Book Review: A Mythic Life by Jean Houston

Title: A Mythic Life, Learning to Live Our Greater Story

Author: Jean Houston

Genre: Autobiography

Copyright Date: 1996

Publisher: HarperCollins

A Mythic Life is the memoir of Jean Houston. Houston is a world leader in personal and social transformation. She anachronistically weaves the reader through her dreams, her conversations, her childhood, and her adulthood. With each thread of her weaving, she describes events in her life and how each event or fractal led to her path as a spiritual teacher. Her memoir draws parallels to how people have important past events that help them blossom and fulfill their present lives.

Houston’s childhood involved moving often, some years several times in one school year. The moving taught her to observe, adapt, and join groups. Perhaps it was this constant out-siderness that allowed her to pause, even as a child, to see how people interact with each other and to learn how to employ optimal ways for people to work together. She shares her revelations that directed her to help people and communities deepen their creativity and their potential.

It’s been Houston’s pursuit to engage people and communities to exercise their full potential by spiritually reaching inwardly and outwardly. The text is full of wisdom nuggets like:

“Wounding often involves a painful excursion into pathos, we experience massive anguish, and the suffering cracks the boundaries of what we thought we could stand. And yet, time and again, I discover that the wounding pathos of our local stories contains the seeds of healing and even of transformation.”

and

“On her deathbed, Margaret [Mead] suggested to me that the answers lie not with economic or political initiatives but with a deepened citizenry. We can transform the world only by transforming ourselves, for what threatens our survival is not weaponry or technology but the people who use them.”

Her memoir requires an acceptance that life is experienced through many types of lenses and a bit of faith in the un-seeable. It’s helpful to remember that Houston is a mystic. She believes in the energies and the essence that lie within people and that tie people to their ancestors.

I could have done without the second to the last chapter. She uses that chapter to break from the style of writing she used in the majority of the book to meld her love of cooking with her philosophy on improving the human condition. The chapter lacked the pace and fluidity of the previous chapters. It’s my only complaint in an otherwise interesting read.

Her writing led me to further books, including her friend Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. His book was on my shortlist to read because it’s a must-read text for writers; yet from Houston’s point of view and the conversations she shares that she had with Campbell, his famous text has a spiritual edge. In Houston’s opinion, Campbell’s book reveals the archetypes of spirits present in a multitude of myths and stories. JosephCampbell was one of many of Houston’s more famous friends. Her social circle also included anthropologist Margaret Mead and politician Hilary Clinton.

For a leader that I was unaware existed until crafting my 2013reading project, I’m grateful that I stumbled upon her memoir. Houston is now in her mid-seventies and continues to be an active influence. I’ve tracked down several interviews with her and, in each, her fiery passion spews forth when she speaks as it does when she writes.

A Mythic Life is not a summer vacation read. Choose a time to read it when you have time to contemplate her message and her life. For an immensely creative woman, her memoir’s cover is dull (dark tan with white writing); luckily the content is not.

And as for fitting into my goal to learn about American History through the views of leading American women, A Mythic Life was not the best choice. I learned a lot about unlocking human potential, but hardly anything about America’s past. A faux pas worth repeating. I’m currently reading her book The Possible Human and have a copy of a Manual for the Peacemaker on the nightstand.

Book Review: A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong

In my quest to know why fairies have pointed ears and other mythical trivia, I grabbed a copy of A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong. I had found the title using Amazon's book suggestion feature. The first sentence of the book “Human beings have always been mythmakers.” fell in line with my assumption that the book would be about fairies and warlocks, griffins and werewolves. One sentence later, revealed an error in Amazon's “if you like X-book, then you'll like Y-book.” An error I'm glad Amazon made.

The brief book spans from 20,000 years ago, think Neanderthals and cavemen, to current day, think humans walking upright one hand clutching a cell phone. In 148 pages, Armstrong describes the myths or religions of the peoples of five historical eras. In the succinct text, I discovered the gaps in my Christian education.

Armstrong was once a nun; a fact that I was surprised to learn. She presents religious history in an objective, philosophical manner. No evangelism to be found. She describes the relationship that humans have had with gods and goddesses during historical eras and what those relationships have meant for society.

Until the last chapter, I thought that Armstrong dismissed myth or religion as psychological fault. Then, she changed course. In the final chapter titled the Great Western Transformation, she lays out a case for how logic has dampened mankind's intuitiveness and social fabric. Mankind she warns has leveraged rationality to our detriment. Extreme rationalization coupled with rejection of morality myths has created a vacancy that allows villainous “heroes” to emerge with their own faux-logical myths. The morality myths that society once held dear provided an ideal model of behavior and ethics for mankind to strive for. Without the ideal characters to emulate, malignant leaders have used logic and rationalization to stoke inhumane fires within societies with tragic consequences. The malignant leaders, like Hitler, incite hatred, cruelty, and mass-killings.

Armstrong advocates that society preserve religion and myths in order to preserve humanity. She argues that without morality myths people become alien to each other. Myth gives society hope and, even more importantly, a sacred or more moral model to follow. In expecting ourselves to be as good as the hero in a myth, mankind steps up to the challenge and makes civilization civilized.

While the book didn't teach me the origins of the full moon's affect on werewolves, it did show me the power of imagination. My mother-in-law often quotes the aphorism “we are what we think.” In respects to The History of Myth, we can either choose to think of ourselves as aspiring Buddhas, Jesuses, Sun gods, or tyrants. The choice is within us.