Browsing the archives for the All Myth Posts category
My mother sent me a link to a fascinating Scientific American article about zoologist Emily Baird’s research on dung beetles. Egyptologists give these poo-pushing champions the more dignified name of “scarab,” after an ancient Greek word for beetle. Dr. Baird’s specialty is insect vision, flight and navigation (see her profile at Lund University). She wrote her thesis [...]
A Time magazine article this week notes that traditional ink-and-paper paper books are seeing a surprising spike in sales this year, as they did last year, despite the meteoric rise in popularity of ebook readers. The article flails for causes: “The holiday spike may reflect this year’s partial lifting of economic gloominess.” If that’s true, why was there one [...]
I love both the old Celtic holiday of Samhain and the modern secular holiday of Hallowe’en, despite the over-commercialization of the latter. They are two different holidays. For me, they are both magical. Personally, I celebrate Samhain by honoring my ancestors: I light a candle and spend some time remembering my Nana, my other relatives, [...]
You’ve heard of King Midas of the “Golden Touch,” monarch of ancient Phrygia (See theoi.com’s Midas entry for classical Greek and Roman sources.) Probably you’ve heard Nathaniel Hawthorne’s version, which makes Midas into a moralistic fable about gold-greed and appreciating the simple things in life. Hawthorne supplies King Midas with a daughter to drive the [...]
I maintain a microsite on volcanoes, and of course, I’ve got a page there devoted to volcano mythology. Thanks to my publisher restructuring how its platform works, I’ve had to rearrange everything. The URL of my volcano mythology article has changed. You will now find it here: Volcano Mythology Take a look if you haven’t [...]
I’ve been following the heartbreak in Japan along with everyone around the world. At such times, people often turn to art to express the unspeakable. One artist, @dosankodebbie on Twitter, has created a few collages of namazu, the mythical catfish that stirs in the mud and shakes their island chain. Recommended Link: “The Catfish Stirred“ by [...]
Words have power, and many creation myths begin with god speaking or singing the universe into being. The New Testament speaks of Logos, the word. Kosmos, the universe, which also means “that which is ordered, structured,” arises from logos, the word. This is older than Christianity, of course: Greek philosophers spent a lot of time [...]
The Shoe Tree is dead. Long live the Shoe Tree. I learned about Nevada’s Shoe Tree on the “Loneliest Road in the World” from a touching article in the Los Angeles Times. In December 2010, this modern-day sacred tree was cut down by vandals with a chainsaw, after serving as a curious and cryptic symbol in [...]
Set your calendars, Egypt. No, not for 2/11/2011. (Congratulations and good luck!) I’m talking about August 2nd, when a very old Egyptian goddess is set to rise. Like most agrarian societies, the Egyptians watched the skies closely. They needed some sort of calendar to tell them when to plant and plan their harvests. The regular [...]