[Marianne]

Hi, Mars.

I have often wondered upon that same question–who seems to be filling the shoes of Joseph Campbell or who might come along and do that? We can yes pass on the works of Campbell and to our children and grandchildren, and there is plenty of his and others’ works to last until the end of the earth. I would need several lifetimes to finish reading everything I would like to read, and then some. I wish I could take a giant library to heaven with me, lol. Yet I think a lot of people are also looking for the contemporary ways to interpret the old myths (to continue in that tradition) and also to interpret the new myths taking place and being created in Campbell’s absence in our times. There for a while I thought that Brian Swimme had maybe 1/3 of the new myth–maybe it will take 4 or more people to “cover” the new mythic surface of the earth. (Picking up where Campbell left off with “Earthrise.”)

I don’t think that people who ask this question are all indifferent–I consider that they truly miss Campbell and love his work and long to hear new videos, etc.  Can you explain your thoughts on how asking this question is indifferent? How it is ignorant? How it is shallow?

There is yet the deep water and the shallow water, and both are of and in the oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, ponds. Each has its own state of shallow and/or its own measure of deep. That is what comes to my mind here, something the Tao might describe. I think back to when I was little and would wade in a shallow part of water on the side of one of the piers and because it was shallow and because the water was crystal clear I could see my feet through the water and the bottom-sand in the lake and could see all the dozens of tiny minnows swimming around my feet. That was my “shallow” back then and I have such fond memories of crystal-clear shallows.

And then, there was also the deep. Swimming out to the buoys and hanging on, trying to touch the bottom of the lake to see how deep it was.

Blessings,

Mary Ann