It certainly seems that world as we know it is twisting and turning, pulsating with instability. In this landscape, where do we find ourselves? How do we make sense of the cumulating global distress? How can we protect our precious compassion, how do we hold onto mutual care?
By way of answering these often unanswerable-seeming questions, let me offer a myth.
Mythology is where the essential truths and landscapes of feeling are woven into symbol, story and heart. It is here that I believe all of us human beings need to wander now, especially in this global moment. It is here that we can find foundation stones to catch our breath upon, a roof to shelter under, a window to find perspective through. They are not places of cerebral sense-making: they are places of wise, embodied reminding.
This myth-work is a central tenet of drama therapy. We know the potency of myth, and its power to simultaneously contain and expand.
With this, I make an offering - one of the ancient Chinese creation myths. As it finds its way to you in 2025, may you find within it the song, the scent that you are most needing right now.
The Myth of Pan Gu
In the beginning there was eddying, churning chaos. In the middle of the chaos there was an egg, and in the middle of the egg, there was Pan Gu: a powerful giant.
In this egg, Pan Gu was growing. He grew slowly at first, but then with increasing intensity as the shell of his egg became tighter around his body. Pan Gu’s growth did not temper, and so with time he became increasingly restricted – his breath shallow, his muscles tight, his mind trapped. Just when he thought he could take it no more, the egg cracked, clean across the middle. Pan Gu used all his giant-strength to push the upper shell up, and the lower shell down. Extending his full length, pushing up and down with all his might. Never again would he be trapped. Never again would he have no space to breathe.
And the upper shell became the sky, and the lower shell became the earth. Pan Gu stood, exalting in the expansion, exhaling in the vastness of the creating universe.
Then, when the time was right, Pan Gu died. His great body fell. His eyes became the sun and the moon. His blood became the rivers, and his tears became the oceans. His breath became the winds, and his bones became the forests.
In his death Pan Gu was life; and in this life, there was his death.
Here rests our story.
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