medicine, you can get even better.' In a sense then, the writing of Flight was an exploration of Indian medicine, an attempt to truly heal a condition (Fern's depression), rather than treat the symptoms.

At the beginning of the novel, Fern has lost most of her self, something that in shamanic tradition is considered a serious illness, leading eventually to depression, damage to the immune system, cancer and many other disorders. Soul retrieval is a major element in shamanic healing. In order to retrieve a fragment of the soul, shamans must travel into the upper world or underworld with the help of their power animal/s and find it, sometimes having to coax it back, sometimes having to fight for it. These fragments may have left the soul in shock at a violent action or been taken by another person. As the story progresses, Fern is able to retrieve a number of parts of her self, and in the process realises how much she had lost.

In Greek myth, the wise and gentle Chiron the centaur is a wounded healer. When he is wounded by a poisoned arrow he is forced to live the rest of his life in great pain. Because of this he studies the healing arts, finding many remedies that heal others but none that take away his own suffering. In shamanic culture, prospective shamans generally become very ill, and then must agree to become shamans before they can heal. It is only in experiencing pain that we are able to heal others. Joan Halifax writes that 'the true attainment of the shaman's vocation as healer, seer, and visionary comes about through the experience of self-wounding, death and rebirth.' This is the process that Fern must undergo. In the novel, Shamesh tells Fern about the initiation process, which is a process of clearing the dense parts of the self. When Fern asks why the process is so slow he tells her that she will become a healer but must first experience the process herself. Fern only accepts the possibility of becoming a healer towards the end of the story, when she uses her hands to heal Adam and remembers that she had done this before. Towards the end of Flight, Fern studies homeopathy and herbalism, 'trying to understand the patterns of illness, trying to see its source which is so often beyond the physical'. She says, 'I have understood that true healing is not something you can do with a closed heart. It must reach deep into the spirit and work its magic from within. True healing changes a person, clears scar tissue and the patterns of reaction that have formed their character. It is not an easy path to choose.

According to Houston, we must be 'willing to release our old stories and to become the vehicles through which the new story may emerge into time.' When Fern tries to tell her story to Adam, she realises that each story is linked to another and she feels weighed down by back stories, wishing she could sever them all. Through the course of Flight, both Fern and Adam reluctantly and painfully release their own stories. By the end of the novel, they are creating a new story, both together and individually. Accepting change provides us with the opportunity to let go of an old story and create something new. It enables us to learn something new, integrate that knowledge, and in the process heal an old wound or wounds. No doubt I will need to repeatedly remind myself of this over the next few months, as change picks me (and my family) up and hurls us across the world to beautiful Wales and to a new story.

For other posts on characterisation see:

Digging Deep: Writing Character

Catharsis and Transformation in Story

Motivating Character

Juggling Archetypes: Heroes, Villains and Tricksters

And there is more on The Wound in Story as Therapy: Healing the Wound

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Telling Tales – Exploring Elements of the Fairy Story

'If you don't know the trees you may be lost in the forest, but if you don't know the stories you may be lost in life.'   Siberian Elder
                                                                                                                                           
Once upon a time. . .
These familiar words have such power. They evoke a stillness, a bating of breath, an eager air of expectation as we gather around them, waiting for their magic to transport our imaginations to far off worlds, and their wisdom to help us understand the world in which we live. In The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim wrote, 'for those who immerse themselves in what the fairytale has to communicate, it becomes a deep, quiet pool which at first seems to reflect only our own image; but behind it we soon discover the inner turmoils of our soul – its depths, and ways to gain peace within ourselves and with the world, which is the reward for our struggles.' Fairy tales are timeless stories, traditionally passed down orally from one generation to the next. It is only relatively recently that they have been written down, reinterpreted  through the moral filters of those who recorded them, and consequently changed, sometimes almost beyond recognition.

Myth and fairytale are a rich source of material for authors and their form and content resonate with readers; both adults and children. Some writers, such as Angela Carter, have rewritten existing fairy tales applying their own personal interpretations. Recently in Bitter Greens, Kate Forsyth rewrote the Rapunzel story, enriching it with a historical setting and vivid characters. Other writers take elements from fairy tales and/or write their own tales that mirror the structure of older stories. This is what I have done in Flight in which there are a number of references to both myth and fairy tale, most of which were not consciously intended on my part, only recognised by me when they appeared, revealing that like most of us, my personal history is steeped in the stories and religion of my childhood. In the first draft of Flight, I signaled the use of these references as they arose but during a later edit, decided it would be better to cut out these signals, allowing the reader to identify the references themselves. As I write Falling Between Worlds, I can seen that fairy tale and myth will also play a role in this novel, though I seem to be incapable of planning the inclusion of these elements or planning the structure of my stories. Instead I ask questions and leave myself open to whatever answers arise, letting them find their place on the page and within the story.  For me and for many writers, asking questions is an important part of the process of writing. In so doing we discover what our story is and why we are writing it. As Clarissa Pinkola Estes says, 'asking the proper question is the central action of transformation – in fairy tales, in analysis and in individuation. Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.'

Initiation is a common element in both myths and fairy tales and a major part of novels which we call 'coming of age'. Jones writes that in the myth, the initiation is a spiritual one, whilst in the fairytale, the initiation is 'into a greater awareness of ones own desires and fears'. I'm not sure it's necessary to distinguish between them in this way, as the fairytale initiation is a necessary part of the spiritual initiation. In Flight, Fern must face her fears in order to be initiated into the spiritual world. And indeed, Bettleheim writes that myths and fairy tales 'derive from or give symbolic expression to initiation rites or other rites de passage such as a metaphoric death of an old, inadequate self, in order to be born on a higher plane of existence'. In Flight, Fern is undergoing an initiation as she is forced to let go of her old way of being, in a sense dying to her old self, in order to find a new way of living. This is an initiation of the soul but it can also be read as simply a rite of passage from one stage of life to the next, a coming of age or perhaps a 'coming to self'.

In The Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers, Marina Warner writes that 'shape shifting is one of fairy tale's dominant and characteristic wonders'. There is much slippage between fairy tale and myth where shape shifting is a common element, the gods and goddesses frequently shifting form in order to confuse and dazzle humanity. Shape shifting is also an integral part of shamanism, with shamans sometimes transforming themselves into creatures in order to traverse the underworld. Shape shifting plays a role in Flight, with Fern at one stage slipping inside the skin of a bear, then later, growing wings and perceiving herself flying. The novel also contains shape shifting in the form of slippage between lifetimes, with both Fern and Eric maintaining their essence and their enmity whilst regularly shifting costumes.

Aside from these general themes of initiation and shape shifting, there are also references to some well known fairy tales. There are some parallels between Fern and Rapunzel. Fern is a reluctant soul, not wishing to inhabit her body or this world, so in a sense, the tower, or attic in her case, is Fern's attempt to escape. Paradoxically, Fern is also a prisoner. She might have chosen to stay in the attic but she is still trapped, held prisoner by herself. Rapunzel must literally let her hair down in order to find a new life. Fern is chased from her attic but she too must embrace life, and it is Adam, her true prince, who helps ground Fern and teaches her to live. In a sense, Adam too is blinded in the novel. He can't see what Fern can see, he can't look into minds or enter her dreams. Instead he must trust her and his own role in the story.

In Fern's penchant for sleep, there is a reference to Perrault's 'Sleeping Beauty'. Bettelheim writes that Sleeping Beauty is the classic coming of age story, reminding us 'that a long period of quiescence, of contemplation, of concentration on the self, can and often does lead to the highest achievement'. In our modern world this has largely been forgotten and withdrawal from life is viewed with suspicion. After spending months in solitude, Fern prematurely re-enters the world only to be forced into solitude again, this time in the psychiatric ward where she has been placed because her mother and society in general, misguidedly interpret her symptoms as an illness that must be treated, rather than as the welcome first steps in an initiatory process. Sleeping Beauty is a tale of sexual awakening, while Flight is a tale of awakening. Fern has been asleep all her life and her awakening doesn't come at puberty but when she is called to an adventure. Fern must reawaken sexually, as she does with Adam, but it is her whole libido that must awaken, not just its sexual aspect. It isn't a man that Fern needs to bring her back to life, but it is the masculine. Fern is out of balance, overtaken by the shadow side of her feminine aspect and terrified of the masculine. Her journey is to seek balance. In a sense the prince is simply a part of herself, the active masculine side that she must embrace.

There are other, more minor references to fairy tales in the novel. Early in the story, Fern falls down some steps and descends into the underworld, just as the shamans do in order to retrieve souls, and as Lewis Carroll's Alice did when she fell down a rabbit hole and found herself in Wonderland. Like Alice, Fern finds that this world is very different from her own, with a new set of rules that are not entirely rational and which she must learn in order to find her way. Later there's a  reference to Cinderella when Fern is dressing for dinner in her father's house and slips on the stiletto shoes her father has selected for her. I have used the shoe as a symbol of power, the power of a man over a woman. Fern tries the shoes on and to her surprise they fit almost perfectly. This suggests that Fern's father, Eric is her prince, something that almost becomes the case, when he later attempts to seduce her. Fern obediently wears the shoes but can hardly walk in them. The stiletto heels are crippling for her, sending her off balance, which is exactly what Eric hopes to achieve. Later, after rejecting her father, Fern kicks the shoes off and frees herself from his influence.

In our writing we can make specific references to known fairy tales and myths, we can mirror their structure (something I will explore in a later post), and we can also draw on their themes which are often powerful explorations of life and its necessary transitions. According to Steven Swann Jones in The Fairytale: The Magic Mirror of Imagination, 'the objective of the myth is oneness with the divine . . .The objective of the legendary quest is social harmony. . . and the objective of the fairytale quest is personal happiness'. So if, on one level, myths are the mega stories that societies tell about themselves, then fairy tales are the micro stories. Fairy tales address everyday problems in a fantastical way, giving a nudge to a child unwilling to move on to the next stage of life, providing guidelines for understanding the dangers one faces in life (Red Riding Hood) and exploring notions of good and evil. With their emphasis on moral behaviour and rewards, fairy tales both define the world and hint at the possibilities of breaking free of those definitions. Characters, such as Bluebeard's wife are both punished and rewarded for breaking the rules. Warner writes that fairy tales 'offer a way of putting questions, of testing the structure as well as guaranteeing its safety, of thinking up alternatives as well as living daily reality in an examined way'. Perhaps then, fairy tales are a way for us to understand and accept the paradoxes of life; pointers to the lessons which are able to be learned through myth. As Hans Christian Anderson once said, 'life itself is the most wonderful fairytale of them all'.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Writing Myth

'A myth is a story that is true on the inside but not the outside.'

Joseph Campbell

As my new novel begins to form I'm wondering how I might use myth to enrich the story and deepen the themes - something I did extensively in my previous novel, Flight. This has inspired me to consider once again what it is about myth that is so fundamental to humanity and whether or not it is still relevant in our world today. It is myth that forms the basis of most cultures' storytelling, so it has a number of functions that are above and beyond simple entertainment. Myth is an intuitive way of interpreting the world around us but to a large extent it has now been superseded by the current rational method of understanding and measuring reality. For me, myth contains vital truths and yet in our modern world, it has come to be defined as something untrue, as seen in our phrase, 'exploding the myth'. As Karen Armstrong writes, 'we have developed a scientific view of history; we are concerned with what actually happened. But in the pre-modern world, when people wrote about the past they were more concerned with what an event had meant.' So it seems to me that in our modern tendency to confuse fact with truth we are in danger of losing meaning. 'A myth is true,' says Armstrong, 'because it is effective, not because it gives us factual information. If it does not give us new insight into the deeper meaning of life, it has failed.'

Jung wrote that 'myth is more individual and expresses life more precisely than does science.'  In The Mythic Journey, Jungian psychologists, Liz Greene and Juliet Sharman-Burke wrote that 'myths have the mysterious capacity to contain and communicate paradoxes, allowing us to see through, around and over the dilemma to the heart of the matter.' Mythologist, Joseph Campbell wrote that 'myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.' While Christopher Vogler applied definitions of myth to contemporary stories, insisting that all stories are sacred, all have the capacity to heal and all mirror the structure of their larger counterparts, the mythic heroic stories.

In The Artists Way, Julie Cameron writes that 'creativity cannot be comfortably quantified in intellectual terms', while Catherine Ann Jones believes that 'to write from one part of your self, the logical mind, results in a fragmented story as well as a fragmented life'. Certainly for me the writing of Flight was not an simply an intellectual process but one which intuitively drew upon the mystery behind creativity. A few years ago as I was writing Flight, I found to my surprise, that I had been unconsciously using mythic elements, drawing from both the content and the patterns of ancient stories. Once I had recognised that this was happening I was able to make the process conscious and develop certain elements in order to explore the themes that were important to me. In the end it was myth that gave shape and depth to my novel and it was myth that helped me to understand what I was writing about and why I needed to write it. Consequently, Flight is heavily laden with references to myth and fairytale; from Sleeping Beauty to the myth of Cassandra, something I will explore more further in a later post. It's themes and plot were drawn from common elements in myth such as the curse or prophecy, mirroring in many ways the classic patterns of heroic myth as identified by Otto Rank. Fern is born to a powerful man, her birth is accompanied by a prophecy, she is abandoned and brought up by strangers, unaware of her identity. As an adult she must seek her father and confront him, potentially bringing about his death in order for the natural cycles of change to continue unimpeded. And finally, the structure of Flight mirrors in many ways the stages of story that Joseph Campbell identified, something I discuss briefly below but will explore further in a later post.

Campbell not only identified a common pattern in the structure of mythic stories but also interpreted what this pattern meant, socially, psychologically and to a certain extent, spiritually. Of all stories, Campbell believes it is the myth that speaks to us most strongly. And of all myths it is the universal story of the quest to find the essence of self, that appeals most to a modern day humanity in search of meaning in a world where meaning and identity has moved its focus from the group to the individual. In the past, and primarily for survival purposes, the individual was first and foremost a part of society. Exile was a life-threatening break with existence and therefore the worst possible punishment. Yet exile (physical or psychological), is also the necessary first step on the heroic quest, a breaking free of the known or ordinary world and a stepping into the unknown. In the opening to Flight, Fern has unknowingly taken the first step in the quest, exiling herself from family and society 

The reward for this quest is self-knowledge, but the true hero will also ultimately return to society bringing back that which he/she has learned, and thus enriching the community. However, unlike fairy tales, which almost invariably finish with a version of 'and they lived happily ever after', myths embrace the possibility of tragedy and change. In myth, endings are not fixed and new quests are often necessary, the hero may die on his quest, or like Gilgamesh, return triumphant from the Underworld, only to have the elixir for eternal life slip through his fingers. Sometimes the hero may find that the metaphorical gold he or she found, has turned to dust, or like Buddha, he or she may return with their treasure, only to be faced with the difficult task of telling a story that is beyond words. In Flight, Fern is given information, allies and tools that she must integrate and begin to use, in order to overcome the obstacles and dangers. In the end, Fern uses these rewards well and returns to society carrying this metaphorical gold.

Campbell emphasised the importance of metaphoric and poetic readings of myth, which allow for psychological and metaphysical interpretations that help us to map our development. Purely literal or rational interpretations of story create a dangerous black and white world in which dogma rules. So do our contemporary stories fill the spaces that myth once filled or have they lost something fundamental? Is it the stories that are depleted or simply the way that we read (see Reading Between The Lines)?  I don't know the answers to these questions but I do know that if we simply skate over the surface of stories we will forget how to measure them in anything but rational terms – the terms of logos. It is in the depths of story that the true lessons lie and it us up to us as writers to include the hidden truths of mythos in our stories in order to feed our readers and our selves on living stories that speak to us on many levels.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Where Truth Lies: Fact versus Fiction

'Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.'

Francis Bacon

In a novel, the reader is often interested in how much is true, while in a memoir, the reader wants to know how much is untrue. The line between fact and fiction is much finer than we imagine. When we assert the factual validity of our memories we often discover that a sibling, a friend or a parent remembers the same event quite differently. A few years ago, a mother and her adult daughter enrolled in one of my life writing classes in order to write a memoir about the daughter's turbulent teenage years. Both described the same events but from a different perspective. At one stage the daughter referred to a formative experience that had occurred in her early childhood when her mother had left her. The mother was shocked, because in reality she had only been away for one night, but in the daughter's mind it was an eternity. Of course, factually it is correct to call it one night, but the emotional truth lies elsewhere. There's a world of difference between truth and fact,' writes Maya Angelou. 'Fact tells us the data. . . but facts can obscure the truth'.

Psychotherapists also recognise the complexities of truth. In Other Lives, Other Selves, Roger Woolger states that 'for the therapist there is another kind of truth, psychic truth: that which is real for the patient.' Jung also maintained that clinical material does not have to be historically true so long as it is subjectively true and filled with meaning for the patient. For Jung, harmony is not achieved by realigning an individual to society, which is itself a human construct, but instead from realigning them to their self and hence, to life. It is in the inner or psychological journeys that we take and on which we send our characters, that an emotional, and perhaps a universal truth can be found.

In his memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung writes about his his inner experiences, including his dreams and visions, referring to his life as one that he could only map or understand through recording its 'inner happenings', his encounters with the unconscious. 'In the end,' he says, 'the only events in my life worth telling are those when the imperishable world irrupted into this transitory one.' Like Jung, when I sat down to write, I discovered that I had embarked on my own inner journey, a journey of the soul. As I worked on my novel, I was surprised to discover that I was unconsciously writing about myself, drawing on my own past, my dreams and my numinous experiences and weaving them into a plot-driven fictional story.

John Singleton, in The Creative Writing Handbook, explores the relationship between memory and imagination and between autobiography and fiction. The autobiography he says, 'only translates the past' while fiction 'transforms' it. 'The vital force in this re-creative process is the imagination.' Autobiography, 'describes the self as already known, or explains the self as presently understood. While fiction, on the other hand explores the self as yet hidden, in the dark. . . Something secret is hitherto revealed which you sense you've known unconsciously all the time.' Transformation, then, is made more possible by stepping into fiction, if only because the writer then gives their imagination permission to work with memory and transform it, thereby allowing true self reflection, that which comes as a revelation and not simply an intellectual construct.

'All fiction is autobiography in disguise', wrote Catherine Anne Jones, in The Way of Story. This is certainly the case with Flight, though if I had written it as a memoir I would not have been able to grant myself permission to explore my own past and thus transform it, at least not with the freedom I found in fiction. It is difficult to say exactly how much of Flight is true in the factual sense of the word. Like Fern, I was born in Adelaide and adopted by a religious couple. The house I grew up in is the same as I depict in the novel. The adopted father, Richard, is almost identical to my own adopted father. I too lived in Sydney in an attic room and toyed with the idea of studying fashion design. The house Fern visits in Kettering, Tasmania, is a house I lived in for six years. These are factual truths and easily identified by those who know. There are other true events in the story that are not so easily identified as fact. The memories of childhood that I give Fern are all my own, as are the dreams and visions she has. Otherwise, the characters and events are fictional. Although fact and fiction are woven together throughout Flight, the themes are personal to me, as is Fern's psychological and spiritual journey. These are my truths, but they are also universal truths, referring back to a long tradition of storytelling that begins with humanity's first storytellers, the unnamed shamans, as well as to ancient myth, to Dante's Inferno, Goethe's Faust, Hesse's, Steppenwolf, Le Guin's Earthsea novels and Murakami's Kafka On The Shore, to name but a few.

In The Western Dreaming, John Carroll, in asking what truth is, looks at the roots of the word. 'When the Greeks designated truth by their word aleitheia, they built in a narrative. Truth is that which is a-lethe, not lethe, Lethe being the place of oblivion or forgetfulnes, and later the river running through the underworld. To drink the waters of this river was to extinguish memory. Oblivion is thus the natural human state, one in which individuals have forgotten what they know.' Carroll then makes a further connection, one that is vital in an age where post-modernism would deny the validity of truth. 'Moreover,' he writes, 'as English has picked up, to be without Truth is lethal, death in life, its condition that of lethargy, a weariness of spirit in which all vitality has drained away.' This is the condition of Fern as my novel, Flight opens. She has forgotten so much and lost so much of herself, that there is very little vitality left and she is told: 'If you do not take this journey you will die,'

A post modernist might say that it isn't possible to define truth, or at least that there are multiple truths. That truth is not fixed, but instead changes according to who is telling it and the context in which it is told. It changes too, according to the unique collection of filters each individual applies to their reading of a text. As Walter Truett-Anderson writes in The Truth About Truth, 'truth is made rather than found.' Yet below this slippery world of relative readings, I believe, like Joseph Campbell, that there is another world, a more stable one of universal truths and themes. Not tribal or dogmatic 'truths' that are socially constructed and create divisions but truths which are beyond divisions, beyond polarities. This, for me, is where truth lies. As a writer I can only approach it through metaphor, story itself being a metaphor for the journey of the soul, the journey to that truth which is beyond language. It is a journey that must be taken over and over. Factual truth has little bearing on this journey, which involves a seeing through of ideology, as well as the acceptance and subsequent release of constructed psychological truths, in order to receive a remembering of something deeper and more sustaining.

If there are truths which are absolute, there are also an indefinite number and colourful variety of paths to these truths. As Campbell warned, it is dangerous to believe in the paths as truths in themselves, creating dogmatic 'isms' that limit our perception and more often than not, cause great divisions. Dogma insists that the path itself is the only way to an inaccessible truth, establishing twists and turns and dead ends to keep the masses away from this profound realisation that the path is constructed, it is a map, not the truth itself. In contrast, the journey of the soul is an individual and a universal journey, each person finding their own way, with their own unique signposts to guide them. The path is not important, as Fern discovers in Flight. Fern's journey is not one any other character could take because like each of us, she has her own individual stories to deconstruct; stories that have arisen from a multitude of factors: genetic, experiential, environmental, historical and cultural. At the end of her journey, Fern is able to step beyond constructed truths and perceive once again a vital universal truth that enables connection and harmony and the innate knowledge that everything is one.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Juggling Archetypes: Heroes, Villains and Shapeshifters

'Archetypes are part of the universal language of storytelling, and a command of their energy is as essential to the writer as breathing.'

Christopher Vogler, The Writer's Journey

An understanding of archetypes is a useful tool for writers. Perhaps because archetypal characters have always inhabited our myths and fairy stories, they resonate deeply within our psyches. As Catherine Anne Jones writes in The Way of Story, 'if you can create a character which conveys a universal archetype, the collective will identify and respond more deeply to your story.' It is important, however, to ensure that what is produced is a character not a caricature. In fairy tales, which generally don't seek subtlety, archetypes are easy to identify and are often called by their archetypal names, such as Threshold Guardian or Wicked Step Mother. However in a novel our characters need to be more complex and often their role/s change as the story progresses, so it's generally best to develop our characters complexities before considering their archetypal roles. Psychologist, Robert Johnson describes real human beings as 'combinations of many types that join together to form one rich, inconsistent, many-faceted human personality.' To avoid creating one-dimensional caricatures, Christopher Vogler suggests in The Writer's Journey, that we look at the archetypes as 'flexible character functions rather than as rigid character types.' This way it is possible to see that a single character can encompass a range of archetypes through the course of the story, donning and changing masks as the story evolves.

The word archetype comes from the Greek roots, arche, meaning the first, and type, meaning imprint or pattern. According to mythologist, Joseph Campbell, each one of us embodies a range of archetypes and the pantheons of gods and goddesses found in ancient cultures, and in the myths and fairy tales passed down through history, are an expression of these archetypes, forming a kind of dynamic and ever changing map of the psyche. The post modernist idea that each of us is constructed of a number of selves interpreting the world and expressing themselves in many forms, is in a sense, a much older concept, drawn from esoteric theory which suggests that the unevolved human (most of us) is a mechanical being comprised of programmed conflicting selves. Campbell calls these selves archetypes and suggests that they express facets of the human personality. As with esoteric theory, this position is easy to differentiate from post modernism because he believes that within the harmonious balance of these archetypes lies a central archetype, or archetype of wholeness, a true or essential Self which is the goal or outcome of the individuation process.

In Awakening The Hero Within, Carol S Pearson refers to archetypes as 'inner guides' on our journey to Self. There are many archetypes but for the purpose of discussing the journey of the Hero (ourselves) she limits herself to listing twelve major archetypes: the Innocent, the Orphan, the Warrior, the Caregiver, the Seeker, the Destroyer, the Lover, the Creator, the Ruler, the Magician, the Sage and the Fool. Each, she says 'has a lesson to teach us and each presides over a stage of the journey'. While Pearson's archetypes are useful for a deep analysis of our characters and ourselves, Vogler's are probably more useful for understanding the dynamics of story. He lists the archetypes that are most frequently found in stories: Hero, Mentor, Threshold Guardian, Herald, Shapeshifter, Shadow/Villain, Ally and Trickster. Of these archetypes it is probably the hero that we are most familiar with. Drawing on Jung's idea of a true or essential Self, Vogler suggested that 'the Hero archetype represents the ego's search for identity and wholeness. In the process of becoming complete, integrated human beings, we are all Heroes facing internal guardians, monsters and helpers. . . All the villains, tricksters, lovers, friends and foes of the Hero can be found inside ourselves. The psychological task we all face is to integrate these separate parts into one complete, balanced entity.'

In order to illustrate how it is possible to explore archetypes through our characters, I'll use a few abbreviated examples from my recent novel, Flight, which contains complex archetypal characters with clear character arcs, while drawing heavily on myth and fairytale. For those who haven't yet read it the information on archetypes should be useful anyway. Also, the geographical restrictions on Flight will be lifted soon, so readers outside of Australia and New Zealand will be able to access it. 

The Mentor is a guide or teacher and a giver of gifts, sometimes of this world, sometimes not. Vogler writes that 'mentor figures stand for the hero's highest aspirations . . . In the anatomy of the human psyche, Mentors represent the Self, the God within us, the aspect of personality that is connected with all things.' Fern has a number of Mentors who give her guidance and sometimes tools she can use to protect herself and to learn more. Ultimately though, in her journey of remembering, Fern becomes her own mentor, re-integrating that aspect of herself, so that in the end, she knows intuitively how to defeat her father.

According to Vogler, 'Herald characters issue challenges and announce the coming of significant change'. In Flight, there are a number of characters who at various times act as Heralds, delivering the Call to Adventure, while in a sense another Herald is simply the impossible situation Fern finds herself in, stuck in an attic while her house mates move out. In the end though, it is Shamesh who is the most important Herald, bridging both the physical and metaphysical worlds and compelling the reluctant Fern to begin her journey.

Threshold Guardians are like the demonic figures found around the doors of cathedrals that act as obstacles for those unworthy to enter. According to Vogler, their function is to test the heroes preparedness for the journey. There are a number of thresholds guardians in Flight who attempt to stop Fern from continuing her journey, but the most effective Threshold Guardian is Fern herself. It is her own fear, depression and uncertainty that stops Fern so she find a way of sneaking past, outwitting or overcoming these internal guardians.

An Ally usually travels with the hero. Vogler writes that they 'do mundane tasks but also serve the important function of humanizing the heroes, adding extra dimensions to their personalities, or challenging them to be more open and balanced'. One of the most memorable allies in film is Shrek's irritating but beloved friend, Donkey. In Flight, it is Adam who is Fern's major ally. He travels with her, providing his physical strength, his knowledge of the wilderness, and ultimately his love, which sustains Fern and gives her the strength to face down her father.

Vogler writes that 'Shapeshifters change appearance or mood, and are difficult for the hero and the audience to pin down. They may mislead the hero or keep her guessing, and their loyalty or sincerity is often in question.' There are a number of minor shapeshifters in Flight, including Adam, but it is Fern's father Eric who is the main Shapeshifter, with his frequently changing character and moods. Impossible to pin down, he confuses Fern, who knows he is dangerous yet wants to trust him. Eric's shapeshifting goes beyond his physical manifestation, into the metaphysical world, where Fern is confronted with some of his manifestations in past lives. As the story progresses, Fern discovers that she is also a Shapeshifter, in the sense that she too moves between worlds and like Eric, has many manifestations of the same soul.

According to Jungian psychologists, we deny archetypes at our peril, for if one aspect of ourselves is buried or pushed aside, its power grows, and it becomes a Shadow. Often the journey of a character is to reintegrate or rebalance one or more of the shadow aspects within them. In Flight, it is Eric who is the Shadow, representing what Vogler describes as the 'energy of the dark side, the unexpressed, unrealized, or rejected aspects of something'. Eric represents the masculine, but in its shadow form. He is a successful businessman, immensely powerful but ruthless, arrogant and greedy. In a sense Eric is Fern's shadow self, as is often the case with villains in stories. The Shadow is the monster in the centre of the labyrinth, that which we fear and deny, but it can also represent positive qualities within us that we also deny. Fern has closed her heart to life in order not to be hurt, so lives in a shadow world, frightened and passive, immobile and shut down. She must reclaim her feminine power and access her intuitive self. But she has also rejected the masculine, represented in its more positive form by Adam, and in its shadow form, by her father, Eric. Unconsciously, Fern is seeking the balance that Jung referred to as Mysterium Coniunctionais, the inner marriage of the anima (feminine element of a man) and the animus (masculine element of a woman). In order to find harmony, a balance must be sought, and more often than not this means a confrontation with the shadow self, which is exactly what Fern is faced with in Flight.

While archetypes are useful to apply to our characters they are also easily applied to our own lives. According to Vogler, we are all the Heroes (albeit often reluctantly) of our lives, acting as characters in stories whose plot points we may not even be aware of. As writers, we all recognise the archetypes that help us and hinder us along the way: the Mentors, the Allies, the Villains and of course the Threshold Guardians, in the form of publishers, agents, a lack of time perhaps, fear of failure, or simply the certain knowledge that we're in for a long haul with no certainty of success. Recognising these archetypes within ourselves helps us to use them well, to trick them when necessary and ultimately to overcome our limitations as writers.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/