Mandorla Rising

Daniel Deardorff (1952-2019) was a ‘singer’ in the old sense of that word, which involved being a musician, a storyteller, and a maker of ritual. His work as a literary, visual and recording/performing artist spanned more than five decades. His career began in his early 20’s in Los Angeles when he signed with Seals and Croft’s management company and toured as the band’s opening act throughout the 1970’s. Over the next forty years Deardorff performed in almost every state of the U.S. as well as Canada, South and Central America and the United Kingdom. He released six albums of original music, appeared on national television and lectured at international conferences. Based in Seattle throughout the 1980’s, he produced recordings for dozens of artists including the Grammy-award winning duo Tingstad and Rumbel, Michael Tomlinson, Jim Valley and legendary children’s music artists Tickle Tune Typhoon.

In the 1990’s Deardorff retired from music production work to devote himself fully to mythology. As an independent scholar of myth, his emphasis was on mythopoesis [myth-making] and the performative aspects of mythic expression. He authored The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture, & Psyche, taught internationally and collaborated extensively with his friend and mentor, the poet Robert Bly. Of Deardorff’s work in myth, Bly wrote: ‘Deardorff is a true inheritor of Joseph Campbell…No one else writing today is able to follow these associative roads to the unconscious.’ Friend and fellow mythologist Martin Shaw noted: ‘Deardorff was the greatest storyteller I ever saw…and the most humane of men.’

Deardorff’s views on ‘otherness’ and myth, his teaching and his presence as a voice for human and planetary justice were deeply informed by his lived perspective. Having survived two kinds of polio as an infant, he used a wheelchair most of his 67 years. During his early years of touring, stadiums and concert halls were not yet accessible. There were many barriers, physical and attitudinal, to be traversed. Deardorff advocated for the rights of persons with disabilities on television and public conferences. In 1977, he performed and spoke at the inaugural White House Conference on Disability with President and First Lady Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.

Deardorff believed that one of the greatest oppressions is the suffering of meaningless wounds. He understood that myths hold medicine that is crucial for culture and essential for our current times. In the 2000’s he founded the Mythsinger Foundation to ‘restore the wisdom of myth to culture and community’ and launched the Mythsinger Consortium, an international on-line community with a membership of 600 individuals and myth-oriented organizations. Deardorff’s last decade found him in a creative renaissance combining myth, music, teaching and digital technology. He toured the UK in a caravan of artists including Bly, Shaw, storyteller Gioia Timpanelli and his life-partner songwriter Judith-Kate Friedman, composed and produced three albums of yet-to-be released music, and began work on a documentary film about his life.

The Mythsinger Legacy Project, a program of the Songwriting Works Educational Foundation (501c3 charitable organization), is now carrying forward his work.