Human Shadow and What Stories Do We Need?, The

Robert Bly – one of the most compelling mythologists and storytellers of our time – captures the imagination in two live recordings.

In “The Human Shadow,” Bly takes us on a thought provoking and entertaining journey exploring our “shadow” through poetry, music, and storytelling. Bly says that the development of the shadow starts in childhood when parents make it clear there are certain parts of us they don’t like: “you’re too noisy!” So we put this into a “bag”. Over time, our independence and feeling also go into the bag, getting heavier and heavier. Then, according to Bly, we spend the rest of our life trying to get everything back out of the bag to live fully again.

“What Stories Do We Need” reminds us that the mythology we have inherited is often defective. Just as the church refused to accept the reality Galileo saw in his telescope, literalists have removed the dark soul images that nourished our ancestors from mythology by refusing to include them in our stories. But Bly reminds us that these are exactly the stories we need to hear.