Discover your own myth or as Rumi put it, unfold your own myth. Myth is the landscape of the soul; it is our human striving to make sense of ourselves and the wondrous and mysterious world in which we live. Myth is integral to every religion known to us; they are the stories who tell us whose we are and where we belong in the world.
So, it’s helpful from time to time to re-examine the myths we live by, to dig deeper to understand how both the myths of religion and spirituality, as well as, our own personal myths and stories have formed and continue to form us. In this work it’s essential to look at the myths we live by with compassionate observation.
What stories have served us well? What stories have imprinted upon our psyches that are now no longer serving us? Another way to ask this question is, what myths and stories keep us isolated and outside of life-giving intimacy and community? Conversely, it’s important to ask, what are the myths and stories that help us to live life abundantly?
To help with your journey as you work with these questions, I’d like to share with you Rumi’s, the great Sufi mystic of Islam, own thoughts on unfolding or discovering your own myth. The poem is from the widely loved translation by Coleman Barks.
Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?
Who finds us here circling, bewildered, like atoms?
Who comes to a spring thirsty
and sees the moon reflected in it?
Who, like Jacob, blind with grief and age,
smells the shirt of his son and can see again?
Who lets a bucket down
and brings up a flowing prophet?
Or like Moses goes for fire
and finds what burns inside the sunrise?
Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies,
and opens a door to the other world.
Solomon cuts open a fish, and there’s a gold ring.
Omar storms in to kill the prophet
and leaves with blessings.
Chase a deer and end up everywhere!
An oyster opens his mouth to swallow one drop.
Now there’s a pearl.
A vagrant wanders empty ruins
Suddenly he’s wealthy.
But don’t be satisfied with stories,
how things have gone with others.
Unfold your own myth,
without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand the passage,
We have opened you. . . .
Your Vegan Adventurer!
