The Mythic King and a Glimmer in the Leadership Void
The Stories We Tell as the Campus Protests Grow
“There are some that are possible to love before they are known. That was the case with him, whose smile lived in the blue of his eyes, whose hair, whitened by the sun, curled like the sea when the wind blew it into ripples. His bones, his muscles, his veins made his clothing seem flimsy. He was a king who walked the earth knowing that his time here was but a part of his spirit's life, and so he walked with wisdom and sacrifice. He knew that gain for his people often meant loss for himself. He knew when to lift a sword, and when to put it down. That was the way then, and like now, the great design was at work.”
That’s how Karina Tynan begins her story of Achtan, the druid’s daughter who gave birth to the great Irish king, Cormac mac Airt.
This is a woman’s story. This is a single mother’s story.
And, it’s a story that begins with a description of the ideal man.
Too bad we know he’s doomed by the second paragraph. Airt and Achtan have just one single perfect day together.
Revising the Dream of the King
I am particularly susceptible to passages like the one above. Perhaps you are, too?
As someone who raised myself on sprawling novels about adventure and magic and romance, such a king is the ideal partner. (Though preferably, he wouldn’t sacrifice himself too early in our long lives together.)
All week, I have been exploring Airt as lover, and the mythology of the ideal partner.
But, as one draft melted into another, I realized I was escaping into myth rather than finding the courage to work the myth.
Right now, we need to be lavishing our imagination not on the sovereign lover but the sovereign leader.
At this moment, college students and professors across America are gathering in protest. And, in many cases, police are carting them away.
History has shown us that when the campuses erupt, change starts to happen. The youngest generation seeks to call attention to the failure of leadership at every level. And, in response, the university presidents and state governors send in the guys with the guns to see if it just might be possible to muster enough force to crush free speech and dissent. And, at least for now, the president of our country is simply writing checks to fund more death and destruction.
Just this morning, my Instagram feed began to fill with that video of Bernie Sanders addressing Netanyahu and declaring that it is not anti-semitic to stand up for the innocent people of Gaza.
It’s a glimmer in the leadership void.
Bernie isn’t the embodiment of the wise, sacrificial, attuned King Airt, but he’s closer than most.
Is Mythic Leadership Even Possible in this Modern World?
I’d love to gather a group of historians to explore whether any modern leader has or could embody those qualities of sovereignty offered to us in the myths.
The sensitivity to the cycles of nature and spirit.
The connection to the land and the people.
The innate sense of when to pick up the sword and when to set it down.
Can such a person even get elected to the village council anymore?
Certainly no modern leaders, even those we have loved to lionize - like Obama, like JFK - had any visceral sort of relationship to the earth itself. America’s mythic founding fathers wanted to conquer and apportion the land, not marry it. Though my knowledge of modern Irish politics is scant, my friends certainly weren’t sad to see Varadkar go lsat month.
This, of course, is why sovereignty - when it’s not about toxic individualism and power over - becomes part of the conversation about how to live our own daily lives in harmony.
We’re drawn to this ageless truth, but it’s hard to scale that sort of energy beyond a small, localized community. And perhaps that’s because we need to be in relationship with the soil and the winds and the collective experience of the elements to conjure that sort of kingship.
I haven’t got an answer, and my mind will only start to swirl again when venture back online and I try to integrate the social media footage from the student encampments and the Jewish Voices for Peace gatherings with the traditional media headlines and the official statements about violence and extremism.
And so, I’ll do what I always do when I get to the end of a myth and my brain is still swirling: I’ll go outside.
I’m grateful for this passage by John O’Donoghue that
shared today. It offers a measure of peace and a chance to pause and re-center and, perhaps, re-enter the conversation of the moment with a new frame:Concealed beneath familiarity and silence, the earth holds back and it never occurs to us to wonder how the earth sees us. Is it not possible that a place could have huge affection for those who dwell there? Perhaps your place loves having you there. It misses you when you are away and in its secret way rejoices when you return. Could it be possible that a landscape might have a deep friendship with you? That it could sense your presence and feel the care you intend towards it? Perhaps your favorite place feels proud of you. We tend to think of death as a return to clay, a victory for nature. But maybe it is the converse: that when you die, our native place will fill with sorrow. It will miss your voice, your breath and the bright waves of your thought, how you walked through the light and brought news of other places. When the funeral cortege passes the home of the departed person, is it the home that is getting one last chance to say farewell to its beloved resident or is it the deceased getting one last look at home? Or is it both?