“All of life is a meditation, most of it unintentional.”

— Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell, what a brilliant, brilliant man he was! His literary contribution is timeless. Such a prolific body of work and legacy. Quoted by many, he inspired filmmakers, writers, philosophers, and surely left an impression on me and I'm only just beginning to explore his literary gems. Reading Joseph Campbell’s The Power Of Myth and Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael simultaneously, made me ponder about the enactment of our collective myth and its consequences. Let me begin with two short conversations from these books.

Conversation between B. Moyers & J. Campbell:

M: We moderns are stripping the world of its natural revelations, of nature itself. Think of that pygmy legend of the little boy who finds the birds with the beautiful song in the forest and brings it home.

C: He asks his father to bring food for the bird, and the father doesn't want to feed a mere bird, so he kills it. And the legend says the man killed the bird, and with the bird, he killed the song, and with the song, himself. He dropped dead, completely dead, and was dead forever.

M: Isn't it a story about what happens when human beings destroy their environment? Destroy their world? Destroy nature and the revelations of nature?

C: They destroy their own nature, too. They kill the song.

Conversation between Ishmael and the narrator:

“Think of the consequences of taking that as your premise: If the world was made for you, then what?”

“Okay, I see what you mean. I think. If the world was made for us, then it belongs to us and we can do what we damn well please with it.”

“Exactly. That’s what’s been happening here for the past ten thousand years: You’ve been doing what you damn well please with the world. And of course, you mean to go right on doing what you damn well please with it, because the whole damn thing belongs to you.”

Humans have been captives of self-manufactured insanity, blindly pursuing to dominate the world and everything in it - a self-destructive behavior and unsustainable way of living. Dominance, possession, control, exploitation of resources is a characteristic of self- absorbed “taker” culture. Since the world was created for men, according to the myth, they do whatever they wish with it. We have been enacting a story, making an impact collectively on the entire planet and one another. This widely propagated myth became so ingrained into our psyche and belief system we held little, or no regard for other beings. What an arrogant way of relating to other life forms. So blinded have we become by dogma, imprisoned by constrictive and selfish thought patterns we are “unable to find the bars of the cage” we put ourselves in - as Daniel Quinn points out in Ishmael.

The absurdity of thinking we are God’s children and the rest of the creatures are less important, is the most preposterous nonsense we collectively bought into. We stuck our heads in the sand. Monumental cognitive dissonance, isn’t it? To justify killings of one another, wiping other species, brutality, polluting the air we breathe, destroying the soil on which the food we eat grows. It’s anti-life! Can you see that? The ultimate disconnect, an unconscious way to exist. We have explored the lower levels of consciousness thoroughly, we have slept for ages. It was part of exploring duality, a game we came to play. We were so unaware. Walking zombies.

There are countless examples of our destructive ways of acting and being. But the most recent in my memory is a story about tourists who disrupted mass nesting of olive ridley sea turtles. The turtles were trying to lay eggs on the shores of Costa Rican’s Playa Ostional - Wildlife Refuge in Guanacaste. Dodo reported people “stood on nests, touched the turtles and even took pictures of their kids riding turtles.” Really??? Another one was the killing of Cecil The Lion that sparked such an outrage around the world. These stories are well known to many and we see them every day. This distorted story/myth, retold for generations, further disconnected and separated us from our hearts. Once so far removed from Nature, own humanity, unable to feel compassion and kindness (a domain of the heart), atrocities follow and separation between tribes grows.

“The mythology of your culture hums in your ears so constantly that no one pays the slightest bit of attention to it. Of course man is conquering space and the atom and the deserts and the oceans and the elements. According to your mythology, this is what he was born to do.” Ishmael

However, as polarized as we had been, shift is underway and happening at a fast speed. With such a huge rise in consciousness, the waves are getting bigger. The sight of so many Souls awakening and coming into their own power is a sight to behold. To see the blossoming of their self-awareness is heart-warming. As humanity further awakens to its brilliance, the old and dysfunctional disintegrates. We step into full responsibility for creating a new paradigm for the highest good of all concerned. We are a global village where some parts are conscious of their connection to Source while others are not yet. But they will!

A metaphor came during a discussion on how separated humanity had become. In my mind’s eye, I saw tiny separate droplets of oil coming together coalescing into more prominent form and merging into ONE. Unity is the new direction for humanity; people coming together in small communities that eventually form bigger ones, responsibly creating meaningful lives. Communities will share a deep reverence for all of LIFE - human and nonhuman. Their lives will be led by the individual and collective Soul’s wisdom while keeping in mind the prosperity of the entire human collective.

In Japan, a tradition called kintsugi - is an art of repairing broken shards of pottery by mending it together and filling it with lacquer, then covering with gold powder. For a long time, humanity has been like scattered shards of pottery, at war with itself, looping the same anti-life patterns of war, discord, hate, lies, and deception. After having experienced so much polarity, we are returning home to Source - Heart wisdom. As we see with clarity our own reflection in the eyes of our Brothers and Sisters and as we continue to heal our wounds, we will embrace one another. The balm for our cuts and scrapes, the ultimate glue that will mend us together, will be the energy of the heart. Only through heartfelt openness, seeing each other as an extension of one another will we finally live in accord with Mother Nature, and all that is. We will fully embrace and step into the role of conscious stewardship. Stewards of the Planet see the sacred connectedness of all of life. We are the Divine advocates for Earth and all its life forms. The future generations will stand on the shoulders of the current one. To live alongside one another peacefully again and recreate heaven on Earth we must enact a new myth, a planetary myth. As Joseph Campbell said:

"We need myths that'll identify the individual not with his local group but with the Planet."

Dearest Souls, we are the builders, we are the architects of the new paradigm. We are here to lay the groundwork and anchor the Divine Template. That’s our reason for being here, to enact new planetary myth.