A Network of Information · A Community of Individuals
If you peel back the frivolous mask of a holiday that inspires $8.4 billion in candy; decorations; and costumes sales for little kids, grownups looking for a moment of escapist fantasy, and long-suffering pets; you’ll find...
The Joseph Campbell Foundation is releasing a new e-publication entitled Art as Revelation, one of the last pieces that Campbell wrote and finished before his death. As David Kudler remarks in his Editor’s Note at the end...
In Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery wrote, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” I understand her sentiment; oaks, maples, sumac are everywhere ablaze, the morning air is...
Editor’s Note: We are delighted to share one of the essays in the Practical Campbell series as this week’s MythBlast. Practical Campbell essays search for areas where we can follow Joseph Campbell’s insights off the page...
Over the last several months, we have been sharing MythBlasts with you: tastes of a mythic idea framed in not only Joseph Campbell’s work, but together with historic and contemporary mythologists. We are so...
Tomorrow, Wednesday, September 20th, Rosh Hashana begins at sunset. Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New Year marks the time for inner reflection, atonement, and renewal. Rosh Hashana literally means head (or beginning) of the year, and on this day it...
Like many Americans, I spent the day yesterday dancing between celebrating Labor Day and, well, laboring. I was editing an interview I did a couple of weeks ago with dance icon Twyla Tharp for...
This year, Ganesha’s birthday is celebrated in the Hindu month of Bhadrapada, which on the Gregorian calendar falls on August 24th. A festival of celebration, called a Chaturthi, lasts for eleven days ending on...
Yesterday, on August 21, Americans living within the “umbral cone” had a ring side seat to the latest total solar eclipse visible from the U.S. for the first time in 26 years. As you...
We tell stories about who we are, to understand what makes us different – what makes us alike – what connects us what our families might be and look like – and who our...
“Tell me your myth that the whole world may turn to myth.” — Nikos Kazantzakis The Talking Heads were right. We can’t truly know where we are going without reflecting upon where we have...
This past week, from Sunday, July 23rd through Friday, July 28th, Joseph Campbell Foundation President Bob Walter led a workshop called, Your Hero’s Journey® Redux: A Mythological ToolBox® PlayShop. Bob is a theatrical playwright and...
‘In the beginning, there was the Word.’ While this is obviously a prominent phrase in the Judeo-Christian psyche, it is not an idea unique to one culture. In origin stories from around the world, a...
Every year in Northeastern Arizona, around July, the Hopi Tribe celebrates the Niman Kachina Festival. The word “Hopi” is shortened from Hopituh Shi-Nu-Mu, a Hopi word meaning “The Peaceful People.” An important use of the...
When I first was drawn to myth, it was through play. My sisters and I, nerdily passionate children of academics, spent a lot of time playing “Greek Gods and Goddesses” in a father-made fort...
In the United States, July 4th is a national holiday celebrating the Second Continental Congress’s approval of The Declaration of Independence, a document created to explain congress’s decision on July 2, 1776 to formally...
It seems to me, life on this planet displays a disturbing propensity for the powerful to further afflict the already afflicted. The personae non-grata, the sick, the powerless, the poor, are forced to live in...
It is high summer in the Catskill mountains of New York where I live: green, lush, blooming, sparking with life. It’s an enchanted time. Every morning I walk my dogs in our meadows and...
Ramadan, celebrated this year between May 27th and June 24th by approximately a quarter of the world’s population, is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and commemorates the revelation of the Quran to...
As we enter the month of June remember that this month, her birth month, is named for Juno, the Roman goddess married to Jupiter (who is also her brother), and who has traditionally been...
As I watch the renewing, generative energies of spring wrestle with the lingering insistence of winter in the mountains of Northern Arizona it might be apt to remember Freyja, the most familiar and powerful...
What is myth… and why should anybody care? What do you think? I ask this because that one of the most marvelous ways to play with mythology is to assess our own answers to this question. ...
In April, 1999, I was at a crossroads. I had just left a job that I loved running a theater school because it no longer served my family’s needs. I knew that I wanted...
Joseph Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human experience. His philosophy is often summarized by his phrase: “Follow your bliss.” More…
