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Here in America, November marks the celebration of Thanksgiving, and we at JCF have adopted the theme of gratitude for the MythBlasts this month. Gratitude is an interesting assortment of feelings, a complex emotion...
Scars are curious things given an even more curious name: the word scar is derived from the Greek word eschara, meaning “place of fire.” The word does not mean “caused by fire,” nor does...
The exploration of death in this MythBlast is not a departure from our theme of Harvest for the month of September; instead, it’s an inescapable deepening of the Harvest motif. Harvest time means reaping,...
This month at JCF we are entertaining the theme of harvest. I’m not imagining a solely agrarian notion through which to explore that theme, but rather am also referring to the harvesting of the...
In the field and scope of mythology, those of us who think or work in and around myth often discuss the apparent absence of a contemporary mythology. In conversation, Joseph Campbell sometimes noted that...
The Nothing That Is Not There and the Nothing That Is Pt. I: The Hobgoblin of Doubt We all know about things. In fact, we all know a lot of things about a lot...
Resurrecting the Hobgoblin of Doubt We love our myths, don’t we? We love how they empower us, we love how they make us think, we love how they enlarge our world. We love feeling...
In his 1944 preface to A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, Joseph Campbell calls Joyce’s book “…a kind of terminal moraine in which lie buried all the myths, programs, slogans, hopes, prayers, tools, educational...
The Romance of Tristan and Iseult – Artist’s representation of a 14th Century Tapestry The theme for the month of September at the Joseph Campbell Foundation is “Timeless Tales,” and what tales are more...
MythBlast | The Radiant, Reordering Force of Art In a 1907 letter to his wife, Clara (a fine artist and sculptor in her own right, who had studied with, among others, Auguste Rodin), Rainer...
I’ve been thinking a lot about this month’s theme at JCF, the theme of independence, reflecting on Joseph Campbell’s often bold, independent nature, and what it means to become an independent human being. As...
As you know, this month JCF is celebrating James Joyce, who was an important influence on the work of Joseph Campbell, and continues to be an important influence for many of my colleagues and friends...
Today, May 29, 2018, the date of the first full moon in May, is the day of celebration for the birth of the Buddha called Vesak. Mythology has it that on the night the...
This week I want to continue the exploration of what, in her MythBlast last week, Dr. Melander called “the use of myth.” The uses of myth are as various as they are abundant, and...
Today, March 20th, is the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere! Here in Flagstaff spring will arrive at exactly 9:15 AM, in accordance with a common tradition in the Northern Hemisphere of...
Last week JCF, through its new arrangement with Amazon, made available a new digital edition of Joseph Campbell’s The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension. As I have remarked recently in this...
Yesterday, January 15th, we in the U.S. celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This federal holiday, declared by Ronald Reagan, was established in 1983. Other cities in the U.S. had been honoring Dr. King...
The title of this MythBlast is borrowed from the title of this Mark Strand poem: ______ Even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of the light. You wake and the...
Meister Eckhart, a German theologian born in the mid-13th century, once remarked that if the only prayer one ever uttered was “thank you,” that would be enough. Eckhart reminds us of how important it...
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...
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...
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...
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…
