Hang Onto Your Own Bliss
“When the world seems to be falling apart, hang onto your own bliss.
It’s that life that survives.”
—Joseph Campbell
It doesn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it: 2020 has been a hell of a hard year.
And I won’t roll out the litany of shocks, setbacks, disappointments, and hurts that 2020 has offered up; it’s all written on our bodies in indelible ink, visiting us in our dreams (mine consistently have me forgetting to wear a mask in public) and frustrating our waking efforts, impossible to avoid or escape.
Humans thrive on cultivating a sense of purpose, don’t we? We need to know our presence in the world serves something greater than our own daily ups and downs. And when the world is falling apart, digging into what you love, what supercharges you—body, mind, and spirit—can set you on the path of purpose and reveal to you your greatest gift to this world.
Scholar, educator, and author Joseph Campbell is probably best known for his study of myth—across time and culture—and the conclusion to which his studies brought him: the stories and symbols of all myths, throughout many cultures and across time, are nearly identical. But, Campbell is also well-known for a seemingly simplistic directive: Follow your bliss (which, to Campbell, meant one’s highest enthusiasm) and never submit to living “the life of though shalt” (which, to Campbell, meant living the life that others expect of you).
For Star and I, 2020 has been a year of rediscovering bliss, and it’s hard to imagine locating it without being tested, without having the world fall apart. Sad to say, but we humans seem to change only when life thrusts us against the wall with its forearm to our windpipe. Faced with extinction, we tend to get to the living (at least individually, if not, always, collectively). Most consequentially, 2020 (and the ensuing pandemic we’re all stumbling through) has allowed us to slow down and precisely, intentionally choose the path that is most meaningful to us: service.
There were certainly times in which the service aspect of running Evolution was overshadowed by the exhausting challenge of logistical complications: maintaining a staff, greeting long lines, preparing food, washing mountains of dishes, dashing madly about our open kitchen propelled by the unseen, almost manic drive to merely survive. And when 2020 threatened to extinguish the life of not only our livelihood but the space in which we met and served our community, our values, and our mission, became ever clearer.
So we stripped things down, we changed shape, we learned new skills, and we tumbled deep into ourselves, landing on what we most wanted to share with each of you. Turns out, it’s bliss, joy, enthusiasm, respect, courage, and love. Turns out, the greatest gift we can give to you is our most joyful selves, living not as others think we should, but as we know we must in order to be truly awake and alive.
Campbell’s “find your bliss” is not a hokey, New Age slogan. It’s not spiritual by-passing or a band-aid for hard times. It’s age-old wisdom passed by ancestors through space and time, it’s lived knowledge, it’s enduring truth: YOUR bliss, YOUR joy, YOUR enthusiasm is what feeds the collective, it’s what lights the space around you, it’s what forms a chain that links us all, it’s the life that abides when things fall apart.
To say that we are grateful for all that we have been given in 2020 would fall far short of this overflowing appreciation Star and I share. Truly, serving each and every one of you has been and is an honor and a privilege. You’ve shown us tremendous spiritual and material generosity, given us purpose, and affirmed our most cherished values. We can only hope that standing against the odds has demonstrated to you our gratitude.
Happy New Year, Friends.
May 2021 bring us all—human and non-human beings alike—closer together in kindness, peace, and unity.