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Yearning, Myth & the Soul: A Deep Dive | Mythic Mirror Ep 21
14 Plays6 days ago
Is yearning an aspect of the soul? What is it we yearn for? How does fantasy connect to this sense of longing? Explore this theme of heart and soul with Mary and Carolina. Can we attain connection and moments of sublime yearning in our everyday rushing about lives?
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Transcript
Introduction to Yearning
00:00:00
Speaker
What is it to yearn? What's your favorite slow burn book? And can escapism be
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome to Mythic Mirror, podcast for lovers of myth and fantasy who want to live a magical, fulfilling life. I'm your host, Mary C. Kehoe. And I'm your co-host, Carolina Carter. And today we are talking about yearning.
00:00:33
Speaker
So Carolina, what do you yearn for? Where to begin? What don't I yearn for is a better question. I yearn for money.
00:00:45
Speaker
No. Well, you know me, and I always like to start with etymology of words, but is that where you want to start?
00:00:57
Speaker
let's That sounds like a good foundation. Okay. So it's an old English word. um It was spelled G-E-O-R-N-I-A-N, Guernian, which translated into to long for deeply, to desire eagerly, eagerly to strive after. That's all pretty obvious. It doesn't like change anything too big. But if you look into how it was used today,
00:01:24
Speaker
in olden times, if you look into how it was used back in the day, if you look into how it was used in ancient times, how do I say this?
00:01:35
Speaker
Any of those worked. Okay. When people were speaking old English, it was used more as to grieve, to be troubled by, to be in emotional distress.
Yearning in Literature
00:01:51
Speaker
Ooh. Now this reminds me of my favorite out word nostalgia, because if you take it back to its Latin roots, it means pain from an old wound, which there's something that I probably, it's my Irish heritage, but something about the human spirit that I love, that we can only be happy if there's something truly and deeply sad going on. That this yearning is this like sort of a sense of loss and homesickness.
00:02:23
Speaker
Like you don't yearn for something. ah feel like it's not to want. It's to need to be completed by. um You know, you can want a car, but you wouldn't yearn for a car.
00:02:38
Speaker
That make sense? Mm-hmm. So obviously a great literary device for a character because I think that's something everybody can relate to We all yearn, whether it's romantically or spiritually, metaphysically. Yeah, one of the things that jumped out at me from what you were just saying, the definition, the older the first definition you gave, that to strive for, is one of the things that I think has been lost in the modern definitions.
00:03:10
Speaker
it's become how most people use it more of a passive thing. But I like the idea of it being an active, adding in the striving makes it even more interesting.
00:03:25
Speaker
Right. there's There's the yearning that we see in books where, Twilight, the second movie, where the character is doing nothing but yearning.
00:03:38
Speaker
And to me that loses its meaning pretty quick. How dare you? I know. I'm talking about the movie. The book would be um But going going back to what you were saying about yearning and the human condition, ah yeah I can't help but bring in the the, as you say, spiritual or metaphysical, of the idea of the soul yearning, and what is the soul yearning for, and this this idea that you said of returning home, and why that is so universal, and it doesn't necessarily mean a home that you live in. You know, the home could be another person, it could be something you find in a spiritual belief, but this idea of
00:04:36
Speaker
Connection and wholeness.
Comparing Yearning and Passion
00:04:38
Speaker
And we that's what we're yearning for, which is could be why you don't use the term for a car or physical thing, because it's more about this spiritual, emotional connection.
00:04:54
Speaker
And it's very personal. It's very deep. um One example in literature that I think is a good difference between yearning and passion is in Sense of Sensibility, when Marianne is talking to her sister Eleanor and doesn't believe she's in love because she says, to love is to burn, to be on fire. And she doesn't understand that her older sister is loves extremely deeply and but she I don't think she understands or appreciates yearning is interesting that both yearning and passion have that part of their meaning that has to do with suffering yeah long suffering patience pain yeah although I don't know that passion has patience maybe
00:05:46
Speaker
If it's a staying passion. It depends on how the term's being used. Well, think that brings back in the word striving because if you are like passionately pursuing this thing that you yearn for, it brings back in like this striving for it, this ever approachable, never attainable situation that we love.
Yearning in Slow Burn Romances
00:06:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I guess. The subtext of passion is not necessarily great in my mind because it feels like quick burning. Like it's, it's, it's, which is not what Marianne had. Like she was passionate, but she did have the staying power as well.
00:06:33
Speaker
so I see that I'm being unfair to the word. e he But ah who hurt you? Who hurt you? No, we're not doing that trope today.
00:06:46
Speaker
Aw. We could. um It's one of my favorites. Speaking of tropes, do you have any favorite God-tier slow burn?
00:06:59
Speaker
Yeah, and I said it. And this is where I reveal that I have been delving into the romanticcy world, which is not exactly known for its slow burn.
00:07:13
Speaker
um But I will say, like, I long for it. Kind of as soon as, like, the two people get together, I'm like, I'm kind of over it. don't care about you two anymore. When I think of yearning and I think of slow burn, very, very specifically, do I think of the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice version where Darcy does the hand thing where he, like, helps her into the carriage and then he walks away and he, like, flexes his hand?
00:07:38
Speaker
I was thinking of that moment, too. Although, wait, I put it into the other version. Is it in the Keira Knightley version?
00:07:49
Speaker
Mm-hmm. That's funny. Yeah, just as a side note, our family tends to hate on the Keira Knightley version, and I love it. I both love it and hate it there There are parts of it that I can't stand, and parts of it that I really like. got most upset. Someone who shall not be named.
00:08:12
Speaker
who probably doesn't listen to this, said that Mr. Darcy was ugly and i will not stand for that slander. No, well, it wasn't me. I will not.
00:08:22
Speaker
I know it wasn't you. Was it you? no Did you agree? no I don't even remember this conversation. Well, speaking of burning, I didn't say much, but I was burning up with rage, passion. Rage.
00:08:37
Speaker
Other examples? Okay, this is hard because i
Yearning in Classics
00:08:43
Speaker
feel like I use the Odyssey as an example for everything, but that is a long yearning book.
00:08:50
Speaker
He just yearns the whole time. He wants to be home. The Great Gatsby, that's a good example. Looking at the light at the end of the pier. looking Being on the pier, looking at the light where there's also a pier.
00:09:02
Speaker
It's a green light. ah It's been a moment since I read that book.
00:09:10
Speaker
The yearns for Daisy. yeah The woman that perhaps never was. This is my own interpretation of the great Gatsby. I don't think this is the professor approved.
00:09:24
Speaker
um Here's one that's very interesting. There's a lot of yearning in it the whole time, but most what impresses upon me the most is when I finish reading it or I finish watching it,
00:09:35
Speaker
I feel such an intense longing and yearning within myself that I kind of get depressed for a couple days. And that is, can you guess? m Lord of the Rings.
00:09:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And I think the song Into the West at the end is probably the best rep. Well, I mean, that's a bold term. I didn't think about this before I started speaking, but one of the best representations of yearning in music. I cry every time I hear it.
00:10:05
Speaker
I feel so sick. I feel homesick. I feel so sad. i feel like it opens up a void inside me that my soul is being sucked into, but in a good way.
00:10:17
Speaker
and Well, and I think that's why The Lord of the Rings has become the classic that it has, and and it has stemmed fantasy as a genre.
00:10:28
Speaker
I think that yearning is key aspect of fantasy itself. Because why do we love to read, write, create these stories that are so far from our contemporary life?
00:10:49
Speaker
what what you know Why do we have this hole that needs to be filled? I feel like some stories, some fantasy worlds connect to this yearning more than others.
00:11:04
Speaker
But that could also just be a personal preference on my part. hey But, you know, the like Lord of the Rings is such a great example because of the depth that's in it, the depth of world, depth of character.
00:11:19
Speaker
And the yearning that these characters have for different things. It's the whole of Middle Earth is yearning for, you know, escape from the Dark Lord. is Yearning for peace. Yearning for the the Middle Earth is already a shattered world when we need it. It's past the golden age. we've were We're at the end of of an age and we only see glimpses of a glory that had once been. So the world itself is yearning for something that is now intangible, just like we as readers are now yearning for that world.
Yearning and the Soul
00:11:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think and put in that light to me, yearning is evidence of our souls. It's this, this want and this need to be whole.
00:12:12
Speaker
um It's sort of like, you know, looking at the stars and feeling homesick. That's not really like a primal need. You know, you eat, you feel hungry and you eat and you feel better. Like this is something, this is more of an esoteric, ethereal need that must come from somewhere. It must mean something.
00:12:34
Speaker
What you just said reminded me of Maslow's hierarchy of needs where you have, you know, it begins with like safety, food, you know, and and as you go up,
00:12:45
Speaker
in civilization gets more advanced, you can start to fulfill these other needs. And I think the last one is, it has to do with exactly what you're talking about with the soul and with yearning.
00:12:57
Speaker
Yeah, self-actualization. Yeah, purpose, divine action, joy, transcendence, insight. So it is interesting that even in science, they know that this exists.
Yearning vs. Instant Gratification
00:13:11
Speaker
Speaking of joy, would you like to take a moment to do our Discworld Delight? Yes, let's do it. Okay, guesses for last week's Discworld Delight include Reaper Man, Soul Music, and one person said this one had me stumped for sure. I had to rifle through my whole collection to hunt it down.
00:13:33
Speaker
But then they didn't guess. o Oh, we've stumped someone. i may Maybe. I mean, and they probably figured it out by now, but they didn't tell me. Yes. What do we got, Mary?
00:13:45
Speaker
The answer is there's one person we didn't stump. The answer is soul music. Nice. Yay. Very good. Very good. All right. For this week, you'll hear my Nat McFiegel accent.
00:14:00
Speaker
Forgive me for not doing well. I do. I forgive me when you. Dear Sir Mr. Feagal, said Mrs. Earwig, this is a council of war, so we should be discussing strategies and tactics.
00:14:14
Speaker
Ach, well, you can if you wish, but we are the Feagals and we didn't mess about with things like that. It's all about using yon claymore to best offence, and if you didn't get that right, your last resort is to nut him.
00:14:27
Speaker
Tiffany took in Mrs. Earwig's face and said cheerfully, Could you do that, Mrs. Earwig? She was given a look, and Mrs. Erewick said, i will not as I see fit.
00:14:39
Speaker
What is that from? Mary, I do not know.
00:14:46
Speaker
You asked me, and I neglected to ask you back. Do you have any good examples in literature of Slowburn? Yes. i You had more than I do. Right now, I have my biggest one is Ember in the Ashes, and that's Cereus.
00:15:03
Speaker
That is a great slow burn. he And I will admit that I have been afraid to read the last book. Mary! Because I was afraid of what was going to happen. You can't keep doing this. I know. You told me to read it and I finished it. We've talked about pretty much all of the series that this has happened to. There's just three of them.
00:15:27
Speaker
And this one okay just the last book. And you know what? You know why? This is why. Because I was following the author on Instagram when she was writing and getting ready to publish the fourth book. And I read all the others. i was really excited. And then she kept teasing us with, like, you know, sad things are on the way. mayor So I just got too scared.
00:15:51
Speaker
I know. Mary. Okay, so. They're just still yearning. Ember in the Ashes. Throne of Glass series. These are two series that Mary told me to read and I finished and she has yet. What's the third one?
00:16:04
Speaker
Oh, it was Empire. But also you didn't finish Empire of Gold until just now. Well, we've closed that loop, haven't we?
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah, well, it used to be four. All right. Mary. Listen, I went through a phase. That's terribly naughty. Struggling.
00:16:26
Speaker
with sadness. and I didn't want to read about it. So, you know, we're back. I'm finishing. I call what I do sadness maxing, where I just, when I'm sad, I just get as sad as I can get. Just put on sad music.
00:16:46
Speaker
I read sad books. And I just wallow in it. Ooh, speaking of yearning and wallowing in it, there's another book that you were reading and I started and haven't finished yet.
00:17:00
Speaker
And it is absolutely beautiful. And though it's not even anything distinctly that was happening that was sad, but it was the whole tone of the book is sad and full of yearning.
00:17:15
Speaker
So I haven't finished it yet, but it is one of the most beautiful to tonally speaking one of the most beautiful books I've read the beginning of and that is is it The Secret Life of Addie LaRue?
00:17:31
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. I could only think of Age of Adelaide and I knew that that was the movie and not what I was talking about. That was fun too. Yeah.
00:17:41
Speaker
That's fine. That book has yearning Yeah right down to its bones and not even specifically of one character for another it's just the whole her whole being is yearning that's what gets her into trouble it would no spoilers and i have oh divine rivals that's been on my to read list for a long time
00:18:14
Speaker
i realize I haven't finished it Mary lu okay something something really happy happens and then something scary is happening and it's right at the end of the book and I just you know Mary's having trouble I know I know this is listen I actually finished books just not do you these ones
00:18:45
Speaker
ah To bring it back to our dear, magical, wonderful listeners who want to live magical and fulfilling lives, I do feel that modernity has stripped some yearning from us. I do feel like in an instant gratification universe where you can a better video is just a scroll away, a better hookup is just a swipe away, a better life is just a moment away.
00:19:10
Speaker
i think we've lost the art of yearning. Not me, but most people. What's replaced it? Instant gratification and scrolling.
00:19:21
Speaker
Swiping. Swiping, scrolling. Distraction. Distraction. I would put it all under the umbrella of distraction. Right, which is escapism. Well, let's not knock too hard on escapism. Well, and that's a good point because a lot of people say fantasy reading is just escapism. I think the difference is the level of like what we were talking about before, the level of depth that you're going through, you know, there's, when you're reading a really good book, what fantasy or otherwise you can, you know, it's living a little vicariously and yes, that can become escapism in the negative way if you're not living your own life as well, but it can be a, ah you know, what we talk about as a catalyst, but it can also be, um,
00:20:15
Speaker
cathartic it can be a way to grow uh in situations that you know we're not going to face in real life a actual dragon we but we will face a dragon like uh environments or people or situations and i think you can grow through reading books i know we've talked about this with terry pratchett where you laugh through the whole book and you finish and you feel like you're a better person, but you can't name exactly when it happened. And I think um all good books have an aspect of that where you grow with the characters, whereas scrolling, you don't, you, you know, it's, it's it's just the dopamine hit f one after the other. And I think there are books that do that as well. And, you know, if that can give you,
00:21:11
Speaker
um I think it's, it's, it can become addictive just as scrolling and social media is.
00:21:23
Speaker
And it's kind of up to you as the reader to find the, to read responsibly, but you know, are you reading for meaning and enjoy and a good story? Of course.
00:21:41
Speaker
and to live through these characters, or are you reading because you cannot stand one more second in your life and you need that escape again and again and again?
00:21:51
Speaker
Where you know finding finding an escape as well as meaning, again, can can be good in the short term, but if it becomes the crutch too long and you're yearning for something that is just that that next book, that next hit,
00:22:10
Speaker
of emotion because you're not getting it in real life, um that's when it can become, I think, detrimental. So that is my take on escapism.
00:22:22
Speaker
No, i I think you got lost in the sauce there. I think i think everything in moderation, including moderation, if you're going through a binge phase of book reading to escape and that's what gets you through, just go for it.
00:22:38
Speaker
Well, sure, but I'm saying if that becomes your whole life, if your whole life is a binge of reading to get you through life itself for the entirety your life. That is my life.
Human Need for Quests
00:22:50
Speaker
Why are you calling me out so hard?
00:22:54
Speaker
Because how i came to we need to bring it into real life to live magical and fulfilling lives. Fine.
00:23:07
Speaker
I've been there.
00:23:11
Speaker
But there's a love for me personally, when I've been there. i know I've been there too long when I start to have a sense of that emptiness of, you know, there's a difference between ah a book hangover from finishing a good book and that kind of self, you know, you're so unhappy with yourself.
00:23:38
Speaker
in your own skin that you have to jump into the next book.
00:23:44
Speaker
And, you know, if that is what gets you through a tough time, that's wonderful. And I'm glad books can help in that way. But yeah, I think when that becomes chronic, it's time to find ways to like what we were talking about, bring yearning into your life,
00:24:08
Speaker
for things, you know, wherever you find it, that sense of joy, sense of peace, sense, sense of yearning. I think you're right in modern times, it's become only,
00:24:22
Speaker
um you know, a romantic thing, but that sense of striving for something that, you know, lean into that sense of homesickness. And what is it when you look at the stars? Why do you feel that way?
00:24:37
Speaker
And it's not a bad thing. That's not a, and it's better than feeling the, I always, I, whenever I feel depressed, I call it the gray because it just seeps all color out, you know, and it just kind of the vibrancy of life is missing.
00:24:55
Speaker
And the sharpness of a yearning can be what keeps you going, you know, and and gets you out of that. And it's,
00:25:07
Speaker
um we all need a quest yeah and you don't we've been taught that escape can only be found in media in social media real you know tv media and books but we can find ways to find that joy and escape this uh illusion of what the world is right now in the in the world, in real life, we can find those moments. And we've been taught to think we can't.
00:25:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's an integral part of the human spirit that we need a quest. ah Our search for the Holy Grail, our insert other
00:25:54
Speaker
example here, um that your soul needs something to strive for. That just reminded me of a perfect example of what I'm talking about with the yearning and escapism, the character of Tom, I believe that's his name, the older brother in Mansfield Park is there's this one line in the movie. And I actually don't know if it's in the book, but in the movie, the dad is talking about his son who up till now we've seen is just kind of a layabout, you know, alcoholic and um clearly unhappy, but we don't know why.
00:26:32
Speaker
um And he's going from gaming houses and races and, you know, is always trying to find the next shiny thing to distract. And so his dad, when, when Tom is sick at the end, his dad's talking to Fanny and he says, when he was a kid, he would always just say, dad, give me a quest.
00:26:55
Speaker
And his dad would say, go tell mom, lift it a go tell, you know, go ask your mother such and such. And, and, And Tom would say, no, give me a real quest. And he just wanted to be a knight. And it's this idea of, you know, this this guy who wanted to be a hero, who wanted to be a knight, who wanted to have that noble quest. And then you find out, he's found out um how their family has all the money and can live the way they do. It's because of the slavery in the Caribbean, on the land that they owned.
00:27:29
Speaker
And he's wrecked by it. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to fix it. And he doesn't. So that's the spiral that he's gone into. It's I feel like we all have that on some level of of you know, modern life makes it hard to be an ethical person in terms of supply chain. And, you know, there's so much that we know about now that we're all disheartened.
00:27:56
Speaker
And we we you know, as kids just want that quest, you know, we want to go fight the dragons. We want to be the knight, be the hero. And the world has taught us erroneously that we can't.
00:28:12
Speaker
Hmm.
Closing Remarks and Indie Support
00:28:14
Speaker
So on that note, what was your spark of the week? Oh, my Spark the Week has to do with ducks again. And this time I took a video so you guys can see them. Because if you notice, they're not behind me anymore. I took them outside and had their whole area set up. And it was just so much fun to see them having so much fun as ducks in, you know, actually in the sunshine, outside, getting to swim. That's lovely. How about you? What is your Spark the
00:28:49
Speaker
Well, speaking of quests and journeys, today marks exactly two years of sobriety for me. um This started as i was sober curious for a while, and I decided one summer that I would just try to go a summer without booze because, you know, summer is when everybody's, everything's a drinking occasion, every barbecue, every outdoor farmer's market, blah, blah, blah, you name it. It's just always a reason to drink and I was just sort of tired of it. And so I decided to go three months. Unfortunately, that seemed to do wonders for my anxiety. So i decided to do one year and then one year passed. And now today is officially exactly two years.
00:29:34
Speaker
Wow. Congratulations. I didn't even no think it would snuck up on me. It snuck up on me too. Something I wanted to mention before you say your beautiful last piece um that I don't know that we've covered exactly because i don't. This is my fault. I think my brain didn't wrap around it. What we are talking about when we say sign up for the Kickstarter, we are not looking for any pledges.
00:29:59
Speaker
We don't need no money. We just need you to sign up so you can be alerted when Mary's book launch is going live. So if you click on the link in our bio, you can see the Kickstarter. This is not to raise money. This is just to circumvent big bad sellers like Amazon.
00:30:18
Speaker
And so that you can, if you want to buy the book, you can buy it directly from Mary. But even just signing up helps boost it in the Kickstarter profile. This is a great way for indie authors to get their name out there, get their books out there. The more people that sign up, the more boost we get from Kickstarter. So we really deeply appreciate you listening. And if you happen to sign up, we very much are grateful for that as well.
00:30:42
Speaker
That is why I love Kickstarter, because it isn't a crowdfunding platform in the sense of asking for donations or pledges. Kickstarter is for creators who are actually creating something. And when you buy something from a creator on Kickstarter, the money doesn't actually go through until the end of the campaign and if the campaign is successful. So it's not a donation. It's a way, as you said, to directly buy from a creator. And it's also a way for authors, indie authors, to make beautiful books. So we can't do that just selling through Amazon or some of the other big platforms. You can do paperbacks now, which is great, but you can't do a really beautiful special edition. And if you want to find out if you like my writing, I've got a short story for free for you.
00:31:35
Speaker
And that link is also in the show notes. We are so grateful to be spiraling through the universe with all of you. It's not always easy, but no good story ever is.