| Jung made a detailed study of Chinese,
Amerindian, Greek, Roman and Indian gods and goddesses, demons
and divinities, animisms, totems, ancient symbols and mythological
motifs. He was a busy man, Jung. These primitive mythological
images appeared in similar forms in the dreams and the fantasies
of civilised modern Europeans, who were not consciously aware
of such knowledge and had not acquired it during their lifetime.
For many Indians, day-to-day life is inextricably entwined with
the notion of destiny, represented by aide memoires of figures
and statues painted in bright colours. Mythological symbolism
may, like inherited innate structures, be archetypes common
to all people.
I had finished my sandwich. In the
distance the sky was sharp and blue. In tales of journeys
of all kinds, 'once upon a time' should read 'once beyond
time', for it is there that the journey really happens. A
wild rage pulses in me as a reminder of how easily I could
be imprisoned by the sort of life that would force me to smash
and bite. Mythology remembers the innocence of the first state:
the perfect virtue of the Taoists, Adam in the garden: that
a characteristic of men in the Golden Age was always to be
migratory. And what do they see, these travellers along the
highways? Apocalypses and earthquakes? Most people co-exist
peaceably and accept their lot, but this is not newsworthy.
So travellers become gatherers of controversial information.
This has always been so. Marco Polo was an emissary for the
Kublai Khan. Columbus was for the king of Spain. So strong
is the migratory impulse that a mother bird will abandon her
fledglings rather than miss the appointment for her long journey
south. Kierkegaard said 'There is no thought so burdensome
that it cannot be walked away from.'
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