Author Description

Metamorphoses recur in myths so frequently that Ovid collected a large number of examples of them in his work. The myths tell of men and women transformed into animals, plants, flowers, springs, and celestial constellations, suggesting to us a worldview that transcends the narrow confines of the conceptual mind. The knowledge that inspired the mythic narratives used poetic images to elicit the intuition that reality is far broader and freer than what can be enclosed in the dead patterns of dualistic thinking. From the myths, and particularly the metamorphoses narrated in them, we can be guided to return to looking at the world with a gaze free of mental categories. We thus recognize that reality is not composed of individual objects, fixed in static and definitive characters, but is instead made up of the infinite manifestations of an eternal oneness. Myths offer themselves as mirrors, in which we can reflect ourselves and, perhaps, discover that the distinction between what is within us and what is outside us is an illusion that prevents us from recognizing our true nature.