No tribal rite has yet been recorded which attempts to keep winter from descending; on the contrary: the rites all prepare the community to endure, together with the rest of nature, the season of the terrible cold.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the inevitability of winter and the importance of community in facing challenges together.
Joseph Campbell's quote emphasizes that no cultural practice has successfully prevented the harshness of winter. Instead, these rituals unite communities in preparing for the difficulties that winter brings, highlighting a collective resilience in the face of nature's challenges. It underscores the idea that acceptance and preparation are essential responses to unavoidable hardships.
In practice
In a speech about community support during difficult times, one could quote Campbell to illustrate resilience.
Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.
Christianity isn’t moving people’s lives today. What’s moving people’s lives is the stock market and the baseball scores. What are people excited about? It’s a totally materialistic level that has taken over the world. There isn’t even an ideal that anybody’s fighting for.
Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end. The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truth—that is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us.
The demon that you can swallow gives you it’s power, and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.
And if there was no Fall, what then of the need for Redemption? What god was offended and by whom? Some especially touchy cave bear whose skull had been improperly enshrined?
There's nothing you can do that's more important than being fulfilled. You become a sign, you become a signal, transparent to transcendence; in this way, you will find, live, and become a realization of your own personal myth.
It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, and gives birth to imagination
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first; Be not discouraged - keep on - there are divine things, well envelop'd; I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.
The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter woods.
How can we be so arrogant? The planet is, was, and always will be stronger than us. We can't destroy it; if we overstep the mark, the planet will simply erase us from its surface and carry on existing. Why don't they start talking about not letting the planet destroy us?
We need every person on Earth to acknowledge that climate change is real and encourage each other and our leaders to address the challenge.
Whoever wants me to talk, I'll come over and tell them about the necessity of preserving the Everglades.
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