The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe.

"The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature."

Joseph Campbell

Photo: Archaic Barrier Canyon Pictographs, painted with hematite as early as 5,000 B.C.E., near Thompson Springs, UT

Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.

"Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging."


Joseph Campbell

Today a funny thing happened. As I was photographing at the edge of Watson Lake, the ice gave way and I fell in. Frigid water flooded the inside of my boots and reached 18 inches up my pant legs. Since I was already soaked, I decided - hey, why not go stand in the river and photograph the rapids? And that is exactly what I did!

Photos: The Poudre River, Bellvue Dome, and a Great Blue Heron, Bellvue, CO, February 5, 2015

"Follow your bliss!" - even if it means knitting in a snowbank!

"Follow your bliss!"

Joseph Campbell 

On our hike in the shadow of Arthur's Rock, Joanne just couldn't resist pulling out her knitting needles! She LOVES to knit :)

Meanwhile, "Arthur" kept up his steady gaze on the western sky . . .

Photos: Joanne knitting in Arthur's Rock Meadow, Lory State Park, CO, December 26, 2014

Find a place where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.

"Find a place where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain."

Joseph Campbell

Photo: Sandstone Hogback with snow-frosted mountain-mahogany bushes; Bellvue, CO; February 2, 2014

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Follow Your Bliss!

 

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

Joseph Campbell 

Photo: Avalanche Lilies and a misty Mount Rainier; Spray Park, Mt. Rainier National Park, WA; July 28, 2013

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Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end

"Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end. Our divided, schizophrenic worldview, with no mythology adequate to coordinate our conscious and unconscious -- that is what is coming to an end. The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truth -- that is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us."

Joseph Campbell

Photo: Fern Lake Fire, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 14, 2012

We love people for their imperfections.

Bill Moyers: Why do you say you love people for their imperfections?

Joseph Campbell:  Aren't children lovable because they're falling down all the time and have little bodies with the heads too big! Didn't Walt Disney know all about this when he did the seven dwarfs! And these funny little dogs that people have--they're lovable because they're so imperfect.

Moyers: Perfection would be a bore, wouldn't it?

Campbell: It would have to be. It would be inhuman. The umbilical point, the humanity, the thing that makes you human and not supernatural and immortal--that's what's lovable. That is why some people have a very hard time loving God, because there's no imperfection there. You can be in awe, but that would not be real love. It's Christ on the cross that becomes lovable.

Moyers: What do you mean?

Campbell: Suffering. Suffering is imperfection, is it not?

Moyers: The story of human suffering, striving, living--

Photo: Druid Arch, with lichen in the foreground; Canyonlands National Park, UT; November 24, 2012.  People love rock that has flaws, imperfections, eroded portions.  This arch is a prime example.  Oh, and a case could be made that GOD SUFFERS as well - within OUR suffering.

Perhaps the present life is the only place where we can find - and follow - our "bliss."

Joseph Campbell:  Have you ever read Sinclair Lewis' "Babbit"?

Bill Moyers: Not in a long time.

Joseph Campbell:  Remember that last line?  "I have never done the thing that I wanted to in all my life."  That is a man who never followed his bliss . . . You may have a success in life, but then just think of it - what kind of life was it?  What good was it - you've never done the thing you wanted to do in all your life.  I always tell my students, go where your body and soul want to go.  When you have the feeling, then stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off . . . The religious people tell us we really won't experience bliss until we die and go to heaven.  But I believe in having as much as you can of this experience while you are still alive.

Moyers:  Bliss is now.

Campbell: In heaven you will be having such a marvelous time "looking at God" that you won't get YOUR OWN experience at all.  That is not the place to have the experience - HERE is the place to have it . . . If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.  When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you.  I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be . . . If you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.

Photo: A magpie sits at sunset on the topmost branch of a Ponderosa Pine snag, with Long's Peak and Mt. Meeker looming in the background; Westridge, Lory State Park, CO; November 6, 2012.  

As I listened this past weekend to the interview between Moyers and Campbell from which the above passage is taken.  I was struck by the fact that we are called to find and live our "bliss" RIGHT NOW.  Before this point, I'd always thought of the afterlife as a place where the bliss we are experiencing now will be intensified and unhindered by the challenges and distractions of this present life.  But what if - instead - the afterlife is a place where we will be so devoted to the process of SERVING  "the face of God" in others - i.e., in the living - that we will have no time to focus on our own experience?  And what if the reservoir out of which we will draw strength for that kind of giving can only come from the bliss we experience HERE AND NOW?  Something to ponder :)

Follow your bliss.

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

Joseph Campbell

Photo: An insect feasts on Wild Rose pollen, Rist Canyon, CO; June 5, 2012 

Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.

 

"Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain."

Joseph Campbell

Photo: emerging River Birch leaves, Lory State Park, CO, April 17, 2012 

Each day, reserve a few hours for your higher calling. Treat those as a bubble that protects you from worldly intrusion.

 

"I have known dozens of artists, and most of them live without knowing where their life is going or how it is going to be . . . The normal situation is that, perhaps for years, you work away at your art, your life vocation, your life-fulfilling field of action, and there's no money in it.  You have to live, though, so you get a job.  Then, you are doing so well in your job that your employer wants to move you into a higher position.  You'll have to give more to the job than before, and you will receive a higher salary, but your new commitments will cut down on your free time . . . To keep up with your responsibilities and your fitness, and still nurture your creative aspect, you must put a hermetically sealed retort, so that there is no intrusion, around a certain number of hours each day - however many you can honestly afford - and that time must be inviolate . . . Give a certain number of hours a day to your art, and make it consistent."

Joseph Campbell

Photo: Dewdrops rest on a Pasqueflower petal, Young Gulch, Roosevelt National Forest, CO, April 14, 2012. Each water droplet reminds me of the sort of "bubble" that Campbell is talking about.

Bliss is the key to discovering Reality

 

"Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: Sat, Chit, Ananda. The word 'Sat' means being. 'Chit' means consciousness. 'Ananda' means bliss or rapture. I thought, 'I don't know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don't know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being.' I think it worked."

Joseph Campbell

Photo: Mist condensed on a Pasqueflower, Young Gulch, Roosevelt National Forest, CO, April 14, 2012

Follow Your Bliss!

 

"My general formula for my students is 'Follow your bliss.'  Find where it is, and don't be afraid to follow it.  The way to find out about your happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you are really happy - not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy!  This requires a little bit of self-analysis.  What is it that makes you happy?  Stay with it, no matter what people tell you.  This is what I call 'following your bliss.'  The adventure is its own reward.  When you follow your bliss, doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors, and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else."

Joseph Campbell

Photo: Vibrant autumn aspen trees near Kebler Pass, CO, October 1, 2011