These bits of information from ancient times, which have to do with the themes that have supported man's life, built civilizations, and informed religions over the millennia, have to do with deep inner problems, inner mysteries, inner thresholds of passage, and if you don't know what the guide signs are along the way, you have to work it out yourself. (Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, Episode 2) Our MythBlast theme for February is “The Message of the Myth,” title of the second episode of the interview series that first aired on PBS eight months after Campbell’s passing. Given his influence on popular culture, many today are surprised to learn Joseph Campbell was little known during his lifetime, apart from a relatively small circle of influential artists, scholars, and readers. It’s The Power of Myth that is responsible for posthumously introducing Campbell and his work to the public-at-large. The six hours of this popular series are distilled down from twenty-four hours of discussions filmed in 1985 and 1986 at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch in California, and the Museum of Natural History in New York. This was not Moyers’ first encounter with Joseph Campbell: in the spring of 1981, he invited Campbell to be a guest on two episodes of Bill Moyers Journal. The overwhelming public response to these conversations provided the impetus for a more extended exploration of the aging mythologist and his ideas, before it was too late . . . and the rest is history. MOYERS: So there is in the myth a kind of message from the unconscious to the conscious. CAMPBELL: Right. And it takes only a little training to be able to understand the language of this vocabulary. (Bill Moyers Journal, April 17, 1981) The Power of Myth programs also spawned a companion volume with the same title, edited by Betty Sue Flowers, Ph.D. (Emerita Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, and former director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum). Despite plenty of overlap, The Power of Myth book is not a transcript of the televised interviews; these are distinct, albeit related, works. This is immediately clear from their structure: the PBS series consists of six episodes, in contrast to the book’s eight chapters –– and even those chapters that share the same title as programs in the series include additional and often rearranged content. For example, “The Message of the Myth,” the program that supplies our February MythBlast theme, does not have its own chapter in the companion volume; nevertheless, much of the content from that episode appears in the book’s first two chapters (“Myth and the Modern World” and “The Journey Inward”). Betty Sue Flowers faced a formidable task editing the book. Where Bill Moyers was able to directly engage Campbell, she instead engaged the material generated from that collaboration, though their goals were the same: to create a platform that allowed Campbell to convey “the message of the myth.” While the book’s themes and much of the content overlap with the broadcast interviews, the questions have been moved around and many of the responses on video broken up, rearranged, and spliced together with bits and pieces taken from other episodes, as well as material that did not make it onto the screen. The result is more than just a transcript; it’s a new work, created from the same raw material, that complements rather than duplicates the PBS series. What draws my interest are the editorial choices that lead to such differences between the video and print versions of the Power of Myth interviews (hence my title: “Questioning Campbell”). Books that Joseph Campbell authored during his lifetime are essentially solo efforts; he alone determined how best to convey the message of the myth. Interviews, on the other hand, are collaborative efforts between interviewer, subject, and often, after-the-fact, an editor. This is more than just a passing fancy, given my role as editor of this month’s featured title, Myth and Meaning: Conversations on Mythology and Life, the most recent addition to The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell. Sourced from 34 relatively obscure print and audio interviews over the last twenty years of Campbell’s life, along with 10 lengthy audience question-and-answer sessions following lectures, this is a “big picture” survey, gathering together bits and fragments of Campbell’s thoughts from many different conversations and blending those fragments into one whole. The fifteen years spent compiling and editing this work offered insight into the different kinds of questions (and questioners) Campbell encountered. Of those sources, a handful are live radio interviews that aired one time on one or another local station as much as half a century ago, with no opportunity for editing before broadcast; there is a sparkle and spontaneity to these exchanges that comes through even very fuzzy audio. Others are local newspaper articles written by a reporter assigned to interview Campbell during a book tour, who may or may not have known anything about myth, or what to ask (in such moments, Campbell skillfully pivots away from generic queries, answering instead the unasked questions). And then there are skilled interviewers who have done their homework and are willing to dive deep, allowing Campbell the time and space he needs to thoroughly cover a subject; a few of these, however, also have their own thoughts to share, and questions sometimes morph into speeches longer than Campbell’s response. Sources also include a few lengthy taped sessions where only a small portion of the recorded discussion made it into print, along with two detailed transcripts of interviews that remain wholly unpublished, all providing insights and observations no one has seen before now. But my favorite sources are Q & A sessions with audience members, regular people rather than journalists, motivated to understand Campbell’s work and its relevance to their own lives. Their sincerity and desire to learn delighted Joe, which comes through in his replies. My challenge was to sift through this wealth of material, extract the gold, and meld the results into one seemingly seamless conversation. Naturally, it was essential to eliminate repetition, especially on topics Campbell frequently addresses. For example, he would often “set the stage” by providing a description of the four functions of mythology before launching into a more direct response to an opening question. It wouldn’t do to bore the reader with eight iterations of the same concept; nevertheless, having access to so many versions did offer considerable flexibility, allowing me to weave the best from each into the conversation. At the same time, many of Campbell’s lengthy responses tended to cover multiple topics tangential to the specific point of an interviewer’s question, so it wasn’t unusual to discover several sentences in one answer that could serve as the perfect coda to an interrupted description culled from a completely different discussion. Given that, I opted to compose a truly syncretic work: tickle out the constituent ideas, break them apart, and then braid them together to form a comprehensive, dynamic reflection of Campbell’s mythological perspective, taking care not to dilute his meaning or present his ideas in a scattershot pattern. No wonder the process took fifteen years! After early efforts kept hitting a brick wall, what made the most sense was to discard the original questions and then sort Campbell's comments into separate "bins," or categories, based on the central theme of each passage. Some paragraphs could find their way into more than one bin; for example, a discussion of the Bronze Age Goddess might include references to the emergence and development of agriculture, so could fit into two different bins; much later, I'd have to decide which category fit best, or whether it was possible to split the comment into separate statements on separate subjects without doing damage to Campbell's intentions. Of course, trying to combine insights from so many different conversations over so many years into one unified text could have come across as forced and disjointed. I believe I successfully resolved this conundrum by composing new questions to help stitch these many discrete pieces together. Of course, the focus of Myth and Meaning is wholly on Joseph Campbell and his ideas; the questions merely serve to get us there. Questions are generally brief and suggested by the material, or what might be missing from the material, thus bridging gaps and helping Campbell’s comments move gracefully from point A to point B to point C. The questions provide a sense of continuity and internal cohesion, serving as the strand on which are beaded Joe's observations. Whether new to Joseph Campbell’s work, or longtime aficionados, I trust readers will be pleased with the results. Hearing the song that is beyond that of your own individual life cycle is the thing that opens you to wisdom. You can hear it in your life, interpreting it, reading it, not in terms of the calamities or boons of your individual existence, but as a message of what life is. (Joseph Campbell, Myth and Meaning, 16) Find out more about what Campbell means by “the message of the myth” by delving into one or all of these works. You should be able to purchase the hardcover edition of Myth and Meaning at your local bookstore, as well as any of the usual online platforms, or by downloading the Ebook directly from JCF.You can order the paperback of The Power of Myth here (JCF receives a small percentage of the sale price when purchased through an Amazon affiliate link). And all six episodes of Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers can be viewed for free on JCF’s YouTube Channel. This MythBlast was inspired by The Power of Myth Episode 2, and Myth and Meaning. Latest Podcast In this episode of Pathways (the final full episode of season 3), Joseph Campbell speaks about similarities in the symbolism of Christianity, Buddhism, European Paganism, and the Arthurian Romances. Host Bradley Olson introduces the episode and gives commentary after the lecture. Listen Here This Week's Highlights "Hearing the song that is beyond that of your own individual life cycle is the thing that opens you to wisdom. You can hear it in your life, interpreting it, reading it, not in terms of the calamities or boons of your individual existence, but as a message of what life is." - Joseph Campbell - Myth and Meaning, p.16 All the Gods are Within Us (see more videos)

“The call often comes at an important moment. Old life values have often been outgrown and a certain sterility has set in. Parsifal’s quest for the Holy Grail was set in motion by the Fisher King’s realm having become a wasteland. Whatever its form, the call awakens the hero to his or her special destiny” (C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc.) As I write this, the sun is but a ghost of itself above high clouds on this chilly November day. The last of the leaves will soon let go to dance their way to the ground where squirrels and mice rustle through this season’s fall. Soon enough, a blanket of snow will cover it all in Winter silence. The round of seasons has ever been a metaphor for the cycle of life from birth to death to rebirth. Winter is the wasteland, intent on stealing your warmth until you become one with its stillness. Until the advent of central heating and stocked supermarkets the threat was very real, and for the many less fortunate it still is. The Call to Adventure dares us to cross the threshold into the Winter Dark to face what has been outside the world of experience we have known, a world which may have become stale and sterile, and struggle our way to a Spring renewal. Joseph Campbell tells us the Call comes in three ways: voluntarily (I think I’ll quit my day job and become a writer!), involuntarily (“I have bad news,” the doctor said.) and by seduction (Their eyes met from across the room. Her life would never be the same.). Often, the one called will refuse to accept the invitation. As Bilbo said, adventures are “nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner” (J.R.R. Tolkien. The Hobbit, 1966)! The known world is safe in its predictability, even if it may not be a cozy, comfy chair in front of the fire. However, in the long run, the call cannot be avoided. As Seneca said, “the fates lead  those who will, those who won't they drag” (from Moral letters to Lucilius, 107), and the longer the refusal the more significant the consequences. Take the otherwise successful high school senior, for example, who stops doing work, usually sometime after the holidays. “I’m so sick of this place!” they complain while making sure they become seniors again the following year. Senioritis they call it, and it’s understandable: high school graduation is a terrifying threshold for young adults to cross, young adults who have been surrounded by the same familiar faces and places for most of their lives. The Refusal of the Call is the result of a powerful impulse to remain in the comfort of the known world. It can also be deadly. The following anecdote came to me while considering where to focus this essay and I rejected it at first as too personal. But then, while walking the dog, which is when I do some of my best thinking, I realized that it was exactly what I should write about because it’s so personal and, importantly, far from unique. One 2004 day in the staff men’s room outside the sixth grade wing of the Upstate New York middle school where I worked, I was shocked to see a blood clot in my urine. In the blink of an eye, I went from “That happened,” to “No. It didn’t.” It was a surprisingly seductive impulse.  I shoved the moment into a small corner of my mind and tried to squeeze it into a smaller and ever smaller ball that could be ignored. It remained, though, like a pebble in my shoe for the rest of the day. I wrestled with the temptation to submit to this denial which, looking back, was the threshold guardian, Fear. We all know stories of those who succumbed to the Refusal of the Call until it was too late, and I realize how easy it could have been to do so myself. But I made the phone call, which may well have been the act that allows me to be sitting here on this chilly November afternoon tapping away on my keyboard. At one point that day I realized where I was. Joseph Campbell had already told me. What’s wonderful about the Hero’s Journey as outlined by Campbell is that it’s not just a common story structure to be found in Star Wars, Watership Down, The Hobbit, The Odyssey and so forth. It’s a common story structure because it is an archetypal expression of the human condition. Human beings create meaning through story and the most important story is the story of our own lives. Everyone reading these words is at one step or another of this adventure, and probably at multiple steps on multiple adventures, because life is often a messy amalgam of nested hero journeys. The schemata make sense of them, and when life is spinning you around and everything is in flux, knowing the pattern of the hero’s adventure places you in the calm eye of the storm. You know you must walk into the storm wall; you must cross that threshold, but you also know the path forward—your path forward—will appear. There is great comfort in this. You are not alone. And while there is never a guarantee of a desired outcome, whatever the outcome is, if you walk the path with integrity and courage, you can embrace it as someone who is now more than you were before the journey began. That alone is a Spring renewal, a rebirth. That alone is a boon to be shared. “We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. And where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world” ( Joseph Campbell. The Hero With A Thousand Faces, p. 18). This MythBlast was inspired by The Power of Myth Episode 1, and The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Latest Podcast In this episode Roshi Joan Halifax sits down with Bradley Olson of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. Roshi Joan Halifax speaks to Buddhists and non-followers alike on such universal topics as compassion, suffering, and what it is to be human. Influenced by early experiences as an anthropologist-world traveler, passionate end-of-life pioneer, and her work in social and ecological activism, she eloquently teaches the interwoven nature of engaged Buddhism and contemplative practice. She encourages a wholistic approach to life and training the mind, “that we may transform both personal and social suffering into compassion and wisdom.” Roshi Joan’s personal practice includes creative expression through photography, brush painting, and haiku as explorations in “beingness” and joy. As Founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya, her vision for the Zen Center embraces comprehensive Buddhist studies, meditation, service, dharma art, and environmental action as integrated paths cultivating peace and interconnectedness. She knew Joseph Campbell very well. In the conversation, she and Brad discuss her life, her work as a teacher and pioneer of end-of-life care, and her experiences with Joseph Campbell. To learn more about Joan, visit https://www.joanhalifax.org/ Listen Here This Week's Highlights “We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. And where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.” - Joseph Campbell - The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p.18 The Individual Adventure Q&A (see more videos)

Raised with stories of the gallant of Sri Ram who battled Ravana or Sri Krishna, who shielded his people from the incessant rain (caused by the anger of Lord Indra) by lifting the humongous Govardhan Parvat (mountain) in protection, I have been fascinated with the concept of the hero for most of my life. With Campbell’s much celebrated work on the hero as the base, I took to the Vedas, my sacred homeground, to celebrate the very idea of how a hero is personified. The Sanskrit term Veera is how the archetypal hero is referred to, the one who is brave and shines like the sun and in whose radiance we thrive. Veera is the one with the knowledge of being, the adventurer, the boon seeker, who fights and toils for the people. Lord Indra, in the Vedas is mentioned as an exemplar hero, the Veera who slayed the demon Vritra to release the confined waters that he had captured. Vritra tasted dust when Lord Indra struck him with his thunderbolt, Vajra (Rig veda 1.32 n.d.). This imagery echoed to me of the supreme protectresses, the goddesses who have often engaged in fierce battles with demons possessing powerful weapons as well as might, and then have taken charge when the gods couldn’t. Deconstructing the Hero through Janani Mien and Might This was the inception of my voyage to rethink the idea of the hero through the eyes of the Janani, the divine mother-goddess that manifests it all, including the hero. I thought of the divine yoni, the abode of all existences, and Tripura Sundari-Goddess Lalita, was the vehicle of my calling to know the larger Self through her heroic splendor. The call to dive deep and discern the qualities of what makes of a hero and understand the ultimate boon of the hero, Maa Lalita. It is an endeavor to know the feminine as a divine blessing. With a sugarcane, arrows, book, flowers, chalice, conch, noose, a goad in her hands and exuding the divine essence of her three children, the Trimurti (Lord Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva), as mediums channeling the universe, she perfectly models the archetypal heroic mien, qualities and aura. Her iconography is symbolic of control, wisdom, beauty, guidance and preparedness that a hero needs, and does, display. Om Sri Matre Namah “... So when you are meditating on a deity, you are meditating on powers of your own spirit and psyche, and on powers that are also out there” (Campbell. Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine, p. 14). Beholding the magnanimous supreme, Goddess Lalita, the Great Mother, who juggles the dance of creation-destruction-sustenance, the full circle of life, I delve into all her facets in all her glory as the life narrative for mankind. The Divine Womb: The Heroic Matrix- where it all begins… Campbell, speaking with Bill Moyers in The Power of Myth, gave yet another interesting take on the act of giving birth as heroic. On how mothers are heroes first, as they are the gateway for their child to become the chosen one. From her unfolds the be all and end of all there is. “The psyche is part of the inmost mystery of life, and it has its own peculiar structure and form like every other organism. Whether this psychic structure and its elements, the archetypes, ever "originated" at all is a metaphysical question and therefore unanswerable. The structure is something given a priori, the precondition that is found to be present in every case. And this is the mother, the matrix, the form into which all experience is poured” (Jung, CW9i, §187). As the life for the life to begin, breathing the cosmos alive, Sri Lalita knows how it all is, how it will be, and how it’s going to be, just like Gaia (Lovelock et. al, Atmospheric Homeostasis by and for the Biosphere: The Gaia Hypothesis). The “realm of the Mothers” has not a few connections with the womb, which frequently symbolizes the creative aspect of the unconscious (Jung, CW5, §182). It makes me think of how if mothers are the first heroes then heroes also emulate her, acting motherly. They take on an unprecedented path as seekers of greater knowledge which helps all as questers with a primal wise experience of life. The Mother-Matrix encapsulates the way of life, the know-hows of survival and maps out the larger good through the chosen one. Raksha-Kari Maayi (the protector)- The Heroic Steer on the adventure Lalita “Sahasranama” (meaning thousand names of the goddess in Sanskrit) sings praises of Goddess Lalita as she describes the charms needed by the hero as the adventure awaits. These charms are gifts of guidance by the guardian to the hero without which, the tasks of the adventure are hard to navigate. As heroic herself, the Great Mother with valor, has already trod the path the hero is to unveil. His journey is one of exploring the powers given by her as aids for the Self-soul and archetypal life escapade ahead. Campbell noted that in the spirit of the venture “against the dragon” the supernatural aid appears as the king maker. The aid not only guides the hero, but is a realization of the heroic Self that equips him to overcome the dragons and demons (Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, pp. 63-66). Sarva Shakthi Mayi- all strength: The Quintessence force in the transition to the yonderland To blaze forward, to leave the familiar, to experience the new, what does the hero need?. Campbell answers that it is the purposive heroic strides taken to break free from the monotony of life and rethink our existence. What is this that challenges us and drags us into such strange and novel states? It is our inner mother that takes us to the higher realm, without which the adventure of life would never begin? Goddess Lalita evinces the larger life force, the capacity for heroism. She as the Samharini (the destroyer), the Pancha Krithya Parayana (the five elements of creation, being and destruction), the Vignanasin (obstacle remover), and Twan (manifesting you and me) is the transformative core-creatrix that precincts and gives life to the voyage of the unknown to be known. Thamopaha: Goddess clearing the path of the unknown It's never easy to bridge over to the unknown, the dark, the dangerous or the completely chaotic. Campbell clarifies that the uncharted territory has its own blunders that can be and will be comprehended by the hero despite all his stumbles. Why the hero first? Why does he need to go through this? It’s because he is the one who can achieve the boon of mastering life in its fullness through his own life-giving, renewing energy, which he as an initiate accesses over and over to overcome the falls and stumbles. He is also the archetypal exemplar of knowing how, when, and why to harness the inner strength, to bring light to the darkness. Darkness is not for the hero, who is the pursuer of sunshine. Goddess Lalita is the forerunner of what the hero tries to achieve, to remove the dark clouds and clear the skies of life. She is the primordial inner strength of the wellspring of growth and fertility as boons and so is called Varadha, the boon-giver (The Hero with a thousand faces , pp. 46-52). The Prodigal Return in the Reign of the Hero, Lalita Amba Bhanda! Bhanda! (well done) exclaimed Lord Brahma as a witness to the three boons received by the Asura (demon) from Lord Shiva. Bhandasura caused a Kama-Pralaya (dissolution) and Lord Shambhu-Shiva knew that his defeat awaited him at the hands of goddess Lalita-parmeshvari as the resurgent creation. This is the classic primal resonance of the cyclical pattern of the hero’s adventure. She is the prodigal return, an elixir for the chosen one to follow her footsteps. What we experience here is the magic of the maternal, the hero of the hero who has been through it all, symbolizing our own transcendent self engagement, our own inner connectedness. In accordance with the Sanskrit text, the harmony of the masculine only resides in the feminine as is conveyed in its contingent essence. Only when Sakti fuses with Shiva can he earn the privilege to be a Lord! (Sastrī & Ayyaṅgār, Saundarya-Laharī, pp. 8-9). This MythBlast was inspired by The Power of Myth Episode 1, and The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Latest Podcast This bonus episode of Pathways is the audio from a slideshow presentation that followed the lecture that he gave at Skowhegan on July 27th 1987. The lecture was our podcast Episode 27: Artists, Poets, & Writers. Even though we cannot see the slides that professor Campbell is showing, his rich description is able to guide us through the presentation. This was one of the last public presentations that Campbell gave before his death in October of the same year. Listen Here This Week's Highlights “The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, 'Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.' And so it starts.” - Joseph Campbell - A Joseph Campbell Companion, p.77 Myth As the Mirror for the Ego (see more videos)

Have you heard the one about the tiger and the goats? Joseph Campbell often shared this fable: a young tiger, raised by the herd of goats his mother leapt into hoping to feed herself and her unborn cub before dying in childbirth, grows up believing he is a goat until being instructed by a passing-by adult tiger to eat meat and discover his true self. Campbell borrowed the story from 19th Century Hindu mystic Shri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, calling it his “favorite sort of sew-it-all up” story. It’s a classic “to thine own self be true” tale, and has been fodder for countless teachers and religious figures across cultures. All the young tiger needed was the teacher to show him who he really was. I want to call out, however, a couple of nuances in Campbell’s retelling of the story in a 1972 interview (L444: ZBS Interview, 1972, 1:20:00–), that I think invite us to uncover shadows in being learners in relationship to teachers, and what it means to, in the worlds of my educator father, Eugene Melander, who spent a lifetime imagining how teachers can teach and students can student, learn to “self author.” It’s the difference between seeing who you really are and crafting the story that brings you to that awareness; always ongoing, never static, with ownership of your own story and its telling. In Campbell’s 1972 retelling, he describes the elder tiger’s instructions to the young tiger, who doesn’t even realize that he is being perceived as a student, as he drags him by the scruff of the neck to look at his face in a pond. Campbell says: The big tiger looks in and he says, "Now, see, you've got the face of a tiger. You're no goat, you don't have a goat's face. You're like me! Be like me!" And then Campbell, as an aside, adds “That's the guru-style: "Be like me." Not “be yourself.” The elder tiger then shoves meat down the protesting throat of the young tiger, who gags on it. Campbell adds, “And the text says, ‘as all do on true doctrine.’” What an image! While it’s possible to read this as a nod to the difficulties of losing one’s self and one’s ego to the power of capital “T” Truth in the teaching as delivered by the teacher, it also invites us to question the role of doctrine in our own self-authoring. If we gag on the true doctrine, is it really true? Is the teaching, the exhortation to be just like the guru the point of this story? Or is the actual truth in the experience for the young tiger the moment where the nourishment hits his body with a rightness he viscerally understands, and he becomes tiger in that moment? For doctrines, even when well-meaning, are external to us. And sometimes they are flat wrong. By way of illustrating this, I want to share a poem I wrote about a piece of doctrine it took me forty years to stop gagging on, and the gagging stopped only when I spat it out: 40 Years Later I had a realization. Reading a poem about how EB White cried when Charlotte died. And how the mother reading the story had cried. And the children who knew nothing of loss laughed at her crying. But I cried. I cried as a small child reading Charlotte’s Web for the first time. And I have cried all the times I have read it since. It is about compassion, not experience. The ability to imagine with empathy into understanding someone else’s sorrow. And I remember a short story I wrote at 19 about a garden fearing the shears and mowers for a writing class in college. And I loved the professor. I still do. And I cried when he died. But he hated the story. It didn’t fall into the canon of serious fictional literature about unhappy people, and plants didn’t have voices or sentience. It was vapid and childish. Not his words directly. But what he meant, kindly, pushing me to reach higher to drop that for grownup stuff. So I tried for what he said I should want. And it was an exercise in learning to cleverly order words and metaphors. And I couldn’t feel anything any more. And I stopped going to class. I have always felt shame. It was my fault. I was fucking up. I cried then, with him. When I gathered the courage to beg for his forgiveness. And he was kind. And it’s only now, 40 years later. That I realize he should have been begging for mine. That I was begging for forgiveness for abandoning my heart, really. Not his class. For I still hear the voices of the garden fearing the shears and battle with my husband and insurance companies over lawns gone to meadow at my farm. It’s not neglect, I say. But a choice. To let them live so the birds and caterpillars and snakes and voles who ensure we all can live can as well. And I realize that is a story that the world did need 40 years ago, not just me. As we are on the precipice of what happens when humans don’t hear those voices. And something breaks open for me over this. Finally. I am wrong to wait for permission. And I need to tell the stories that are my heart. That I still wait for permission. Far too often. And tell my heart to grow up. And I wonder how many stories we have lost. From everyone told they were doing it wrong. That their hearts didn’t understand. (Melander, 2023, unpublished) How would this fable - and its teachings - empower him differently if the young tiger was invited to find his own taste for what he needed to become all that he was? And what different stories would he be able to tell? About his mother’s sacrifice, his adopted family’s sacrifice, and how both of those were also a part of what made him Tiger? This MythBlast was inspired by The Power of Myth Episode 1, and The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Latest Podcast In this episode, Roshi Joan Halifax sits down with Bradley Olson of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. Roshi Joan Halifax speaks to Buddhists and non-followers alike on such universal topics as compassion, suffering, and what it is to be human. Influenced by early experiences as an anthropologist-world traveler, passionate end-of-life pioneer, and her work in social and ecological activism, she eloquently teaches the interwoven nature of engaged Buddhism and contemplative practice. She encourages a wholistic approach to life and training the mind, “that we may transform both personal and social suffering into compassion and wisdom.” Roshi Joan’s personal practice includes creative expression through photography, brush painting, and haiku as explorations in “beingness” and joy. As Founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya, her vision for the Zen Center embraces comprehensive Buddhist studies, meditation, service, dharma art, and environmental action as integrated paths cultivating peace and interconnectedness. She knew Joseph Campbell very well. In the conversation, she and Brad discuss her life, her work as a teacher and pioneer of end of life care, and her experiences with Joseph Campbell. To learn more about Joan visit https://www.joanhalifax.org/ Listen Here This Week's Highlights "Is the conscientious teacher––concerned for the moral character as well as for the book-learning of his students––to be loyal first to the supporting myths of our civilization or to the "factualized" truths of his science? Are the two, on level, at odds? Or is there not some point of wisdom beyond the conflicts of illusion and truth by which lives can be put back together again?" - Joseph Campbell -Myths to Live By, p.11 Dynamics of the Unconscious (see more videos)

I love to hear stories about when people first encountered mythology, or how they first felt themselves drawn to myth. There’s often a sense of breathless amazement and detailed recollections that accompany life’s seismic moments. For many of us, our mythic origin stories speak to when we first found the work of Joseph Campbell. My first encounter with Campbell’s ideas was in the late 1980s in a college English class called “Introduction to Folklore.” I was attending a large, conservative, religious university with strict oversight of course syllabi to make sure we students weren’t exposed to anything that might challenge our belief in the literal truth of scripture. Instructors had a Sunday-best dress code—suits and ties for men, skirts or dresses for women—and we all had to sign an honor code promising not only that we would behave ourselves in all the required ways, but that we would inform on any students we saw breaking the rules. I’ll never forget that Orwellian sense of living beneath a theocratic tyranny. But the Folklore class met in a small room tucked away at the end of a basement hallway in a quiet evening time slot, and the class had only fifteen or twenty students. It felt like I was able to inhabit a forgotten pocket of freedom away from the glare of religious assessment and evaluation. In an act of rebellion, which my younger self found thrilling, the professor wore blue jeans and flannel shirts. One day, in another gesture of defiance, he brought a copy of The Hero with a Thousand Faces to class and read it out loud to us. I don’t remember the passage he read, but I remember the electricity in the air. I felt like I was floating on it. The second time I encountered Campbell’s work was in another English class, but this one was at a scruffy public community college, where I enrolled after leaving the religious university. The class topic was nature writing, and one day the teacher interrupted our normal activities to march us into the media room to watch Episode 1 of The Power of Myth, “The Hero’s Adventure.” Now I could see Campbell, hear his voice out loud. “My general formula for my students,” he said to Bill Moyers from the TV screen, “is follow your bliss! I mean, find where it is and don’t be afraid to follow it.” These words were nourishing to me as I was struggling to put my life back together after stepping away from religion. Hero, of course, phrases the idea more obliquely: “the hero-heart must be at hand” (4). Where Hero’s literary prose is highly crafted, The Power of Myth is conversational, but both works illustrate Campbell’s signature commitment to the underlying unity of mythic traditions and the diversity of expressions through which the mythic spirit speaks. In different voices, both works reveal Campbell’s insights about heroes, adventure, and bliss. Hero discusses bliss more objectively in the context of recurring mythic patterns, and The Power of Myth makes it practical: follow your bliss already! The implication, I think, is that following bliss has much to do with living the hero’s adventure. It’s about saying yes to its invitations, which means heeding what calls to you regardless of what anyone else says, because the alternative would shrink your soul and leave you filled with regret. Following bliss means facing fear head on and daring to see through it, past it, to the possibilities that await on the other side. It means rebellion and defiance. It means summoning your hero-heart’s reserves of courage. Heroism and bliss-following are lived soul experiences, psychological states marked by a willingness to risk danger on behalf of someone or something you believe in—very much like my professor who defied university rules to read Campbell to us. He put himself in real jeopardy. At that same school, I saw a group of young, muscular, angry zealots confront a beleaguered biology professor because he had dared to teach evolution. If anyone in my English class had reported the professor, he could easily have faced personal, professional, and religious retribution. But he had the courage to defy a system that was trying to control and contain him and us. By bringing Hero to that basement classroom, he brought heroism as well, literally in word and deed. In reading to us about heroes, he showed us what it meant to be one. Campbell died before I took either of those English classes, so in a sense he was speaking to us from beyond the veil, as he still does today through works like Hero and The Power of Myth. When my professor read to us from Hero the book had already been inspiring readers for almost forty years. This year marks the 75th anniversary of its publication, and it’s still going strong, with its unique combination of insight, awe, and wisdom. Neither of my teachers made Campbell a homework assignment. Neither put him on the syllabus or in any kind of test. They just saw to it that he joined us in the classroom. In so doing, they each embraced the radical, subversive heroism of educating our hearts, souls, and imaginations as well as our minds. I am forever grateful to both of them. This MythBlast was inspired by The Power of Myth Episode 1, and The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Latest Podcast In this episode of Pathways entitled, "Literary Wizardry - A Discussion with Joseph Campbell" recorded on December 15th 1970, Joseph Campbell holds a discussion session with students after his address to the student body of Sarah Lawrence College on the work of Thomas Mann. Host Bradley Olson gives an introduction and commentary after the lecture. Listen Here This Week's Highlights "Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. " - Joseph Campbell -The Hero with a Thousand Faces (p1) Slaying the Dragon (see more videos)

As the editor of the MythBlast Series, I have the privilege of introducing the new year of 2024 MythBlasts. I’m honored and humbled that you, and other readers-subscribers like you, have made the MythBlast Series so popular. Not only does it continue to grow in popularity, but we continue to experiment with themes and ideas that push at the edges of Joseph Campbell’s work in ways that make his thoughts more accessible and more relevant to contemporary culture. This year our theme for the MythBlast Series is “The Power of Myth.”  The Power of Myth was filmed over the last years of Campbell’s life, aired in 1988 not long after his death, and remains one of the most popular series in the history of PBS. The series consists of six-hour long episodes, and these episode titles will provide the monthly themes to which our MythBlast authors will write. You will see a few new authors writing for us in 2024, and I think that these authors help constitute our strongest group of contributors yet. Quotes and references to Campbell’s most famous book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, first published in 1949, were sprinkled throughout The Power of Myth series, and it just so happens that this year marks the 75th anniversary of Hero’s publication. This book has inspired millions of readers, and I suspect it may well inspire millions more. For a book that constantly finds itself on lists of the greatest nonfiction books of all time—for example, The Greatest Books of All Time website named Hero the 348th greatest nonfiction book of all time, it made Parade Magazine’s list of The 75 Best Books of the Past 75 Years, and on Time magazine’s All-Time 100 Best Nonfiction Books, Hero clocks in at number 46—this one had a difficult time as a neonate. Reviewers were hard on Campbell and his first offering as a solo author. It seems that the animus toward Campbell’s book was largely related to his reliance on psychoanalytic and Jungian theory. Sigmund Freud, armed with his new theory of psychoanalysis visited the U.S. only once, in 1909 to celebrate Clark University’s twentieth anniversary. America was initially cool toward psychoanalysis. Perhaps cool is putting it mildly; prominent physicians and public intellectuals routinely referred to Freud’s theory as “filth.” By the 1930s, however, psychoanalysis had grown in popularity and was even being taught in medical schools and universities. Jung’s popularity was initially more immediate in America and by the 1940s, the disciplines of art, literature, and comparative religion had embraced his theories. In addition to Campbell, Jackson Pollock, and Martha Graham, even the physicists Wolfgang Paulie and Erwin Schrodinger embraced Jung’s analytical psychology. The old guard, the establishment figures in “institutions” such as some university literature departments or The New York Times, were nevertheless still reluctant to embrace the influences of modernism and the new abstract dialectics of the time. Twenty years earlier Ernest Hemingway, for example, had to endure largely ad hominem, dismissive attacks for The Sun Also Rises. Time magazine complained that Hemingway’s "interests appear to have grown soggy from too much sitting in cafes in the Latin quarter of Paris," the Chicago Daily Tribune said the novel is a "bushel of sensationalism and triviality," and The Springfield Republican lamented that the novel’s "extreme moral sordidness at such length defeats artistic purpose." These sorts of scolding, smug reviews were also leveled at The Hero With A Thousand Faces. On June 26th, 1949 The New York Times published a review of Hero which consisted of mostly snide remarks without making even a grudging attempt to find sympathy with Campbell’s thesis. In that review Max Radin glibly wrote, Mr. Campbell undertakes to reinterpret all mythologies on the basis chiefly, but not exclusively, of Jung's psychoanalytical theories. Freud is cited just as much as Jung, and Geza Roheim, Wilhelm Steckel and Otto Rank are frequently referred to. Adler is not mentioned. Apparently those who tell stories about heroes are not troubled by inferiority complexes, even as a matter of compensation-fantasy. Certainly Mr. Campbell is not troubled by an inferiority complex, since his book is quite consciously a “key to all mythologies.” Mr. Radin seems to have issues with the ambitious nature of Hero, and yet he seems at least a little captivated by it at the same time: [Campbell’s] sweep in space and time is impressively broad, and his boldness is highly commendable…There is so much in this book, and the analogies and comparisons are so interesting and stimulating, that it is too bad that it is all presented in the mystical and pseudo-philosophic fog of Jung. But ultimately, Mr. Radin could not accept Campbell’s idea that mythology has many different purposes and functions. Campbell described myth as “a primitive, fumbling effort to explain the world…,” as misunderstood poetry, as allegorical instructions to help the individual accept his place in the social group, as “a group dream symptomatic of archetypal urges,” as well as being “the traditional vehicle of man’s profoundest metaphysical insights.” Mr. Radin implicitly appealed to authority by quoting Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes when he wrote, “I cannot restrain a lingering doubt.” Finally, Mr. Radin reveals a stunning lack of imagination when he writes that Campbell makes too much out of myth: I fancy that mythology may well be in large measure what those who made the myths—heard them, read them, or saw them depicted in the painting or statuary, apparently thought they were: tales told as tales, without any purpose, other than that of telling them. Radin wraps up his pronouncement against Hero by penning this piece of mind-numbing nonsense: And when we are asked to believe that the ancient Greeks or other peoples could not…introduce any fact of common experience which was not an allegory of something quite different, I am tempted to exclaim with Andrew Lang: “Who ever heard of such tales!” In its way, I suppose, the Times was simply trying to stem the symbolist, anti-authoritarian, and potentially revolutionary tide of modernism. Change is always a difficult challenge with which to be faced, and at its core, modernism insisted that the world had to be rethought and reimagined in fundamental ways. Old authorities were no longer recognized by modernism, and its passion for novelty and feeling disposed of hidebound customs and unquestioned orthodoxies while simultaneously opening up and displaying the world’s complexity, nuance, and absurdity, a radical re-visioning that was at the same time reaching across class and economic barriers to be inclusive and uplifting, emboldening and revitalizing. Campbell’s approach to myth was firmly rooted in the thoughts, experiments, and products of modernism, which I must emphasize was not necessarily atheistic, and his finger was on the pulse of a culture increasingly fascinated with new spiritual and metaphysical explorations like Theosophy, Christian Science, spiritualism, and the religious and philosophical systems of Asia. It was into this milieu, this zeitgeist, that Joseph Campbell, with his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces, introduced a reimagined study of mythology, and made the rituals and beliefs of ancient societies relevant to contemporary life. Thanks for reading, This MythBlast was inspired by The Power of Myth Episode 1, and The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Latest Podcast In episode 4 of The Podcast With A Thousand Faces, initially released in November 2022, Duncan Trussell and John Bucher of the Joseph Campbell Foundation talk about Duncan's work as a comedian, and his interest in religion, mythology, artificial intelligence, and consciousness. Duncan is the host of The Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast and creator of the Netflix show, The Midnight Gospel. Listen Here This Week's Highlights "It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religion, philosphies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth." - Joseph Campbell -The Hero with a Thousand Faces (p1)

The World … The Entire World. This entirety speaks to the grand enhancement of our consciousness and its embrace of all things. Throughout much of the Hermetic tradition, ‘The World’ also means the World Soul. And here in this tarot card we have the Dancing Maiden whose consciousness is merging with the circuitry of the earth and kosmos reflecting Isadora Duncan's statement that "one truly lives only when one dances." Through this dance, a cosmic consciousness is entered … a harmonious intercourse between the subconscious, conscious, and super conscious realms of the psyche. Our Dancer here is fully poised because she is replete and synchronized within herself and is in harmony with the entirety of the world. She also holds a wand in each hand suggesting the principle of polarities. We see this principle expressed in life through constant contraction and expansion. The human heart and most other bodily organs expand and contract continuously in a process mediated through rhythmic pulse. Similarly, our planet breathes out in the summer of one hemisphere and breathes in during the winter of the other. Plus there’s also the rhythms of sleep and wakefulness, sympathy and antipathy, and in a physics setting, of negative electrical charges and positive charges. The anonymous author writes in Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism: Seen in the light of the Arcanum ‘The World’ – the Arcanum of rhythmic movement or dance – joy is the harmony of rhythms, whilst suffering is their disharmony. The pleasure that one experiences in winter when one is seated close to a fire is only the restoration of an accord between the body’s rhythm and the rhythm of the air – that which we call ‘temperature’. The joy that friendship gives is the harmony between the psychic and mental rhythms of two or more people. […] Joy is therefore the state of harmony of inner rhythm with outer rhythm, of rhythm below with that from above, and, lastly, of the rhythm of created being with divine rhythm (p. 630). Our Mystical Dancer dances with the rhythms and pulses of the great circulation of Universal Life – both the natural, terrestrial rhythms and the planetary and stellar rhythms of the kosmos. She’s both a representative of these rhythms as well as a conduit for them. And our Dancer is naked. Naked because her motive is pure and unadulterated, and she has transcended all possible deceit and hubris. As such, she’s entirely at one with her dance (we could even say her mission), which is to be the intersection vessel for the earth and kosmos. And in this role, she’s free. She’s bound only by the membrane of the living universe, which is why, perhaps, she’s depicted as being surrounded by the wreath of leaves. As a fully individuated human being, our Dancer has become not only a child of the World Soul’s processes, but also somewhat independent of them too. As such, she’s able to step through the immediate sheaths of ‘The World’ – here represented as the circle – and address and speak back to this World Soul as an emissary for a fully actualised and autonomous humanity. Depicted as a human being, she’s therefore able to imbue the World Soul with new and novel life. The entirety of this world can often only be described symbolically and mystically within the hermetic and alchemical traditions. Jennifer Westwood wrote in On Pilgrimage: Sacred Journeys around the World that “Cosmic imagery, the experience of Sufis and other mystics, and the practice of pilgrimage all seem to tell us the same thing: that there is a center that can give us meaning (connection) and purpose (direction). This center is the God described by Saint Bonaventure (1221-74) as a ‘circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.’” Our world as the Earth Body encompasses both Spiritus Mundi (spirit of the world as W. B. Yeats refers to in the poem The Second Coming) and matter, and bears both the whole and interrelated ecosystems of life upon – and within – it. Usually the depths of this World Soul are not consciously accessible, at least not to someone who has devoted their life almost exclusively to external matters of existence. Such a person has not – as yet – achieved a whole, integrated epistemology. But to those who have the capacity to perceive, our earth and kosmos are in a reciprocal relationship and form an exchange circuit of life … though it’s only the consciousness of an individual on the path of individuation (or fully individuated like our Dancer) who may reach – and touch into – the mutual circuitry of this earth-kosmos exchange. Our Dancer ​serves life and the Entire World through her dance and she is the vehicle for the forces of the kosmos and earth to ‘speak’ to – and through – the other. To various degrees, and according to the occasion, each of us can be in service to this macro integrational force too. This occurs when we embody selfless service and joyfully commit to our own self-integration whilst also being aware of the kosmos and its movements. As Joseph Campbell wrote in Myths to Live By, “You don’t ask what a dance means. You enjoy it. You don’t ask what the world means. You enjoy it. You don’t ask what you mean. You enjoy it” (p.102-103). And so, in closing both this MythBlast and the year, I trust that you’ve enjoyed the 2023 series dear readers and I very much look forward to sharing more worldly enjoyment with you in 2024! Featured Video Featured Work

I’m sitting in the middle seat on an airplane flying west over the Atlantic Ocean. My tray table holds a flimsy cup of strong coffee, a pen, a pad, and a book, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion by Joseph Campbell. The chairs beside me are occupied, so my elbows remain tucked in against my sides. Only my hands and forearms can move as I gingerly raise and lower the coffee, steady the pad to write, and hold the book up to read. Inner Reaches is one of my favorite Campbell books, with its focus on imagination and art. I love the title, too, suggesting the infinite inwardness of the cosmos, and the cosmic reaches of the inner self. I’m reading Campbell’s reflections on NASA’s photo of earth from the moon, an image which “lacks those lines of sociopolitical divisions that are so prominent on maps” (94), when I glance up from the book and notice that the screen on the seat in front of me shows an animation of the airplane’s path as though from above. Not as far away as the moon, but high enough to see the planet’s curve and the contours of continents. At intervals, this image of the globe spins on its virtual axis, a gratuitous pirouette for no purpose other than to entertain us passengers. Some places are labeled, but the graphic shows no borders. There go Canada and the United States, the Pacific Ocean, Japan, Mongolia, Turkey, Norway, Spain. It’s nighttime over Tokyo, Hong Kong, Delhi, Dubai. In the animation, cities necklace the land with yellow beads of electric light. Campbell believed the image of the world from space might bring humanity together and usher in a new myth, a “mythology of this unified earth as of one harmonious being” (xix). The key word here is “being,” an entity possessed of animate wholeness–like a person is. And because beings in myth are so often imagined as goddesses and gods, Campbell could be wondering how a new myth might emerge of Earth as sacred, honored, and archetypal, a deity to be met in heart-space with reverence and awe. But to see a being in a photo of a planet requires a mythic images and a mythic imagination. Which brings us to the tarot cards. In the tarot deck’s image-rich major arcana, the last card is the World, number twenty-one. If the Fool begins the cards’ metaphorical journey, the World completes the adventure. In some decks, the World shows a nearly nude figure adorned only with a sportive scarf that floats in undulating waves like Aphrodite’s magical, love-inducing wrap. Fully formed and fully breasted, the person is an adult, not a child. This figure’s beauty is vibrantly alive, suggesting metaphorically the living, loving soul of a living, loving world. Hovering in clouds at the corners of the card are other beings: angel, eagle, lion, bull. The four of them surround the World, who holds a magic wand in each hand as lightly as though about to twirl them. A powerful, ensouled being supported by other powerful souls, the World’s love works magic effortlessly, with both hands at once. I’m flying to New York after a few weeks in London, where I saw thrilling art and architecture, savored global food and wine, and walked among throngs of people from everywhere who spoke more languages than I could identify. My visit felt like an encounter with the world up close and personal: a fountain of life, a ferment of making, a fertile tumult of blending and reblending earth, air, water, and fire. The creativity of the city seemed spontaneously buoyant, and now I feel replenished with insights and experiences. This radically different vantage point gave my day-to-day world an infusion of fresh perspectives, the way the Earthrise photo gave us all a new view of our shared home. The tarot card’s metaphorical World dances through a massive wreath. It’s an opening bound by an eternal circle, hence an opening into eternity, or a space outside time. The World hovers between realities, suspended between everything that came before and everything yet to come. This card of culmination shows the fleeting, floating simultaneity of endings and beginnings and the infinite expanse between. The World’s immense, generous love creates beauty in those transitions as if by magic. My coffee is almost gone. The plane is approaching New York. When I finally stretch my folded limbs and exit the aircraft, stepping out of the doorway I entered only a few hours ago, I will hover for a heartbeat in a timeless space of completion before returning to the world from my brief time away. I will cross the plane’s threshold a different person than when the flight began, different than I was when I left home. And after passing through that portal, I will step into the realm of the Fool again, because when one journey ends another begins. I hope for some of the Fool’s radiant faith, relaxed in the gnosis of what it is that waits at the end of the next adventure. Or rather, who it is who waits. Featured Video Featured Work

This will be the last card in my year-long commitment to the Tarot as a reader. While I have learned much, I am left with a question. If I am the reader, who is the subject of my reading? As a man, I think this card may offer a reading for men in general because it may be understood to herald a fundamental shift in their societal status. Gentlemen, be seated. The card you see on the table before you is called “The World,” usually associated with momentous change. The message is hard to miss, framed by symbols of the Christian gospels, one evangelist in each corner. We know that “gospel” translates as “good news,” and it is good news indeed if you have grown weary of the burden of being an Alpha Male 24/7. It is good news for you and good news for women because it suggests that a historical reckoning is about to take place. There was a time, according to Joseph Campbell and Maria Gimbutas, when the divine principle was female and operated under the aegis of the Goddess. She had many names and Campbell loved to recite them: Artemis, Ishtar, Astarte, Anahit, Aphrodite, and Mary who, while not a deity herself, is clearly the dominant member of her odd marriage to a local carpenter. But, as James Hillman liked to say, the gods never show up alone. Each member of the female pantheon partnered with some male divine which, while full of potency, is nevertheless a secondary character in a supportive role. Just as Barbie has Ken, Ishtar has Tammuz, Inanna claims Dumuzi, Venus delights in her Adonis, Isis is unavoidably linked to corpse-like Osiris, and Mary enjoys a Platonic marriage of convenience with a local craftsman. My point is that patriarchy is never a permanent state but a condition always in flux which can leave us in positions of public power, or reduce us to ancillary functions. Consider Mary and Joseph. She is Theotokos, or “god bearer.” He’s good at miter cuts. The current epoch of male hegemony began one afternoon when Persephone was plucking a narcissus from the meadow where she and her all female crew were gamboling under the eye of a watchful mother goddess, Demeter, whose attention wandered just long enough to allow a chthonic kidnapper to burst through the mantle of the earth, urging his unblinking horses onward to capture the lovely Persephone. Is it more than a story? I think so. That momentous afternoon speaks of the abruptness by which one monad supplanted another.  I have always intuitively felt that Hades’ abduction of Persephone is a historical echo of those very real thundering hooves under the saddles of the Indo-Europeans in 4400 BCE, a date favored by Gimbutas, who cites as evidence the artifacts she found from that period among the broken shards and abandoned granaries of her digs. “Weapons, weapons, weapons!” cries the Lithuanian archeologist to her interviewer from the L.A. Times (6/11/89). “It’s just incredible how many thousands of pounds of these daggers and swords were found from the Bronze Age. This was a cruel period and the beginning of what it is today—you turn on the television, and it’s war, war, war, whatever channel.” The invaders brought more than daggers. They came with their deities. Derived from guardian family gods throughout the second millennium BCE, they pillaged the sleepy Neolithic towns throughout southeastern Europe and Asia Minor to the Indus Valley. “The chief gods of the invaders were predominantly male warrior gods, champions, each, of his special people. Those of the invaded agricultural territories, in contrast, were chiefly of the earth’s fertility and life, local forms for the most part, of the one great ‘goddess of many names,’ of whom all beings, even gods and demons, are the progeny” (Inner 46). So goodbye village and tillage, hello horse and battle ax. But the historical reckoning which I see in the card before me is now upon us. The mandorla, Campbell reminds us in Tarot Revelations, is comprised of overlapping circles, their point of intersection creating a Venn diagram or, if one prefers, an almond such as we see framing the central figure of the face card. “Moreover, the form of the mandorla is traditionally interpreted as a reference to the female organ of birth, the vulva, as though the cosmic mother-goddess of all space-time were here to be seen giving birth to the Christ of the Second Coming, and thereby to the Kingdom of the Father which is within us.” Only, the “Father” is noticeably absent within the mandorla. The evangelists are heralding a woman, although the figure can be construed (with effort) as a hermaphrodite. Either way, the second coming will be a rude awakening for those whose prayers are still directed to a male god residing somewhere just beyond the moon. In the subject’s hands are, respectively, a wand to the left, indicative of the male principle, according to Campbell, and a conch shell to the right, symbolic of the female principle. But the reassuring balance is undermined by the displacement of Christ altogether. As Campbell directs our attention to the West Portal of Chartres Cathedral, we discover a remarkably similar constellation of symbolic representations: Four Evangelists with a central Christ framed by a mandorla. The meaning of Card 21 could not be clearer: A woman is giving the hip-check to the boy from Bethlehem. The pivot from gynocentrism to phallocentrism can happen in an instant, as when Hades drags his unwilling prey to an undesired throne in Hell. Or it can occur naturally over centuries: I am thinking of another “hermaphrodite” whose career began in India as the mustachioed male Avalokiteshvara, but, by the time he gets to China and Japan, has become the most merciful Kuan Yin, holding in her sublime hands, not the conch of card No 21, but the “vase of her compassion” which she pours out upon the suffering earth. “In our present day,” writes Campbell in apparent sympathy with the premise of imminent historical transition, “it does indeed seem that a fundamental transformation of the historical conditions of its inhabiting humanity is in prospect, and that the age of the conquering armies of the contending monster monads… may be about to close” (Inner, 16). Not a moment too soon. Featured Video Featured Work

“Till then, think of the world.” (Julius Caesar 2.2 line 319) As we turn to the closing of the year, it seems like that state of the world is the last thing we want to think about. And yet “the World,” the ultimate card of the major arcana, bids us go beyond our subjective fantasies in order to face the realities of the world—grim though they may be. For every violent event in the world can be read as the explosion of a certain repressed truth in the collective unconscious which is yet to be thought out. In the first place, the World card represents the culmination of the whole process of individuation portrayed in the classic tarot deck. It represents the full integration of the Self as the synthesis of the four elements, the higher and lower realms. Therefore, it is generally considered a fortune laden card which brings together “Assured success, recompense, voyage, route, emigration, flight, change of place” with their opposites “Inertia, fixity, stagnation, permanence” (AE Waite. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, p. 81.) Even its “reversed” significance does not seem too detrimental. So it may be a surprise to learn that the card of the World is ruled by the astrological sign of Saturn, with all its “negative” constellations and attributes. In Medieval alchemy, Saturn corresponded to lead, the heaviest and darkest of metals. It constituted the emblematic starting point of the Great Opus. As a manifestation of the prima materia or primal matter, Saturn was associated with the stage of the nigredo or the “blackening”—a state of deep depression and melancholic introspection which today is being triggered by the state of the world. The mythic associations that belong to Saturn as Chronos devouring his own children points to the uroboric nature of the prima materia. It is another variation of the self-relating movement of the “serpent that bites its own tail” as the alpha and omega of the Great Opus. Lead thus became the literal and symbolic ore out of which the philosophical gold of Alchemy was to be mined and extracted. The card of the World is, after all, an archetypal image of a mode of consciousness that shows itself to be, as it were, in full possession of the lapis philosophorum or “Philosopher's Stone.” But such consciousness only emerges out of the background of Saturn as the absolute negativity of the soul. As we can read in an alchemical text from the 17th Century: “My child shall know, that the Stone called the Philosopher's Stone, comes out of Saturn”. (A Work of Saturn. Johann Isaac Hollandus from Of Natural & Supernatural Things. London, 1670.) Saturn thus indicates the “negative” source of wisdom emerging out of the unconscious recesses of truth. Determined as the flow of temporality, Saturn also symbolizes the process of generation, becoming, and change. If the World card is to represent, as Waite suggests, “the rapture of the universe when it understands itself in God (Nature) ( p. 53),” then this rapture must surely include the Saturnian element of absolute negativity which would prevent a positive consciousness of the whole. Jung expresses a thought in a similar vein when he writes: “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious” (CW13: 265-266¶355). The darkness that needs to be made conscious, however, is not only of a personal nature. As a proponent of the collective unconscious, Jung implicitly understood that this task of enlightenment aims at the elucidation of a collective darkness. This piece of unconsciousness corresponds to an archetypal strand of truth   which runs through an individual as it does through entire societies and cultures—across the centuries. Weaving and unraveling our collective existence, these unconscious forces will cry havoc with a Monarch’s voice as long as the hidden and repressed truth of the conflict is not borne out. Joseph Campbell seems to have understood this supreme insight when he wrote: In India, the objective is to be born from the womb of myth, not to remain in it, and the one who has attained to this “second birth” is truly the “twice born,” freed from the pedagogical devices of society, the lures and threats of myth, the local mores, the usual hopes of benefits and rewards (Flight of the Wild Gander. Bios-Mythos p. 38). True spiritual maturity lies on the other side of the mythic wonderland of our subjective fantasy where we have become attuned to the nature of reality as such. For “The seat of the soul is there, where the outer and the inner worlds meet,” as Campbell quotes Novalis, a German philosopher and mystic from the 18th century, immediately remarking: “That is the wonderland of [true] myth” (The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, 5). True myth as vera narratio (true story) takes place in the real world, where the seat of the soul actually is, in the crucible of myth and history. For the soul is out there in ecstatic existence, where there is real joy and actual fulfillment, as well as real pain, suffering, death, and the terrible capacity for mass murder and genocidal revenge. To remain in the subjective womb of myth implies a state of being like a spiritual stillbirth—a condition that befalls millions inside the world religions. It also means that we are already caught in the ideological sack of status quo wisdom, where we quickly dwindle into pawns of industry or rabid watchdogs of the principalities of the “powers that be.” But if we can put aside the law of children and be freed from “the lures and threats of myth,” then we have a real chance at transcendence. Having been twice born into the World, we learn to live humbly under the light Truth and Justice—yes, precisely in their capital or archetypal senses. Rather than a mystic vessel of light designed to escape into subjective fantasy, the nature of true myth (vera narratio) is to bring us into contact with the painful truths of the Soul of the World, putting us in touch with the Saturnian background of the collective psyche. Featured Video Featured Work

The Hermit and Reflection My first favorite hermit was Obi-Wan Kenobi, who came to the big screen in the early summer of ’77. I suppose I was drawn to the whole package, the whole iconography of this unusual figure cloaked in a deep-hooded, earth-toned mantle, thoughtfully discerning tracks in the sand to read the tales of events just-passed. There was something different to this character from the standard Hollywood heroes and heroines whose special abilities were more overtly rendered, more consistently on display. Obi-Wan seemed to possess an unfamiliar hidden power beneath all that quiet appearance and quiet action. I recall the wonderful scene where he tells the stormtroopers (and with a simple wave of the hand) that they don’t need to see Luke’s identification, and the stormtroopers parrot back “we don’t need to see his identification”—even then it was clear that something was afoot. Luke, however, had not quite caught it: “I don’t understand how we got past those stormtroopers.” But didn’t you see him do that thing with his hand??? I wanted to blather, wide-eyed, as any ten-year-old amped on candy and movie-magic would. Naturally, we played imaginal Star Wars that summer, all the kids running around exclaiming: “I’m Luke and I’m gonna get you with my starfighter” or “I’m Han Solo and I’m gonna shoot you with my blaster!” It was weird to me that nobody wanted to be the seasoned jedi, and so I never played Obi-Wan in our games and kept my fondness for this apparently less popular figure to myself—not unlike what a hermit might do in such situations: holding a quiet, personal space for oneself, which introduces a scale of hermitting: on the one extreme, something as simple as listening more than speaking in a social setting, or taking a Friday night off to read alone and not play Star Wars with the other faculty members in your department. I think the influence of the hermit-figure can arise whether others are around or not. This approach helps make the content of the Hermit-card more applicable to our often less than isolated lifestyles. And it suggests that we aren’t necessarily obligated to engineer extreme productions of solitude that leave us shivering and alone, drifting through starlight on ice floes in the arctic sea. Nonetheless, extreme productions have extreme benefits: extreme balance, extreme composure, extreme presence. And if “extreme” sends up a red flag (as it probably should) then feel free to substitute with “very deep.” The relationship between extreme/deep solitude and social-involvement is seen in the recently-enlightened man in the tenth image of the Zen Ox-Herding Pictures, who returns after a long solitude to walk transformed among the people of the village. However, to the others he appears unchanged and unremarkable—attributes which, like an immaterial cloak, preserve the integrity of his hard-won internal solitude, and the unique individuality of this one-of-a-kind, self-aware event moving through the masses, a part of the crowd but alone. Fittingly, our word “alone” derives from the Old English eall-ana, being “all + one.” Hence the all one-ness of individuation (although it’s really two as one, or many as one, but that for another time). And with such comes the inevitable onset of “loneliness” (derived from the same root). Simply being aware of this etymological correlation (for me at least) makes the slow ache of loneliness more welcomed, if not more bearable, because I know I’m being deepened, soulfully enriched. And so concurrent with the pain, the healing virtues of individuation can be appreciated while the price is being paid. To amplify our understanding of the hermit archetype, let’s look to the other, more extreme side of our scale, like living in a cave deep in the mountains or in a remote desert, like Obi Wan did. By the way, “hermit” descends from the Greek erimίtis or, literally, “desert.” The setting is important, especially for those who find it challenging to preserve their psychological status in the turbulent face and faces of society with their perpetual influx of projections. Hence, natural settings are ideal, removing their influence altogether. As with all (or nearly all) things psychological, the hermit-stage is not a level slated for completion, to merely pass through and receive a nifty certificate or trophy to gather dust on a shelf. Rather, it is a stage to integrate, to carry and employ when contexts call for it. I prefer “stage” to “level” because it denotes a venue or environment within which one’s perspective is forced to shift to accommodate in order to competently navigate its terrain and conditions. Further, let’s keep in mind that our external environments are also reflections (to whatever degree) of our own internal, psychological environment. After all, if I’m pulled over in the middle-of-nowhere with a flat tire and without a spare, how miraculous and lovely is that epic sunset? Either way, a shifted perspective indicates a psychological transformation, whether great or small. Shifted perspectives are both the catalysts for, and the effects of, being transformed. To this point, the hermit card’s number is nine. Much can be said of nine, but for now I’ll only highlight that it’s the number of months (or etymologically, “moons”) it takes a human being to gestate in the womb from conception to its own autonomous body. The moon is a great symbol of transformation, perpetually waxing and waning from nothing to fullness and back again. Furthermore, it symbolizes reflection, which is precisely what makes it visible to us in the first place. Similarly, the business of the hermit is reflection, whether by meditation or mindfulness or what-have-you. If we look into the “environment” that surrounds the hermit-figure in the Rider-Smith-Waite deck as being also the metaphorical representation of his perspective, we see that the moon is present, albeit implied, latent in that environmental property called color. Perhaps more so than any other component of an image, color bears the message of tone, the message of “mood,” reflected in shades and hues, in degrees of dimness and brightness. Never quite pure white, but rather in off-whites, greys and blues as rendered in the card: the snow-clad mountaintops; the subdued, gently illumined, steel-blue atmosphere; even the grey of the hermit’s cloak and beard. In fact, nothing in the environment is not of a moonlike color with the exception of the bright gold lantern (consciousness/sun) that he bears along with the similarly golden staff, grounding that consciousness back down into matter-earth, down into the body—a narrative which provides us with the instructions for (and the direction of) reflection.

As with many archetypal motifs the Hermit (tarot card IX) can present as both a higher and lower modality of itself. In its lower representation, the Hermit may seek withdrawal from society because they feel insecure within communal life or hold contempt for other human beings. The higher representation can involve the Hermit withdrawing from society to pursue a relationship with the macro cosmic soul or to commune within the deeper recesses of their own soul. The higher representation often involves a sort of inner pilgrimage – introspection, self-reflection, contemplation – the end goal being a stronger connection with both the macro cosmic soul and their own sagacious inner depths. In this case, the hermit condition can arise as a consequence of the Hermit having become ‘other,’ that is a different identity profile i.e. they’ve become ‘other-wise.’ By means of a long process of interior work, they’ve attained a refinement of consciousness beyond the societal norm. Through such experiences, the Hermit rises above the usual group-think of the tribe. Their distance from the crowd is not due to a condition of self-satisfied contempt for other people, but evolves from stepping into their own individuated power and agency by giving birth to their higher and authentic self. They’ve literally become their own compass through finding their own unique voice. Yet because of this journey, the Hermit becomes somewhat ‘homeless.’ They’re no longer merely an automaton of their tribe, society, or culture and it’s this ‘homelessness’ that results in a deep, existentialist estrangement. We have an example of this solitary condition of soul in the Gospels where there occurs the phrase, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 11:15). Such words indicate that the fully individuated Jesus is lamenting the fact that he’s attained a mature gnosis (wisdom of both heart and mind) and will willingly impart this to others, but sadly, only a few people will have the ‘ears’ – intuitive hearing – required to receive and understand His words. It indicates that the quiddity of life can’t be so easily found on the surface of things because most people don’t yet possess the spiritual ears to ‘hear’ the pulse of the world’s mysteries, nor the pulse of their own soul’s deeper longings. It leads those with a strong hermit archetype to often be misunderstood. They may even be seen as fools because through the common societal lens, they don’t always conform to normal behaviors and expectations. The Hermit can also be perceived as being aloof because they’re a threat to the tribal identity, or even demonized due to the negative shadow projection of the tribe. The projection is that this outsider holds negative judgments regarding the tribe’s collective psyche and accompanying social behaviors. The Hermit has though occasionally begun life as a fool … a fool in the sense of being naïve, child-like (not to be confused with childish), and relatively innocent. In this respect, we’re reminded of Parcival of the Grail journey fame. Parcival – an archetypal figure – is raised as a child by his widowed and hermit mother in a forest. He knows almost nothing of the wider world. He lives somewhat uncouthly in – and with – nature. His life is rustic, simple, and virtually unmediated by human culture. After Parcival ‘by chance’ meets some knights on horseback in the forest, he tells his mother that he too will become a knight and sets out to explore the world (a  journey that’s really an inner pilgrimage and adventure of soul). His distressed mother sends him forth dressed in fool’s attire upon a limping horse. But because Parcival began his life’s pilgrimage as a fool, he’s well prepared to be radically receptive to the ever-fresh wonders of the world and to the clarion calls of the future. Incrementally, Parcival’s journey leads him through many soul struggles from fool to loner before he can finally embrace all of humanity with his ripened faculties of gnosis, wholeness, and humility. How does this relate then to the hermit depictions in the tarot card? Well, the figure stands on a mountain peak, and this is the result of his striving upwards after emerging from the darkness of his unconscious. He holds a lamp in one hand and a staff in the other. The lamp shines forth with a six-fold light indicating that he’s now entered his own authenticity, power, and wisdom. This six-foldness reminds us of the Seal of Solomon, often symbolized by the hexagram, which speaks of a wisdom that’s moving toward a universal love … a love that embraces all of humanity and creation with this heart-imbued gnosis. The anonymous author writes in Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism, “The Hermit of the ninth Card is the Christian Hermeticist, who represents the ‘inner work of nine’, the work of realizing the supremacy of the heart in the human being – in familiar, traditional terms: the ‘work of salvation’ – because the ‘salvation of the soul’ is the restoration of the reign of the heart” (p. 229). Now, these are words truly worth pondering. The Hermit achieves the salvation of the soul by restoring the reign of the heart, and in this way, becomes a lamp that shines a light for fellow travelers on the inner path. He and his lamp of light are especially welcome when the traveler experiences the inevitable nights of disillusionment and despair as described in St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul. But of course, the hermit archetype lives in each of us, inspiring us to reach for the higher octaves of ourselves, even while our current nascent version awaits its full voice. Joseph Campbell stated that the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek, and it’s precisely the Hermit who will lead us to this cave and give us the courage to enter. Resting upon the staff of consolidated gnosis and the grounded steadiness of composed experience, the Hermit with their lamp lights and reveals the way on our inner journey towards this very awakening.