Reading Moby-Dick: A Reflective Voyage into the Seas of One’s Personal Myth and The Unlived Life

with

Dennis Patrick Slattery

Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone light-house. Look at it—a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background.—“Nantucket,” Moby-Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville

Reading Herman Melville’s classic epic of America on Nantucket Island will allow us to deepen our understanding of place as well as discover new levels of meaning in the tale of the white whale. We will read passages from the epic each morning, then visit the wonders of the island in the afternoon. Our interest in the passages will be to uncover some of the dimensions of our own personal myth as well as concentrate on many passages in which the natural order is given prominence and voice. Self and World mirror or double one another throughout the Pequod’s voyage; we will contemplate both venues with an eye towards becoming more aware of our personal myth and with being called to a life. For Melville’s epic begins with being called, something we have all experienced in our own way through our unique journey. It is a calling to a vocation and to a search for meaning, as this classic demonstrates throughout the narrator Ishmael’s voyage.

But there is a deeper calling that he gives language to: inviting each of us to board our own Pequod. As Ishmael contemplates whether to heed the call to adventure by setting himself whaling, then welcomes it, “the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air”.

To pursue the whale is to pursue the world according to what each of us is called to. The call, moreover, brings with it a cargo of questions: What path do I choose? What guides shall I follow? Who do I trust on the voyage? What presences am I destined/chosen to serve? What myth shall I integrate to give my life shape, purpose, meaning and joy? Is my own version of the white whale swimming fathoms beneath me, invisible, any more real than a duplicate within the depths of my own soul that I am yet to fathom but feel called to begin?

Just such a rich and uncharted voyage we will take together by reading and meditating on a series of passages that may evoke insights in each of us regarding our personal mythic and spiritual journeys.

Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D., is an Emeritus Core Faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where he has taught for the past 25 of his 45 years in the classroom. He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 27 books. He has also published 200 articles in newspapers, magazines, journals, book collections and on-line journals. His books include The Idiot: Dostoevsky’s Fantastic Prince, The Wounded Body: Remembering the Markings of Flesh, with Glen Slater he co-edited Varieties of Mythic Experience: Essays on Religion, Psyche and Culture, and with Jennifer Selig he co-edited Reimagining Education: Essays on Reviving the Soul of Learning. He has authored Harvesting Darkness: Essays on Film, Literature and Culture; The Beauty Between Words: Selected Poetry of Dennis Patrick Slattery and Chris Paris; Simon’s Crossing, a novel co-authored with Charles Asher; Feathered Ladder: Selected Poems of Dennis Patrick Slattery and Brian Landis; Riting Myth, Mythic Writing: Plotting Your Personal Story; and Creases in Culture: Essays Toward a Poetics of Depth. More recently he has published Our Daily Breach: Exploring Your Personal Myth Through Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick; A Pilgrimage Beyond Belief: Spiritual Journeys through Christian and Buddhist Monasteries of the American West; with Evans Lansing Smith he has co-edited The Letters of Joseph Campbell; with Craig Deininger he has coauthored Leaves from the World Tree: Selected Poems of Craig Deininger and Dennis Patrick Slattery; and with Jennifer Leigh Selig and Deborah Ann Quibell he has co-authored Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit. His most recent publication is From War to Wonder: Recovering Your Personal Myth Through Homer’s Odyssey. For the past 9 years he has been taking painting lessons in both acrylic and watercolor mediums. He offers Riting Retreats exploring one’s personal myth in the United States, Canada, Ireland and Europe. For more information, visit www.dennispatrickslattery.com.

Photographs courtesy of Getty Images