hero with one thousand names

Currently, for a class, I am reading "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" by Mr. Joseph Campell.

Joseph Campell is a known and well respected mythologist. He has studied and gathered myths from across generations and across the world and archived and compared them. In his studies he has discovered the universal hero.

And he really is..

The hero that we have witness in Jesus Christ is the hero that we might find in Odysseus.

The story keeps being told over and over.

And strains even echoed throughout other religions. You can either see that as an affirmation of faith or evidence to tear it down. For me, shadows of my beliefs popping up everywhere, give life an air of depth and a certain quality of wonder.

In his book, "The Hero With A Thousand Faces", Campell does more than take you into evidences of the universal hero, but also into the mythology and mystery of other cultures. This one passage about the Japanese tea ceremony perked my interest .:.

"The tea ceremonies of Japan are concieved in the spirit of the Taoist earthly paradise. The tearoom called, "the abode of fancy", is an ephemeral structure built to enclose a moment of poetic intuition. Called too "the abode of vacancy," it is devoid of ornamentation. Temporarily it contains a single picture or flower-arrangement. The teahouse is called "the abode of the unsymmetrical": the unsymmetrical suggests movement; the purposely unfinished leaves a vacuum into which the imagination of the beholder can pour.

The guest approaches by the garden path, and must stoop through the low entrance. He makes obeisance to the picture or flower-arrangement, to singing kettle, and takes his place on the floor. The simplest object, framed by the controlled simplicity of the tea house, stands out in mysterious beauty, its silence holding the secret of temporal existence. Each guest is permitted to complete the experience in relation to himself. The members of the company thus contemplate the universe in miniature, and become aware of their hidden fellowship with the immortals.

The great tea masters were concerned to make of the divine wonder an experienced moment; then out of the teahouse the influence was carried into the home; and out of the home distilled into the nation."

-"The Hero With a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campell, p.168

basically, spreading peace and wonder with tea

to do: make some tea.

sink onto the couch.

listen to some japanese folk music.

become aware of my hidden fellowship with the immortals.