joseph campbell and the hopi indians

I just finished a report on Hopi culture for my Native American psychology class.. Incredible, how subtle and soft indigenous culture creeps into your brain, and discorporates the shallow/weak foundations of a faulty, conditioned, world view. The world around me has transformed, and I find much comfort in the difference. Borders melting into a unified woven cloth that connects man to all life. Chaos theory vibrates loudly. Synchronicity. Earthly imbalances created from removing materials from the moon. Eating from the bowl created by your own hands. The plants, trees, and animals don't need us, we need them. Fear and insecurities reflecting not life, but the foundation of the system that enslaves the civilized individual. "Civilized" individual, addicted to energy, knows nothing of the responsibility that comes with life. The threads of my sweater made my young children who are kept in dark environments, kept away from the light. The lost people, selling their soul to consumerism, greed, and immorality. Oppressing people has become an occupation. Tyrannical society disguised as "democratic." accepting fact as truth. rediscover the magic of life.

Luckily, Joseph Campbell caught me just as I was starting to disintegrate...

"If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path."

"A bit of advice
Given to a young Native American
At the time of his initiation:
"As you go the way of life,
You will see a great chasm. Jump.
It is not as wide as you think.""

"People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances without own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."

""Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.""

"Gods suppressed become devils, and often it is these devils whom we first encounter when we turn inward."

"Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have one before us, the labyrinth is fully known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."

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

"Regrets are illuminations come too late."

"They thought that it would be a disgrace to go forth as a group. Each entered the forest at a point that he himself had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no path. If there is a path it is someone else's path and you are not on the adventure."

"Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?"