Paul’s Reviews > The Power of Myth > Status Update

That makes sense - the universe is understood through the body so in a sense mothers and women are the creator, but you could also take the father or the man as the creator depending on the way you tell the story.

And again understanding yourself is understanding your functions as a living thing so the father quest is your journey of self discovery whereas that’s not a thing w the mother

I like the idea of a hero’s journey just being a metaphor for learning to live your own life. The sort of idea of life as just a collection of unique experiences, good and bad, and that it ends one way or the other regardless of what you do is comforting.

I don’t fear dying when I think of it in those terms. It’s a real peace to just breathe and accept what you’re doing. Just do what you want.

So the journey is about self realization which in a way saves. I think that can apply philosophically without the point of how vital people save others by saving themselves even if that means sacrifice.

This all goes back to Campbell just being like “just enjoy your life bruh”

So the idea is generally about getting past something in a broader sense. Heroes come to a threshold, face the temptation, and go past it into a new threshold.

I didn’t know that fire stealing was the common myth with fire. Interesting idea that it’s like lightning in a bottle had to be stolen to be achieved.

That is my exact vibe. Do what you wanna do, have fun, enjoy stuff. You die and there’s nothing or you die and there’s everything. May as well make your experience in life as joyful as possible.

That’s another interesting thing about sacrifice that I didn’t consider - that its not about vulnerability or punishment so often as it is celebration and worth

And that’s another thing that’s so cool is how stuff just pops up independently and consistently. The planting idea of death fertilizing new life is so cool and the fact it’s universal is so cool too

This business w the shamans was generally my understanding of how religions formed before reading this.

It’s also interesting to think about why some groups developed that one god idea. Makes sense that the natural world was the divine feminine and the society is the divine masculine.

I love the idea of myth transforming the landscape I think that’s such a cool component of stories and history.

I didn’t realize how settlements arose so calculated to that though. And that people literally just layered new faith and holy places on top of old ones so specifically.