ABSTRACT
The seeds of “Prometheus in Our Midst” were sown early. As a 25-year-old medical resident in a large Northwest teaching hospital, I saw many lives hang in the balance of our oxygen-dependent existence. Some survived and some did not. I have been reminded of the contingency and fragility of human life almost on a daily basis ever since. My interest in myth stems from the fact that it animates and amplifies the human response to life’s limitations like no other modality. It was primarily for this reason that in 2007 I enrolled in the Mythological Studies program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. As I was about to begin my third year, however, in a moment of disquietude, I decided not to return to school. Over the course of the next several months, I began to regret my decision and literally pined for Pacifica. I assuaged my longing by reading Thomas Mann’s mythopoetic masterpiece Joseph
and his Brothers (Mann, 1943/ 2005). In addition, I immersed myself in the deep history of Planet Earth and read Lane (2002) Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World and Power, Sex, and Suicide, Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life (Lane 2005). Here Lane skillfully spun a science-based narrative that tracked the evolution of Earth from a gas spewing orb to one spawning life that rivaled any creation myth I had studied at Pacifica. I also chanced upon an intriguing medical article titled “Oxygen in the Evolution of Complex Life and the Price We Pay” by Thannickal (2009).
