Myth Matters
Catherine Svehla
Welcome to Myth Matters, a thought-provoking exploration of myth in contemporary life and the intersection of myth, creativity, and consciousness. Host Catherine Svehla PhD. shares her knowledge of mythology and depth psychology to find insight and explore possibilities. Member of the Joseph Campbell Foundation MythMakerSM Podcast Network.
Learn more at www.mythicmojo.com and keep the mystery in your life alive.
4 Listeners
All episodes
Best episodes
Seasons
Top 10 Myth Matters Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Myth Matters episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Myth Matters for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Myth Matters episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
03/15/24 • 45 min
“A yogi sees Me in all things and all things within Me.” Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad-Gita is an important Hindu teaching story embedded in the Mahabharata, an astonishing epic poem. Astonishing for its length- 100,000 verses-- and for its beauty. Astonishing for the complexity of the social and spiritual world constructed in the poem and the exploration of the moral dilemmas we face while attempting to live our lives correctly.
In this episode, I take a look at the Bhagavad-Gita with the help of Gabriella Nagy, an embodied yoga instructor and yogic life skill guide.
Gabriella has a deep love for this story and far more understanding of the text. I'm grateful for her guidance through some of the puzzles the Gita presents and hope our conversation aids your reflections.
GABRIELLA NAGY is an embodied yoga instructor and yogic life skill guide who has practiced yoga and mindfulness since high school. She believes that yoga ultimately is the science of inner transformation and the first step is to purify our hearts so that we can see clearly.
Her unique teaching approach which she calls “yoga of awareness” is named to honor the main yoga that Krishna teaches in the Bhagavad Gita.Her classes support spiritual seekers longing to embrace yoga as a life skill and cultivate balance and strength on the mundane level as well as on the subtler realms.
Gabriella lives on the sandy beach of Baja California, Mexico with her multimedia artist husband and their four-legged chihuahua children Merlin and Maya.
You can find Gabriella at: www.yogaofawareness.comInstagram: @yoga.of.awareness
Email Catherine at [email protected]
Post a positive review on apple podcasts!
Learn how you can work with Catherine at https://mythicmojo.com
Buy me a coffee. Thank you!
2 Listeners
11/26/22 • 43 min
“In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to ask questions.” -- Mary Oliver
The Arthurian legend of the knight Perceval and his quest for the grail was written by the French Romantic poet Chrétien de Troyes, who reworked Celtic legends and British history.
The story includes King Arthur, his knights, and a number of unlucky damsels, but the mysterious loathly lady is the key.
Email Catherine at [email protected]
Post a positive review on apple podcasts!
Learn how you can work with Catherine at https://mythicmojo.com
Buy me a coffee. Thank you!
2 Listeners
09/02/22 • 34 min
The hero is a central figure in our myths and stories. The hero can often provide inspiration or comfort. These stories can help us find our courage or feel a bit more powerful.
The image of the hero is also a burden. Hero narratives in the dominate culture have combined with modern myths of the individual and individualism to paint a picture of the solo actor, the person who battles against enemies or the odds alone. The hero we imagine today, feeds the terrible loneliness of our time.
And yet there are alternatives, and these can even be found in stories that have been framed or reshaped as hero narratives. The fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty," also known as "Briar Rose," is one example.
Lots of storytellers and crafters of story, psychologists, and cultural commentators are engaged with our notion of the hero today, but the role of the hero in our stories and in our lives is something that each of us needs to consider.
How does the powerful influence of the hero image and heroic rhetoric affect you? How does it shape your expectations of yourself, of other people, and of life?
Email Catherine at [email protected]
Post a positive review on apple podcasts!
Learn how you can work with Catherine at https://mythicmojo.com
Buy me a coffee. Thank you!
2 Listeners
1 Comment
1
Fee-fi-fo-fum: Outwitting the Ogres in Life
Myth Matters
03/01/24 • 37 min
Last Monday, February 26th was Tell a Fairy Tale Day. I began preparation for this episode with the intention of telling you a fairy tale, perhaps one that was connected to the holiday. This process opened up reflection on the necessity of a well-developed imagination to meet life challenges in a creative and satisfying way, and the role fairy tales play in cultivating this capacity.
In fairy tale language, some of these life challenges could be called "ogres," the people and forces that hoard the gold and will eat you up, take your life, if they can. Ogre is a pretty good metaphor for some of the challenges that we meet. And, of course, an ogre appears in the story in this episode.
Email Catherine at [email protected]
Post a positive review on apple podcasts!
Learn how you can work with Catherine at https://mythicmojo.com
Buy me a coffee. Thank you!
1 Listener
Artemis and Your Place in the Family of Things
Myth Matters
05/30/19 • 38 min
When the moon shone, Artemis was present, and beasts and plants would dance.” Karl Kerenyi
An exploration of Artemis, Greek goddess of the moon, the hunt, and wilderness, and the myth of her fateful encounter with Acteaon, that may help you find your place in the family of things.
A transcript of this episode is available at www.mythicmojo.com. Thanks for listening!
Email Catherine at [email protected]
Post a positive review on apple podcasts!
Learn how you can work with Catherine at https://mythicmojo.com
Buy me a coffee. Thank you!
1 Listener
Fate, free will, and 3 Swords
Myth Matters
04/04/24 • 27 min
Fate and free will, and the longing for purpose and prospect of destiny that hangs somewhere in-between. How do these forces shape our lives? Do we play assigned roles in a cosmic plan or make it all up as we go?
These questions weave through many myths and stories. What answers do we find and how can we live with the questions?
Email Catherine at [email protected]
Post a positive review on apple podcasts!
Learn how you can work with Catherine at https://mythicmojo.com
Buy me a coffee. Thank you!
1 Listener
Heroes, Buddha, and How to Read a Myth
Myth Matters
07/07/20 • 41 min
Cultural and personal transformation begins with conscious evaluation of value systems and the stories that express and perpetuate them. In the West, this includes the idea of the hero, and the mythic pattern of the hero's journey delineated by Joseph Campbell.
A close critique of Western heroes and heroism is long overdue in my opinion, and yet the incredible popularity of this image of the individual and the road to fulfillment signals the need for careful, nuanced reflection. In truth, I am often inspired by the courage, feeling, vision, and stamina of heroes, past and present. At the same time, I'm very frustrated by the hegemony of the heroic perspective, which excludes people and experiences and most importantly, colonizes the imagination.
Campbell didn't create the mythologies that he studied and yet, he did conceive the monomyth of the hero's' journey. I recently returned to "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" and I was struck by Campbell's use of Siddhartha's journey to enlightenment. It's a good story, one that can help you think about the nature of heroism and the change our times demand.
Buddhism and other major philosophical and religious systems appeared during a time called "The Axial Age." This isn't the first time that people have felt the need for a new story, although I don't think the longing has been expressed in these terms before. Something profound is underway. You can feel it. But I wonder how much can change, how human civilization can be retooled, if people don't learn how to read a myth, how to live the symbolic life and see through metaphor...
The nature of Siddhartha's story offers me a way to talk about that too.
I hope that you're doing okay and find something helpful in this podcast.
Email Catherine at [email protected]
Post a positive review on apple podcasts!
Learn how you can work with Catherine at https://mythicmojo.com
Buy me a coffee. Thank you!
The Bacchae: How do you imagine the dark?
Myth Matters
09/23/21 • 42 min
"He is a young god.
Mythologically obscure,
always just arriving
at some new place
to disrupt the status quo,
wearing the start of a smile."
--from Ann Carson' translation "The Bakkhai"
In the northern hemisphere we began our collective descent into winter's darkness, with the fall equinox on Wednesday September 22nd.
This is a good time to meditate on the most famous myth of the god Dionysus, intoxicating god of the night. It's a play written by Euripides in the 5th century BCE called "The Bacchae."
Athenians found the cautionary message of this play subversive. It disturbed their image of Greek reason, democracy, social order, and power. The women don't stay in their place. It ends on a gruesome note.
A few years after the play was performed, Athens fell to Sparta and their empire building was over. Euripides was in self-imposed exile, and perhaps he saw something that his fellow citizens could not...
Email Catherine at [email protected]
Post a positive review on apple podcasts!
Learn how you can work with Catherine at https://mythicmojo.com
Buy me a coffee. Thank you!
07/19/24 • 57 min
How we imagine ourselves is how we'll be.
And where do we receive these images of the human? They're in our myths.
In this episode, I take a look at three images in the myths of the dominant culture that determine how many of us see ourselves and how we live: the sinner, the king of the animal kingdom, and the world destroyer/ parasite.
Are these images useful today? How do we find and live into alternatives?
I'm joined by the insightful Dr. Craig Chalquist (see bio below) in an exploration of these questions. Many thanks to Dr. Chalquist for his rich contribution to the conversation!
Much more could be said on this important topic. I hope you find this a helpful.
Craig Chalquist is academic director of the Consciousness, Psychology, and Transformation program at National University. He holds a PhD in Depth Psychology and another in Psychology and Religion. His most recent nonfiction book is the second edition of Terrapsychological Inquiry. He also writes speculative fiction and is working on a trilogy of novels dealing with how humanity will face events sixty years from today. Visit his website Chalquist.com.
Email Catherine at [email protected]
Post a positive review on apple podcasts!
Learn how you can work with Catherine at https://mythicmojo.com
Buy me a coffee. Thank you!
09/20/24 • 42 min
To what do we owe greater allegiance, our outer life in the material world of human conventions, or our inner life and the requirements of soul? I explore this question through the lens of a fairy tale called "The Nixie in the Mill Pond," collected by the Brothers Grimm.
This is a big topic and a fascinating story with many twists and turns so I'm devoting to episodes to it. This is part 1.
" Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking.."
--Ranier Marie Rilke translated by Robert Bly
Email Catherine at [email protected]
Post a positive review on apple podcasts!
Learn how you can work with Catherine at https://mythicmojo.com
Buy me a coffee. Thank you!
Show more best episodes
Show more best episodes
FAQ
How many episodes does Myth Matters have?
Myth Matters currently has 128 episodes available.
What topics does Myth Matters cover?
The podcast is about Mythology, Myth, Society & Culture, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Storytelling, Podcasts, Philosophy and Jungian.
What is the most popular episode on Myth Matters?
The episode title 'The Bhagavad-Gita and yoga of awareness with Gabriella Nagy' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Myth Matters?
The average episode length on Myth Matters is 35 minutes.
How often are episodes of Myth Matters released?
Episodes of Myth Matters are typically released every 14 days, 4 hours.
When was the first episode of Myth Matters?
The first episode of Myth Matters was released on May 2, 2019.
Show more FAQ
Show more FAQ