I HAVE LEFT WORK AND WITHOUT A QUESTION I HAVE BEEN LIBERATED OF THIS WORLD, I'M NOT QUITE SURE WHAT THESE FEW MONTHS HOLD FOR ME ... BUT I'M SURE I WILL KEEP THE FOLLOWING ON MY MIND:

But if a person has had the sense of the Call -- the feeling that there's an adventure for him -- and if he doesn't follow that, but remains in the society because it's safe and secure, then life dries up. And then he comes to that condition in late middle age: he's gotten to the top of the ladder, and found that it's against the wrong wall.

If you have the guts to follow the risk, however, life opens, opens, and opens up all along the line. I'm not superstitious, but I do believe in spiritual magic, you might say. I feel that if one follows what I call one's "bliss" -- the thing that really gets you deep in your gut and that you feel is your life -- doors will open up. They do! They have in my life and they have in many lives that I know of.

…When you are at a certain age…and look back over your life, it seems to be almost as orderly as a composed novel. And just as in Dickens' novels, little accidental meetings and so forth turn out to be main features in the plot, so in your life. And what seem to have been mistakes at the time turn out to be directive crises…

Life seems as though it were planned; and there is something in us that's causing what you hear of as being accident prone: it's something in ourselves. There is a mystery here… Can anything happen to you for which you're not ready? I look back now on certain things that at the time seemed to be real disasters, but the results turned out to be the structuring of a really great aspect of my life and career. So what can you say?

And the other point is, if you follow your bliss, you'll have your bliss, whether you have money or not. If you follow money, you may lose money, and then you don't have even that. The secure way is really the insecure way and the way in which the richness of the quest accumulates is the right way.

Joseph Campbell From "An Open Life" by Michael Toms. © 1989 by the New Dimensions Foundation. Published by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. [Interview]

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I HAD FORSAKEN MY OWN ABILITY

TO KNOW MYSELF LONG AGO,

YET MY NAME IS NOT AS MY OWN

AND NO LONGER THE SAME,

THE MUNDANE WORLD HAS TAKEN

THE LIGHT OF MY THOUGHS

AND THE THINGS I ONCE CALLED GIFTS,

ARE LIKE BROKEN SORES AND REMINDERS

OF THINGS THAT ONCE GAVE SO MUCH TO LIFE.

I HAVE LIVED LIKE A SHADOW FAR TOO LONG

AND ALMOST DIED LIKE AN ORPHAN,

IF IT WERE NOT FOR MY DREAMS

THAT HAVE COME TO ILLUMINATE MY DARK STEPS,

ONLY TO MAKE ME BELIEVE THAT LIFE IT IS MORE

THAN THE SUM OF LIVING,

BECAUSE LIVING DAY BY DAY

IS NO LONGER DREAMING.

DARKNESS HYDE

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I HAVE QUIT MY JOB AND WHILE TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF IT I HAVE FOUND A LITTLE PIECE OF MYSELF I WAS SO AFRAID I HAVE MISSED, EVEN A POEM TO COMPLIMENT MY BLISS !!!!

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT, OF AFTER ALL THIS TIME WITHOUT WRITING I FEEL LIKE A POET AGAIN !!!!