I watched the Joseph Campbell interview again this weekend,
Managed so well by Bill Moyers
So many years ago now.

He said that - true even in the late 1980s -
Americans had lost their sense of myth.
Everything was so, well

Literal.


Fundamental.


Absolute.

There was no room any longer for metaphors in our dialogue
Pure spiritual implications targeted by our realities
And not just those of the religion du jour, I might add
But transcendent realities

Those that are greater than what we imagine on Sunday mornings
When cracking open some ancient collection of writings
Or when listening to some oddly-dressed icon-in-flesh opine
Of what should be greater than all those cars parked outside there.

I find mythology comforting as I continue to cross thresholds of time here
And wonder how much is still out there, undiscovered
Waiting to offer something even more profound, that will hopefully
Drive my soul deeper into some heretofore unearthed understanding

And, I might hasten to add
Solace.

All I have for now is the celluloid version
That humors me, makes me laugh
But, more importantly
Makes me wonder

Recently, another Nell figure emerged in our society this past week.
Standing for something that we all believed
Was settled so many years ago
While we were all in school

But, no
Here comes the same arguments again
By those who I thought had already learned their lessons
From our grandfathers

And, there again, emerged
Snidely Whiplash
Tying poor Nell to the railroad tracks
Of public opinion

"How dare you!", he proclaims
"Ask for protection from this society!"
For seeking those things that are so, well
Intimate

That one should even hope that we would all
Deign to protect anyone
Anything

Here, let me finish fastening
Your wrists and ankles

And let's wait for the oncoming train.

But, no, suddenly from yonder hills
The galloping horse carrying the backwards rider
He of Mounted Police fame
Here to make all things right, and save

Poor defenseless Nell.

I thought of all these things as I watched the news.
The protagonist, indeed
The put-upon heroine, standing for something
In the face of such rabid mysogyny

And, of course, the rescue

Not so much this time by some handsome
Officer of the law
Here to save the day
And the damsel in distress,

No

This time, I believe
We all stood in for dear Mr. Do-Right
And untied the knots on our fair maiden
Before the locomotive arrived

To show the world that we knew

What was indeed right.

But, what concerns me even more today is
Do we still know how these stories emerge?
That these accounts are as old as the hills
Older even than the cartoons of yore

Farther afield than even this myth-less culture
Of angry men, of courageous women
Of thinning herds of one race
And thickening herds of others

Change our landscape.

Are we not all Lakota these days
Staring out at our own fields of buffalo, wondering
If this year will be the last
And the hunt will soon end?

We will all soon have to return to the Agency.
To act like the others
Dress in kind
Use those same silly words

Let the stories and the myths be forgotten
The medicine lodges and funeral mounds
The great Spirits who used to talk so frequently
Now as silent as the Plains.

All, in these strange days indeed
What is left on this cartoon screen
Is the re-enactment of an age-old story
That we all believe is the first run

Here in this country
That has forgotten itself, because
All the more importantly
It has forgotten

From whence it came.