January 13, 2024 • 55 mins
Cultural mythologist Dr. Jody Bower offers her wisdom and keen insight into the evolution of the Heroine's Journey and how it is distinct from that of the hero. Dr. Bower is the author of two books:
Jane Eyre's Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroine's Story and
The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties Become Warrior Goddesses
In this episode of the Mythic podcast, we touch on a range of topics such as
• the changing role of love in the hero myth, including Marvel superheroes
• Barbie
• The Color Purple
• Hero-dad Pedro Pascal in The Mandalorian
• the problem with the hero archetype in activism and politics
• the unique process through which non-binary people individuate
Toward the end of the interview, Jody shares about her near-death experience and other mysteries of life.
Enjoy!
Key Moments
- 02:08 - Jody's origin story
- 07:53 - Love, heroes, and villains in Marvel movies. From I to we.
- 14:24 - Barbie's individuation
- 19:00 - Heroic thinking and social activism. Myths of The Fall and Progress.
- 30:18 - The Heroine's Journey
- 38:57 - Non-binary individuation
- 41:46 - 5 Questions
Relevant Links
- The Virgin's Promise | Book by Kim Hudson
- Maureen Murdock | Author of The Heroine's Journey: Woman's Quest for Wholeness
- Christine Downing - Wikipedia
- Jody Bower's Website
- Amazon.com: Jody Gentian Bower: books, biography, latest update
Music composed by Kevin MacLeod
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Boston (00:26):
Welcome.
And thanks for listening.
My guest today is Dr.
Jody Bower.
Dr.
Bower is a cultural mythologist and theauthor of Jane Eyre's Sisters: How Women
Live and Write the Heroine's Story.
And The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties (00:39):
undefined
Become a Warrior goddesses.
She and I met at Mythologium Conferencein 2023, where she was presenting.
Her insights into archetypal themesand superhero movies blew my mind.
And I was so stoked whenshe agreed to be a guest.
In this episode, Jody and I discussheroes and heroines in movies and
(01:03):
look at how the Hero's Journey isdistinct from that of the Heroine.
We touch on Barbie, Marvelmovies and The Color Purple.
And a note.
When I was editing this episode,I realized we'd made references to
other mythologist Christine Downing,Maureen Murdock, and Kim Hudson
without really offering any context.
(01:23):
Rather than disrupt the flow withclunky editing and editorializing, I've
just added links to the show notes.
So you can learn more about them there.
So now.
Here we go, Dr.
Jody Bower.
Will you share your mythic origin story?
Jody Bower (01:46):
I was very fortunate I think in a way.
I was not raised in a religion, butI was raised by parents who were very
curious and they had moved out to theSeattle area from Boston and one of
the things they were curious aboutwere the local Native traditions.
So we would spend weekends goingout to reservations and going to
(02:08):
the dances, learning about the art.
We had a book of kind of native originstories and We camped as our family
vacations and we would bring this bookwith us and read about, okay, this
mountain, to the natives is calledWye East and this is how it became.
So I grew up with this and I also grewup very curious about my friends and
(02:31):
what they did on Saturday or Sunday.
So I used to go with them.
I used to go to church andI used to go to synagogue.
I had a fascination with originstories with people's ideas of how
things came to be without any bias
as to which was the right one.
It also became really clear to me going tochurch or synagogue with all my friends.
(02:53):
that belief is people believe,and I accepted that they believe
even when I didn't believe it.
but I had an understanding from anearly age that different people had
different explanations for, why theworld, how it came to be and why it is.
And I loved mythology, the littlebit of Greek and Roman mythology
that we got in, elementary school.
(03:15):
and I also was a voracious reader.
And I was handed both Dune and theLord of the Rings by my ninth grade
English teacher, when I was 15.
And that just sparked a whole other love.
but I was also, I was in a familythe idea was that your life was
(03:37):
to be of service to other people.
And although I knew probably by age11 that I was going to be a writer.
But I, everybody said, youcan't get an English degree.
That's, that's just, you'll work atMcDonald's the rest of your life.
You have to do something helpful.
so I did pre med, and gota degree in psychobiology.
(03:59):
And at some point during my undergrad,I discovered Jung and I discovered
dream work and I've been a dream workersince I was 20, basically, I can lucid
dream James Hillman says that whateveryour daimon is, it's going to manifest.
And so I decided I didn't havewhat it took to be a doctor.
And I was floundering aroundas to what I was going to do.
(04:22):
And I was working as a medical assistantat a major medical hospital, and the
doctors somehow or another discoveredthat I could write, and they started
hiring me to write patient educationand to help them with their papers,
and that resulted in about a 30 yearcareer as a medical and scientific
(04:45):
writer and editor, a good career,lucrative career, and then at midlife,
and, I decided, I have a lot of yearsleft and I do not want to keep writing
about what can go wrong with the body.
And I'd heard about Pacifica.
And the other thing is that I hadbeen reading, voracious reader all
my life, was in a women's book club,reading a lot of novels by women.
(05:07):
And I had seen this pattern that nobodyseem to be writing about or noticing and
then this bit of serendipity happened.
I met a man who is an authorof books on Gnosticism.
At one point I said to him what peoplesay to published writers, which I've
since learned, which is I have abook idea, but he was very gracious.
(05:29):
And he said, tell me about it.
And I did.
And he brings out his card andhe says, I'm the acquisitions
editor for Quest Books.
And we would be very interestedin publishing that book.
And I thought that is a sign, but I knewthat I didn't have the background because
I didn't have that English degree to,to write the book, and I actually made
(05:50):
an attempt at it for about a year andthen It just became the excuse or the
reason why I could go to Pacifica andenroll in the myth program, which has,
one third of it is about literature.
so I did, and I wrote my dissertationon what I called recurrent
narratives in women's fiction.
(06:11):
And I turned that into abook, Jane Eyre's Sisters.
can we see this?
Boston (06:17):
Jane Eyre's Sisters, How Women Live and Write the Heroine's Story.
And I'll be sure to link to that inthe show notes, that's wonderful.
Jody Bower (06:24):
Yeah, so I had seen this pattern and really, I went
back into the 14th century.
15th century when women were first gettingpublished and I was finding this pattern.
I found it in biographies,autobiographies, famous women.
so I That's what that's about.
and so then, since then, I have been doinga lot of lecturing, a lot of teaching,
(06:45):
and just working with, hero and heroinestories, and, but also, I'm aware that
this is one interpretation, and that, infact, there are many ways to interpret
These stories, they're not monomyths,they're not monolithic, and so you've, you
heard me talk about how I see, the herostory being told differently these days
(07:09):
in, our superhero movies mostly, and I'malso I wrote another book and published it
Boston (07:19):
The Princess Powers Up, Watching the Sleeping Beauties
Become Warrior Goddesses.
Yeah.
It's a fabulous title.
Jody Bower (07:26):
Tracing about 80 years from Snow White and Sleeping
Beauty to, the, Captain Marvel and,Elsa of Frozen who are goddesses.
basically, they're.
They're all powerful goddesses.
So we've seen this evolution through time.
And, I'm just interested in this.
I call myself a cultural mythologistand I'm just interested in how
(07:48):
myths are playing out in the currentculture and how they're evolving.
Boston (07:53):
Something I want to grab hold of because I got to hear you talk about
this, you talked about the role of lovein this evolution of the hero's journey,
that there was a time where the loveobject, like the love was the prize.
And now the love is arequirement to be a hero.
Jody Bower (08:13):
Yes.
When you think about.
Joseph Campbell, you've got theprincess who just waits at home and,
he, he has to earn her, he has to provethat he's basically an adult male.
I think, that he's individuated enough to,embrace the feminine and become a father.
but she just, she's just at home.
(08:34):
And this is, Maureen Murdochand other people ask Campbell
about, what about the woman?
And he was like, she doesn'thave to go on a journey because
she's the point of the journey.
And this was not satisfyingto, Maureen or anybody else,
So love was something that got put off.
He had to prove his, really his masculineself, his courage and his intelligence
(08:56):
and his ability to persist and all this.
And then he got to have love.
But in the new hero stories,and this is the last 20 years
or so, if you look at any of theMarvel superhero origin stories.
What it really comes down to is thatthe difference between the hero and the
villain and the difference between a heroand a villain is two sides of a coin.
(09:17):
It is so easy for a hero to become avillain, especially if actually they win
because then they often end up a tyrant.
Kim Hudson in, The Virgin's Promisetalks about this, the problem with the
hero winning is that then he has to.
maintain the winning, and so he hasto become a tyrant and control people.
and in the superhero originstories, there's always a double.
(09:41):
There's another character with similarpowers, maybe even more powerful than
the hero, but The difference betweenthem is that the hero can love, and
the hero calls, it's love that keepsthem from turning into a villain,
and it's like the Final Fist, andit, it's more in the books than in
(10:02):
the movies, but the real differencebetween Voldemort and Harry Potter is
that Harry Potter has this family offriends, and, and supporters and people.
And when he's in the crisis, heremembers his love for these people.
And that's what pulls him through it.
And when he goes into the forest toface Voldemort at the end, he brings
(10:25):
the spirits of his parents and histwo strongest mentors with him because
he's not a, he's not doing this alone.
He's, and it's the love in hisheart that, that makes him win.
So this is, and the lovecomes in very early.
There's always a character who's a.
It doesn't have to be a love character,it can be a friend, it can be, what we're
(10:50):
seeing lately is a lot of the hero is afather figure to a child that needs help.
So we're seeing, Pedro Pascal isplaying this repeatedly, he's this
loving father figure who protectsthe child in the Mandalorian, or The
Last of the Best, what's it called?
(11:10):
The Last of Us.
The Last of Us.
The Last of Us, yeah.
And it can, it can be a group ofpeople, like in Stranger Things or
Harry Potter, it's this group of peoplewho come together and the hero is just
supported by it, but they have to have.
This love.
Boston (11:31):
One of the things that I'm that's occurring to me right now
is this evolution in story from thehero as that individual, as the one
who's raised above everybody else.
what I'm actually thinking of isI don't remember which Spider Man
movie, what the title was, butit had the three generations of
Jody Bower (11:47):
Spider Men.
Into the multiverse and or the latest one.
no way home.
I
Boston (11:51):
think I think it was maybe no way home And you have the three
Jody Bower (11:55):
generations the three Yeah
Boston (11:56):
And the youngest what set him apart was he had been part of a team The
youngest one this millennial generation isso interconnected and that's showing up in
the children's stories and the children'smyths, He Man and the Masters of the
Universe has been reimagined recently.
And it's very, it's about sharing powerinstead of I have the power, it's we.
(12:18):
And there's this movement from I towe, and I hadn't thought about that
until, I was thinking of romanticlove in the beginning of this, but
no, the love of friends, the mutualsupport, which is the only way I
think we can get through some of whatwe're facing right now is together.
Jody Bower (12:35):
Yeah, and I, I don't want to spoil this too much for
him, but I know that John Bucher ofthe Joseph Campbell Foundation is
working on the idea that we are movingfrom an individual to a collective.
As hero.
Boston (12:51):
I want to get him on the podcast.
Yeah,
Jody Bower (12:53):
you get him on , he's working on it.
We've talked, but I don't wanna sayanymore because this is John's thing.
Deal.
but when he told me about it, I said,wow, stranger Things and Harry Potter.
I could think of all of theseexamples and that is new.
the older hero idea was he had a lover.
You know, um, Captain America has Peggyand, Thor has Jane Foster and yes,
(13:16):
they have a human lover who keeps them.
I think one of the part and problemsif you're a superhero is hubris, right?
And, if you can connect to somebodywho's human, that grounds you.
And it can be a friend, he's got ahuman male friend, that grounds him.
(13:36):
It's not his lover, his, Whoever she was,it was his wife through the ages, but
it's the human friend who redeems him butit is, I do see an evolution, in moving
from the hero as a solo practitionerto a collective or a fellowship, and
even Tolkien had, Tolkien He had hisfinger on some things, I think, and
(14:00):
even he, realized that one hero probablywould fail, and Frodo does fail in
the end, and if it weren't for Sam,being the backup hero, and actually,
rescuing him from that whole situation.
yeah, so I, I think there'sIt's very interesting to watch.
Boston (14:22):
I want to turn the corner here, Barbie has been a massive cultural
phenomenon, and it is truly a movie ofmythic proportions with mythic dimensions
and is functioning on all kinds of levels.
what do you think is going on there?
Jody Bower (14:39):
This is one of the instances of where somebody asked
me a question and it just, blah.
I was at my dissertation defense andThe pattern that I saw in women's
literature, it is not a dissent story.
It is rather a leavingand going away story.
it's a woman who says, I can't livein this situation, but usually she is
(15:02):
somebody who's kind of oppressed anyway.
The Color Purple is an exampleof a woman who is so oppressed.
She doesn't even dare speak.
And yet eventually she does this journeywhere she leaves the situation and finds a
place where she can be her creative self.
That's Celie's journey perfectly,and I, that, so I wrote about all the
(15:27):
variations, Jane Eyre leaves, I mean sheleaves so many situations, she leaves
home, she leaves the school, she leavesThornwood, Thornfield, she just, she
has to keep leaving to, cause peoplekeep telling her, no you need to be
this for me, and she's not having that.
Chris Downing asked me, why doyou like this story, which has no
(15:47):
interest to me personally, she said.
Instead of the descent story, which Ilove and so many women love, so many
women love the descent story, and Isaid to her, the descent to the Cave
of the Dark Goddess has no meaning forme because I grew up in that situation.
I, I had a alcoholic mother and I we hada severe family trauma when I was 11.
(16:14):
My brother was killed in our backyard,threw the family into disarray for many
years, and, I was left to deal with iton my own, basically, which thankfully
also found some very good counselors.
so I grew up in a very darksort of situation with an
unhappy, difficult mother.
(16:36):
And I said to Chris, I don'thave to go down to the cave.
I've been there.
I need something different.
And that's the story that I was findingof women who really their childhoods
were not good and they got out andthey built a life for themselves.
But the descent story, as we talked,And Chris told me her own story.
(16:59):
The descent story, I think,appeals to women who maybe
were overprotected as children.
And maybe everything was made easyand fine for them, and they got to a
certain point in life and they just feltlike this is not all there is to life.
I need something more.
(17:20):
Chris felt a very strong need to findwhat she said, her, to find the dark
feminine, to find this whole shadow selfthat was not part of her upbringing.
It was not acknowledged.
It was not allowed.
And we look at Barbie who's morecosseted and privileged and happy.
(17:42):
than Barbie and but she is not wholeshe and you know that the whole
thing when she starts saying do youever think about death, death in the
Barbie world and everyone is justhorrified because this doesn't enter
in there's no such thing but Barbie,willingly or not, has to go find that.
And she does and that's when shestarts to become a whole person.
(18:08):
So I think there, this is why I'mnot wedded to one particular journey,
because I think what you need forindividuation can be very different,
depending on where you're coming from,what your life experience has been.
But I had not even thought about thattill Chris asked me that question.
Boston (18:28):
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
That exploration and that juxtapositionbetween the story of leaving the story of
that journey and the story of the descent.
that's something that I'm going toponder some more whether the descent
is what is needed or if you are,if you spend childhood in the cave.
it's about ascent.
One of the, one of the topics thatyou had said you wanted to bring
(18:51):
into this conversation was around thehero's journey and social activism.
What do you see there?
Jody Bower (18:57):
Yeah, this was, this is something I've, done
a great deal of lecturing at,mostly in, like liberal churches.
But it just.
One day it occurred to me that the waymost people pursue activism, political
activism, especially, is very, it'svery much what I call heroic thinking.
(19:20):
And, first I'd like to just sidetrack alittle bit because I think it's important.
James Hillman said that we have twoopposing myths in American politics.
There's the myth of the fall,which is that things used to be.
Much better.
We had a golden age in the past.
We have fallen away fromit, and we must get back.
We must go back to it.
(19:42):
This is the, and the past, isglorified, and the future is, scary.
We don't know, so we'rebetter off going back.
The other myth is the myth of progress.
The idea that the best is yet to come.
and we have a moralduty to make it happen.
So, getting back is a setback,and we fear the past was worse,
(20:07):
the future is going to be better.
I would say neither groupis living in the present.
and I think personally that thecultures do evolve and we do progress,
and a lot of our politics is aboutthe people who are fearing that
versus the people who want that.
and that is, there's the tension.
I think the bulk of people in the societyare okay with change if it happens slowly.
(20:34):
But so I think really, and I'veheard this from others that in a way,
the conservatives hold us back fromchanging faster than the society can
actually handle and the progressives.
Meanwhile, trying to pull us the otherway, but so there that's part of it.
So there's a fear that'sbehind a lot of it.
(20:57):
there's a fear that we.
That we will change andgo away from what's good.
There's a fear that we will notget to what's good because we'll
be dragged back into the dark ages.
There's this, and fearbased, leads to anger.
And I, this leads, I think,into heroic thinking.
I'm going to pick apart theheroic mindset, if you don't mind.
(21:19):
Heroes fight on behalf of other people.
They fight on behalf of the community.
And they fix the problem throughwhat Sherry Tepper, who was a,
a fantasy author, she wrote TheGate to Women's Country, I think
was her most favorite book.
She talks about how the herofixes it to the, what she
(21:42):
calls the single wondrous act.
he pulls the sword from the stone, hedestroys the One Ring, it's all good.
He defeats the bad guy andeverything becomes perfect.
what she didn't mention, but thatI've also noticed is that, and Kim
Hudson also says this, that actuallywe go back to the status quo.
So that's what the hero does.
(22:03):
He actually defends the status quo.
again, it's very emotion based.
There's a righteousanger to heroic thinking.
I have a lot of friends who say, if you'renot angry, you're not paying attention.
Hey, you must be angry.
I'm going to post all this stuff on theinternet to make you angry because this is
how, people, this is motivational, not forme, but, it is to a lot of people, heroic
(22:29):
thinking is right and wrong thinking.
I'm right.
You're wrong.
My hero is right.
Your hero is wrong.
Therefore, your hero is villain, so wehave two hero villains fighting each other
and people tend to, because we think it'sa single act that's going to make it.
There's this hero worship thatgoes on and we see it in politics.
(22:51):
My guy versus your guy.
My guy is better than your guy.
And I've seen this on both sides.
people worship their politicalcandidate on both sides, and they
really think that if only we couldget our guy into position, then
everything will turn out okay.
And I saw that a lot, during theObama administration, there was
(23:12):
all this, Oh yeah, we get Obama.
We elected our guy.
Yay.
Everything's good.
And then because there wastoo much opposition, not much
happened, and people blamed Obama.
And we're disappointed in their hero, butthe other side of that is that you get
your hero working for you and you can go.
(23:33):
Yeah.
Okay.
Yay.
I don't have to do anything like
Boston (23:37):
the election is the big event.
That's the pollingthat's pulling the sword
Jody Bower (23:41):
or that's right.
And once, my part in that is to voteand then it's not anything else.
There's actually, I think, alittle bit of, reinforcement
of low self esteem that I can'tpersonally deal with these problems.
And, the problems are really overwhelming,but my guy can't, if I get the right
(24:02):
guy and if I vote for the rightperson, but this, then you can imagine
the burden that it puts on the hero.
And I take this back to just, toscale it down, if you've ever been
the person in a organization thateverybody asks to do everything.
could you run this?
Could you do this?
After a while, people just getburnt out, but everybody else is
(24:22):
going, Oh, they're so capable.
They're so good at this.
Let's ask them instead of saying, maybewe need to share the load a little bit.
So I've seen it in almost everyorganization I've been a part of, is
that you have these heroic few takeon everything and then burn out.
and burnout is a.
(24:43):
A scary thing, because I think the peoplewho are shouldering most of the load,
the problems are not solved by one act.
They realize that theycan't do it all themselves.
They ask for help.
They try to enlist help.
If they don't get help.
And the problems can seem sooverwhelming that you can.
(25:07):
You can become obsessed.
I had a friend who was so obsessed aboutan issue in my town that every time
I saw her, she'd talk at me for twohours about, trying to enlist me to the
cause because the problem was too bigfor her and she needed to get everybody
else in line and she couldn't do that.
And then she got very burntout and angry and frustrated.
(25:28):
And I actually think that, sometimesyou lose your really good people
because they're burning out.
But the real danger is, I thinkthis is the roots of terrorism.
I think, because people have beentrying maybe who knows for decades
to say, there's a problem here.
Listen to us.
We need, nobody's listening.
Nobody's helping.
(25:50):
And at some point I think peoplecan become so frustrated and angry.
That they feel like I've got to getpeople's attention somehow, I've got
to call attention to this problemthat nobody's, that's not being fixed.
And I do think that this is wheresome of the terrorism comes from
is just sheer frustration with theinability to get other people to
(26:16):
pay attention and fix the problem.
So where I see heroic thinking,how that plays out in our politics
and what I usually challenge theaudiences in these liberal churches.
I say how much of this is in keepingwith progressive values, you know,
seeing people as the enemy, all of this,
Boston (26:39):
I want to grab hold of something that's percolating there.
There's, The thread, when we weretalking about the hero earlier and you
said the hero, if he keeps winning, hebecomes a tyrant, so that's one destiny,
or the heroic personality becomes sooverwhelmed, he becomes a terrorist, or,
(27:00):
which then constellates a villain, eitherway, this is that sort of old parable
that says you either die a hero or livelong enough to see yourself become the
villain, but there's this, but the hero,
The hero is, seems to be astage or a step along the way.
that it's destined to become, Idon't dunno if destined, this is one
(27:20):
way, it can go two different ways.
It can become a villain.
Overwhelm, either way, faced withthis inability to, assert control.
In a inability to win to
Jody Bower (27:33):
win permanently to win permanently.
That's and this is part of heroicthinking this idea that it's possible
to win permanently, it's possible to doone thing and have everything be okay.
This is an idea I thinkwe really need to let go.
this is fundamentalism.
Yes, it is.
(27:53):
It's the best.
Again, it's the very right and wrongblack and white sort of thinking.
but yeah, the hero.
Part of it is the hero worship.
Everybody's putting them on apedestal and that can, of course,
what does that do to your ego?
And I think I'm not going to mentionany names of any political candidates
right now, we can see the ego,getting over and, or the burden
(28:19):
and because you, your side can win.
But that doesn't mean the otherside goes, Oh, okay, we're all in
line now, the other side, as wesee, is going to keep fighting.
And the more you try to, so thenyou're put in the position of your job.
(28:41):
And, the idea, of course, is yourhero wins and becomes a hero.
The wonderful king who you know,fixes everything, fixes the roads
and fixes the, the infrastructure andeverybody lives happily ever after.
But instead, the king's energy hasto go into quelling all of the people
(29:02):
who do not want to live in that.
And so what happened?
Nothing much happens.
that's.
And then of course, everybodyelse can say, see, they failed.
And, we do this tug of war andworst case, we get into, I think, a
situation like the Middle East wherepeople are now in this thing of, we
(29:25):
just have to wipe the other side out.
That's never going to happen.
How many times have peopletried to wipe the Jews out?
And people try to wipe out gay people.
That's not working.
it's it does.
They just keep coming back.
And so we have to find anotherway of thinking about it.
Besides, but this is hard when you'redealing with fundamentals thinking, which
(29:47):
says that only evil people do evil acts.
So it's okay to wipe them out.
rather than having the mindsetthat maybe there's a cause.
That we could address, we knowthat abused people become abusers.
So how do we break the cycle of abuse?
in families, how do we break thecycle of abuse in a political
(30:13):
arena, because it is abusive.
I think a lot of it is abusive.
Do
Boston (30:18):
you have an idea for an alternative archetype or an
alternative type of thinking?
I'm so glad you asked that question.
Jody Bower (30:26):
Well, I do because I started thinking about the heroine
journey that I had written about andhow she approaches life and i'm going
to just say at the outset that Irelandthey got past a lot of this because
the mothers stood up and said we aredone And this happened in my lifetime.
I'm a boomer.
(30:47):
I remember in the 70s when the women ofIreland just rose up and said, no more
of this, Protestant versus Catholic,Northern, you know, all of this,
we're just, you're killing our babies.
Stop it.
And they stopped it for the most part.
so it was the feminine energy oflove that came in and said, no, stop.
(31:08):
Enough.
and I, I pray with all of mynon denominational, non defined
energy that this happens.
elsewhere, but in the heroinjourney, what happens is that she
is, she's in a situation wherepeople are telling her who to be.
(31:29):
And she says no.
And so her resistanceis part of her being.
She just resists what she doesn'twant, but she doesn't fight them.
She doesn't try to conquer thepeople who are trying to control her.
she actually, the very first thing sheusually does in the stories is she goes
exactly where they tell her never to go.
(31:51):
So she goes into the forest wherethe witch is, or she goes to the big
city, or she goes to where, she goesto where the enemy is, and she learns.
She, so she embraces, she goes tothe witch, and the witch to the hero
is a villain who must be killed.
(32:12):
But she goes there, and shehumbles herself before the
witch, and she says, teach me.
And the witch is usually, well, prove tome that you're worthy of my being taught.
Because I'm not wasting mytime with you, otherwise.
The whole story, the devil wore productis such a, going to the which to
Boston (32:34):
learn.
I was thinking of the Little Mermaid, but,
Jody Bower (32:37):
yeah, she's got to learn and she gets tested.
it's, she's learning, it's veryexperiential how she learns and
she gets handed, impossible tasks.
And there's a magic element that comes in,usually it's a mother energy that she's
got with her somehow, who advises her.
But what she learns, she hasto sort out seeds, right?
(32:58):
It's a pile of seeds and she has tosort out the wheat from the chaff and
the black seeds and the white seeds.
This is a test in discernment.
How do you know what is good?
how do you know what is of value?
And your job is to choose what is of valueand what will feed and nurture people.
(33:20):
So her focus is not, she's pickingout the black seeds, but she's not
spending a lot of time going, Oh, thesehorrible black seeds must be burnt.
They must be destroyed.
They must be, it's no, theyjust go off to the side.
And this is what we need.
This is what we're taking.
This is what we're planting.
So her whole learning is abouthow to focus on what is a value
(33:43):
and how to have more of it.
It's, it's everything that themanifesters talking about, what
are you putting your energy into?
Because whatever you put yourenergy in to, there will be more
of it will come back at you.
And so She's also learning howto see things as they really are,
(34:03):
not to be fooled by the seedsthat are masquerading, maybe,
Boston (34:08):
And I'm just thinking about that distinction between you're not
sorting things into good and evil, you'resorting things in discerning value.
So you and you can do either one isa way you can approach a situation,
but this is blameless discernment.
Jody Bower (34:24):
Blameless discernment.
What do you want to foster in life?
So focus on that.
And do you want to spend all your timeputting angry stuff up on the Internet?
Or do you want to look for what's good?
What's working?
I follow all of these Goodable and allthese other sites on Instagram, which are
(34:46):
just people giving you news about good.
There are people who havecleaned up that enormous patch
of plastic crap in the ocean.
They've cleaned it up.
There are kids inventing amazingthings that are helping people.
There's a girl who came upwith a $400 dialysis machine.
(35:11):
Honestly, I believe it's the kidsof today who, where we really have
to look because they are, they'redoing, but there's a lot of people
who are doing amazing stuff out there.
Yeah, it's so hopeful.
There's some guy, all he doesis the positive climate news.
Because there is a lot going onwith addressing climate change.
(35:31):
There was a lecture at theMythologium about, or there
was a whole panel on mushrooms.
They're discovering how mushroomscan help us in everything.
I mean, you, you mix a fungi into concreteand the concrete doesn't fall apart in 20
years, like our, our bridges are fallingapart because the mycelium heals it.
(35:53):
and what it's doing for our health.
I mean, there's so much good news.
and then I think the amazingthing too, is that Once you get
somebody who's doing this good work.
what happens in all the heroinestories is that she Starts creating
this wonderful life for herself basedon her own values and other people
(36:16):
look at her and go wow I like that.
I want to try that.
Celie, you know who came out of justthe worst kind of life just so oppressed
and so beaten up and so abused and shecomes to the sense of self and then she
starts She actually creates communityand she attracts all these people to her
(36:40):
She even attracts her abusive ex husbandwho looks at what she's doing in life.
she's making pants.
She's making pants for women becauseshe, for her pants represented a stepping
out of her role as a subservient,basically slave to other people.
And she makes thesebeautiful, wild, crazy pants.
(37:01):
And her ex husband comes to livenearby and says, I will make shirts.
And they have this wonderful conversationat the end where he talks about how
once he stopped trying to controlother people and get them to do what he
wanted to do, he was so much happier.
And she said, yeah, and otherpeople like you better too.
(37:25):
So there's this, in all of the storiesthat I read, there is usually a man
who looks at what she's doing andgoes, that is a better way of being.
And I'm gonna.
I'm going to go with you ratherthan go, with what my parents, my
parents want me to be all this.
They want to say, in Sense andSensibility, Edward Ferrars, the family
(37:50):
wants him to be a politician and theywant him to make a name for himself
and, further the family's thing.
And he just wants to be aminister, take care of people.
And he wants to go with Eleanorbecause she understands that about him.
And, he sees his path with her,his path to being who he wants.
(38:12):
So, this is what I think that wedo a lot better with a role model
that we choose to follow rather thana tyrant who tells us how to be.
Because there's no need from thatpoint on to be enforcing anything.
Boston (38:30):
It's a chosen path.
Jody Bower (38:31):
It's a chosen path, which is chosen not because out of
belief, but rather out of experience.
And looking at, seeing that it works.
I'm, I think essentially I'm a pragmatist.
And the question I always askis, how's that working for you?
Yes.
Boston (38:47):
Yes, I love that question.
Yeah, yeah.
Jody Bower (38:57):
What I'm also excited about, There's a lot of work being done,
by non binary people, and non binarypeople, by definition, don't do well
with black and white either or thinking.
And I've been venturing out andreading, some really exciting work
(39:19):
by people who are talking about howa non binary person individuates.
It is not by incorporating the otherbecause there's not that, I'm male,
that person's female, I don't have anyreal, I don't understand female energy.
There's not that.
and there's this wonderfultheme that keeps coming up.
(39:41):
and Chris Downing is one of thepeople who talked about this.
I individuate not by integratingthat which is my shadow side,
but by envisioning my ideal self.
So it's a double, it's not an otherdouble, it's a sort of a perfected self
(40:05):
that is what my goal is to work towards.
and everything that I might havebeen trying to put on the other.
is in that image.
And I can, I can imagine that.
So it's a wonderful as if exercise.
I've always loved this with thecounselors I've gone to when I've
(40:27):
been struggling in it with an issue.
And they have said, what if youwere that that you're trying to be?
Can you imagine yourself asif all of that were true?
And you sit and you imagine youare the person you want to be.
And I think that holds a lot of valueinstead of looking for somebody else to
(40:51):
complete you or a hero to do the workthat you don't feel that you're capable
of, just sit and do some as if whatif I were that person, who would I be?
How would I feel?
How would I behave?
How would I act in the
Boston (41:09):
world?
What an excellent exercise that feels,if that feels like a, there's one thing I
would like for listeners to get from this.
It's that, and actuallyput that in action.
I do this in my coaching, right?
This is. One of the things we do isreally sit in your idealized self.
What does it feel like, soundsmell taste what's around you.
(41:30):
It is such a powerful activity.
Jody Bower (41:32):
it's huge.
It's huge.
It's life changing.
I've had it be life changing.
Boston (41:46):
What were your favorite stories growing up?
Nursery rhymes, children's books,movies, cartoons, comics, anything?
Jody Bower (41:52):
My mother gave me, Kurti, no, The Princess and the Goblin by
George MacDonald when I was pretty young.
She read it to me.
It was her favorite story.
And that got me started on fantasy novels.
And then Tolkien fell on veryfertile ground, I think, but I really
loved that story There's a heroin it, but the princess is pretty
(42:14):
active and it's a descent story.
They go down into the mountains,but, I really loved that.
I loved The Wind in the Willows.
I didn't care for Mr.
Toad, but I loved, I think thefriendship between, Ratty and, Mole
and the messing about in boats.
I grew up in boats.
(42:35):
We sailed and everything and Iloved messing about in boats.
And then, of course, when I was ateenager, like I said, I discovered Lord
of the Rings and Dune and that was, boy.
Oh, and, I think in juniorhigh, Pride and Prejudice.
Which was just, I've done alot of blogging on Jane Austen.
I think she's an amazing psychologist.
Boston (42:55):
thank you.
What's something that you believeto be true that you cannot prove?
Jody Bower (43:00):
That we have an eternal soul.
I've had experiences, I've actuallyhad a near death experience.
Oh, a year ago, year and a half ago.
are
Boston (43:09):
you willing to share a little bit about what that was
Jody Bower (43:11):
like?
yeah, I had, I'd had a lot, I'vehad a rebuilt shoulder and before
it was rebuilt, I was taking alot of anti inflammatories, much
more than the recommended doseand I had a catastrophic GI bleed.
I lost half my blood volume.
and, passed out at home,and I was not unconscious.
(43:34):
I was unconscious because Ihad no awareness of my body at
all, and everything was black.
But I was there.
it wasn't like, being asleep.
It wasn't like being, anesthetized.
I was present in nothingness.
And I was given the choice to go or stay.
I didn't see anybody.
(43:54):
I didn't talk to anybody.
It was just but I alsowas completely at peace.
just completely at peace.
Everything was fine.
It was just you could take this out now.
You can go.
This is an option for you toleave if you want to leave or
if you don't feel complete.
(44:14):
With this life you can goback and I thought about it.
Wow, this is a pretty easy way to go.
There's no pain I'm really calm,but on the other hand, there's
so many people who would be upsetand do I feel like I'm done.
No, I don't feel like I'm done sothen I woke up on the floor of my,
hallway and managed to reach up andopen the doorway and call for help.
(44:38):
And I was in intensive care for a week.
I almost died one other time whileI was there because I kept bleeding.
But, but that whole week was so blissful.
I can't tell you every connection that Ihad with every person in that hospital.
It was like I saw theirloving, angelic Self.
(45:03):
Those nurses were amazing.
And I think they felt me seeing themthat way because the way they treated
me and saw me was just amazing.
I mean, it was it's bizarre to say,I'm lying in intensive care with three
different IVs going in me because they'retrying to keep me, you know, from dying.
(45:23):
And I'm blissed out.
Wow.
Boston (45:27):
Yeah.
I'm so glad you decided to stay.
Jody Bower (45:30):
Thank you.
I am, too.
I am, too.
It's, doesn't, hasn't meantthe end of challenges in my
life, but, I wouldn't imagine.
Boston (45:37):
No.
But you chose them.
Jody Bower (45:39):
But I chose them, yeah, and I'm not worried, I don't
fear death, I'll tell you that.
I do not fear death.
Boston (45:44):
That is powerful.
Thank you.
Oh boy.
After, after, after that, the nextquestion is going backwards in,
in what ways are you the same nowas you were when you were a child?
Jody Bower (46:01):
I was a very serious child.
I've loosened up a bit, but I wasall I was a very questioning child.
Wayne Mueller, who's a mentor ofmine, he wrote Legacy of the Heart.
And he talks about people who have hada different difficult childhood tend to
ask the big questions early on in life.
(46:23):
They're more thoughtful.
They're more empathetic.
they're more questioning,they become seekers.
And I think my childhooddid make me that way.
And I've never stopped.
And sometimes I know, especiallymy family finds me a bit, you
know, could you listen up already?
We don't have to have anintense discussion about the
(46:44):
deeper meaning of everything.
But yeah, I do.
I do.
When I need to, I go andwatch, a Ben Stiller movie or
something to lighten me up.
Boston (46:59):
Your seriousness and depth has transcended the years.
Jody Bower (47:03):
Yeah, I think I just was conditioned.
my father was a scientist.
He raised me to be a critical thinker.
I had a very influential teacher inhigh school, who taught us, Plato, the
unexamined life is not worth living.
And I'm just a questioner.
gets me in trouble sometimes becausemy friends sometimes put stuff up on
(47:23):
the internet that they saw somewhereand believed and I will go on
Snopes and say, no, that's not true.
I've decided to stop doing that.
I've decided that I am not here to police,that whole cartoon about the guy typing
away badly and going, I can't come to bed.
Someone is wrong on the internet.
(47:45):
I trying to like, let people there'sa woman, I forget her name, but she
has this whole philosophy of let them,just let them, whatever they want
to believe, whatever they want tosay, however they want to treat you,
just let them, don't worry about it.
I'm trying to adopt that.
They're on their journey.
Maybe I'm not.
I told my nephew when he started driving,and he's a very serious character too.
(48:08):
And I said to him, you aregoing to encounter people
on freeways who are jerks.
I didn't use that word.
I said, they are looking for a fight.
You do not have to give it backto them and he listened to that.
He told me later that wasactually very useful advice.
(48:28):
And they do cut you off or flip youoff or honk or something and you
go, yeah, you'll find somebody to.
You'll find the person you want to havea fight, who wants to give you a fight.
I'm not going to be that today.
Boston (48:40):
That is great life advice in general.
Yeah.
You will encounter peoplewho are looking for a fight.
You do not have to give it to them.
That's
Jody Bower (48:47):
beautiful.
They will find somebody else.
Someone else will come along.
Yeah.
Boston (48:52):
this next question, you may have already answered it, but here
it is again in a different shape.
Have you ever encountered a phenomenonthat you just cannot explain?
Jody Bower (49:01):
besides the other thing I saw, I've seen a UFO, and, I was camping,
I was up in the San Juan Islands, wewere camping on the beach, there was
a stretch of water across from us,and then another island, and we're
sitting there, we've had a campfire,we're thinking about going to bed.
And this very bright light comes up overthe island by, far from us and comes down
(49:26):
and goes along the water in front of us.
And it was just a globe of light.
There's absolutely no sound,And then it disappears.
And we all sat there for a while andfinally someone said, did you see that?
And we all said, and wedidn't talk about it.
We didn't talk about it,because it made no sense.
(49:47):
It was, it couldn't have beena helicopter, and this is in
the 70s, I don't think we hadstealth helicopters anyway.
No sound, couldn't have been a boat,because it came up over the hill and down.
I have no explanation for that.
Boston (50:00):
and how do you think, having that kind of experience, what do you think that
does to, did or does to your worldview?
Jody Bower (50:07):
I did.
There's, Shakespeare, "there are morethings under heaven and earth than
are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I don't think anybody has the answers.
I don't think science has all the answers.
I think that there's just so muchmore to the fullness of life than
any one or set of disciplines canadd, and they're just mystery.
(50:31):
There's mystery.
And, I think a life in which you thinkthere's no mystery or that any mystery
could be explained, would be kind of sad.
I think I would like to havemore experiences where I go.
I have no idea what that was.
Yes.
And I may never knowwhat that was, but whoa.
Boston (50:55):
Yes.
more mystery.
cheers to that.
The last question is when in yourlife have you experienced ecstasy?
Jody Bower (51:05):
This is a funny thing.
I've had a few moments usually out inthe woods where it's just been a perfect
moment, where everything, I don't knowwhere you feel a part of everything.
And I think that's the biggest part.
The other times would be I'm a singer.
(51:27):
I'm a singer in a choir.
And singing with a good choir and singingan amazing piece of music and everybody's
in harmony and it's one of those timeswhen it's really clicked when the choir is
your breathing is what you're an organism.
I think that's it when you feelintensely alive and intensely connected.
(51:49):
That's when I think my mostecstatic moments have been.
I can think of one in particular.
I got to sing, the Verdi Requiem in theopera house in Seattle with my choir with,
I was at the University of Washington atthe time and, it, the head of the music
(52:10):
department was retiring and we put on thisone shot show and it was transcending.
it was that's an amazing piece ofmusic and I don't know, I was just,
I was somewhere else for most of it.
Oh, wow.
Boston (52:24):
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's something so beautifulin that, in what you just shared,
there's so many components to it.
Breathing as one, merging with somethingbigger than yourself, and then you throw
in music, which transforms a soundscapeand you put that in such a fabulous
cathedral, which is acousticallydesigned to elevate that.
(52:45):
And it itself is somethingthat is built to elevate, like
that's just sounds magnificent
Jody Bower (52:52):
and you have an audience.
who is feeling everything you're, I'mnot an actor, but I can understand that
it's not about you being up on stage.
It's just you and the audience.
And also, I think that there's a skilllevel, there's a skill you've worked
at, that you are getting to employ.
Boston (53:10):
we've covered a lot of ground.
Thank you so much for beingwilling to just dance in this
conversation and share so much.
How can people find you?
Jody Bower (53:19):
I have a blog.
I have a web page it's just jodybower.Com.
Also, you can reach me through LinkedIn.
and right now, I am availableto speak or run workshops.
I do a lot of work with, film programs.
Because, you know, it's thescript writers who really get
how myth translates into words.
(53:42):
I also do book coaching.
I was an editor for years.
Now I'm working at a higher level.
And one of the things I do is,especially when people are at the
early stages of writing a book.
I like to do a a two hoursit down where we talk.
I have a lot of questions.
I have a lot of advice for how to takethe vague idea and understand What your
(54:08):
structure should be, who your audience is.
and you can find my books on Amazonor independent books, sellers, always
plug the independent books, sellers.
Boston (54:17):
Outstanding.
Jody, thank you so muchfor your time today.
You've been really generous
Jody Bower (54:22):
This has been fun for me.
Thank you.
Boston (54:29):
Thanks again to my guest Dr.
Jody Bower.
And thank you to our listeners.
If you enjoyed this episode of Mythic,please consider leaving a review
wherever you get your podcasts.
That helps people find the show.
You can also find more information,including show notes and other
resources at mythicpodcast.com.
If you want to know more about me andmy work, check out bostonblake.com.
(54:55):
Until next time.
Journey on.
Welcome.
And thanks for listening.
My guest today is Dr.
Jody Bower.
Dr.
Bower is a cultural mythologist and theauthor of Jane Eyre's Sisters: How Women
Live and Write the Heroine's Story.
And The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties (00:39):
undefined
Become a Warrior goddesses.
She and I met at Mythologium Conferencein 2023, where she was presenting.
Her insights into archetypal themesand superhero movies blew my mind.
And I was so stoked whenshe agreed to be a guest.
In this episode, Jody and I discussheroes and heroines in movies and
(01:03):
look at how the Hero's Journey isdistinct from that of the Heroine.
We touch on Barbie, Marvelmovies and The Color Purple.
And a note.
When I was editing this episode,I realized we'd made references to
other mythologist Christine Downing,Maureen Murdock, and Kim Hudson
without really offering any context.
(01:23):
Rather than disrupt the flow withclunky editing and editorializing, I've
just added links to the show notes.
So you can learn more about them there.
So now.
Here we go, Dr.
Jody Bower.
Will you share your mythic origin story?
Jody Bower (01:46):
I was very fortunate I think in a way.
I was not raised in a religion, butI was raised by parents who were very
curious and they had moved out to theSeattle area from Boston and one of
the things they were curious aboutwere the local Native traditions.
So we would spend weekends goingout to reservations and going to
(02:08):
the dances, learning about the art.
We had a book of kind of native originstories and We camped as our family
vacations and we would bring this bookwith us and read about, okay, this
mountain, to the natives is calledWye East and this is how it became.
So I grew up with this and I also grewup very curious about my friends and
(02:31):
what they did on Saturday or Sunday.
So I used to go with them.
I used to go to church andI used to go to synagogue.
I had a fascination with originstories with people's ideas of how
things came to be without any bias
as to which was the right one.
It also became really clear to me going tochurch or synagogue with all my friends.
(02:53):
that belief is people believe,and I accepted that they believe
even when I didn't believe it.
but I had an understanding from anearly age that different people had
different explanations for, why theworld, how it came to be and why it is.
And I loved mythology, the littlebit of Greek and Roman mythology
that we got in, elementary school.
(03:15):
and I also was a voracious reader.
And I was handed both Dune and theLord of the Rings by my ninth grade
English teacher, when I was 15.
And that just sparked a whole other love.
but I was also, I was in a familythe idea was that your life was
(03:37):
to be of service to other people.
And although I knew probably by age11 that I was going to be a writer.
But I, everybody said, youcan't get an English degree.
That's, that's just, you'll work atMcDonald's the rest of your life.
You have to do something helpful.
so I did pre med, and gota degree in psychobiology.
(03:59):
And at some point during my undergrad,I discovered Jung and I discovered
dream work and I've been a dream workersince I was 20, basically, I can lucid
dream James Hillman says that whateveryour daimon is, it's going to manifest.
And so I decided I didn't havewhat it took to be a doctor.
And I was floundering aroundas to what I was going to do.
(04:22):
And I was working as a medical assistantat a major medical hospital, and the
doctors somehow or another discoveredthat I could write, and they started
hiring me to write patient educationand to help them with their papers,
and that resulted in about a 30 yearcareer as a medical and scientific
(04:45):
writer and editor, a good career,lucrative career, and then at midlife,
and, I decided, I have a lot of yearsleft and I do not want to keep writing
about what can go wrong with the body.
And I'd heard about Pacifica.
And the other thing is that I hadbeen reading, voracious reader all
my life, was in a women's book club,reading a lot of novels by women.
(05:07):
And I had seen this pattern that nobodyseem to be writing about or noticing and
then this bit of serendipity happened.
I met a man who is an authorof books on Gnosticism.
At one point I said to him what peoplesay to published writers, which I've
since learned, which is I have abook idea, but he was very gracious.
(05:29):
And he said, tell me about it.
And I did.
And he brings out his card andhe says, I'm the acquisitions
editor for Quest Books.
And we would be very interestedin publishing that book.
And I thought that is a sign, but I knewthat I didn't have the background because
I didn't have that English degree to,to write the book, and I actually made
(05:50):
an attempt at it for about a year andthen It just became the excuse or the
reason why I could go to Pacifica andenroll in the myth program, which has,
one third of it is about literature.
so I did, and I wrote my dissertationon what I called recurrent
narratives in women's fiction.
(06:11):
And I turned that into abook, Jane Eyre's Sisters.
can we see this?
Boston (06:17):
Jane Eyre's Sisters, How Women Live and Write the Heroine's Story.
And I'll be sure to link to that inthe show notes, that's wonderful.
Jody Bower (06:24):
Yeah, so I had seen this pattern and really, I went
back into the 14th century.
15th century when women were first gettingpublished and I was finding this pattern.
I found it in biographies,autobiographies, famous women.
so I That's what that's about.
and so then, since then, I have been doinga lot of lecturing, a lot of teaching,
(06:45):
and just working with, hero and heroinestories, and, but also, I'm aware that
this is one interpretation, and that, infact, there are many ways to interpret
These stories, they're not monomyths,they're not monolithic, and so you've, you
heard me talk about how I see, the herostory being told differently these days
(07:09):
in, our superhero movies mostly, and I'malso I wrote another book and published it
Boston (07:19):
The Princess Powers Up, Watching the Sleeping Beauties
Become Warrior Goddesses.
Yeah.
It's a fabulous title.
Jody Bower (07:26):
Tracing about 80 years from Snow White and Sleeping
Beauty to, the, Captain Marvel and,Elsa of Frozen who are goddesses.
basically, they're.
They're all powerful goddesses.
So we've seen this evolution through time.
And, I'm just interested in this.
I call myself a cultural mythologistand I'm just interested in how
(07:48):
myths are playing out in the currentculture and how they're evolving.
Boston (07:53):
Something I want to grab hold of because I got to hear you talk about
this, you talked about the role of lovein this evolution of the hero's journey,
that there was a time where the loveobject, like the love was the prize.
And now the love is arequirement to be a hero.
Jody Bower (08:13):
Yes.
When you think about.
Joseph Campbell, you've got theprincess who just waits at home and,
he, he has to earn her, he has to provethat he's basically an adult male.
I think, that he's individuated enough to,embrace the feminine and become a father.
but she just, she's just at home.
(08:34):
And this is, Maureen Murdochand other people ask Campbell
about, what about the woman?
And he was like, she doesn'thave to go on a journey because
she's the point of the journey.
And this was not satisfyingto, Maureen or anybody else,
So love was something that got put off.
He had to prove his, really his masculineself, his courage and his intelligence
(08:56):
and his ability to persist and all this.
And then he got to have love.
But in the new hero stories,and this is the last 20 years
or so, if you look at any of theMarvel superhero origin stories.
What it really comes down to is thatthe difference between the hero and the
villain and the difference between a heroand a villain is two sides of a coin.
(09:17):
It is so easy for a hero to become avillain, especially if actually they win
because then they often end up a tyrant.
Kim Hudson in, The Virgin's Promisetalks about this, the problem with the
hero winning is that then he has to.
maintain the winning, and so he hasto become a tyrant and control people.
and in the superhero originstories, there's always a double.
(09:41):
There's another character with similarpowers, maybe even more powerful than
the hero, but The difference betweenthem is that the hero can love, and
the hero calls, it's love that keepsthem from turning into a villain,
and it's like the Final Fist, andit, it's more in the books than in
(10:02):
the movies, but the real differencebetween Voldemort and Harry Potter is
that Harry Potter has this family offriends, and, and supporters and people.
And when he's in the crisis, heremembers his love for these people.
And that's what pulls him through it.
And when he goes into the forest toface Voldemort at the end, he brings
(10:25):
the spirits of his parents and histwo strongest mentors with him because
he's not a, he's not doing this alone.
He's, and it's the love in hisheart that, that makes him win.
So this is, and the lovecomes in very early.
There's always a character who's a.
It doesn't have to be a love character,it can be a friend, it can be, what we're
(10:50):
seeing lately is a lot of the hero is afather figure to a child that needs help.
So we're seeing, Pedro Pascal isplaying this repeatedly, he's this
loving father figure who protectsthe child in the Mandalorian, or The
Last of the Best, what's it called?
(11:10):
The Last of Us.
The Last of Us.
The Last of Us, yeah.
And it can, it can be a group ofpeople, like in Stranger Things or
Harry Potter, it's this group of peoplewho come together and the hero is just
supported by it, but they have to have.
This love.
Boston (11:31):
One of the things that I'm that's occurring to me right now
is this evolution in story from thehero as that individual, as the one
who's raised above everybody else.
what I'm actually thinking of isI don't remember which Spider Man
movie, what the title was, butit had the three generations of
Jody Bower (11:47):
Spider Men.
Into the multiverse and or the latest one.
no way home.
I
Boston (11:51):
think I think it was maybe no way home And you have the three
Jody Bower (11:55):
generations the three Yeah
Boston (11:56):
And the youngest what set him apart was he had been part of a team The
youngest one this millennial generation isso interconnected and that's showing up in
the children's stories and the children'smyths, He Man and the Masters of the
Universe has been reimagined recently.
And it's very, it's about sharing powerinstead of I have the power, it's we.
(12:18):
And there's this movement from I towe, and I hadn't thought about that
until, I was thinking of romanticlove in the beginning of this, but
no, the love of friends, the mutualsupport, which is the only way I
think we can get through some of whatwe're facing right now is together.
Jody Bower (12:35):
Yeah, and I, I don't want to spoil this too much for
him, but I know that John Bucher ofthe Joseph Campbell Foundation is
working on the idea that we are movingfrom an individual to a collective.
As hero.
Boston (12:51):
I want to get him on the podcast.
Yeah,
Jody Bower (12:53):
you get him on , he's working on it.
We've talked, but I don't wanna sayanymore because this is John's thing.
Deal.
but when he told me about it, I said,wow, stranger Things and Harry Potter.
I could think of all of theseexamples and that is new.
the older hero idea was he had a lover.
You know, um, Captain America has Peggyand, Thor has Jane Foster and yes,
(13:16):
they have a human lover who keeps them.
I think one of the part and problemsif you're a superhero is hubris, right?
And, if you can connect to somebodywho's human, that grounds you.
And it can be a friend, he's got ahuman male friend, that grounds him.
(13:36):
It's not his lover, his, Whoever she was,it was his wife through the ages, but
it's the human friend who redeems him butit is, I do see an evolution, in moving
from the hero as a solo practitionerto a collective or a fellowship, and
even Tolkien had, Tolkien He had hisfinger on some things, I think, and
(14:00):
even he, realized that one hero probablywould fail, and Frodo does fail in
the end, and if it weren't for Sam,being the backup hero, and actually,
rescuing him from that whole situation.
yeah, so I, I think there'sIt's very interesting to watch.
Boston (14:22):
I want to turn the corner here, Barbie has been a massive cultural
phenomenon, and it is truly a movie ofmythic proportions with mythic dimensions
and is functioning on all kinds of levels.
what do you think is going on there?
Jody Bower (14:39):
This is one of the instances of where somebody asked
me a question and it just, blah.
I was at my dissertation defense andThe pattern that I saw in women's
literature, it is not a dissent story.
It is rather a leavingand going away story.
it's a woman who says, I can't livein this situation, but usually she is
(15:02):
somebody who's kind of oppressed anyway.
The Color Purple is an exampleof a woman who is so oppressed.
She doesn't even dare speak.
And yet eventually she does this journeywhere she leaves the situation and finds a
place where she can be her creative self.
That's Celie's journey perfectly,and I, that, so I wrote about all the
(15:27):
variations, Jane Eyre leaves, I mean sheleaves so many situations, she leaves
home, she leaves the school, she leavesThornwood, Thornfield, she just, she
has to keep leaving to, cause peoplekeep telling her, no you need to be
this for me, and she's not having that.
Chris Downing asked me, why doyou like this story, which has no
(15:47):
interest to me personally, she said.
Instead of the descent story, which Ilove and so many women love, so many
women love the descent story, and Isaid to her, the descent to the Cave
of the Dark Goddess has no meaning forme because I grew up in that situation.
I, I had a alcoholic mother and I we hada severe family trauma when I was 11.
(16:14):
My brother was killed in our backyard,threw the family into disarray for many
years, and, I was left to deal with iton my own, basically, which thankfully
also found some very good counselors.
so I grew up in a very darksort of situation with an
unhappy, difficult mother.
(16:36):
And I said to Chris, I don'thave to go down to the cave.
I've been there.
I need something different.
And that's the story that I was findingof women who really their childhoods
were not good and they got out andthey built a life for themselves.
But the descent story, as we talked,And Chris told me her own story.
(16:59):
The descent story, I think,appeals to women who maybe
were overprotected as children.
And maybe everything was made easyand fine for them, and they got to a
certain point in life and they just feltlike this is not all there is to life.
I need something more.
(17:20):
Chris felt a very strong need to findwhat she said, her, to find the dark
feminine, to find this whole shadow selfthat was not part of her upbringing.
It was not acknowledged.
It was not allowed.
And we look at Barbie who's morecosseted and privileged and happy.
(17:42):
than Barbie and but she is not wholeshe and you know that the whole
thing when she starts saying do youever think about death, death in the
Barbie world and everyone is justhorrified because this doesn't enter
in there's no such thing but Barbie,willingly or not, has to go find that.
And she does and that's when shestarts to become a whole person.
(18:08):
So I think there, this is why I'mnot wedded to one particular journey,
because I think what you need forindividuation can be very different,
depending on where you're coming from,what your life experience has been.
But I had not even thought about thattill Chris asked me that question.
Boston (18:28):
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
That exploration and that juxtapositionbetween the story of leaving the story of
that journey and the story of the descent.
that's something that I'm going toponder some more whether the descent
is what is needed or if you are,if you spend childhood in the cave.
it's about ascent.
One of the, one of the topics thatyou had said you wanted to bring
(18:51):
into this conversation was around thehero's journey and social activism.
What do you see there?
Jody Bower (18:57):
Yeah, this was, this is something I've, done
a great deal of lecturing at,mostly in, like liberal churches.
But it just.
One day it occurred to me that the waymost people pursue activism, political
activism, especially, is very, it'svery much what I call heroic thinking.
(19:20):
And, first I'd like to just sidetrack alittle bit because I think it's important.
James Hillman said that we have twoopposing myths in American politics.
There's the myth of the fall,which is that things used to be.
Much better.
We had a golden age in the past.
We have fallen away fromit, and we must get back.
We must go back to it.
(19:42):
This is the, and the past, isglorified, and the future is, scary.
We don't know, so we'rebetter off going back.
The other myth is the myth of progress.
The idea that the best is yet to come.
and we have a moralduty to make it happen.
So, getting back is a setback,and we fear the past was worse,
(20:07):
the future is going to be better.
I would say neither groupis living in the present.
and I think personally that thecultures do evolve and we do progress,
and a lot of our politics is aboutthe people who are fearing that
versus the people who want that.
and that is, there's the tension.
I think the bulk of people in the societyare okay with change if it happens slowly.
(20:34):
But so I think really, and I'veheard this from others that in a way,
the conservatives hold us back fromchanging faster than the society can
actually handle and the progressives.
Meanwhile, trying to pull us the otherway, but so there that's part of it.
So there's a fear that'sbehind a lot of it.
(20:57):
there's a fear that we.
That we will change andgo away from what's good.
There's a fear that we will notget to what's good because we'll
be dragged back into the dark ages.
There's this, and fearbased, leads to anger.
And I, this leads, I think,into heroic thinking.
I'm going to pick apart theheroic mindset, if you don't mind.
(21:19):
Heroes fight on behalf of other people.
They fight on behalf of the community.
And they fix the problem throughwhat Sherry Tepper, who was a,
a fantasy author, she wrote TheGate to Women's Country, I think
was her most favorite book.
She talks about how the herofixes it to the, what she
(21:42):
calls the single wondrous act.
he pulls the sword from the stone, hedestroys the One Ring, it's all good.
He defeats the bad guy andeverything becomes perfect.
what she didn't mention, but thatI've also noticed is that, and Kim
Hudson also says this, that actuallywe go back to the status quo.
So that's what the hero does.
(22:03):
He actually defends the status quo.
again, it's very emotion based.
There's a righteousanger to heroic thinking.
I have a lot of friends who say, if you'renot angry, you're not paying attention.
Hey, you must be angry.
I'm going to post all this stuff on theinternet to make you angry because this is
how, people, this is motivational, not forme, but, it is to a lot of people, heroic
(22:29):
thinking is right and wrong thinking.
I'm right.
You're wrong.
My hero is right.
Your hero is wrong.
Therefore, your hero is villain, so wehave two hero villains fighting each other
and people tend to, because we think it'sa single act that's going to make it.
There's this hero worship thatgoes on and we see it in politics.
(22:51):
My guy versus your guy.
My guy is better than your guy.
And I've seen this on both sides.
people worship their politicalcandidate on both sides, and they
really think that if only we couldget our guy into position, then
everything will turn out okay.
And I saw that a lot, during theObama administration, there was
(23:12):
all this, Oh yeah, we get Obama.
We elected our guy.
Yay.
Everything's good.
And then because there wastoo much opposition, not much
happened, and people blamed Obama.
And we're disappointed in their hero, butthe other side of that is that you get
your hero working for you and you can go.
(23:33):
Yeah.
Okay.
Yay.
I don't have to do anything like
Boston (23:37):
the election is the big event.
That's the pollingthat's pulling the sword
Jody Bower (23:41):
or that's right.
And once, my part in that is to voteand then it's not anything else.
There's actually, I think, alittle bit of, reinforcement
of low self esteem that I can'tpersonally deal with these problems.
And, the problems are really overwhelming,but my guy can't, if I get the right
(24:02):
guy and if I vote for the rightperson, but this, then you can imagine
the burden that it puts on the hero.
And I take this back to just, toscale it down, if you've ever been
the person in a organization thateverybody asks to do everything.
could you run this?
Could you do this?
After a while, people just getburnt out, but everybody else is
(24:22):
going, Oh, they're so capable.
They're so good at this.
Let's ask them instead of saying, maybewe need to share the load a little bit.
So I've seen it in almost everyorganization I've been a part of, is
that you have these heroic few takeon everything and then burn out.
and burnout is a.
(24:43):
A scary thing, because I think the peoplewho are shouldering most of the load,
the problems are not solved by one act.
They realize that theycan't do it all themselves.
They ask for help.
They try to enlist help.
If they don't get help.
And the problems can seem sooverwhelming that you can.
(25:07):
You can become obsessed.
I had a friend who was so obsessed aboutan issue in my town that every time
I saw her, she'd talk at me for twohours about, trying to enlist me to the
cause because the problem was too bigfor her and she needed to get everybody
else in line and she couldn't do that.
And then she got very burntout and angry and frustrated.
(25:28):
And I actually think that, sometimesyou lose your really good people
because they're burning out.
But the real danger is, I thinkthis is the roots of terrorism.
I think, because people have beentrying maybe who knows for decades
to say, there's a problem here.
Listen to us.
We need, nobody's listening.
Nobody's helping.
(25:50):
And at some point I think peoplecan become so frustrated and angry.
That they feel like I've got to getpeople's attention somehow, I've got
to call attention to this problemthat nobody's, that's not being fixed.
And I do think that this is wheresome of the terrorism comes from
is just sheer frustration with theinability to get other people to
(26:16):
pay attention and fix the problem.
So where I see heroic thinking,how that plays out in our politics
and what I usually challenge theaudiences in these liberal churches.
I say how much of this is in keepingwith progressive values, you know,
seeing people as the enemy, all of this,
Boston (26:39):
I want to grab hold of something that's percolating there.
There's, The thread, when we weretalking about the hero earlier and you
said the hero, if he keeps winning, hebecomes a tyrant, so that's one destiny,
or the heroic personality becomes sooverwhelmed, he becomes a terrorist, or,
(27:00):
which then constellates a villain, eitherway, this is that sort of old parable
that says you either die a hero or livelong enough to see yourself become the
villain, but there's this, but the hero,
The hero is, seems to be astage or a step along the way.
that it's destined to become, Idon't dunno if destined, this is one
(27:20):
way, it can go two different ways.
It can become a villain.
Overwhelm, either way, faced withthis inability to, assert control.
In a inability to win to
Jody Bower (27:33):
win permanently to win permanently.
That's and this is part of heroicthinking this idea that it's possible
to win permanently, it's possible to doone thing and have everything be okay.
This is an idea I thinkwe really need to let go.
this is fundamentalism.
Yes, it is.
(27:53):
It's the best.
Again, it's the very right and wrongblack and white sort of thinking.
but yeah, the hero.
Part of it is the hero worship.
Everybody's putting them on apedestal and that can, of course,
what does that do to your ego?
And I think I'm not going to mentionany names of any political candidates
right now, we can see the ego,getting over and, or the burden
(28:19):
and because you, your side can win.
But that doesn't mean the otherside goes, Oh, okay, we're all in
line now, the other side, as wesee, is going to keep fighting.
And the more you try to, so thenyou're put in the position of your job.
(28:41):
And, the idea, of course, is yourhero wins and becomes a hero.
The wonderful king who you know,fixes everything, fixes the roads
and fixes the, the infrastructure andeverybody lives happily ever after.
But instead, the king's energy hasto go into quelling all of the people
(29:02):
who do not want to live in that.
And so what happened?
Nothing much happens.
that's.
And then of course, everybodyelse can say, see, they failed.
And, we do this tug of war andworst case, we get into, I think, a
situation like the Middle East wherepeople are now in this thing of, we
(29:25):
just have to wipe the other side out.
That's never going to happen.
How many times have peopletried to wipe the Jews out?
And people try to wipe out gay people.
That's not working.
it's it does.
They just keep coming back.
And so we have to find anotherway of thinking about it.
Besides, but this is hard when you'redealing with fundamentals thinking, which
(29:47):
says that only evil people do evil acts.
So it's okay to wipe them out.
rather than having the mindsetthat maybe there's a cause.
That we could address, we knowthat abused people become abusers.
So how do we break the cycle of abuse?
in families, how do we break thecycle of abuse in a political
(30:13):
arena, because it is abusive.
I think a lot of it is abusive.
Do
Boston (30:18):
you have an idea for an alternative archetype or an
alternative type of thinking?
I'm so glad you asked that question.
Jody Bower (30:26):
Well, I do because I started thinking about the heroine
journey that I had written about andhow she approaches life and i'm going
to just say at the outset that Irelandthey got past a lot of this because
the mothers stood up and said we aredone And this happened in my lifetime.
I'm a boomer.
(30:47):
I remember in the 70s when the women ofIreland just rose up and said, no more
of this, Protestant versus Catholic,Northern, you know, all of this,
we're just, you're killing our babies.
Stop it.
And they stopped it for the most part.
so it was the feminine energy oflove that came in and said, no, stop.
(31:08):
Enough.
and I, I pray with all of mynon denominational, non defined
energy that this happens.
elsewhere, but in the heroinjourney, what happens is that she
is, she's in a situation wherepeople are telling her who to be.
(31:29):
And she says no.
And so her resistanceis part of her being.
She just resists what she doesn'twant, but she doesn't fight them.
She doesn't try to conquer thepeople who are trying to control her.
she actually, the very first thing sheusually does in the stories is she goes
exactly where they tell her never to go.
(31:51):
So she goes into the forest wherethe witch is, or she goes to the big
city, or she goes to where, she goesto where the enemy is, and she learns.
She, so she embraces, she goes tothe witch, and the witch to the hero
is a villain who must be killed.
(32:12):
But she goes there, and shehumbles herself before the
witch, and she says, teach me.
And the witch is usually, well, prove tome that you're worthy of my being taught.
Because I'm not wasting mytime with you, otherwise.
The whole story, the devil wore productis such a, going to the which to
Boston (32:34):
learn.
I was thinking of the Little Mermaid, but,
Jody Bower (32:37):
yeah, she's got to learn and she gets tested.
it's, she's learning, it's veryexperiential how she learns and
she gets handed, impossible tasks.
And there's a magic element that comes in,usually it's a mother energy that she's
got with her somehow, who advises her.
But what she learns, she hasto sort out seeds, right?
(32:58):
It's a pile of seeds and she has tosort out the wheat from the chaff and
the black seeds and the white seeds.
This is a test in discernment.
How do you know what is good?
how do you know what is of value?
And your job is to choose what is of valueand what will feed and nurture people.
(33:20):
So her focus is not, she's pickingout the black seeds, but she's not
spending a lot of time going, Oh, thesehorrible black seeds must be burnt.
They must be destroyed.
They must be, it's no, theyjust go off to the side.
And this is what we need.
This is what we're taking.
This is what we're planting.
So her whole learning is abouthow to focus on what is a value
(33:43):
and how to have more of it.
It's, it's everything that themanifesters talking about, what
are you putting your energy into?
Because whatever you put yourenergy in to, there will be more
of it will come back at you.
And so She's also learning howto see things as they really are,
(34:03):
not to be fooled by the seedsthat are masquerading, maybe,
Boston (34:08):
And I'm just thinking about that distinction between you're not
sorting things into good and evil, you'resorting things in discerning value.
So you and you can do either one isa way you can approach a situation,
but this is blameless discernment.
Jody Bower (34:24):
Blameless discernment.
What do you want to foster in life?
So focus on that.
And do you want to spend all your timeputting angry stuff up on the Internet?
Or do you want to look for what's good?
What's working?
I follow all of these Goodable and allthese other sites on Instagram, which are
(34:46):
just people giving you news about good.
There are people who havecleaned up that enormous patch
of plastic crap in the ocean.
They've cleaned it up.
There are kids inventing amazingthings that are helping people.
There's a girl who came upwith a $400 dialysis machine.
(35:11):
Honestly, I believe it's the kidsof today who, where we really have
to look because they are, they'redoing, but there's a lot of people
who are doing amazing stuff out there.
Yeah, it's so hopeful.
There's some guy, all he doesis the positive climate news.
Because there is a lot going onwith addressing climate change.
(35:31):
There was a lecture at theMythologium about, or there
was a whole panel on mushrooms.
They're discovering how mushroomscan help us in everything.
I mean, you, you mix a fungi into concreteand the concrete doesn't fall apart in 20
years, like our, our bridges are fallingapart because the mycelium heals it.
(35:53):
and what it's doing for our health.
I mean, there's so much good news.
and then I think the amazingthing too, is that Once you get
somebody who's doing this good work.
what happens in all the heroinestories is that she Starts creating
this wonderful life for herself basedon her own values and other people
(36:16):
look at her and go wow I like that.
I want to try that.
Celie, you know who came out of justthe worst kind of life just so oppressed
and so beaten up and so abused and shecomes to the sense of self and then she
starts She actually creates communityand she attracts all these people to her
(36:40):
She even attracts her abusive ex husbandwho looks at what she's doing in life.
she's making pants.
She's making pants for women becauseshe, for her pants represented a stepping
out of her role as a subservient,basically slave to other people.
And she makes thesebeautiful, wild, crazy pants.
(37:01):
And her ex husband comes to livenearby and says, I will make shirts.
And they have this wonderful conversationat the end where he talks about how
once he stopped trying to controlother people and get them to do what he
wanted to do, he was so much happier.
And she said, yeah, and otherpeople like you better too.
(37:25):
So there's this, in all of the storiesthat I read, there is usually a man
who looks at what she's doing andgoes, that is a better way of being.
And I'm gonna.
I'm going to go with you ratherthan go, with what my parents, my
parents want me to be all this.
They want to say, in Sense andSensibility, Edward Ferrars, the family
(37:50):
wants him to be a politician and theywant him to make a name for himself
and, further the family's thing.
And he just wants to be aminister, take care of people.
And he wants to go with Eleanorbecause she understands that about him.
And, he sees his path with her,his path to being who he wants.
(38:12):
So, this is what I think that wedo a lot better with a role model
that we choose to follow rather thana tyrant who tells us how to be.
Because there's no need from thatpoint on to be enforcing anything.
Boston (38:30):
It's a chosen path.
Jody Bower (38:31):
It's a chosen path, which is chosen not because out of
belief, but rather out of experience.
And looking at, seeing that it works.
I'm, I think essentially I'm a pragmatist.
And the question I always askis, how's that working for you?
Yes.
Boston (38:47):
Yes, I love that question.
Yeah, yeah.
Jody Bower (38:57):
What I'm also excited about, There's a lot of work being done,
by non binary people, and non binarypeople, by definition, don't do well
with black and white either or thinking.
And I've been venturing out andreading, some really exciting work
(39:19):
by people who are talking about howa non binary person individuates.
It is not by incorporating the otherbecause there's not that, I'm male,
that person's female, I don't have anyreal, I don't understand female energy.
There's not that.
and there's this wonderfultheme that keeps coming up.
(39:41):
and Chris Downing is one of thepeople who talked about this.
I individuate not by integratingthat which is my shadow side,
but by envisioning my ideal self.
So it's a double, it's not an otherdouble, it's a sort of a perfected self
(40:05):
that is what my goal is to work towards.
and everything that I might havebeen trying to put on the other.
is in that image.
And I can, I can imagine that.
So it's a wonderful as if exercise.
I've always loved this with thecounselors I've gone to when I've
(40:27):
been struggling in it with an issue.
And they have said, what if youwere that that you're trying to be?
Can you imagine yourself asif all of that were true?
And you sit and you imagine youare the person you want to be.
And I think that holds a lot of valueinstead of looking for somebody else to
(40:51):
complete you or a hero to do the workthat you don't feel that you're capable
of, just sit and do some as if whatif I were that person, who would I be?
How would I feel?
How would I behave?
How would I act in the
Boston (41:09):
world?
What an excellent exercise that feels,if that feels like a, there's one thing I
would like for listeners to get from this.
It's that, and actuallyput that in action.
I do this in my coaching, right?
This is. One of the things we do isreally sit in your idealized self.
What does it feel like, soundsmell taste what's around you.
(41:30):
It is such a powerful activity.
Jody Bower (41:32):
it's huge.
It's huge.
It's life changing.
I've had it be life changing.
Boston (41:46):
What were your favorite stories growing up?
Nursery rhymes, children's books,movies, cartoons, comics, anything?
Jody Bower (41:52):
My mother gave me, Kurti, no, The Princess and the Goblin by
George MacDonald when I was pretty young.
She read it to me.
It was her favorite story.
And that got me started on fantasy novels.
And then Tolkien fell on veryfertile ground, I think, but I really
loved that story There's a heroin it, but the princess is pretty
(42:14):
active and it's a descent story.
They go down into the mountains,but, I really loved that.
I loved The Wind in the Willows.
I didn't care for Mr.
Toad, but I loved, I think thefriendship between, Ratty and, Mole
and the messing about in boats.
I grew up in boats.
(42:35):
We sailed and everything and Iloved messing about in boats.
And then, of course, when I was ateenager, like I said, I discovered Lord
of the Rings and Dune and that was, boy.
Oh, and, I think in juniorhigh, Pride and Prejudice.
Which was just, I've done alot of blogging on Jane Austen.
I think she's an amazing psychologist.
Boston (42:55):
thank you.
What's something that you believeto be true that you cannot prove?
Jody Bower (43:00):
That we have an eternal soul.
I've had experiences, I've actuallyhad a near death experience.
Oh, a year ago, year and a half ago.
are
Boston (43:09):
you willing to share a little bit about what that was
Jody Bower (43:11):
like?
yeah, I had, I'd had a lot, I'vehad a rebuilt shoulder and before
it was rebuilt, I was taking alot of anti inflammatories, much
more than the recommended doseand I had a catastrophic GI bleed.
I lost half my blood volume.
and, passed out at home,and I was not unconscious.
(43:34):
I was unconscious because Ihad no awareness of my body at
all, and everything was black.
But I was there.
it wasn't like, being asleep.
It wasn't like being, anesthetized.
I was present in nothingness.
And I was given the choice to go or stay.
I didn't see anybody.
(43:54):
I didn't talk to anybody.
It was just but I alsowas completely at peace.
just completely at peace.
Everything was fine.
It was just you could take this out now.
You can go.
This is an option for you toleave if you want to leave or
if you don't feel complete.
(44:14):
With this life you can goback and I thought about it.
Wow, this is a pretty easy way to go.
There's no pain I'm really calm,but on the other hand, there's
so many people who would be upsetand do I feel like I'm done.
No, I don't feel like I'm done sothen I woke up on the floor of my,
hallway and managed to reach up andopen the doorway and call for help.
(44:38):
And I was in intensive care for a week.
I almost died one other time whileI was there because I kept bleeding.
But, but that whole week was so blissful.
I can't tell you every connection that Ihad with every person in that hospital.
It was like I saw theirloving, angelic Self.
(45:03):
Those nurses were amazing.
And I think they felt me seeing themthat way because the way they treated
me and saw me was just amazing.
I mean, it was it's bizarre to say,I'm lying in intensive care with three
different IVs going in me because they'retrying to keep me, you know, from dying.
(45:23):
And I'm blissed out.
Wow.
Boston (45:27):
Yeah.
I'm so glad you decided to stay.
Jody Bower (45:30):
Thank you.
I am, too.
I am, too.
It's, doesn't, hasn't meantthe end of challenges in my
life, but, I wouldn't imagine.
Boston (45:37):
No.
But you chose them.
Jody Bower (45:39):
But I chose them, yeah, and I'm not worried, I don't
fear death, I'll tell you that.
I do not fear death.
Boston (45:44):
That is powerful.
Thank you.
Oh boy.
After, after, after that, the nextquestion is going backwards in,
in what ways are you the same nowas you were when you were a child?
Jody Bower (46:01):
I was a very serious child.
I've loosened up a bit, but I wasall I was a very questioning child.
Wayne Mueller, who's a mentor ofmine, he wrote Legacy of the Heart.
And he talks about people who have hada different difficult childhood tend to
ask the big questions early on in life.
(46:23):
They're more thoughtful.
They're more empathetic.
they're more questioning,they become seekers.
And I think my childhooddid make me that way.
And I've never stopped.
And sometimes I know, especiallymy family finds me a bit, you
know, could you listen up already?
We don't have to have anintense discussion about the
(46:44):
deeper meaning of everything.
But yeah, I do.
I do.
When I need to, I go andwatch, a Ben Stiller movie or
something to lighten me up.
Boston (46:59):
Your seriousness and depth has transcended the years.
Jody Bower (47:03):
Yeah, I think I just was conditioned.
my father was a scientist.
He raised me to be a critical thinker.
I had a very influential teacher inhigh school, who taught us, Plato, the
unexamined life is not worth living.
And I'm just a questioner.
gets me in trouble sometimes becausemy friends sometimes put stuff up on
(47:23):
the internet that they saw somewhereand believed and I will go on
Snopes and say, no, that's not true.
I've decided to stop doing that.
I've decided that I am not here to police,that whole cartoon about the guy typing
away badly and going, I can't come to bed.
Someone is wrong on the internet.
(47:45):
I trying to like, let people there'sa woman, I forget her name, but she
has this whole philosophy of let them,just let them, whatever they want
to believe, whatever they want tosay, however they want to treat you,
just let them, don't worry about it.
I'm trying to adopt that.
They're on their journey.
Maybe I'm not.
I told my nephew when he started driving,and he's a very serious character too.
(48:08):
And I said to him, you aregoing to encounter people
on freeways who are jerks.
I didn't use that word.
I said, they are looking for a fight.
You do not have to give it backto them and he listened to that.
He told me later that wasactually very useful advice.
(48:28):
And they do cut you off or flip youoff or honk or something and you
go, yeah, you'll find somebody to.
You'll find the person you want to havea fight, who wants to give you a fight.
I'm not going to be that today.
Boston (48:40):
That is great life advice in general.
Yeah.
You will encounter peoplewho are looking for a fight.
You do not have to give it to them.
That's
Jody Bower (48:47):
beautiful.
They will find somebody else.
Someone else will come along.
Yeah.
Boston (48:52):
this next question, you may have already answered it, but here
it is again in a different shape.
Have you ever encountered a phenomenonthat you just cannot explain?
Jody Bower (49:01):
besides the other thing I saw, I've seen a UFO, and, I was camping,
I was up in the San Juan Islands, wewere camping on the beach, there was
a stretch of water across from us,and then another island, and we're
sitting there, we've had a campfire,we're thinking about going to bed.
And this very bright light comes up overthe island by, far from us and comes down
(49:26):
and goes along the water in front of us.
And it was just a globe of light.
There's absolutely no sound,And then it disappears.
And we all sat there for a while andfinally someone said, did you see that?
And we all said, and wedidn't talk about it.
We didn't talk about it,because it made no sense.
(49:47):
It was, it couldn't have beena helicopter, and this is in
the 70s, I don't think we hadstealth helicopters anyway.
No sound, couldn't have been a boat,because it came up over the hill and down.
I have no explanation for that.
Boston (50:00):
and how do you think, having that kind of experience, what do you think that
does to, did or does to your worldview?
Jody Bower (50:07):
I did.
There's, Shakespeare, "there are morethings under heaven and earth than
are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I don't think anybody has the answers.
I don't think science has all the answers.
I think that there's just so muchmore to the fullness of life than
any one or set of disciplines canadd, and they're just mystery.
(50:31):
There's mystery.
And, I think a life in which you thinkthere's no mystery or that any mystery
could be explained, would be kind of sad.
I think I would like to havemore experiences where I go.
I have no idea what that was.
Yes.
And I may never knowwhat that was, but whoa.
Boston (50:55):
Yes.
more mystery.
cheers to that.
The last question is when in yourlife have you experienced ecstasy?
Jody Bower (51:05):
This is a funny thing.
I've had a few moments usually out inthe woods where it's just been a perfect
moment, where everything, I don't knowwhere you feel a part of everything.
And I think that's the biggest part.
The other times would be I'm a singer.
(51:27):
I'm a singer in a choir.
And singing with a good choir and singingan amazing piece of music and everybody's
in harmony and it's one of those timeswhen it's really clicked when the choir is
your breathing is what you're an organism.
I think that's it when you feelintensely alive and intensely connected.
(51:49):
That's when I think my mostecstatic moments have been.
I can think of one in particular.
I got to sing, the Verdi Requiem in theopera house in Seattle with my choir with,
I was at the University of Washington atthe time and, it, the head of the music
(52:10):
department was retiring and we put on thisone shot show and it was transcending.
it was that's an amazing piece ofmusic and I don't know, I was just,
I was somewhere else for most of it.
Oh, wow.
Boston (52:24):
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's something so beautifulin that, in what you just shared,
there's so many components to it.
Breathing as one, merging with somethingbigger than yourself, and then you throw
in music, which transforms a soundscapeand you put that in such a fabulous
cathedral, which is acousticallydesigned to elevate that.
(52:45):
And it itself is somethingthat is built to elevate, like
that's just sounds magnificent
Jody Bower (52:52):
and you have an audience.
who is feeling everything you're, I'mnot an actor, but I can understand that
it's not about you being up on stage.
It's just you and the audience.
And also, I think that there's a skilllevel, there's a skill you've worked
at, that you are getting to employ.
Boston (53:10):
we've covered a lot of ground.
Thank you so much for beingwilling to just dance in this
conversation and share so much.
How can people find you?
Jody Bower (53:19):
I have a blog.
I have a web page it's just jodybower.Com.
Also, you can reach me through LinkedIn.
and right now, I am availableto speak or run workshops.
I do a lot of work with, film programs.
Because, you know, it's thescript writers who really get
how myth translates into words.
(53:42):
I also do book coaching.
I was an editor for years.
Now I'm working at a higher level.
And one of the things I do is,especially when people are at the
early stages of writing a book.
I like to do a a two hoursit down where we talk.
I have a lot of questions.
I have a lot of advice for how to takethe vague idea and understand What your
(54:08):
structure should be, who your audience is.
and you can find my books on Amazonor independent books, sellers, always
plug the independent books, sellers.
Boston (54:17):
Outstanding.
Jody, thank you so muchfor your time today.
You've been really generous
Jody Bower (54:22):
This has been fun for me.
Thank you.
Boston (54:29):
Thanks again to my guest Dr.
Jody Bower.
And thank you to our listeners.
If you enjoyed this episode of Mythic,please consider leaving a review
wherever you get your podcasts.
That helps people find the show.
You can also find more information,including show notes and other
resources at mythicpodcast.com.
If you want to know more about me andmy work, check out bostonblake.com.
(54:55):
Until next time.
Journey on.
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