Those who read my previous article, ‘Who has influenced me most in my life?’ or anyone who has taken my classes, will know that two of the most influential people in my life are Ursula K LeGuin and Joseph Campbell. So the quotes I share will be from these heroes of mine.

Ursula K LeGuin was an American science fiction and fantasy writer who died in 2018. she was very influenced by East Asian mythology, and has written a translation of the Tao Te Ching (1997). I love the way that her stories contain a mixture of different philosophies. The main culture in her Earthsea series, the Hardic folk of the Archipelago, have a shared story, which begins thus:

‘Only in silence the word,

Only in dark, light,

Only in dying, life:

Bright the hawk’s flight on the empty sky’.

(From ‘The Creation of Éa’)

I think this quote is a beautiful reminder of the dual nature of life; that without death we would not have life, and so, death is actually the thing which makes live worth living.

As well as clearly being influenced by Taoism, you can hear echoes of other writers in this quote, such as TS Eliot. In his poem Burnt Norton we find:

‘At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is... Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.’

LeGuin plays with the theme of death/life, movement/stillness in many of her books, particularly in the Earthsea series. Here’s another quote from that series:

“Death and life are the same thing - like the two sides of my hand, the palm and the back.

And still the palm and the back are not the same...They can be neither separated, nor mixed.”

(The Farthest Shore).

Joseph Campbell was quite similar to LeGuin in that his work involved comparing different cultures and sharing their stories. LeGuin did this through fiction, but Campbell’s work is classed as non-fiction, though his writing is very poetic. I will share two of his quotes which I find most inspirational here.

The first is

‘Follow your bliss, and the universe will open doors where there were only walls’.

This idea of ‘following your bliss’ is what Campbell talked about all his life, and you can find a page on his website about it here: https://www.jcf.org/learn/joseph-campbell-follow-your-bliss

It’s the idea that whatever you do in life, you need to find what makes you feel happy, delighted, fulfilled, connected to the divine source...following your passions and listening to your heart.

The last quote I will share is also from Joseph Campbell. I’m not going to provide any explanation for it, because I would like to hear… What do YOU think it means?

‘The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek’.

Interested in learning more? Please book a class with me.