Ornamental Monsters
“For although each man among them was discrete unto himself, conjoined they made a thing that had not been before and in that communal soul were wastes hardly reckonable more than those whited regions on old maps where monsters do live and where there is nothing other of the known world save conjectural winds.”
~Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian
Debates over the source of consciousness are old and legion. I don’t intend to wade into those deliberations or even proffer anything close to a unified theory of the brain and mind; instead, I’d like to propose a simple enough hypothesis. Whatever the physiology of consciousness, its origins were most certainly accompanied by a novel intuition: Why?
The dawn of consciousness marked our species’ transition from darkness to light, from instinct to contemplation, from ignorance to awareness, from paradise to fear. This cognitive leap must have been accompanied by endless questions (even if we didn’t have the language yet to ask them): Why did the sun rise? Why is it setting? What will happen when it sets? How can we make it rise again? What is the sun, anyway? Every moment had to feel like a possible end. Consciousness begot concerns over the frightening natural world and our fragile, vulnerable place within it. To survive, we required answers to these elemental and existential questions.
We remain pilgrims stumbling through the fretful void, and the only thing we have to guide us are stories. No other creature seeks (or needs) to fill the mechanistic universe with tales of being, narratives of origins and destiny. We are the lone myth-making creature.
Please do not confuse my use of the word “myth” with its pejorative: myth = not true. Myths are essential to our being. They were to ancient peoples and are still so. Allow me to offer a rather lengthy exposition on what I mean when I say “myth.”
Myths singularly found civilizations and cultures.
Myths — whether they are based in the imagination, on historical events, or on observable facts — are metaphorical narratives constructed and organized around symbolic images and signs.
Myths create a sacred, social order in a violent and chaotic world and imbue that world with meaning, allowing us to participate in an existence full of significance and import.
Myths point to a transcendence or power beyond ourselves and place us in a realm of shared, collective meaning which surpasses all relative space and time.
Myths provide a moral compass for social groups, a guide to right and wrong according to the customs and mores of the time.
These symbolic stories allow us to weave varying aspects of understanding into a single, cohesive framework. They offer us guidance for why and how we should live. Their essence permeates all cultural expressions: literature, art, religion, history, science.
How about this analogy: Think of myths as a sort of map. In a chaotic and unpredictable world, they help locate us in a particular place and time and offer us guidance for which life path we should choose. They provide figurative routes for how to get from here to there. These narrative maps are all we have to help us navigate the incomprehensibly vast expanse of Reality.
Essential to myths are monsters, of course. Picture that half-human, half-beast from your childhood fairytale. Or, picture the dark, violent specter from your favorite horror film. Monsters inhabit torturous spaces in our mind. We can agree that monsters are scary. They symbolize what we don’t understand. They symbolize our fear of the unknown. They symbolize danger, in all its manifestations and forms. They represent a threat to our sense of self, to our sense of being, to our very existence. Scary beings inhabit a scary world.
Consider early depictions of monsters. Bridging our development from the Dark Ages to the Enlightenment, early cartographers adorned their maps with mythological sea monsters. Perhaps the most famous of these is Olaus Magnus’s 16th century Carta marina.
In his book Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps, scholar Chet Van Duzer offers a common explanation for this phenomenon. Monsters on maps “serve as graphic records of literature about sea monsters, indications of possible dangers to sailors — and data points in the geography of the marvelous.” They can be interpreted, he continues, as “guardians of the furthest limits of the world.” In other words, the ocean is vast and scary, and there are things in those depths beyond our reckoning. When we don’t know what lies beyond the horizon, we imagine; we conjure monsters. It’s a plain warning: Beware to those who venture into uncharted territory!
But, Van Duzer offers a second interpretation, one that considers the artistic value of such fiends. Monsters on maps “may function as decorative elements which enliven the image of the world… emphatically indicating and drawing attention to the vitality of the oceans and the variety of creatures in the world, and to the cartographer’s artistic talent.” Van Duzer adds that Medieval and Renaissance maps containing sea monsters were “richer, more sumptuous, more extravagant.” In summary, these creatures supplant dread with an aesthetic. It might not surprise you to know that maps adorned with such fanciful beasts were sold at a higher price to the royalty and nobles who commissioned them. Thus, these mythical creatures served a dual purpose. They gave imaginative shape and color to the dangers and mysteries of the vast unknown. And, perhaps more importantly, they reflected innate artistic expression — these ornamental monsters that transfigure fear into surreal wonder.
What is art if not the ur-language of myth? Our guide to parts unknown. Through storytelling, song, and image-making we create beauty and meaning where before there was nothing absolute.
Songwriting has offered me a chance to chart a course, as Cormac McCarthy so brilliantly put it in his masterpiece Blood Meridian, to “those whited regions on old maps where monsters do live.” I am moving from darkness into light. I am venturing into parts unknown. I am deconstructing those dragons in the mist. I am decorating the void. I am trying to answer: Why?
And know, this discourse on consciousness, myths, and maps is no abstraction, no history lesson. Our day-to-day lives are filled with psychic monsters that take all shapes and sizes. Every day is a heroic quest. There is so much we do not know, so much that we fear. The only guide we have through this perilous journey are the myths we weave, together and for ourselves. And we must do more than tell ourselves these stories. We must enact them, live them, be them. We must continually examine and revise them. We must turn our very lives into works of art. If we do, then the whole journey becomes sublime — even the mythical beasts.
