Journal Issue 12: Letter from the Executive Director

Myth shapes not only our sense of self, but provides deep rooted directionality in how we live our days. It answers the questions in the deep currents without us asking. It shapes our assumptions that may be heretical to challenge or become aware of, such as: we are rational actors, we should trust in expertise, intellectuals are superior, nature is guide, it’s one’s duty to be globally aware, ownership is core to happiness, heaven and hell exist in the supernatural, capital ‘G’ God rules the cosmos, and on and on. Myth is ancient, ordinary, and potently mundane.

Myth is a provocateur for questioning how change is created. There is a tendency in the world I run in to be infatuated with the future. I find myself constantly asking myself, how do we transform the system? How do we scale, replicate, grow and push against more powerful forces? How do we create something new? Working to answer these questions tends to busy itself with email, whiteboards, strategic plans, team retreats, pitching, selling, and entrepreneurial exhaustion. I find there is often a huge detachment that comes with this sort of work, a detachment from myth. Where are the roots of inquiry and creation? I’ve been wondering lately if the chords of change are much less digital. What does it feel like to braid sweetgrass and willows instead of typing on a keyboard pounding out emails? What does it feel like to call this a day well-lived?

At some level, our work might simply boil down to heeding the call toward a new and ancient story. I’m realizing that ‘the call’ is not coming from some far off distant future, but rather the call is coming from behind us, compelling us forward with the wisdom of the past, asking us, what wants to be born? What story wants to be told? 

This is my myth. What’s yours?