Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. Thatโs an image of life. Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. The serpent represents immortal energy and consciousness engaged in the field of time, constantly throwing off death and being born again. There is something tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries in itself the sense of both the fascination and the terror of life.
Joseph CampbellOne can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as contrary to life, but as an aspect of it.
Joseph CampbellBut the makers of legend have seldom rested content to regard the world's great heroes as mere human beings who broke past the horizons that limited their fellows and returned such boons as any man with equal faith and courage might have found.
Joseph CampbellIt is not society which is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse.
Joseph CampbellWhen you look at that nature world it becomes an icon, it becomes a holy picture that speaks of the origins of the world. Almost every mythology sees the origins of life coming out of water. And, curiously, that's true. It's amusing that the origin of life out of water is in myths and then again, finally, in science, we find the same thing. It's exactly so.
Joseph Campbell