Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.Joseph Campbell

Five Key Takeaways

As I still struggle to get a decent, locally running, M/L Model to summarize the transcript of our podcast in any meaningful, coherent way, I decided that for the near-term, there is more value in taking the time to type this summary myself.

Yet again, the machine has failed me…long live the machine.

One

Myth is our interface to knowing the unknowable. As I heard Joseph Campbell make this statement during his interview with Bill Moyers at the Skywalker Ranch, I thought to myself - yeah, but how do we know there is any truth whatsoever in the myth? Many will say that there is some truth to be found in myth. I am not so sure. Who can point to any truth wrapped in a mythological allegory? Please let me know if I am missing something real, true and provable!

For example, the Bible Book of Genesis refers to four rivers flowing out of the Garden of Eden: the Tigris (check), the Euphrates (check), the Gihon (what?) and the Pishon (you lyin’). Obviously, the Book of Genesis must be myth, so why be so specific about river names, some of which we know today and others we don’t?

Just the facts, please.

In other words, I kind of understand why humanity has concocted myths - life, death and the world around us is data overload and too much to process for our small, evolving brains.

But honestly, myths don’t do anything for me other than frustrate and complicate my quixotic quests for truth. Where are the Pishon and Gihon rivers and where was the Garden of Eden, geographically, if it ever existed?

By the way, the Book of Genesis, and the rest of The Bible, actually, gets even more confusing…keep reading. I still can’t get my head around how the Ark of the Covenant, for example, got lost to history - the most powerful artifact ostensibly known to man.

Two

“The native Australian mythologies teach that the first initiation rites were carried out in such a way that all young men were killed. The ritual is thus shown to be, among other things, a dramatized expression of the Oedipal aggression of the elder generation; and the circumcision, a mitigated castration. [Thank g*d I was not an ancient Aborigini] But the rights provide also for the cannibal, patricidal impulse of the younger, rising group of males, and at the same time reveal the benign self-giving aspect of the archetypal father; for during the long period of symbolic instruction, there is a time when the initiates are forced to live only on the fresh-drawn blood of the older men.” [What the…] pg. 118

As weird as this all sounds, it is not unlike the communion practices of modern day Christians, actually. I always had deep, unanswered questions about the cannibilistic feel to communion…I would have never made the Oedipal connection, however.

Three

Myth is meant to have a duality of meaning. On the face of most mythical stories, they seem simple and almost naieve. Not so fast, there, modern man…But what is the deeper meaning? How can you discern it? Perhaps that is the reason for meditation?

Not the ching-ching-one-with-the-universe type of meditation, but the meditation of deep thought and introspection.

The type of deep thinking not many modern men have much time for anymore.

Four

“According to the Eddic account, after the ‘yawning gap’ had given forth in the north a mist-world of cold and in the south a region of fire, and after that the heart from the south had played on the rivers of ice that crowded down from the north, a yeasty venom began to be exuded. From this a drizzle arose, which in turn congealed to rime. The rime melted and dripped; life was quickened from the drippings in the form of a torpid, gigantic, hermaphroditic, horizontal figure name Ymir. The giant slept, and as it slept it sweated; one of its feet begat with the other a son, while under its left hand germinated a man and a wife.” pg. 243-244.

This is a very strange story, but it made me think of the theory of evolution, particularly the use of the word ‘rime’, which means: ‘A white incrustation of ice formed when supercooled water droplets freeze almost instantly on contact with a solid surface.’

But really, who knows? Find your own truth in the story I guess?

Five

Joseph Campbell says in his interview with Bill Moyers at Skywalker Ranch that the life of Buddha parallels that of Jesus Christ, except Buddha happened 500 years earlier. That intrigued me.

While not necessarily negating the Christian narrative, it does seem to call the ostensible timelines into question.

Inconclusions

Is it blaspheme to question these things - the power and meaning of myth and religion? I hope not. What would burning Gallileo at the stake have gained humanity in retrospect?

Given the vague and apparent duality of meaning behind myth and allegory, as well as the psychological echoes in our dreams of the same archetypes we read about throughout history, I can’t help but wonder if I am missing the forest for the trees?

Perhaps one point of all of all of this mystical myth stuff is to help each of us realize the true meaning of our life’s purpose and to excite us into pursuing our own hero’s journey in earnest.

True creativity and innovation lies outside of the system (not always, as Dale points out), and therein lies many of the hero’s struggles.

Don’t forget to share the boon of your success with your tribe.

P.S. If your hero’s journey might involve a passion for blacksmithing, consider contacting sensei Dale Morse at the Virginia Institute of Blacksmith.

Fair thee well in thy quest, brave hero!

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Links

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero’s_journey
• https://billmoyers.com/content/ep-1-joseph-campbell-and-the-power-of-myth-the-hero%E2%80%99s-adventure-audio/
• https://vablacksmithing.org/
• https://www.dream10x.com/blog/ellen-durkan/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse