While most people embrace modern technology and its miracles, including the near-magical medicines available today, we tend to forget that many potent healing archetypes are hidden in stories handed down to us from the mythical past.
In this new YouTube Interview & podcast episode, the expert Simon Yugler helps cut through the fog of modern worlds and reminds us that mythology can be therapeutic.
Yugler describes mythology as an antidote for a fast-moving culture that spawns an increasing number of helpless and disconnected people. He uses the term ‘Bulletproof Commuter Psychosis’ to explain his perspective on contemporary culture.
Yugler’s wide-ranging life experience – from academic training in in-depth counseling psychology to immersion in the wisdom of Indigenous cultures – coupled with his unique voice, expertly guides the listener through mythopoetics — the process of interpreting meaning from myth.
This episode is for you if you’re interested in how old stories engage us in non-obvious and unconscious ways.
The hosts, Angel Deer and Yugler, explore why old (myth) stories still speak to us and how they can proactively reflect our deepest fears and desires, illuminating our place in our lives and the world.
The discussion explores how myth intersects with shamanism and contemporary healing and how these ritualized, and narrative forms of healing enable us to feel reconnected with the land, recognize the deep interdependency of all life, and reassume responsibility for our place within the greater web of existence.
Myth is fundamentally intertwined with ecology and is a powerful way to convey our relationship with the more-than-human world. It teaches respect, reverence, and a responsibility to care for the land, which is one of the benefits of this healing work. Modern life generally alienates us from nature; myth restores a connection with the world and the spiritual realms.
He invites his listeners into the mythopoetics movement – ‘to listen to stories as a healing and cultural repair mechanism’ – and begins the show by sharing mythic archetypes that have informed or influenced his life.
Here are some of the topics explored:
* Why myths? What do ancient stories have to do with our modern era?
* What does mythology have to teach us about shamanism and altered states of consciousness?
* How can mythology inform modern psychedelic and shamanic healing?
* How can myths connect us back to the land?
* What are mythopoetics, and why does it matter?
* Who are some of your favorite characters or archetypes in mythology?
* What stories, and whose stories, do we most need to hear today?
Throughout the episode, he invites listeners to determine their archetypes and shared resonances, some of which are listed in the show notes: individuals in touch with ritualistic emotions can find healing through their grief; a mythic perspective emphasizes the necessity for flexible definitions of self and purpose; and our shared stories that we live by, known and unknown, become points of connection that inspire paradigm shifts.
This podcast is a call to action, but it is more than that. It’s a reminder that the medicine of myth – the resuscitating power of ancestral wisdom weaved into the fabric of our daily lives – is still waiting to be reclaimed.
For anyone who wants to know how to find a deeper connection to themselves and to their own vitality, anyone who longs to find a bridge between the ancient and the older ways of healing and the newer modalities, anyone who is looking for some intrepid guideposts along the path of becoming, Myth as Medicine will be an enchanting, often profound listening experience.
Tune in and hear how the mythic territories Yugler and Deer will traverse can help you re-enter the lost aspects of your life that have been hiding under the surface all along.
WATCH THE INTERVIEW HERE
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE (Click on the image)
