The Other Within

Description

• Shows how myths contain medicine to restore wholeness amidst trauma, exile, sudden life change, disability, illness, death, or grief
• Synthesizes lessons from shamanic practice, quantum physics, alchemy, soul poetry, wildness, social justice, and the author’s lived experience
• Discloses the blessings of outsiderhood and the gifts and insights gained and contributed to culture by those who are marginalized and outcast
There is an “other” that lives within each of us, an exiled part that carries wisdom so desperately needed for ourselves and the culture at large. Having survived disabling polio as an infant, Daniel Deardorff knows well the oppressions of exclusion, outsiderhood, and the betrayals endured by all who are “othered.” He guides readers on an initiatory journey through ancient myths, wisdom literature, and personal revelation to discover our own true identity.
These 10,000-year-old stories contain sacred medicine with insights that release imagination and restore wholeness amidst trauma, exile, climate chaos, disability, illness, death, and grief. Illustrating how archetypal figures of the Other–the Trickster, Daimon, Not-I, etc.–hold paradox, Deardorff teaches us to reframe disparities of self/other, civilization/wilderness, form/deformity and transform the experience of being outcast. Synthesizing lessons from shamanic practice, quantum physics, alchemy, soul poetry, wildness, social justice, and his own lived experience, Deardorff affirms the disruptive, transgressive, innovative forces that break through dogma, conventionality, and prejudice. He discloses the blessings of outsiderhood and gifts gained and contributed to culture by those who are marginalized. Through myth-making (mythopoeisis), the experience of Otherness–cultural, racial, religious, sexual, physiognomic–becomes one of empowerment, a catalyst for human liberation.
Severance between nature and culture, wild and “civilized,” self and other has brought us to the brink of extinction. Deardorff gives us ancient stories known to originate in the great storehouse of the Earth to help us address climate catastrophe and restore our relationships with each other and the Living World. Daniel Deardorff (1952-2019) was a mythsinger, storyteller, ritualist, composer, and producer. A polio survivor and early teacher about Otherness, he toured extensively with renowned soft-rock band Seals and Crofts for ten years and produced award-winning albums for other artists. When post-polio sequelae required change, he became an independent scholar of myth teaching internationally with Robert Bly and others. Mythsingerlegacy.org continues his work restoring myth to culture and community.

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