Almost Composed

Meditation and curiosity

Myths, legends, and lost tales

August 30, 2016

If you like ancient tales, I highly recommend the Myths and Legends podcast. It’s a funny and occasionally irreverent journey through world mythology taken thirty minutes at a time. Jason Weiser, the host, perfectly captures how absurd these stories can sound to well-adjusted modern ears like yours and mine. On the other hand, I think […]

categories: reflections

The Hero’s Inner Journey

November 14, 2015

This morning I belatedly saw a connection between two ideas I’m interested in: the hero’s journey and attachment theory. The hero’s journey is a fundamental narrative that’s claimed to be at the root of all stories. It was proposed by the mythologist Joseph Campbell in books such as The Hero With a Thousand Faces. The theory goes that […]

categories: essays, journeys, reflections

A strange fork in the road

July 7, 2014

A certain ghost walk guide here in Cornwall finishes his tours with an enigmatic proverb: A person often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it. This is the opening line in Jean de la Fontaine’s fable, The Horoscope. On the one hand it seems paradoxical to say that by departing from your destiny […]