A Lesson from Joseph Campbell: We Live In Nature, not On Nature

 

I am reading The Power of Myth, a collection of conversations that Bill Moyers had with Joseph Campbell, who once described mythology as “the song of the universe, the music of the spheres.”  The interviews were the focus of a six-part 1988 PBS television series; the interviews were also published as a book by Anchor Press in 1991.

In the first interview, Moyers asks, “Mother Earth.  Will new myths come from this image?”

Campbell’s answer sets the stage for us to think in new ways about our relationship to the world around us.  He says, “And the only myth that is going to be worth thinking about in the immediate future is one that is talking about the planet, not the city, not these people, but the planet, and everybody on it.  That’s my main thought for what the future myth is going to be. . . the society that its got to talk about is the society of the planet. And until that gets going, you don’t have anything.”

Campbell goes on to talk about Chief Seattle, quoting a version of a speech that this Northwest Native American leader supposedly gave upon learning that the federal government wanted to buy tribal lands to make way for immigrants in the 1850s.

“The President in Washington," he says, “sends word that he wishes to buy our land.  But how can you buy or sell the sky?  The land?  The idea is strange to us.  We do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?”

“We know the sap which courses through the trees,” he adds, “as we know the blood that courses through our veins.  We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters.  The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers.  The rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family. . .  If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh.”

“This we know,” he says, “The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.  Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.  Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

These are the thoughts of a person who lives in nature and not—like some invasive species—on nature.  This summer, when the entire world is suffering from global warming brought about by our short-sighted greed and uncaring treatment of the earth, it is a message that carries new meaning.  It is time for us to find our place in this world and to remember Chief Seattle’s closing words:  “We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heart-beat.  So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it.  Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it.  Preserve the land for all children and love it, as God loves us all.”