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? :)

Thoughts

A few months ago I read Elizabeth Gilbert's wonderful memoir Eat Pray Love, and yesterday I made a point of catching Oprah because she was being interviewed. Of course, being me, rereading the book (as I've been doing over the past few days) and hearing the interview made me long even more than I already had been for some travel. I knew when I got married and had a baby that my travel would be reduced for a while, that I wouldn't be as free to go when and however I could as I had been. However, every time Alex smiles at me or Ron kisses me I remember that it was worth it.

Anyway, one of the things Ms Gilbert told Oprah is that there are three things she does every day that anyone can do. The first was this-every morning, get out your journal and ask yourself the following question: "What do I really really really want?", then answer the question. I pondered that question for the rest of the day. For the most part in my life, I have the things that I really really really want-my husband and son. The only big things that are still "out there" for me are getting in shape, and getting my career going. So, I had to ask myself the question-do I really really really want those things, which was something I hadn't honestly asked myself before.

I was reminded of the first chapter in Phil Cousineau's book Once and Future Myths, where he talks about the myth of Sisyphus as a metaphor for the creative struggle. The idea is that the work of writing the book (or creating whatever it is you're trying to create) is rolling the boulder up the hill. You get a moment's rest as the boulder rolls back down, as you walk back down the hill. This is the part when your book comes out, you go on tour, get feted, etc. Then the struggle starts back up again. Camus tells us in his essay on Sisyphus that he learns to love the struggle, and we must too.

I've been working so much this week on my Anya and the Bear story that I've reminded myself of the joy of the work itself, although it is work, a lot of work. I've realized that it's too easy for me to procrastinate my life away, and that I must write every day or lose my momentum. Hopefully writing daily in this blog will help with that. I'm still working on the getting in shape question. wish me luck.