A Man of Myth and Mystery.

There is a story that Joseph Campbell tells of "a young boy that finds a most beautiful bird in the forest and brings it back to show his Father. The Father doesn’t want to feed the bird, so the Father kills the bird and with it kills the song and in doing so kills himself.  It is the metaphor of how we kill our own nature.” 

Patrick Takaya Solomon’s Finding Joe shares one man's take on his experience of Joseph Campbell's work.  Mr. Solomon chose not to include much about the man who is the subject of this doc in his film, and after screening it left me wanting to dive deeply into who Joseph Campbell is and why he chose to spend his life decoding the one story, or as Campbell put it the one song of the universe.

Awareness begins when we recognize the eternal truth through all the stories we see, hear and are told.  Dragons, in whatever form, are meant to be faced and trained, people are meant to go through rights of passage to ever deepening wisdom, and whatever mask appears over the energy doesn't matter, the pattern remains in the endless cycles of natures magnificence always at play.

Campbell's The Hero’s Journey was published in 1949 and everyone in Finding Joe speaks with one voice about what this book meant to their lives.  To me and many of the subjects in Finding Joe, Joseph Campbell's work is that of an anthroplogist uncovering and sharing the grand secret of the one master illusionist, to reveal the mechanism of the illusion, of the soft focus of the heart of humanity and it is the truth of what we all have the potential to realize, full seeing of the truth of our nature.

The way is simple.  There is a child’s wonder in recognizing the deeper truth, and that comes forward in Mr. Solomon's work. With its joyful sharing, I hope Finding Joe will represent a spark to ignite a generation unfamiliar with Joseph Campbell to learn more about his teachings.

“Healing comes from that journey out into the world and that meeting place within. That deepening of connection to the divine where you are wholly your self in connection with the vibration of your unique oneness. Anything other than that is destroying your vibrational note.  You see the whale in the distance in chasing after it, in responding to the pull to have the object of your affection in your possession. You destroy yourself, you destroy your nature, that’s the way of it.” -- Joseph Campbell

In the face of all our fears and dragons Joseph Campbell reminded us there is the truth of love to conquer all, of spirit to survive and thrive on the hero's journey and for that journey to unfold a deepening of true wisdom in the bliss of returning home.

There is an awesomeness that lives in each of us that connects all of humanity.

Finding Joe reminds us to live that bliss of truth today and everyday.

Enjoy!

For more information check out the film's website .

Credited on the film:  Rebecca Armstrong, Deepak Chopra, Alan Cohen, Mick Fleetwood, Akiva Goldsman, Laird John Hamilton,  Catherine Hardwicke, Tony Hawk. Gay Hendricks, Brian Johnson. Rashida Jones, Lynne Kaufman, David Loy, Joseph Marshall, David Lee Miller, Norman Ollestad, Ken Robinson, Robin Sharma, Robert Walter

Finding Joe is distributed by Beyond Words Publishing

To explore and experience more of Joseph Campbell check out the six part six hour Bill Moyers interviews shot at Goerge Lucas's Skywalker ranch a couple of years before Mr. Campbell's death Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth