Go beyond the story.

Men by nature want to understand.  It is a mechanism built into the processes of our DNA, to participate in the dance of life, the curiosity of humanity, to actualize the patterns of creation and make sense of the cycles of nature.

Learning this mechanism of what lies beneath the archetypes, symbols and patterns of existence is a lifetime journey into the complete adventure of surrender to that power that is in us but not of us that is universally expressing itself all the time, that does for us what we can not do for ourselves, that demands constant change and lives in perfect harmony in the chaos of our days.  This mechanism is the essence of what Joseph Campbell made a life’s work.  The universality of mythology through all the forms of expression is constantly felt and at play regardless of circumstance.  It is the light shining brightly revealing the truth.

Joseph Campbell spent his life sharing the manifestations of the greatest mystery on earth and worked tirelessly teaching, writing, lecturing and traveling to share his message of the deepest expression of the one universal pattern.

Deepak Chopra in Finding Joe
a film by Patrick Takaya Solomon

The simple words spoken from Campbell has the Kensho simplicity of truth – “Find out what you most love to do and do more of that.”

In the documentary, Finding Joe,  Deepak Chopra shares “When you speak with your voice, it is heard with the head, when you speak with your heart, it is heard with your heart, or when you speak with your life, that change lives.”

Our lives speak volumes to those we come in contact with.  Let that volume be magnificent.

Joseph Campbell shares a story about a Guy struggling to carry rocks uphill in his Bill Moyers interviews –

An Onlooker says to this Guy struggling with the rocks –  ”What are you doing?”

“Can’t you see I am carrying rocks up a hill?”  with great disdain and temper.

The same Onlooker sees Another Guy with a smile on his face carrying rocks up a hill and asks him…

“What are you doing?”  to which the smiling Guy responds with great pride and sense of purpose…  ”I am building a cathedral.”

Life is always a matter of your perception and how you are carrying your load.  Is it the weight of the world?  Are you exercising it as a burden?  Or, is it imbued with great purpose, passion and inevitability.

Everything is a story you are telling.  Why not make it a great heroic story, in full understanding of the truest nature of the expression of life.  Wholeheartedness to the task that is in front of you.

In that odd way of Flight of the Soul and the stream of consciousness that it is, we are going to trip through comedian Robert Wuhl’s document of his lecture to college students done a few years ago called Assume the Position, which first aired on HBO, in which Wuhl expresses his insights about how the story does not matter, because it can be twisted by assuming any position creating that which is the perceiver’s perception.  As a tiny side note, documentarian legend DA Pennebaker is one of the credited Directors on Wuhl’s project.

The universality of this truth is the essence of Joseph Campbell’s work, that soft focus of God’s plan working through you where every thing is understood in the grander context of a vision. “History is a myth, men agree to believe.”  Campbell worked beyond the myth uncovering the commonality of the lies of our beliefs, offering a way to decode the essence of humanities deepest

The mythology of Joseph Campbell’s work is the blazing blissful archetype behind the story and the fiction of culture’s coating.  Transcendence is the experience of living your hero’s journey in the cycles and flow of life.  The mythology of Joseph Campbell’s work is the blazing blissful archetype behind the story and the fiction of culture’s coating.

Please enjoy this beautiful laugh filled document from Robert Wuhl’s Assume the Position sharing what it means to look beyond the veil of beliefs…

My take away and what I see as the connection to Joseph Campbell from Wuhl’s Assume the Position is “When the legend becomes fact. Print the legend.”  The ending line of John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.  This statement sets up the ease with which we are swayed by the intrigue and romance of whatever story we are choosing to believe, the dragon, the symbol, the idol, etc. That space in our egos where the truth is less interesting than the creative expression of story telling.  Those who choose to open themselves beyond the veil experience the bliss of recognition of the commonality of our divine essence.  When you remember it is all a story and you can choose to be happy no matter what the circumstance life is connected and grounded and present.  The presence of eternity each of us knows as the timeless expression of love in all its forms.

This post was sparked by the documentary Finding Joe – an introduction to a man I admire – Joseph Campbell and is distributed by Beyond Words Publishing

To explore and experience more of Joseph Campbell check out the six part six hour Bill Moyers interviews shot at Goerge Lucas’s Skywalker ranch a couple of years before his death Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth

Melanie Lutz is a screenwriter, author and poet living in Los Angeles.  You can check out more of her work at www.melanielutz.com