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BILL MOYERS: What do you think we’re looking for, when we subscribe to one of these theories of creation, one of these stories of creation? What are we looking for?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, I think what we’re looking for is a way of experiencing the world in which we are living, that will open to us the transcendence that informs it, and at the same time informs ourselves within it. That’s what people want, that’s what the soul asks for.

BILL MOYERS: You mean we’re looking for some accord with the mystery that informs all things, what you call that vast ground of silence which we all share?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yes, but not only to find it, but to find it actually in our environment, in our world, to recognize it, to have some kind of instruction that will enable us to see the divine presence.

(from the PBS Bill Moyers interview with Joseph Campbell 1988)

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What happens to the beauty of an object when you turn away? Does it stop working or continue to radiate regardless. For 1500 years one of the greatest of paintings, The Villa of Livia, was buried in rubble just outside of Rome. Did it stop working all that time? Has the rubble changed it into something new?  Beauty is a compact between us and whatever form it chooses. We will welcome each other in this agreement to make life great.

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“What is beautiful is in a league with what is true because truth abides in the immortal sphere.”   Elaine Scarry