I cut my spiritual teeth on Joseph Campbell when I met him at age seventeen. My yoga teacher brought me to an AHP conference (Association for Humanistic Psychology) back in the early 70’s, saying, "I want you to learn from the greatest minds of our time." Dr. Jean Houston gave the powerful keynote speech, and I was thrilled to meet her later that weekend since my teacher was a close student of hers.

"Learn from Campbell -- he's one of the best," my teacher said.

We split up, and I walked down the huge corridor of the hotel alone (I admit a bit nervous) to a fairly large room with a big screen. After spending an entire day watching beautiful slide after slide, listening to this incredible man speak so eloquently and fluidly, I knew I was in the company of greatness. At the end of that seminar, Mythology Symbols and the Psyche, I gathered up some courage and approached him, waiting patiently in line behind a few other enthusiasts. He was so kind and generous with his time.

I remember him an older statesman of sorts, standing in his trademark stance sliding his hands down into his tweed suit jacket pockets speaking compassionately. When Professor Campbell spoke to you, he gave you his full presence; he wasn’t speaking down at you, he was with you—in your sphere.

Little did I know that this meeting would change my life, setting me on course for my own cyclical rite-of-passage, my journey to wholeness. As a youngster I didn’t get the full ramifications of encouraging personal counsel uttered from his lips: “Follow your bliss in whatever you do!”

Fast forward 30+ years: After moving two thousand miles to New Mexico, I found an old diary one day. With great excitement it jogged my memory, for in this journal I found my drawings and lecture notes from the conference. I read my impressions of the great mythologist (remember I was only a teenager). Page after page of copious notes on Jung, the ego and the shadow, the anima and the animas, psyche, etc. concluded with: “This man had a hearty presence; supremely intelligent, humorous, gentle, open-minded, inquisitive, grandfatherly, positive, solid, spiritual, meticulous, kind and a most delightful human being.”

Well Joe, thanks; I did take your advice, and I am living proof that it works! Quite frankly, I “did a 360” with my life. I turned myself around three hundred and sixty degrees to an all-encompassing, spherical view. If each one of us would follow their bliss, taking the hero’s journey in their own inimitable way, then individually, as well as collectively we will raise consciousness into a new Earth.

Rev. Nancy Ash
www.Doinga360.com