Daniel Deardorff - The other within : the genius of deformity in myth, culture, and psyche

This book has tremendous hope in it. It contributes to the hope that the superb work Joseph Campbell did on the written story and Gioia Timpanelli does on the spoken story can be continued. Danny Deardorff carries mysteries into a new place. The place is nourishing, startling, and full of intelligence.

ROBERT BLY

In this time of global awareness, there are many books on the theme of othernessthe otherness of race, class, religion, ideology, and gender, as well as the otherness of ourselves, the I that walks beside me that is not I. But rare is the expression of otherness from the perspective of otherness. This is one of those rare books! It is a telling example of what Gaston Bachelard must have meant, writing in his book on Air and Dreams, when he said that deformation is the clue to imagination. It is conventional to think the opposite: namely, that the formation of some definite identity is the way to imagine meaningfully. But Daniel Deardorff reveals to the reader in this book that in our various identifications of meaning, we egos are typically one-sided, walling ourselves in upon ourselves. This work artfully reveals that the wall is one-sided, and then it leads us to the other side of the one-sided wall!

DAVID L. MILLER , Watson-Ledden Professor of Religion Emeritus, Syracuse University, and Core Faculty Member, Pacifica Graduate Institute

Because the important figure of the Trickster has eluded many in our modern culture, I urge you to read Daniel Deardorff on the subject. In this amazing study of the real and imagined other, he has given a valuable roadmap to the profound regions of Story.

GIOIA TIMPANELLI, author of Sometimes the Soul: Two Novellas of Sicily

Daniel Deardorffs The Other Within offers us a brilliant account of the ways in which the redeeming energies of the Sacred often find their access to us through our weaknesses, our limitations, even those parts of ourselves which we find most ugly and shameful. This is an authoritative voice and one which should be heard by everyone in the field of soulwork and healing.

ROBERT MOORE , PhD, Professor of Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Spirituality, the Chicago Theological Seminary, and author of Facing the Dragon: Confronting Personal and Spiritual Grandiosity

Daniel Deardorffs The Other Within confirms what I have felt for some time: being at the center is far overrated; being on the margin, however, gives an angle of vision unique to it. It is as if Dans book is a confirmation of where the poet-whaler Ishmael dwells in the last pages of Moby Dickon the margin. There, he survives the suffocating suction of the whirlpool that takes every chip of the Pequod down. Sometimes, as Dans thesis confirms, being marginalized offers the highest rate for survival. What an evocative read.

DENNIS PATRICK SLATTERY , PhD, Core Faculty, Mythological Studies, Pacifica Graduate Institute, and author of A Limbo of Shards: Essays on Memory, Myth and Metaphor

To witness Deardorff in action is less storytelling, more an invocation. The precious winter fire, the tip of an owls wing, the freshness of tundra snowall abide directly in the rich seam he draws upon. He has a hard-won intelligence that informs, dismays, and ultimately inspires the listener about the ragged grandeur of our own lives. The openness of his heart provides a trail for the initiated to travel into the deep magic of myth.

MARTIN SHAW , author of A Branch From the Lightning Tree: Myth, Wilderness, and the Life Not Yet Lived

Intriguing, inspiring, and profoundly importantI find more in this unique and multi-level work every time I read it and my admiration for Deardorff grows accordingly. There is richness here for every reader at every reading.

JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE , author of The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human Spirit

DANIEL DEARDORFF

HEAVEN & EARTH PUBLISHING LLC

EAST MONTPELIER, VERMONT

North Atlantic Books

Berkeley, California

Copyright 2004 and 2009 by Daniel Deardorff. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by

Heaven & Earth Publishing LLC

P O Box 249

East Montpelier, Vermont 05651

North Atlantic Books

P.O. Box 12327

Berkeley, California 94712

Original artwork on cover, Going Home by Nancy Yaki

Cover design by Margery Cantor

The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture & Psyche is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, call 800-733-3000, or visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Deardorff, Daniel.

The other within : the genius of deformity in myth, culture & psyche / Daniel Deardorff.

p. cm.

Originally published: Ashland, OR : White Cloud Press, 2004.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary: Explains how innovations generated within societal and psychic margins ironically benefit the very ones who deny and exclude the so-called misfit and delineates the creation of othernessProvided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-55643-760-1

1. Body, HumanFolklore. 2. Body, HumanSymbolic aspects. 3. Abnormalities, Human. 4. Marginality, Social. 5. Tricksters. 6. Archetype

(Psychology) I. Title.

GR 489. D 37 2008

398.27dc22

2008036852

For Robert

F IRST AND FOREMOST , to that great shifter of shapes, the many named and nameless one, maestro of the interval, initiator, implicator, most mythic of the mythworld dwellers: the terrible and majestic Genius of Deformity: for the Ravens in the daytime and Coyotes in the night who haunt the meadows and woods around my home, crying and calling and marking-out the passionate folly, the hidden wisdom, of our lives.