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![Joseph Campbell](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1429114498i/20105._UX200_CR0,29,200,200_.jpg)
“The idea of the supernatural as being something over and above the natural is a killing idea. In the Middle Ages this was the idea that finally turned that world into something like a wasteland, a land where people were living inauthentic lives, never doing a think they truly wanted to because the supernatural laws required them to live as directed by their clergy. In a wasteland, people are fulfilling purposes that are not properly theirs but have been put upon them as inescapable laws. This is a killer.... The spirit is really the bouquet of life. It is not something breathed into life, it comes out of life. This is one of the glorious things about the mother-goddess religions, where the world is the body of the Goddess, divine in itself, and divinity isn't something ruling over and above a fallen nature.... Our story of the fall in the Garden sees nature as corrupt; and that myth corrupts the whole world for us. Because nature is thought of as corrupt, every spontaneous act is sinful and must not be yielded to. You get a totally different civilization and a totally different way of living according to whether your myth presents nature as fallen or whether nature is in itself a manifestation of divinity, and the spirit is the revelation of the divinity that is inherent in nature.”
― The Power of Myth
― The Power of Myth
![Mahatma Gandhi](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1356810912i/5810891._UX200_CR0,21,200,200_.jpg)
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
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![Harold Bloom](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1212940902i/236._CR0,33,200,200_.jpg)
“...the representation of human character and personality remains always the supreme literary value, whether in drama, lyric or narrative. I am naive enough to read incessantly because I cannot, on my own, get to know enough people profoundly enough.”
― Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
― Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
![August Wilson](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1321642333i/13944._UX200_CR0,18,200,200_.jpg)
“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
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Gayle’s 2023 Year in Books
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