These excerpts from the first video in The Power of Myth series are among the heavily highlighted in the book accompanying the series. Added emphasis appears in red, and my reactions are enclosed in a box: (Note 74)

Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world.

This opening quote playing in the background as the video begins grips my attention as much today as when I first heard Campbell speak the words. Working on this section of the web site enabled me to find the threads of the hero's journey that led to The Intuitive Self at the center of my existence.
Moyers Why are there so many stories of the hero in mythology?
Campbell Because that's what's worth writing about. Even in popular novels, the main character is a hero or heroine who has found or done something beyond the normal range of achievement and experience. A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
Moyers So in all of these cultures, whatever the local costume the hero might be wearing, what is the deed?
Campbell Well, there are two types of deed. One is the physical deed, in which the hero performs a courageous act in battle or saves a life. The other kind is the spiritual deed, in which the hero learns to experience the supernormal range of human spiritual life and then comes back with a message. . . .
Answering the call from the first intimations latent in my Mother's poem until now has been discovering what lies beyond the social image of success. I was voted "most likely to succeed" in my high school graduating class. That set a life-long question to answer - what is success? As the years passed, the answer became less like social expectation or more about the "calling."
Moyers Does your study of mythology lead you to conclude that a single human quest, a standard pattern of human aspiration and thought, constitutes for all mankind something that we have in common, whether we lived a million years ago or will live a thousand years from now?
Campbell There's a certain type of myth which one might call the vision guest, going in quest of a boon, a vision, which has the same form in every mythology. That is the thing that I tried to present in the first book I wrote, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. All these different mythologies give us the same essential quest. You leave the world that you're in and go into a depth or into a distance or up to a height. There you come to what was missing in your consciousness in the world you formerly inhabited. Then comes the problem either of staying with that, and letting the world drop off, or returning with that boon and trying to hold on to it as you move back into your social world again. . . .
My boon has been discovering "who I am." I had the good fortune to explore this quest through personal development courses I created and taught at the university. Conventional wisdom says "we teach what we most need to learn." That was and continues to be true for me. Blessing of blessings, my academic career gave me the chance to explore my self.
Moyers How do I slay that dragon in me? What's the journey each of us has to make, what you call "the soul's high adventure"?
Campbell My general formula for my students is "Follow your bliss." Find where it is, and don't be afraid to follow it.
Moyers Is it my work or my life?
Campbell If the work that you're doing is the work that you chose to do because you are enjoying it, that's it. But if you think, "Oh, no! I couldn't do that!" that's the dragon locking you in. "No, no, I couldn't be a writer," or "No, no, I couldn't possibly do what So-and-so is doing." . . .
For 30 years I followed my calling in the university setting. Recently I left that comfortable environment to more consciously find my bliss by striking out in new directions. Developing this web site represents a major part of that process. This initiative has clarified what I have chosen to do by bringing it consciousness. At this moment, there is nothing I would rather be doing than writing this paragraph.
Moyers When I take that journey and go down there and slay those dragons, do I have to go alone?
Campbell If you have someone who can help you, that's fine, too. But, ultimately, the last deed has to be done by oneself. Psychologically, the dragon is one's own binding of oneself to one's ego. We're captured in our own dragon cage. The problem of the psychiatrist is to disintegrate that dragon, break him up, so that you may expand to a larger field of relationships. The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down. . . .

The greatest barriers to realizing my gifts have been the stress, fear, desire and mental chatter obstacles blocking access to my true self. In "The Crucible," a pearl signifies my wholeness:

The flame guards the pearl
In the innermost recesses.

But the jailers bars block the way.
The kindled flame melts the bars
To reveal the pearl within reach.

The flame burns away the
Fears, habits, attachments
That hold back my essence.

Energizing the pearl opens
For release to the plunge.
Moyers I like what you say about the old myth of Theseus and Ariadne. Theseus says to Ariadne, "I'll love you forever if you can show me a way to come out of the labyrinth." So she gives him a ball of string, which he unwinds as he goes into the labyrinth, and then follows to find the way out. You say, "All he had was the string. That's all you need."
Campbell That's all you need--an Ariadne thread.
Moyers Sometimes we look for great wealth to save us, a great power to save us, or great ideas to save us, when all we need is that piece of string.
Campbell That's not always easy to find. But it's nice to have someone who can give you a clue. That's the teacher's job, to help you find your Ariadne thread.
In the fabric of my life, I discovered the thread of The Intuitive Self. That voice deep within had been calling ever since Mother first saw my quest for "the ideals of the distant star" expressed in her poem.
Moyers Like all heroes, the Buddha doesn't show you the truth itself, he shows you the way to truth.
Campbell But it's got to be your way, not his. The Buddha can't tell you exactly how to get rid of your particular fears, for example. Different teachers may suggest exercises, but they may not the ones to work for you. All a teacher can do is suggest. He is like a lighthouse that says, "There are rocks over here, steer clear. There is a channel, however, out there". . . .
Given my Christian conversions, I was programmed to surrender to a "guru" for salvation. However being with or around gurus of different stripes, I realized they were teachers who could point the way but not save my soul as I had been taught to believe. Only I could save my soul and that soul turned out to be The Intuitive Self.
Moyers In all of these journeys of mythology, there's a place everyone wishes to find. The Buddhists talk of Nirvana, and Jesus talks of peace, of the mansion with many rooms. Is that typical of the hero's journey - that there's a place to find?
Campbell The place to find is within yourself. I learned a little about this in athletics. The athlete who is in top form has a quiet place within himself, and it's around this, somehow, that his action occurs. . . . There's a center of quietness within, which has to be known and held. If you lose that center, you are in tension and begin to fall apart.
The saving grace of The Intuitive Self was never absent. That realization was hard won in the highways and byways chronicled here. This truth must be reinforced continuously by remembering as often as I can "Now is the time to practice mindfulness."

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