Origin Story

I started this blog to capture and share ideas, mainly about mythology and its relationship with the human and natural world. It's a topic I've been meditating on and thinking about intensely for several years in succession.

I'm not a scholar, and I don't take a scholarly approach to the topic. I do old school speculative analysis. I stumble on problems and think about them until some coherent idea emerges, and write it up if I feel like it then move on to the next problem. I make no claim that this material is original. Nor are these ideas of mine fixed in stone. In fact, I'm certain my perspective will change as I acquire new information and have new insights.

Also, it should be stated up front that I don't think anyone is an authority on many of the topics I'll cover; the subject matter defies all attempts at canonization. The nature of the thing is radically subjective. It's like a lock than can be opened with any number of keys.

My interest in the subject of mythology and the gods grew out of a more general interest in the history of ideas, or how (or better yet, if) ideas shape society. For many years, I was very interested in attempting to understand how Christianity displaced the pagan religions of European peoples including some great^Nth power grandmother and grandfather of mine. What made those people give up their old beliefs for some new ones? That specific question eventually got me thinking about mythology in more general terms. What is it? How does it work? Who or what are the gods? What's their relationship to man and nature?

I wrestled with those questions for several years without making any apparent progress. At some point, catalyzed by various experiences, investigations, and long meditation some concrete ideas emerged. I'll capture those ideas here and hopefully elaborate on some new ideas as well.

From my point-of-view understanding mythology is the key to many of the problems we face. I am very open to feedback and collaboration on these ideas. The beauty of the Internet is that it's possible to share this very specific, dense, narrow interest with the thousands of other people around the world who are also intrigued by the topic.