Homo Storialus
December 26, 2004 by Bill
Biologists may classify us as Homo sapiens, “the Wise One”, but I would call us Homo storialus, the animal who tells stories. We tell them through folklore…legend and myth. We then act them out in rituals. It is safe to say that stories plus ritual equal religion. Stories are the threads by which we weave the tapestry of our culture, our religions and traditions.
The literalistic skeptic says: “I don’t want legends. I want facts.” He does not understand the statement by D.H. Lawrence that there are two kinds of truth, a truth of truth…and a truth of facts. A truth of facts has to do with dates, names and places and so forth. But a truth of truth is revealed through legend, myth, folklore and fairytales and has to do with the inner world of the imagination and emotions. They reveal the inner shape and contour of our minds, our longings and needs…our spirits.
We are now entering a lovely period of folklore..legend..fantasy and mythology.
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The Christ myth and solstice
December 19, 2004 by Bill
We are buried this time of year in mythology, legend and folklore. How many hundreds of times have we been told that Christmas celebrates the origin of Christianity? This of course is false. Christmas was around for eons before Jesus was ever born.
For thousands of years the Winter Solstice (Dec. 22-25) has been the most special time of the year and the most important date in human celebration. The sun has started its long journey home bringing Springtime.
Celebrating this event in this month of Solstice I am part of the line of descent that has been uninterrupted almost from the birth of humankind. There has been no time when someone, somewhere, was not celebrating this date.
Long before the mythological birth date of Jesus in the solstice period, our bloodstream ran in the veins of sun gods and sun worshippers…Greeks and Romans…Barbarians in the Germanic forests…Northern worshippers of Thor..and Egyptians…Jews..Gauls…Persians and Indians. No wonder that human beings have celebrated the date of the Winter Solstice for thousands of years considering that our very survival depends upon the return of the sun.
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The war prayer
December 12, 2004 by Bill
Let me say, right here, in the opening line of this column, that before you write any knee jerk letters about my “lack of patriotism”, please do remember that I was a U.S. Marine Corps pilot for twelve years, flying in both World War Two and Korea, and personally decorated by the Commandant of the Marine Corps.
The United States today is on a “God Bless America” binge, (drunk). Bumper stickers by the millions are offering this prayer for the car behind them. Flags are sticking out of car windows, on billboards, stuck on business fronts, everywhere. Politicians and entertainers can hardly make a statement without ending it with “God bless you”, or “God bless America”. The massive hypocrisy of this obscene display makes you want to throw up.
At the National Cathedral in Washington, America’s clown of Christianity, Billy Graham told the audience that all the murder victims of September 11 were now in “paradise” and “happy to be there”… This same stupidity was said of the pilots of the planes by bin Laden. Billy Graham’s son, Franklin, equally illiterate, said at a press conference that “the Christian God is a “good” God…but the Islamic God is an “evil” God”.
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