Books: The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (Part 5)

I am almost finished with The Power of Myth by Campbell and Moyers.

Before I get to that, remember that last time, I talked about learning from our imperfections, and I examined the cycle of death and life and death again. I looked at the beauty and ugliness in the world, and in myself, and I pondered the meaning of life.

I feel like some may think that my cancer has made me morbid and self-involved with this little blog of mine.

Some may think that I am being obsessive to spend so much time thinking about death. That I'm giving up hope and letting the cancer take over. That I don't believe in the possibility of a miracle for my incurable cancer.

The thing is, for so many people, the D-word is a word used only in whispered conversations, laced with euphemisms. Passed away. Lost the battle. In a better place.

I am not obsessed with death.

For the first time, I am forcing myself to contemplate the ultimate and universal reality.

To pretend that any of us will escape death is to indulge in a childish fantasy. I am not giving up, and I am not going down without a fight.

So think of how you prepare for a battle. You would never go into battle without checking your kevlar vest and making sure you have extra ammo, right? You would be sure that the tools you need for battle are all functioning, right? You would study the maps and memorize the evacuation routes, right?

What I am learning is that no matter how much I prepare by reading books by Buddhist nuns, battle-hardened admirals, historians, philosophers, and other academics, ultimately, death is not the enemy.

Yes, life is too short, but that doesn't mean that death is to be hated, feared, demonized. It is simply part of the journey that we all travel. For some of us, the journey may be uneventful and even banal, and for some, the journey might be a terrible adventure that constantly tests our will, our strength, our souls.

In Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken," a poem I have taught many times in many classrooms, I have had to disabuse my students of the idea that this poem is about a meaningful choice. It is too easy to read the final few lines and understand it to mean that the choice is significant in any way.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference" (Frost).

In patiently reading the rest of the poem, it becomes more clear that the illusion of choice is more powerful than we might think.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference" (Frost).

I choose to contemplate death, not because I'm dying of cancer (I'm not, not that I know of!), but because all of us are dying of something. To be intentional in this contemplation means that I have to make a choice to think about the D-word, but the reality, just like in Frost's poem, is that whether I choose to think about it or not actually doesn't matter.

Think about death. Contemplate it. Meditate on it. Fear it. Taunt it. None of these will change the reality that death happens. Just like life happens. Death doesn't make the world a bad place. Death is not evil; in the long run, it is far more neutral than any of us would probably prefer. Bad things happen to good people; good things happen to bad people. It all balances out in the end.

So let's get back to The Power of Myth. Campbell says,

"[T]here is a Muslim saying about the Angel of Death: 'When the Angel of Death approaches, he is terrible. When he reaches you, it is bliss'" (Campbell and Moyers 279).

If the approach of the Angel of Death is meant to be so terrible, how is it possible that the end result of this Angel's arrival should result in perfect happiness? The juxtaposition of these ideas may seem confusing, but I think that they complement each other perfectly. Rather than fearing the pain of death, why don't we consider it as simply another phase of an inherently painful life?


Campbell says:

"At the very end of the Divine Comedy, Dante realizes that the love of God informs the whole universe down to the lowest pits of hell. That's very much the same image [of the bodhisattva]. The bodhisattva represents the principle of compassion, which is the healing principle that makes life possible. Life is pain, but compassion is what gives it the possibility of continuing. The bodhisattva is one who has achieved the realization of immortality yet voluntarily participates in the sorrows of the world" (Campbell and Moyers 139).

I've mentioned before that I am a lifelong cynic who expects nothing but the worst in any particular situation, and that it is easy to continue being a cynic. I am cynical, pessimistic, apprehensive, and any other synonym you could think of to describe this attitude. I had never heard of the bodhisattva, but this idea that an entity could escape death, and choose to embrace life, even with the pain and hurt involved in living, left me deep in thought.

It is a significant and meaningful choice to embrace a life of pain. It means something.

It is not the road less traveled, because we all travel this road, whether through intentional choice or random chance. We travel this road, we experience the pain that is inevitable in all of life, and hopefully, we embrace each other, sharing compassion and easing the pain.

There is no need to isolate ourselves in our fear.

Books: The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (Part 4)

I am still working my way through The Power of Myth, and today, I want to think about the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
Before I get to that, remember that last time, I talked about learning from our imperfections, and I examined the cycle of death and life and death again. I looked at the beauty and ugliness in the world, and in myself.

I'm mentioned before that I've been a lifelong cynic, always the pessimist. I am sarcastic, I have a dark and morbid sense of humor, and I am composed of 65% snark, 25% spite, and 25% bad at math. I've been a lifelong cynic because life has been hard. I suffered a traumatic loss at fifteen years old. My first husband was no gem. My bad attitude cost me friends. I was an underachiever. I was born right at the edge of Gen X and right at the beginning of the Millennial generation; cynicism comes naturally to me.

Campbell discusses men risking their lives to rescue their compatriots during the Vietnam War. I would argue that it takes an extremely idealistic type of person to take such a risk for someone else. This kind of person must do what they do because there is some hope that they will succeed. Campbell says,

"Life is pain; life is suffering; and life is horror—but, by God, you are alive. Those young men in Vietnam were truly alive in braving death for their fellows" (Campbell and Moyers 141).

Life is funny that way. No matter how pessimistic we are, no matter how low our expectations are, life finds a way to kick you in the rear. All that pain, all that suffering, all that horror.


All of this adds up to so much terribleness (that doesn't seem like it should be a word), and yet here we are, plugging along, doing the best we can, even though we hurt, and we die. Even though we are frightened and alone. Even though we are betrayed and broken-hearted.

I know that I have the darkness: the pain, suffering, and horror are inside of me. I suspect they are inside of so many others.

But sharing that darkness inside of me with you allows me to have a spark of hope.

All it takes is one spark to light a fire.

Books: The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (Part 3)

I am still working on The Power of Myth, and today, I want to talk about a concept with which I've always been fascinated: beauty. Before I get to that, remember that last time, I talked about learning from our imperfections, and I examined the cycle of death and life and death again.

I've written term papers about beauty versus ugliness, and thought at length about the ramifications of the conventional Western beauty standard. This diagnosis of mine has changed me in so many ways, including in the way that I think about beauty. I've mentioned before that I don't consider myself to be vain, and I've discussed my hair at length. I still don't consider myself overly vain, but I will say that the way I think about beauty has changed a bit.

In the before, I used to consider beauty primarily in regards to the physical: people, faces, bodies. I found beauty in the written word, the shape of trees, the melody of my favorite songs. It simply hadn't occurred to me to deliberately consider the intangible beauty that can be found elsewhere.


Campbell discusses art and beauty.

"When a spider makes a beautiful web, the beauty comes out of the spider's nature. It's instinctive beauty. How much of the beauty of our own lives is about the beauty of being alive? How much of it is conscious and intentional" (Campbell and Moyers 100)?

In the world outside of us, there is so much beauty, and in the worlds within us, there lies beauty as well. There is beauty in reconnecting with old friends, even when the cause of this reconnecting is so very ugly. There is also beauty in meeting new friends, becoming part of a community through shared adversity.

I've felt such ugliness. When I was first diagnosed, I did not feel any beauty in being alive. I was devastated that this extraordinary life of mine had turned out to be so ugly. I tried to deny the truth of this diagnosis. I simply couldn't imagine living in a world where this was my reality.

My anger was all-encompassing.

I hated the world and everything in it. It was ugly, and I couldn't bear to be a part of a world that harbored this ugliness inside of me. I could find no beauty in being alive.

You have to understand, even when the emergency room doctor told me that there was a mass on my brain, I never once considered cancer. Even the word is ugly.

As time has passed, and I've had the unfortunate opportunity to become accustomed to this ugliness, I'm finding that there is a small but quiet change happening within me.

I still feel the ugliness inside of me. I am still angry.

Yet I have discovered some beauty. Not in my hair, and not in the bags under my eyes, but in the kindness and compassion of my friends, in the generosity of my family, the love of The Husband. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it is not always so ugly. There is that ugliness inside of me, but there is also a nugget of something not quite so ugly hiding out in there.

Books: The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (Part 2)

I am almost finished with The Power of Myth, and there is an interesting part of this interview that I wanted to share. Before I get to that, remember that last time, I talked about learning from our imperfections and shared experiences.

I've always had a fascination with the cycle of life, death, and life again. When I turned 18 years old, my mother took me to get a tattoo, so I could "get it out of my system." I was still mourning a significant loss in my life, and the tattoo I chose for myself that day was symbolic of that cycle of life, death, and life again. Unfortunately for my mother, I did not "get it out of my system," and I now have double-digit tattoos.

The thing is, there seems to be an over-arching theme to my tattoos. I currently have five tattoos that represent that cycle of life, death, and life again. Although I am not mourning that loss the way I was when I was 18, that loss changed me fundamentally to my core, for I am different person than I was before that loss.

It could be argued that in the time before that loss, I had a life that I lost. I died inside, and was eventually reborn as the person that I am today.

Coping with loss has empowered me to wear my fear on my skin. To display my vulnerabilities while simultaneously wearing my hope like a shield to protect me from that which I fear the most.

Campbell discusses this life and death cycle. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is a cycle of death, life, and death again:

"The serpent sheds its skin to be born again, as the moon its shadow to be born again. They are equivalent symbols. Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That's an image of life" (Campbell and Moyers 53).

Ouroboros

I wear that image of life, as well as other images of life that I wear on my skin. These images of life are also images of death. There is no contradiction here; as with the Ouroboros, that which nourishes the snake also destroys it, and in destroying itself, the snake is gathering nourishment.

Campbell continues,

"Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. The serpent represents immortal energy and consciousness engaged in the field of time, constantly throwing off death and being born again. There is something tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries in itself the sense of both the fascination and the terror of life" (Campbell and Moyers 53).

When I first got my diagnosis, I realized that there was something I'd never taken the time to think about as a possible future for myself. I am not yet 40 years old, and although I've lived a life most extraordinary, I had never really thought about death. I wear death on my body, but it has always been far too easy to focus on the life part of the cycle.

The death part of the cycle was suddenly brought into sharp relief. I lost that life most extraordinary and had to learn how to live again. Once again, I needed time to mourn the loss that changed me fundamentally to my core. I am a different person, once again.

And so the cycle goes.

Books: The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (Part 1)

I'm currently simul-reading a couple of different books, but I want to talk about one that I am in the middle of right now.

Amazon has this to say:

The Power of Myth launched an extraordinary resurgence of interest in Joseph Campbell and his work. [ . . . ] With Bill Moyers, one of America’s most prominent journalists, as his thoughtful and engaging interviewer, The Power of Myth touches on subjects from modern marriage to virgin births, from Jesus to John Lennon, offering a brilliant combination of intelligence and wit.

This extraordinary book reveals how the themes and symbols of ancient narratives continue to bring meaning to birth, death, love, and war. 

This is a book that has sat on my bookshelves for years, and for some reason, when I finished When Things Fall Apart by the Venerable Pema Chodron, The Power of Myth reached out and grabbed me. I've been reading a fair number of philosophical or faith-based books, and at this point, I felt like it was time to change it up a little. This book touches on so many different topics, and I felt like I needed a book that took a different approach. This book is written in a bit of an unusual format compared to the other books I've discussed in the last six months.

In this one, Bill Moyers is interviewing Joseph Campbell. This long-form interview covers much of Campbell's works, but is particularly interesting because Moyers does not always agree with Campbell; in fact, they hash out some points of dissent over the course of the interview, further developing their own and each other's ideas.

As I have been on this journey of illness and self-discovery, weakness and epiphanies that have surprised me over and over again, I've realized many things about myself.

I am not always kind to myself. I have flaws that I'd prefer not to admit to, although I am sure that many of you have been witness to one or many of them. I have reserves of strength that reach deeper than I ever expected. I am even more stubborn than I ever thought I could be. People are complex. I am complex.

In an early part of the interview, Campbell says,

"the only way you can describe a human being truly is by describing his imperfections. The perfect human being is uninteresting—the Buddha who leaves the world, you know. It is the imperfections of life that are lovable. And when the writer sends a dart of the true word, it hurts. But it goes with love. This is what [Thomas] Mann called 'erotic irony,' the love for that which you are killing with your cruel, analytical word" (Campbell and Moyers 3).

The flaws in life are what make life interesting, right? It is too common for people to try to gloss over the faults in our friends, our family, ourselves. Think of the last funeral you went to: I have been blessed; for me, it was 23 years ago. People spoke so kindly of the dead. You know, and I know, that we should not speak ill of the dead, right? I felt so uncomfortable speaking so kindly of the dead and erasing the essence of who this person was. Of course, that is not to say that this person had no positive qualities, but ignoring those flaws swept away that which made this person so important, so loved, so missed. Ignoring those flaws distorted my memories, even as I knew that people were merely trying to be kind. 

But what did it mean that we, collectively, could not be honest with ourselves and each other about the true essence of this person? Why did we work so hard to pretend to ourselves and each other that there were only and exclusively good things to say about this person?


Moyers posits that

"what human beings have in common is revealed in myths. Myths are stories of our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance. We all need to tell our story and to understand our story. We all need to understand death and to cope with death, and we all need help in our passages from birth to life and then to death. We need for life to signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious, to find out who we are" (Campbell and Moyers 4).

Anyone who knows me at all knows that my favorite book is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I love it so much that I have a tattoo inspired from the book. In this book, among other things, they are trying to find the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything. The search for meaning appears to be a universal truth, contained within the pages of a British comedy trilogy and the pages within this more academic book about myth.

Something that I've always known about myself is that I love stories. I don't think that this makes me unique; stories tie us together, keep us together, bind us to each other. I love books, movies, tv shows, any medium that tells a story. This is part of what brought me to teaching at the community college. There is so much tucked away within the stories we read, the stories we tell each other, and it is far too easy to feel separated from each other when we are allowed to forget the universality of these stories.

I miss teaching. One of the best parts of teaching, for me, is getting to see the look of recognition on a student's face as they realize that this or that experience is not unique to their own life. I have interacted with so many students who feel alone in their experiences, singled out, on their own. Outcast, out of place, rejected. Having the opportunity to build connections and community with my students through shared stories has been the single most fulfilling part of my life. Finding shared meaning is so rewarding.