For the most part, therapy is a matter of telling stories and listening to stories. A therapist needs an acute ear because she has to hear the stories within and behind the stories told and reach so far in her hearing as to grasp the mythic tale, the one that only whispers in the background and yet expresses the essence of the story. Myth describes the basic human experience, the archetypal level, that undergirds the story of events in time. The client tells the stories of her life, but the therapist listens for the rumble of myth deep within the simple stories of life. Adventures of the soul are bigger in scope than the vignettes of ordinary days. They are captured in myths, fairy tales, and legends, not in personal stories, unless you probe these deeply enough to glimpse the myth. So I always look for the greater story within the simple, literal details of daily life. I listen beneath the surface for the great and ancient tale, the story of the soul. To do this kind of listening, it helps to know mythologies and fairy tales and folk stories. If I were establishing my own school of psychotherapy, I’d include classes on mythology and folk tales, the stories of the spiritual traditions, and even novels and short stories, all of which educate the imagination so that a therapist is ready to hear the deep rumblings of primal narratives within the telling of a personal experience. A therapist should be an expert in stories, one who not only listens well but also helps clients tell their stories vividly and meaningfully.

13. HOW INVOLVED SHOULD YOU BE?

“Once again let me evoke Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexuality, sensuality, the beauty of nature, and especially the sea, gardens, and coupling. The spirit this mythological goddess embodies is fully present today in all these areas. You can certainly sense the special atmosphere when you step into a lush summer garden or find yourself in the presence of an extremely attractive person. That atmosphere, experienced both inner and outer, is what the Greeks tried to capture in their stories, rituals, and images of Aphrodite, and we can still feel her presence, even if typically we don’t use her name or engage in her formal rituals. One of the great problems of our time is neglect of this particular goddess. Interestingly, the Greeks often warned that if you neglect any deity, but especially this one, she will seek her revenge and set things right. The way Aphrodite responds to neglect is to cause intense and often problematic desire for love and romance.

“You have developed a skill for immediately going deeper and hearing the metaphors. Where others may see facts, you see images, a bigger story and figures that are not personal and human. You feel the presence of the spirits and deities described in spiritual literature. They are not just symbols, nor do they represent parts of the self. They have their own reality in an imaginal realm, not a literal one. You are in tune with that realm. You can live in the dreamworld even in daytime.

Life is a continuous cycle of births. Imagine yourself as made up of three parts. One part arrives at birth and never changes, the eternal self. At that level, you are eternal, and throughout your life you recognize that unchanging self in the midst of developments, a quintessential star ever shining in the deep interior of the soul. A second level is so completely defined by events and environment that it changes all the time. This is the self that tries to survive and thrive in the everyday world, the practical self. Yet a third level is the caterpillar-and-butterfly part, the unfolding self. This self is always becoming, always evolving, unless it is blocked, and goes through deep transformations. It is the go-between that links the eternal with the everyday.

The joy of transgressing beautifully, of taking readers to places they wouldn’t willingly go, this joy of seducing or dragging readers in spite of themselves to places deep in them where wonders lurk beside terrors, this delicate art of planting delayed repeat explosions and revelations in the reader’s mind, and doing this while enchanting them — this is one of the most mysterious joys of all. It suggests that, at bottom, and never wanting to admit it, we really want to face the hidden Minotaur within, we want the drains unblocked within, we want the frozen river of our blood and compassion to flow again, we want the pain so that we can be free. It is just that we want this unpleasant job of facing the dead and rotting thoughts, habits, desires, notions, and traditions to be done with our collusion, with our secret consent. And we would much prefer to be enchanted or to laugh or to be taken out of ourselves while the horrors are being faced, while the ghosts are being exorcised. And we hope afterwards that we will be lighter for it all, and that the gods of harmony will again, for a while, reside in us. With great books we are sometimes granted this grace.