DIALOGUE

So what's at Campbell's 42nd and 5th in NYC?

Posted by Craig Chalquist, PhD on July 20, 2015 at 6:38pm in Depth Psychology General

I've always wondered, but every time I visit the city I forget to look at the corner he mentions in his book on the hero: the return of myth everywhere, even there, "waiting for the traffic light to change." This evening someone in the Deep Storytelling and Archetypal Activism online course I'm running posted this photograph:

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  • Holly Esch July 21, 2015 at 9:07am
    There's a literal underworld here too: the world of the subway under the street. Whenever I'm above ground in NYC I'm struck by how I'm always moving vertically: up/down, up/down, rarely forward, because there's no room to go anywhere except up, unless you're underground navigating the subway system, where it's an entirely different universe.

    In this world
    we walk on the roof of Hell
    gazing at flowers.

    --Kobayashi Issa
    • Holly Esch > Holly Esch July 21, 2015 at 9:32am
      Earlier this year U2 posed as subway buskers to see how long it would take everyone to realize that...wait a sec...ZOMG the scruffy guy belting out "Where The Streets Have No Name" and killing it is Bono! And all the people on the street above had no idea that gods were singing right under their toes.
  • Bonnie Bright July 21, 2015 at 1:24am

    Love that statement from Campbell.

    I think the woman in red at the forefront is Persephone (associated with red pomegranate seeds and poppies), making her semi-annual trip from the Underworld to the upper world to tell the story of rebirth and to visit with her mother, Demeter. She will take that same suitcase back "home" to the Underworld in the Fall and things will start to wither and die.

    Question: WHAT's in that suitcase? :)

    BTW, here's a pretty good online account of the Persephone myth for anyone who's interested.

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