Joseph Campbell

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.

Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughlyknown; we have only to follow the thread of the heropath. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, weshall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.

A hero ventures forth from the worldof common day into a region ofsupernatural wonder. Fabulous forcesare there encountered and a decisivevictory is won.

A bit of adviceGiven to a young Native AmericanAt the time of his initiation:As you go the way of life,You will see a great chasm. Jump.It is not as wide as you think.

If you want to change the world, change the metaphor.

People have the notion of saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules, and who__ on top, and so forth. No, no! Any world is a valid world if it__ alive. The thing to do is to bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own case where the life is and become alive yourself.

We're in a free fall into the future. We don't know where we're going. Things are changing so fast. And always when you're going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. But all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It's a very interesting shift of perspective . . . Joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world and everything changes.

The dreamer is a distinguished operatic artist, and, like all who have elected to follow, not the safely marked general highways of the day, but the adventure of the special, dimly audiblecall that comes to those whose ears are open within as well as without

Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. And that__ what it is. The nature is your nature, and all of these wonderful poetic images of mythology are referring to something in you. When your mind is trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image.The inner world is the world of your requirements and your energies and your structure and your possibilities that meets the outer world. And the outer world is the field of your incarnation. That__ where you are. You__e got to keep both going. As Novalis said, 'The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet.

You become mature when you become the authority of your own life.

[T]he experience of mystery comes not from expecting it but through yielding all your programs, because your programs are based on fear and desire. Drop them and the radiance comes. (16)

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

Mythology is composed by poets out of their insights and realizations. Mythologies are not invented they are found. You can no more tell us what your dream is going to be tonight than we can invent a myth. Myths come from the mystical region of essential experience.

The images of Myth are reflections of Spiritual and Depth potentialities of every one of us. Through contemplating those we evoke those powers in our own lives to operate through ourselves.

When you translate the Bible with excessive literalism, you demythologize it. The possibility of a convincing reference to the individual's own spiritual experience is lost. (111)

Where you stumble and fall, there you will find gold.

Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.