A Mythsinger's Path

A video about the work of Daniel Deardorff

Hi everyone

This week, I’d like to offer something for the lovers of myth and myth-tellers. This video was made by Judith-Kate Friedman, the partner of the late Daniel Deardorff (more of whom in a moment). It’s a recording of a session Judith-Kate did for my now-closed Mythic Imagination Network, to introduce Daniel’s work, sing a song or two, and tell a story or two. The delightful New Yorker who introduces Judith is Audrey di Mola, a talented storyteller who worked with me on the Network for a year and a half, offering the most wonderful deep dives into story. Find out about Audrey here.

So: who is Daniel Deardorff, and why should you care? Here’s how Judith-Kate, his life partner, tells it:

Daniel Duane “3D” Deardorff touched tens of thousands of people in his 67 years. A champion of the Living World and the Creative in all forms, he shared his fierce love and devotion to beauty for five decades as a singer, songwriter, musician, producer, author, mythologist, storyteller, teacher and visual artist.

Propelled by love and insatiable curiosity, Daniel was a passionate thinker, performer and scholar. He sang and taught from the depth of his lived experience which included surviving childhood polio and multiple shapeshifting surgeries. He embraced music (and music embraced him) as he went from playing coffeehouses to opening stadium shows for soft-rock icons Seals & Crofts (1970s).

When music industry prejudices closed doors due to his visible disabilities, he returned to Seattle to produce albums for himself and notable Northwest artists (1980s-90s). As post-polio sequelae required him to retire from production work, he delved into myths and myth-making, facing each paradox and hardship with cunning and grace and teaching us to do the same.

He collaborated extensively with his mentor and friend, poet Robert Bly, authored “The Other Within: the Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture and Psyche” and mentored generations of younger mythtellers (2000s-2010s).

Deardorff taught that the greatest oppression is the suffering of meaningless wounds. He showed us how old stories, which take 10,000 years to make, “tell truth without the use of facts” and hold medicine, meaning and healing for the entire culture. His vision was to restore the power of myth to culture and community. 

The Mythsinger Legacy Project is now carrying forth Daniel Deardorff’s work in its multivalent forms.

On 9/19/19, Daniel flew “out of this story into the next,” leaving a legacy that includes a significant body of recent unpublished work: three albums of recorded, as-yet-unreleased songs, story podcasts, poetry, essays, curriculum for his course on myth and ritual, pen and ink drawings and 40 hours of audio and video interviews with his life-partner Judith-Kate Friedman. He and Friedman had begun envisioning a documentary film about his life in the context of social, medical and musical history.

On November 8th, 2022, in the 70th year of his birth, Inner Traditions/Bear & Co. published the 3rd edition of his book “The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture and Psyche.”

For me, the most remarkable aspect of Daniel’s work was the way he approached Otherness; his book is very much recommended.

Please note that the video has been edited to remove the faces of the listeners/participants and retain their privacy. Judith-Kate’s internet connection was variable, making her video a little choppy in places, but the audio is perfect. I hope you find something here to enjoy.

Find out more about Daniel, and about Judith-Kate’s work, here.

Next week, I’ll bring you my second fairy tale salon.

Sharon