I've been thinking a lot lately about
celebrated mythologist Joseph Campbell. In particular, about his work to
resurrect the so-called "hero's journey" motif for a modern audience
- serving it up in a way that allowed us to reconsider what it means to live a so-called authentic life. Yet Campbell was no Pollyanna. He knew that a tidal wave of
industrial development and technology had created a blind spot in our culture,
leaving us willing to dismiss that most elemental concern of myth and story -
namely, to help us see how we fit into the world at large. (Campbell was hardly the first to voice such
concerns. Renowned therapist Carl Jung, once a student of Sigmund Freud,
claimed there would've been no need for psychotherapy had we not turned our
backs on myth and story.)
Campbell was willing to entertain the notion
that one day there might be a new upwelling of story; indeed in his later
years, he was frequently asked what those tales might look like. They'll rise
out of notions of the earth as the astronauts see it, he said - as this
precious, fragile ball of life hurtling through space, absent national borders
and political boundaries.
Whether
or not our tales (including some very modern, very popular ones, like the movie
Avatar) acquire the power of myth depends in part on how willing we are to simply
live with the questions they raise. Thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan came into
office having popularized the phrase "Morning in America." Sadly, for
a culture with little in the way of guiding myth, it proved all too easy to
hear - and quite possibly, to intend - those words not as a clarion call to a
more generous, authentic way of living, but as a sign to pull the covers over
our heads and go back to sleep. If we can stay awake this time - if we can hold
the tension between the fearsome risks associated with current threats to the
planet, and the opportunity they afford for holistic vision - then from those
opposing forces will come the new stories, healing stories, so essential to our
lives.