Tag: mythology

Prompt: Myths in New Places

Jaclyn31 Comments

“Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth–penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words… Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told.” ” – Joseph Campbell

It never fails when I need something to write about to read folklore or mythology.  It’s like instant inspiration for me.  So many of the stories are so rich and yet so bare.  They feel like playgrounds to me.  They beg to be told from different perspectives.  They seem to yearn to have details filled in.  They taunt me with the questions, ‘But what happened after that?’

But this prompt is not about retelling.  This is an exercise in setting.  I will admit that I often do not give the setting of a story enough thought.  Setting changes everything.

Pick a random myth or folktale from the (amazing!) collection at the University of Pittsburgh’s website here.  Some fun things I’ve tried: tales starting with the same letter as my name, a character’s name —   you get the point.  Then spin a globe and pick a random place to set your story.  Or, better yet, use the antipodes map to set your story on the exact opposite side of the globe.  Set the story in modern day to change the setting even more.

I would be super interested in seeing what other people come up with, so if you do this, please share!

 

Creative Commons love to Tina Bell Vance, from flickr for the photo.  Please check out her work.  It is amazing!

Eleuthera (the Bahamas. Winter 2012.)

JaclynLeave a comment

I was born as lightning struck the Atlantic, during an unseasonable January thunderstorm.  The whole thing had groupers and houndfish cocking their heads to the side in unfamiliar motions.  The ocean was sky blue and clear, but the sky was choppy with swells.     Raindrops fell from the sea into the clouds.   The Sargasso Sea paused its churning, leaving seaweed suspended without shores.    Eel larvae hatched all at once and bathed in the stillness as turtle hatchlings poked their heads above the waves to watch.  The sea sang siren songs to Ayacayia, who delivered me to my mermother.  The bottle-nosed friends of my father gathered round to congratulate and speed along the loggerhead who bore me to the shore.

I landed on the islands among sea biscuits and beach glass.  My sargassum hair held mermaids’ purses and unborn sharks.  My skin sparkled with the pink sand that held centuries of periwinkle dust.   Queen conchs and horse conchs alike exploded with the pink noise of the oceans they held, sending coral-colored stars into the sky.  As the dawn came, yellow hibiscus opened gently, turning orange and deepening into red before falling into the ocean, in a microcosmic mimicry of the sun.   Inland, you could hear potcakes howling at the strangeness of the winterstorm and roosters who could no longer tell the time of day. Hermit crabs came together to perform a junkanoo, which raised me from my sleep.  I had always been able to swim, but it was time to begin to leave footprints in the sand.

Apsara (Thailand. Summer 2010.)

Jaclyn5 Comments

Hidden beneath an alluvial sunset

and longtail-tossed waves,

she gives herself to the Mother Water,

sinking into riverweed and muck.

Bejeweled with leeches and crabs,

her hair is tangled with water

hyacinth roots and as their leaves

become sails, pulled by the wind, so she too goes.

Rice barges swollen with freight

pass overhead;

the riverbed darkens and glows,

darkens and glows.

Her lotus-leaf eyes emanate green dew

as her fingers flit up and back

telling the story of fountains and gusts

through the silted sweet-water.

The rocking hulls of boats above

tap out the rhythm of the Grand Duke’s dance.

Openbill storks sing along as the dusky light

begins to fill with vapor and lightning.

As the percussion quickens,

so does her nymphish undulation.

Her hand runs over a freshwater ray,

lightening its warrior’s load.

The River of Kings is stirring

and the air becomes thick.

The lines between waves

and falling droplets blur.

She spins her epic daily dance,

mesmerizing gods and algae alike.

Her shimmies scatter wriggling bubbles

eroding the cares of  heroes and prawn.

The downpour erupts

into an orchestra,

whistling through frangipanis

and strumming succulent vines.

She careens with water monitors

as her bracelets chime and her silky skirts rise.

She fingers orchids floating

on the co-centric ripples of the Chao Praya.

Mangosteens drop

and dragon fruit roar.

The cacophony of the monsoon

coaxes pregnant trees to bear their fruit.

Banana flowers quake in the wind

and watch as her forehead crests.

The freshet pulls her upward

and her eyes meet with mangoes.

Veils rise into wings.

Air and water merge.

She is the estuary below.

She is the storm above.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/7147684@N03/ for the photo!