108 Ways to Livin the Moment

Let’s take back our lives one beautiful, funny, and delicious moment at a time

#16 of 108:  Get Off on Joseph Campbell

If you have read some of writer and lecturer Joseph Campbell’s wisdom…

…you might agree his words are like a sip of 2005 Philip Togni Cabernet…

…or a bite of the Sonny Boy (Tomato Sauce, Fresh Mozzarella, Salami, Gaeta Olives) at Pizzaria Bianco (#1 Pizza in USA…located in Phoenix).

Just read a few of Campbell’s nuggets and watch your inner wisdom seeker jump for joy:

“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are!”

YEAH JOSEPH!

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

YUMMMMY YUM YUM!

“Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.”

WHAT THE F DID YOU JUST SAY?!?

“If you are falling…dive!”

YEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOO

“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.”

HUMMMMMM BABY!!!!!

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I stumbled upon a fact from the sage’s history…

Joseph Campbell once attended a Grateful Dead concert!! (see photo of Campbell meeting the Dead after the show)

Photo from sirbacon.org

SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!!

Yes it’s true. February 1985.

Said Campbell of the experience, “The Deadheads are doing the dance of life and this I would say, is the answer to the atom bomb.”

OH MY FREAKIN GOD THAT IS BEAUTIFUL!! TELL ME MORE!

“When you see a room with 8000 young people for five hours going through it to the beat of these boys … The genius of these musicians- these three guitars and two wild drummers in the back…when you see 8000 kids all going up in the air together… Listen, this is powerful stuff !”

OH JOSEPH!! OH JOSEPH!!

“And when the great beam of light would go over the crowd you’d see these marvelous young faces in sheer rapture- for five hours! Packed together like sardines! Eight thousand of them ! Then there was an opening in the back with a series of panel windows and you look out and there’s a whole bunch in another hall, dancing crazy. This is a wonderful fervent loss of self in the larger self of a homogeneous community. This is what it is all about!”‘

WAS IT LIKE THE BEST NIGHT EVER?! TELL ME!! TELL ME!!

“It reminded me of Russian Easter. Down in New York we have a big Russian Cathedral. You go there on Russian Easter at midnight and you hear Kristos anesti ! Christ is Risen ! Christ is Risen! When I was in Mexico City at the Cathedral of the Virgin of Guadeloupe, there it was again. In India, in Puri, at the temple of the Jagannath…the same damn thing again.”

AND WHAT’S THE TAKE-AWAY?!

“It doesn’t matter what the name of the God is, or whether its a rock group or a clergy. It’s somehow hitting that chord of realization of the unity of God in you all, that’s a terrific thing and it just blows the rest away.”

*****

And there you have it…

Something to remember this weekend…”The unity of God in you all”… sounds like spiritual hogwash…

…but mix in Joseph Campbell and the Grateful Dead and tell me you are not ready to go hug your kids and tell your wife you love her and “Carpe the freakin hell out of this Diem!”