KATHERINE NEVILLE’S New Year’s Newsletter January 1, 2012

The date was March 26. 2006. It was one of those dreams where you’re aware that you’re dreaming, but you think you’ll remember it all clearly in the morning. However, the voice in my dream was quite insistent that I wake up enough to write it down right now. (I finally did so, using one of those pads that we writers always keep beside our beds for emergencies – in my case, in hopes that my next book will write itself while I’m sleeping!)”There are three things you need,” the voice in my dream told me, over and over….

“There are three things you need: Mythos (which he translated as ‘Narrative’) – Theos (which he translated as ‘Archetype”) – and Oikos (with no dream translation.)” So, in the morning, I took these scribbled notes into my library and looked up the words in my ever-present Liddell & Scott Greek lexicon (written by Alice in Wonderland’s father, Dean Liddell of Oxford.)

Here’s what I learned:

–Mythos, which the dream voice called ‘Narrative,’ actually did mean ‘Word, public speech, tale, story, narrative, fiction, fable, historic truth, plot of comedy-tragedy.’ In other words, what I do every day.

–Theos, his ‘Archetype’, meant ‘God, special deities, natural phenomena, the Divine.’

–Oikos was really interesting: from Sanskrit, Foikos, a house or meeting-place, it meant dwelling place, chamber, the curtilage of a home, including courtyard, outer yard, store houses, and living quarters (like the cave of Polyphemus, or Penelope’s quarters in the Odyssey, or the tent of Achilles in the Iliad.)
Oikos is the root of “economy, economics, prudent management of one’s material resources, as well as ecology, the environment.”
Oikothen means: From one’s resources. Whatever these may be.

TODAY, January 1- five years, nine months and five days after my dream – I am continuing to renew those marriage vows: To create a NARRATIVE (Mythos) that will bind SPIRIT (Theos) and MATTER (Oikos).

Wish me luck! HAPPY NEW YEAR!