What is Myth?

by P. Glenn

For many, the word myth has been wounded.
It has come to mean a lie, a superstition, a story told to children before they know better.
Something not real.
Something to outgrow.

But this was never what myth meant.

Myth is Not

• Myth isn’t a falsehood.

• Myth isn’t primitive ignorance.

• Myth isn’t the opposite of reason.

When people say, “That’s just a myth,” they’re repeating a lie that still hurts — a lie that empties our deepest stories of their dignity.

Myth Is

Myth is sacred storytelling.
Not about what happened,
but about what matters.

It’s how wisdom was carried across generations before books and data.
It’s how memory was clothed in symbol so it could survive change, exile, and loss.
It’s how people said what couldn’t be said in plain speech:
that we’re born from mystery,
that we long for belonging,
that we must face death,
that we ache for meaning.

A myth isn’t less-than-literal.
It’s more-than-literal.
It lives in layers.
It can’t be reduced to fact, yet it still breathes truth.

Why Myth Still Matters

Facts tell us what happened.
Myths tell us why it matters.

We need both.
But when fact is all we have, the world grows flat.
When myth is forgotten, we forget ourselves.

Myths endure not because they can be proven,
but because they keep resonating.
They continue to rise whenever human beings search for meaning —
in grief, in wonder, in silence, in song.

Myth in Sacred Imagination

In Sacred Imagination, myth isn’t a doctrine to defend or a relic to analyze.
It’s a companion.
A doorway.
A flame that lights the path of meaning-making.

We don’t worship myth.
We walk with it.
Because sometimes, what isn’t “real” is what makes us feel most alive.

Myth doesn’t need a map to be true.
It doesn’t depend on geography, archaeology, or certainty.
It depends only on breath —
on being spoken, remembered, embodied.

Closing

Myth was never meant to be discarded.
It was meant to be lived.

It doesn’t demand belief.
It invites reverence.

And when we breathe it again,
we discover that myth isn’t only a story we carry —
it’s a story carrying us.