Re: Joseph Campbell and Huston Smith

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: : I have one comment, that you Bill, are one of my heroes. : : As far as renewing the mind or the transformation of consciousness, I think that you have mentioned one of my all time favorites in Campbell. The hero always suffers, and is a part of myth because of the task we have given to our gods. I think it was Freud (I am definitely paraphrasing here)who said the task was threefold: : : 1. An excorsism of the terrors of nature : : 2. A reconciliation for men with the cruelty of fate, i.e. death : : 3. to compensate for the sufferer and those that give up (or willlingly deprive themselves of in order to be a part of what we call "civilization"). : : What do I think about Myth? I think it, like anything, is entirely dependent upon ones own trajectory, or approach, because most myths, or religious ideals, can be impish and seduce us to take meaning grubbily into our storehouses, meaning, ascribed from outside ourselves, telling us something we have not taken the pains to discover for ourselves. On the other hand, when ones trajectory is toward this discovery, that same person will find these grubs sitting at the top of the mountain of work, drinking tea, when they reach the top of the mountain, because they arrived there by accepting (their trajectory). : : In particular, given the state of loss I am currently in, I find myself looking for a way out of it, a way to stop the suffering, to bring Jodie back to life, to escape the cruelty of fate. I want to cling to our memories, to keep her alive through my internalization of her, her ideals, her trajectory, but there is a risk that in taking this from her (without the personal work/pain of finding it for myself) I may lose a piece of me in the process. It is a delicate situation I find myself in and I don't pretend to have even to have grasped a thread of it. : : The beauty of taking the path of creating our own meaning, is that there is an earthy passion one can obtain. I want the pain of Jodie's death to go away, I beg for a way to ease it, yet, as I said, I cling to it also, it is precious to me, it is almost Gollum-like, now, in my beginning. : : The "transformation of consciousness" for me will be going up the side, rather than being beamed to the top. I believe that I must learn from those who have jumped to the top, where I might end up, but if I don't create the meaning, each day, as I go, then when I get there, it will be just what came out a few sentences ago "a tea party" when it could be the earthquake of passion I now long for. : : Maybe that is a dicussion or just the ramblings of a sad clown, grieving the loss of his own future, either way, it is more than I have written sinced Jan 16th. You are still one of my heroes, and I love you for it. : * * * * * * * : I have been thinking about this since last night. I wish I wasn't running all the time and had more time to write. I couldn't help but think of C. S. Lewis, who received much laud for his ground-to-mountain-top transporter, The Problem With Pain. Much later in life he was forced to climb the mountain for himself (A Grief Observed). When he reached the top and saw a giant tea party that his prior invention had facilitated, he wished he had never created it. : On the other hand, I do not believe that his regret stemmed from the fact that his former ideas were largely flawed nor that his former intent was necessarily disingenuous (I could be wrong). I think that his very own, very real pain and anger seemed cheapened and insulted by the formulaic wisdom (moreso because it was his own formula), and would not in fact submit to its definition in any way. He demanded the right to climb the mountain, accusing God on the way, and waiting to see if real faith waited at the top indeed. : I don't think you are a big C. S. Lewis fan (and I don't think he was a fan of some of his own work after Joy died), but that is significant. Of all the people I know, I can't believe that you could or would in the final analysis accept meaning from outside yourself without personal experience to vindicate it. (Your recognition of the possibility itself confirms this to me.) Myth is powerful because it resonates with our own apprehension of truth. If it does not, it is soon forgotten. If it does, it becomes precious not just because it was precious to someone else, but because we have found our agony and our glory in it. Myth is malleable and multivalent--ultimately we redefine and reinterpret the universal myths in the light of our own battle for meaning and purpose, especially in crisis. : (Perhaps this is off the mark. Sometimes lately I wonder if I see anything clearly. If so, just chuckle at the old man.) : I agree about Bill--he occupies an honored space in my life (though perhaps for somewhat different reasons). But you also are a star in the night sky to me. You signify a tenacious quest for integrity in the legitimation of one's ultimate values in life. Though you may see its origins in rebellion against a too-easy acceptance of truth(s) in your past, this fact only validates its integrity. More to the point, everything you said above agrees with this assessment, and casts you on the stage of my mind scaling the steepest side of the mountain, when there is a footpath on the other side. Whether in the internalization of Jodie, her ideals, and her trajectory, or in the employment of the motifs of the great universal myths, you will ultimately make them your own, a powerful, living part of you. Whatever you lose in the process will make room for what is more real and more true--and more your own. I love you, friend.

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