Phil Cousineau

I wanted to take a moment here to talk about writer, filmmaker, and Campbell friend Phil Cousineau. Both the man himself and his work have had a real effect on where I am today, and I'm so grateful to him for that.
About the same time that I discovered Campbell's work about 7 years ago, I also went through a phase where I was reading anything I could find on pilgrimage. I discovered Phil's book The Art of Pilgrimage, and really loved it. I also read a book called The Joseph Campbell Companion, written by a woman who had spent a month (!) in workshop with Joe at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. I went to Esalen's website and discovered that Phil Cousineau would be leading a workshop that fall, so I signed up. Phil had just come out with a book called Once and Future Myths, and I thought to myself "I like this guy-he's talking about travel and myth, my two favorite things".
I'll save my experiences at Esalen for a later post, but, after attending that workshop with Phil, I found myself back at Esalen a year later, this time for a month as a work scholar, and I met Phil again then. He vaguely remembered me from the year before (I think), so we chatted for a bit.
I saw Phil again a third time at Esalen a year and a half later for the Joseph Campbell Centenary Celebration that was held in March of 2004, and again at the Mythic Journeys conference in June of that year.
Everytime Phil and I have spoken he's been incredibly kind and encouraging. Meeting him, seeing what he was doing in his career, made me think that it might be possible for me to follow my bliss myself. Perhaps I didn't have to be a technical writer forever, working a job that made me want to cry at the end of every day. Now, 6 years later, I have a masters degree in Mythology, and I'm teaching and writing on myth and the other things that I'm passionate about.
Now, although Phil does recognize me now when he sees me (the last time was at a talk he gave here in Seattle last December, just before I had Alex), but I'm still not sure he remembers my name. ;) However, it doesn't matter-he encouraged me just enough when I needed the courage to follow the left hand path, and I'll always be grateful for that. Maybe someday we'll be leading a workshop at Esalen together-who knows? :)