I learned a lot about the power of heroes from the world's favorite teller of heroes' tales, Joseph Campbell. Back when I was getting the Giraffe Project started, friends and family were asking why I was putting so much into something that could well be a lost cause. Flying off to Paris from my Manhattan base to write a speech for the Aga Khan hadn't been a bad way to make a living. Why was I going on and on with this Giraffe-stick-your-neck-out thing, these stories about real people being heroic? I wasn't sure myself.
I got the answer on a trip west, after driving John Graham from San Francisco to Esalen, where he was giving his Politics That Heal seminar, a precursor to the workshops he would do once he'd joined me in the Giraffe Project. I had planned to drive back up the coast and work through the weekend. But I saw that Campbell was there, also doing a seminar. Having interviewed him for an article and taken his courses at the Church of the Open Eye and the New School in Manhattan, I knew I'd get more out of staying than going. I chucked my work plans and stayed on for two and a half days of Joe-on-Parsifal.
Campbell tracked the Parsifal story as a recurring theme in mythology, the story of the Holy Fool. This Fool is always considered a dummy by the smart, hip people who really know the score. There's a mysterious blight on the land, nothing will grow and no one knows how to break the spell. The Holy Fool sets out to find the cause, right the wrong, save the people. He's told he can't do it, that he's too dumb, too weak, too something, hearing from all quarters, "That's not how we do things here," and "You just don't understand." But he goes ahead anyway.
Parsifal would break the curse on the people by finding the Holy Grail. In seeking it he "went into the dark forest, alone, at a place where there was no path," the defining description, Campbell opined, of heroism in European mythology.
With sly humor, he told story after story of Holy Fools, and ended the weekend showing a slide of an ancient Tarot deck. Then he read a deck of modern playing cards as a spiritual journey through the suits, through the numbers and the face cards, to the Fool, ancestor to the modern deck's Joker.
The Fool is the most dangerous person on earth, Campbell explained, the most threatening to all hierarchical institutions, because he's outside the suits, outside the numbers, beyond the powers of the royal cards. He has no wealth""see the hobo's stick over his shoulder. He has no concern for naysayers""see the dogs nipping at his heels, and how he's ignoring them. He's about to walk over a cliff""see how unconcerned he is.
No one has power over this being. He's not limited by his limitations, not listening to reason, not stoppable, not controllable. He knows what he has to do and he's doing it, no matter what.
Campbell was, as he always was in person, brilliant, funny, irreverent and charming. We talked with him before turning in at night, all of us watching the Big Sur surf crash onto the magnificent shoreline below our rooms. We delighted at meal times in watching him tweak the live-sprout eaters with his opinion that the perfect meal was a rare steak and a bottle of whiskey. "There's a reason hard liquor is called "spirits,' you know."
Driving back up the coast Sunday night, I had what now seems an obvious revelation""the reason I had been so obsessed with finding the heroes I called Giraffes and telling their stories was that these were our time's Holy Fools; I had locked into an archetype that had me in thrall, one that was desperately needed in the spiritual blight of these times. No matter what it took, I would go on.
Back in New York, I had lunch with Campbell and told him what I was doing, what his seminar had made clear to me, how grateful I was that he'd shown me the reason for my obsession. I was amazed to see his eyes well up, and delighted to have his endorsement of my work, the work I'm still doing, a couple of decades down the road.
Ann Medlock is a writer who founded the Giraffe Heroes Project to foster citizen courage by honoring people who stick their necks out for the common good. The Project encourages today's heroes and trains tomorrow's.
rather than see these holy fools as lonely figures sadly out of step, we can feel less isolated ourselves by seeing ourselves as part of a long tradition of honorable dissent. and find ourselves emboldened. who knows what it could lead to!
thanks for this and the Giraffe Project!
by
Joan Brunwasser (156 articles, 3527 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 624 comments)
on Sunday, November 25, 2007 at 12:21:37 PM
when we have been made to depend on corporations for all our needs and cannot live on earth without their help, when we've forgotten how to get clean water, how to feed ourselves, how to maintain a hygienic home without the sewer system, the task of being the holy fool is that much harder.
How many live under bridges and eat at shelters, diagnosed as schizo and dosed with anti-depressants? Nobody listens to military veterans who reject war and violence, much less does anyone listen to these holy fools.
Those who live for art or music or poetry, who live to let live, who walk in the light of love for their brief sojourn in the universe, who make no big deals out of themselves and esteem humility and habitually have little or no money-- no one listens to them, at least while they live. No one listened to Jesus, no one listened to Walt Whitman, a few listened to Rachel Carson, but most laughed. People laughed at Al Gore even after he won the Nobel Prize.
Those whose lives are a quest for understanding and wisdom rather than money and "security", who care for lost dogs and lab animals, who try to protect whales from hunters, and we can't forget the "tree-huggers" and enviro-activists our own government has declared to be terrorists for torching a few Hummers and a ski resort.
Those minorities who live for others than themselves, who love and live in that love, invulnerable and impregnable to fear and hate even though they may be illiterate because they see the love all around them, holding "..even the stars in their courses.."-- Maya Angelou said that, I think.
By studying early Christianity one finds those folks were holy fools before the politicians took over and rewrote the "New Testament" to ensure the power and control of Rome fell to the very cabals who had sent Christians to the lions. Now we have the new, meat-eating, rich Christians whose hands drip with the blood of Iraqis and so many others. They don't listen either. "...As you do to the least of these, you do to me.."
It's not like it's difficult, like no one has told them. There are plenty of holy fools on the net, but few in mainstream media.
Thanks for the article on Campbell, I wish everyone could see Big Sur and Esalen-- how beautiful it is-- even when the Monarch Butterflies aren't migrating through there and every leaf and twig is covered with vibrating wings.
by
martinweiss (21 articles, 4 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 364 comments)
on Sunday, November 25, 2007 at 2:22:57 PM
is St. Francis's, "The Lord willed that I be a madman..."
Joseph Campbell, in his own way, would be considered a fool by the powers that be too... and just as Francis told Brother Bernard to 'rejoice' when they were kicked and doors slammed in their faces, Mr. Campbell should also be happy at the disdain and laughter directed at him whilst he was alive and since his passing... The true fools are those whom are quick to ridicule and scorn a great man who thinks outside of the box and sees the ultimate common denominator amongst various 'truths'!
He leaves a legacy of inspiration and knowledge that could change the world were more to learn from his excellent insight... He was a treasure!
Perhaps... a saint himself.
A hero's journey is never finished.
Excellent article!!!
by
C.Bid (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 732 comments)
on Sunday, November 25, 2007 at 3:14:15 PM
By the way, a great place to make a holiday season donation that will have ripple impact around the world is to support Ann Medlock's Giraffes. The work they are doing has been praised far and wide, and rightly so.
Sherwood Ross
by
Sherwood Ross (180 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 116 comments)
on Sunday, November 25, 2007 at 5:04:55 PM
6 comments
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