Chalice & Pistol
Myths aren’t myth.
Today, commonly “myth” means fake. A story we’ve outgrown. Something soft or decorative. Or worse, a lie. But that’s a modern distortion — the residue of a culture that forgot how to carry wisdom that’s bigger than circumstances.
Real myths were never lies. They were vessels. Ways of transmitting what mattered most before we had textbooks, diagnostics, science, or language stripped of symbol. They didn’t aim to entertain or explain — they aimed to shape. Who we are. How we move. What we hold sacred. What we survive. They’re told in metaphor because that’s the only way to make truth universal, telling it in a way that relates to us personally, regardless of our specifics. Myths were never made to be believed. They were made to be lived.
The groundwork of myth meets personal identity, psychology and clinical applications, too, is well-founded:
Jung wove myth into psyche as archetype and shadow
Campbell traced the collective arc of becoming
Clarissa Pinkola Estés brought myth into trauma healing and feminine identity
Robert Bly gave men a mythic mirror in Iron John
James Hillman framed myth as psychology itself
The logo I use — a chalice and a pistol — isn’t branding. It’s a cipher. A shorthand for the mythic forces that are foundational to my viewpoint and what I offer others.
The Cracked Chalice
The vessel. The ache to contain something sacred. This contains the Forge — a symbol of transformation, where raw experience gets turned into gold. In old stories, it’s the place where people are tested, where real change happens. It’s not comfortable, but it’s honest.
It’s alo the “feminine” principle — not gendered, but energetic. The part of us that yearns for meaning. For holding. For beauty with weight. The chalice receives, but it’s not passive. It’s what gives form to the formless.
The Pistol
The force that chooses. This is the Threshold — the line you cross when you’re ready to get real. The revolver isn’t a threat, it’s not about violence. It’s a boundary or a filter. You don’t enter the Forge by accident. You have to bring something true: effort, courage, staying present. Not everyone is ready to step in.
It’s also the masculine principle — again, not about men, but about movement. The pistol is agency. It’s edge. It’s the capacity to draw a line, take a stand, or walk away. It’s the protector of the sacred — not from fear, but from dilution. It doesn’t aim recklessly. It waits.
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Together, they form a paradox. Receptivity and action. Tenderness and steel. You can’t drink from a pistol. You can’t protect with a chalice. You need both.
In my work — clinical, creative, mythic, AI-informed — I return to this pair constantly. Not to balance them, but to integrate them. To let each one shape the other. Because this isn’t about symmetry. It’s about becoming real enough to carry contradiction and still be coherent.
So when I say I work in myth — I don’t mean stories to make sense of the past; I mean codes that train you for the future. That don’t just describe the world — they prepare you to walk through it differently.
Myths aren’t myth. They’re pattern. Mirror. Map. And when read rightly — a way forward.