The fictions in our convictions
MANDORLA books, 2023
This new collection of essays focuses on how our convictions give our life coherence, confluence and meaning through the fictions we often generate to achieve these qualities. I use the term fictions less as untruths, more as mythic realities. Part I," Ways Beliefs Shape Us," includes essays on particular literary classics, the thoughts of Joseph Campbell, James Hillman and C.G. Jung. Most were published elsewhere or presented to various groups. This first part embodies the bulk of the collection. Part II: "Vignettes of Culture," gathers many op-eds I wrote for various newspapers that touch on brief insights into a cultural phenomenon that interested me at the moment. Their impulse is more contemporary, tapping into a current event or trend.
This second section, in which my writing is shared with a larger, local audience, gives me great pleasure as a form of public service. The entire volume gave me great joy in the making; I hope some of that joy you sense when you read all or part of the offerings.
THE WAY OF MYTH: STORIES’ SUBTLE WISDOM
MANDORLA books, 2021
In my 30th published volume, The Way of Myth: Stories’ Subtle Wisdom, I reach back in “Part I: Mining the Myths Anew,” to some earlier essays on classic films and works of literature. I also include extended meditations on the thought of mythologist Joseph Campbell, on creativity’s hungers, on beliefs as mythic constructs, and on the joys of painting. Many of the essays also explore the act of reading, the importance of stories as it relates to one’s personal myth. In “Part II: The Social Fabric of Stories,” I include a series of 19 short op-ed essays on a range of topics: the classroom as sacred space, uncertainty, the fact of myth, compassion, moral injury, peace, the gifts of conversation, gall-bladder surgery, the pan-demic and the poetics of myth, among others. Also present in this section are reflections on several of Joseph Campbell’s volumes. My areas of interest are trans-disciplinary, analogical and depth-psychological, all gathering around the mystery of myths themselves. These essays stretch out over many years of writing. Now, in this volume they are gathered so they can speak and engage one another to reveal the subtle wisdom of stories.
An Obscure Order: reflections on cultural mythologies
MANDORLA books, 2020
This collection is comprised of many essays delivered at various conferences but never published as well as many op-ed pieces that have appeared in various newspapers in Texas. The overarching theme is what myths can appear in culture to guide, retard, inspire and deepen cultural movements. The book is divided into two sections: I: Formal Essays, and II: Essays on Culture and Psyche. It is a watershed book for me in that it is my thirtieth book publication and represents my latest thoughts on the power and influence of myth in our everyday lives. The op-ed pieces are comprised of subject matter that is personal and public. I have been very fortunate to have so many of them published in newspapers and available to the general public. Here they are gathered together in the first section.
FROM WAR TO WONDER:
RECOVERING YOUR PERSONAL MYTH THROUGH HOMER’S ODYSSEY
MANDORLA books, 2019
As a way to encourage readers to reflect on their own personal myth, this book consists of 365 entries of between 8 to 10 lines of Homer’s epic. The passage is followed by a summary paragraph of what is taking place in the epic at that moment, then a reflective paragraph in which I offer what this passage has to do with our lives today. At the bottom of each page is a “Meditation” in which the reader is invited to make a connection between the passage and my reflection paragraph and their current lives. It is a way of using a classic of world literature as a catalyst for deepening one’s understanding of the myth that lives within them.
deep creativity: seven ways to spark your creative spirit
shambhala Publications, 2019
authored by dennis patrick slattery,
jennifer leigh selig and deborah ann quibell
The book won the 2019 Nautilus book award’s first place prize in the category of “Inspiration” and “Creativity.” The awards are given to books that the organization believes makes the world a better, more constructive place. It is divided into 7 chapters, with an introduction and conclusion by Deborah Anne Quibell for each chapter. Each of the three authors write an essay per chapter, followed by questions that might inspire and guide creatives to make something of the theme for that chapter. At the back of the book are listed 15 principles that the authors found to be common themes in the writings that guide the book’s content and purpose.
Our daily breach:
exploring personal myth through herman melville’s moby-dick
fisher king press, 2015
Literary classics are fecund sources for finding analogies and correspondences with one’s personal myth. Following the same template at the above title, From War to Wonder, this book uses the spiritual sea voyage of Ishmael, a soul seeking community, as he boards the Pequod to begin his quest. He is guided by the mysterious and powerful figure of Queequeg who sacrifices himself for his friend. A passage per day of some 6-8 lines from the text provides the material for the summary, reflective paragraph and writing meditation at the bottom of each page to encourage deeper meditations on the nature and structure of one’s personal myth. A lengthy Introduction explores the mysterious voyage of reading as a heroic journey towards self-discovery.
BRIDGE WORK: ESSAYS ON MYTHOLOGY, LITERATURE, AND PSYCHOLOGY
MANDORLA books, 2015
With a Foreword by publisher, psychologist and educator Jennifer Leigh Selig, this volume is divided into two large categories: I. Formal Essays that includes ten reflections on psychology, mimesis, Joseph Campbell and the nature of myth; II. Cultural Essays that offer ten reflections on cultural, mythic and psychological discoveries that have deepened my awareness of who I am and what I have the greatest passion for. Topics range from essays on mythologist, Joseph Campbell, explorations in the mythic dimensions and op-ed pieces on wonder, a coherent life, the myth of growth and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.
creases in culture:
essays toward a poetics of depth
fisher king press, 2014
Foreword by Lyn Cowan
This volume consists of two sections: Section One: Formal Essays, includes five meditations on the connections between poetry and myth as well as the nature of psychic energy; Section II: Cultural Essays, reflects on the nature of motorcycles as mythic transport vehicles, humanities education and the role of education in literary classics. Topics include myth and dream, neurology, motorcycles as myth and metaphor, psychic energy and William Faulkner’s story, “The Bear.”
RITING MYTH, MYTHIC WRITING: PLOTTING YOUR PERSONAL STORY
FISHER KING PRESS, 2012
One effective way of accessing some of the elements of our personal myth is through remembering and questioning our lives by cursive writing. To even pose a question is to begin a quest. The narratives that we have been and continue to plot forward contain the patterns and purposes of our personal myth, which is partly conscious and often deeply unconscious. Riting Myth offers dozens of meditative prompts, along with questions to guide us down and into that area of our narrative that can uncover parts of our narrative identity. It also contains over 135 additional readings that can further the reader’s discovery process. In conjunction with mythologist Joseph Campbell’s insights into the reality of mythic patterns, the book use many of these prompts to guide the reader into realms of wounding, healing and accessing meanings in their lives by analogy in order to cultivate living a more coherent life.
DAY-TO-DAY DANTE:
EXPLORING PERSONAL MYTH
THROUGH THE DIVINE COMEDY
IUNIVERSE, 2011
This is the first of three classics I use to establish a connection or correspondence between the reader’s mythology and the plot of the narrative. The other two are listed above: From War to Wonder and Our Daily Breach. Following an introduction that discusses the kind of knowledge that poetry offers us as insights into our own narrative, there are 8-10 lines of verse for each day of the year. Each page moves from the poetic lines to a summary of the action at that moment, to a reflective paragraph. The bottom of the page is devoted to a writing “Meditation” to encourage further insights into one’s myth that may be uncovered by Dante’s poetic expressions. As Dante remembers his past life in the telling of his narrative, the reader is prompted to recall their history to uncover some of the patterns of their myth that guide them.
VARIETIES OF MYTHIC EXPERIENCE: ESSAYS ON RELIGION, PSYCHE,
AND CULTURE
edited by dennis patrick slattery
and GLEN SLATER
DAIMON-VERLAG, 2008
Foreword BY ROBERT SARDELLO
This collection of essays by prominent Jungian scholars and mythologists is divided into four subject clusters: Religion, Ritual and Symbol, Literature and Film and Psychology and Philosophy. Robert Sardello writes that “we need a sense of myth for our individual and collective equilibrium.” Myth is the subject matter that is turned in new directions through this collection; it offers a multidisciplinary imagination by which to revision myth as a structure throughout culture.
a limbo of shards: essays on memory, myth, and metaphor
iUniverse, 2007
FOREWoRD BY PETER C. PHAN
This volume is divided into three large clusters of essays: I.” Memory,” which includes ten essays on both poetry and the place of the remembered; II. “Myth,” which includes ten essays from varied points of view on the nature and function of myth; and III. “Metaphor,” which includes nine essays on the nature of figural language in several cultural contexts. The essays in their entirety cross-pollinate one another with the ideas that resonate throughout the three sections to broaden one’s understanding of each by seeing analogies inherent in all of them.
harvesting darkness:
essays on literature, myth, film, and culture
iUniverse, 2006
Foreword BY LOUISE COWAN
The harvested essays in this volume is divided into two sections: “Mythopoetic,” which consists of 18 chapters on a vast array of books and films that have a mythic component in each of its core discussions. These are followed by 8 chapters of “Personal Essays” in which the author highlights a series of cultural events and topics like being a grandfather, the death of a pet, the stories on our shelves and being without parents at age sixty.
THE WOUNDED BODY: REMEMBERING THE MARKINGS OF FLESH
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS, 2000
This text was selected in 2002 as one of the best books to purchase for college and university libraries. It poses the question at the outset: what have the poets from Homer to Toni Morrison revealed to us through their fictional achievements about the body wounded, dismembered, tattooed, diseased, scarred, polluted or afflicted. Each chapter is like a piece of glass that when placed into a mosaic reveals patterns of body ailments and deformities. It reveals how we are all marked in some way by the forces of life; we each have healing properties brought to bear on our woundedness to restore us to a whole and vibrant individual.
the idiot—dostoevsky’s fantastic prince: a phenomenological approach
Peter lang publishing, 1984
This work represents my first publication in book form. It is a slightly revised version of my dissertation written in partial fulfillment for my Ph.D. in Literature and Phenomenology from the Institute of Philosophic Studies at the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas where I graduated in May, 1976. The chair of my dissertation, Dr. Louise Cowan, remained a mentor to me and many others for decades after. Her keen sense of style and argument was the main reason that the publisher accepted the study for publication with very limited revisions.
William Faulkner and modern literary criticism
New Orleans Review 1987
Volume 14/Number 4 of the New Orleans Review has 8 edited essays on "William Faulkner and Modern Literary Criticism". Dennis Patrick Slattery was the general editor of the essays at this time.