AOM Meditations: 071519

 Sleeping Endymion (1757) by Nicolas-Guy Brenet

"Endymion, in Greek mythology, was a handsome young shepherd-prince loved by the moon-goddess. Selene. He spent much of his life in perpetual sleep. According to one tradition, when Zeus offered him his choice of destinies, Endymion chose immortality and youth in eternal slumber. He was laid out in a cave on Mount Latmus in Karia (Caria in western Turkey); where Selene, the goddess of the moon, would visit him each night. She bore him 50 daughters. A common form of the myth represents Endymion as having been put to sleep by Selene herself so that she might enjoy his beauty undisturbed."

~*~

Over the weekend, I watched "Won't You Be My Neighbor", a wonderful documentary about the life and work of Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers) It is currently playing on HBO Now. You can sign up for a free 14-days and watch it there. His life serves as an example for all of us. He was truly a great role model. I list him among the greats of this world such a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Robert Kennedy, and John Lennon. Here are some of his quotes.

Quotes from

Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers)

"Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. 

It is an active noun like struggle. 

To love someone is to strive 

to accept that person 

exactly the way he or she is, 

right here and now."

~*~

"If you could only sense 

how important you are 

to the lives of those you meet; 

how important you can be 

to the people you may never even dream of."

~*~

"It’s not so much 

what we have in this life that matters. 

It’s what we do with what we have."

~*~

"We live in a world in which 

we need to share responsibility. 

It's easy to say, 'It's not my child, 

not my community, not my world, 

not my problem.' 

Then there are those 

who see the need and respond. 

I consider those people my heroes."

All quotes from Fred Rogers

Excerpt from Joseph Campbell's Interview with Bill Moyers

Currently on NETFLIX

In this six part series

Bill Moyers interviews Joseph Campbell

the author of

The Power of Myth

Here is an excerpt from their discussion 

Bill and Joseph are talking about the difference between

How the Native Americans viewed the world as a "thou"

And how the white man viewed the world as an "it"

"BILL MOYERS: What happened when the white man came and slaughtered this animal (the buffalo) of reverence?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That was a sacramental violation. I mean, in the eighties, when the buffalo hunt was undertaken, you know, with Kit Carson…

BILL MOYERS: The 1880s, a hundred years ago.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: — and Buffalo Bill and so forth. When I was a boy, whenever we went for sleigh rides we had a buffalo robe. Buffalo, buffalo, buffalo robes all over the place. This was the sacred animal to the Indians. These (white) hunters go out with repeating rifles, and then shoot down the whole herd and leave it there. Take the skin to sell and the body’s left to rot. This is a sacrilege, and it really is a sacrilege.

BILL MOYERS: It turned the buffalo from a “thou-”

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: To an “it.”

BILL MOYERS: The Indians addressed the buffalo as “thou.”

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: As a “thou”.

BILL MOYERS: As an object of reverence.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: The Indians addressed life as a “thou,” I mean, trees and stones, everything else. You can address anything as a “thou”, and you can feel the change in your psychology as you do it. The ego that sees a “thou” is not the same ego that sees an “it.” Your whole psychology changes when you address things as an “it.” And when you go to war with a people, the problem of the newspapers is to turn those people into its, so that they’re not “thous.”

BILL MOYERS: That was an incredible moment in the evolution of American society, when the buffalo were slaughtered. That was the final exclamation point behind the destruction of the Indian civilization, because you were destroying…

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Can you imagine what the experience must have been for a people within 10 years to lose their environment, to lose their food supply, to lose the object of the… the central object of their ritual life?"

You can see this six part interview on 

NetFlix (link)