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Cultivating the Collective Song
- The Joseph Campbell Foundation Leadership Team
- 3 minutes ago
- 3 min read
At the Joseph Campbell Foundation, our mission is to invite you to experience the power of myth. In 2026, we focus in particular on the power of myth in music. Four key values guide this exploration: the humility of our humanity, the courage of our convictions, the hope we hear in harmony, and the daring to brave the adventure.
Humility reminds us of our shared limitations as humans on this earth, as well as our unique individual limits—everything that makes us gloriously ordinary. In both myth and music, creativity so often emerges not in spite of these limits, but because of them. Limits can also clarify those values which we refuse to surrender. Most importantly, humility grants the gift of compassion.
The courage of our convictions serves as the bedrock of our faith in ourselves and each other. Think of spirituals and anthems. These powerfully mythic and courageous forms of music speak directly to the soul, insisting that the human spirit can sing no matter what—that the human spirit matters.
The hope we hear in harmony reminds us of new ways of being and new possibilities, no matter what challenges we face. Hope helps us work creatively with our limitations and realize that we’re capable of so much more than we often imagine, on our own and especially when we sing together. Music does not deny suffering but instead gives voice to it—and, in doing so, shines a beacon through and beyond it.
Finally, the daring to brave the adventure puts courage into action. This is the audacity of stepping outside our metaphorical doors, placing one foot in front of the other. It’s the audacity that constitutes a consent to learn, to change, to grow, to transform. Daring answers the call to “the experience of being alive,” as Joseph Campbell says, with all its trials and its joys.
We believe myth has the power to clarify and console, especially in difficult times and especially through music. Myth and music help us communicate on deeper levels than language alone, and together, they tell a fuller truth.
We believe myth has the power to clarify and console, especially in difficult times and especially through music.
Mythic music asks us to listen rather than control. It doesn’t eliminate fear, frustration, or despair but instead offers a rhythm we can use to walk with those feelings, maybe even to move through them. Orpheus didn’t sing to overcome death or retrieve his beloved, but to respond to life, to be in conversation with it. We sing not to explain the world but to be one with it and with each other.
Thank you for singing along with us.
The Joseph Campbell Foundation Leadership Team
John Bucher, Executive Director
Joanna Gardner, Managing Director
Bradley Olson, Publications Director
Stephanie Zajchowski, Operations Director
This MythBlast was inspired by the Separation stage of the hero's journey.
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"Music, however, has a role apart; for it deals not with forms in space, but with time––sheer time. It is not, like the other arts, a rendition of what Plato calls “ideas,” but of the will itself, the world will, of which the “ideas” are but inflections."
-- Joseph Campbell
