Moyers: What happened to the mythic imagination as humans
beings turned from the hunting of animals to the planting of seeds?
Campbell: There is a dramatic and total transformation, not
just of the myths but of the psyche itself, I think. You see, an animal is a
total entity, he is within a skin. When you kill that animal, he's dead –
that's the end of him. There is no such think as a self-contained individual in
the vegetal world. You cut a plant, and another sprout comes. Pruning is
helpful to a plant. The whole thing is just a continuing inbeingness.
Another idea associated with the tropical forests is that
out of rot comes life. I have seen wonderful redwood forests with great, huge
stumps from enormous trees that were cut down decades ago. Out of them are
coming these bright new little children who are part of the same plant. Also,
if you cut off the limb of a plant, another one comes. Tear off the limb of an
animal, and unless it is a certain kind of lizard, it doesn't grow again.
So in the forest and planting cultures, there is sense of
death as not death somehow, that death is required for new life. And the
individual isn't quite an individual, he is a branch of a plant. Jesus uses
this image when he says, "I am the vine, and you are the branches." That vineyard image is a totally different one
from the separate animals. When you have a planting culture, there is a
fostering of thee plant that is going to be eaten.
~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth. ~
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