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This episode of Living Myth begins with the sense of incurable wounds found in both the tragic war in Ukraine and within the embattled issues of ever-growing, worldwide climate crisis. Michael Meade turns to ancient understandings of both seemingly incurable wounds and the way new paths of healing are found.

In Greek myths, Chiron appears as a strange mixture of opposing things. As a Centaur he is part horse and part man; but he is also part divine and part human. As a creature of opposites, he becomes a teacher of how to live with inner divisions and opposing energies. In the course of the myth, Chiron receives a wound from an arrow dipped in a potent poison. At first, he retreats from the world, seeking solace in caves, seemingly licking his wounds.

Eventually, Chiron wanders the world looking for a medicine that might cure or ease his pain. When the wound he carries turns out to be incurable, he goes on to discover and create many kinds of medicine. Once again, he appears as a creature of opposites. He is a great healer, but cannot cure his own wound. In living with that tension, he becomes a teacher of how to live and be creative while bearing inner wounds and facing the opposing energies of life.

Ancient people, living close to nature and the animal realm, might quickly understand the implication that we humans are like Chiron. We are part animal and part human. And strangely, we are each secretly connected to the divine; while at the same time, feeling vulnerable, conflicted and precisely wounded in our human souls.

It was that sense of deep wounding, and possibly incurable pain, that came to me after seeing the tortured images of death and destruction in the towns of Ukraine. The war in Ukraine renews some of the darkest wounds and deepest traumas of human history. And as the tragedy continues unabated with no sense of how it might end, it also appears as a wound with no cure.

At times, a part of me wants to retreat to a cave somewhere and not have to face the carnage, not have to feel the wounds that penetrate to the depths of my own soul. Another part of me keeps feeling that there must be a medicine, there must be a cure, there must be something I, we can do to stop the killing and the wounding and begin the healing.

While anguishing over the seemingly incurable wounds of war, I saw the latest report from the battlefields of the climate crisis. That worldwide, ever-growing crisis has reached a state where it “cannot be dealt with through incremental changes.” Rather, it must be faced as a life or death issue for the entire planet. The report states that the only uncertainty that remains is “whether the world can muster the will to stave off a far darker future.”

On one hand, we face a global environmental crisis that no one has seen before and we are running out of time to find a cure. On the other hand, it's as if we are back in World War II or experiencing all previous wars, as the tragedy of man's inhumanity to man persists like an incurable wound. The scale and intractability of all the troubles we face are not only epic, but more like mythic in size and scope.

Mythical Chiron, who became the creator of many forms of medicine, found no elixir for the incurable wounds and that may be the case for us as well. Rather than heroically feeling that he must overcome all the deep divisions of life; Chiron accepted the wounds over which he had no control. At the same time, his knowledge of suffering in its many forms enabled him to tap a deep well of wisdom and understanding, while also finding many other ways of healing.

There are wounds that cannot simply be cured at this time. And there can be divides so deep that they represent the original splits and opposing energies of life itself. In mythic terms, the original creation of life was preceded by chaos and darkness and each new phase of life on earth tends to follow a dark time of loss and chaos. No healing unless the original split is touched was an old wisdom saying that suggests that the next phase or stage of life arises when and where we tolerate the oppositions in life long enough to stir the deep energies of creation.

In accepting that some things may be incurable, Chiron becomes more capable of having empathy and compassion for all the wounds that people suffer. In that condition of great vulnerability, he became such a well of wisdom and understanding that he was revered as a teacher for both leaders and healers throughout the ancient world.

Like Chiron, we cannot hide from our wounds, but must somehow embrace them. The trouble is that the current condition involves the fact that all levels of nature and culture are desperately in need of healing at the same time. Given that many kinds of medicine and many paths of greater understanding are needed; it becomes clear that no single leader, no sole belief or ideology can possibly bring healing to all our current ailments.

It's as if Chiron, as the archetype of healing, must become more conscious in the minds and hearts of many people. In that way, everyone can carry part of the painful knowledge of what remains incurable. At the same time, each can contribute healing energy in some way.  As we move closer to the essence of our own nature, according to the old stories, we will discover inner medicines that can be applied to all areas of life. In that way, the major crises we all face become the crucibles for healing, growth and transformation, for society as a whole as well for each individual.

We may have had our own ideas of what was going to happen and our own expectations of what should happen, but those must be shed along the way if true transformation is to occur. Just like all of those currently suffering in the latest tragedies of war and all those being tossed about by the upheavals of climate crisis, we have to accept that the maps we were given about life no longer match the territories we find ourselves in.

We are already in the level of crisis in which the sense of chaos and confusion provokes fears that the entire world might come to its end. At the same time, we are in a collective rite of passage that seeks to heal and redeem humanity as a whole. Yet, it is only in being vulnerable and in facing the unknown, that a thorough transformation of both our individual and collective lives can truly occur. For, it is on the ground of great uncertainty and deep vulnerability that the original potentials and the great possibilities of life become known again.

An old idea held that it was when truly faced with the need to transform that humans become most aware of who we are and where we fit in the drama of life. We might be more frightened and confused and might feel on the verge of being overwhelmed or discouraged, but those were conditions that used to be known as the holy confusion that precedes discovery and renewal.

Another old idea was that in the darkest of times, a small effort in the direction of healing and creation can have a much greater effect than it might have at any other time. Clearly, we are in the darkest of times again, the climate emergency says that, and so does the agony and horrors of current wars. And therefore, we are being asked, not to heroically carry or solve the whole thing, but to each bring forth and contribute whatever inner medicine we find in our own struggles to awaken, to become more humane, more creative and thus more fully alive.

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