In this episode of The Podcast With A Thousand Faces, mythologist Leigh Melander joins longtime friend and fellow Campbell scholar Brad Olson for a wide-ranging, playful, and deeply human conversation about myth, imagination, and meaning.

Drawing from their shared history at Pacifica Graduate Institute and their long involvement with the Joseph Campbell Foundation, Leigh and Brad explore myth not as a static archive of ancient stories, but as a living, breathing way of seeing — one that quietly shapes how we understand ourselves, our culture, and the world we’re making together.

Along the way, Leigh brings her full mythic lineage into the room: her background in cultural mythology and psychology, her longtime leadership with the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and her work as co-founder of Spillian, a regenerative center for imagination and creativity in the Catskills. She shares how her scholarship and creative practice converge around play, frivolity, and the imaginal as serious forces for transformation — whether through ritual, community, writing, or her evolving SpillianQuest project, a mycelial web of tools and adventures designed to help people create meaning in times of change.

What emerges is a conversation rooted in friendship and intellectual play — a reminder that myth doesn’t give us answers so much as it sharpens our questions. It’s an invitation to loosen our grip on the literal, re-enter the imaginal, and remember that myth is still alive, thinking through us, and quietly asking us to participate.

Learn more about Leigh and Spillian at https://spillian.com/

For more information on the MythMaker Podcast Network and Joseph Campbell, visit JCF.org.

To subscribe to our weekly MythBlasts go to jcf.org/subscribe

The Podcast With A Thousand Faces is hosted by Tyler Lapkin and is a production of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. It is produced by Tyler Lapkin. Executive producer, John Bucher. Audio mixing and editing by Tristan Batt.

All music exclusively provided by APM Music (apmmusic.com)

Rebecca Armstrong is a mythologist, minister, and educator whose life has been guided by the transformative power of story. For twelve years, she served as the International Outreach Director of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, helping to create and nurture the worldwide Mythological RoundTable™ groups that carried Campbell’s work into communities around the globe.

With an earned doctorate and two master’s degrees, Rebecca has spent over three decades teaching myth, religion, ethics, and film studies at major universities, and she currently leads a course called Movies & the American Myth at Indiana University. In her private practice as a Jungian Coach and Spiritual Guidance counselor at workingwithsoul.com, she helps others reconnect with the deeper stories moving through their lives.

In this episode, Rebecca joins JCF’s John Bucher for a rich conversation about her life, her relationship with Joseph Campbell, and how myth continues to inform her work in the world today.

On March 26th, 2026, Joseph Campbell’s birthday, Rebecca will be teaching “The Heroic Attitude: Embodying the Myth of Courage in Everyday Life” for The Jung Platform. In this session, she explores what it means to live heroically in ordinary life, drawing on Jungian psychology and Campbell’s mythic vision to show how the Hero archetype can both inspire us and, at times, take us over.

For more information on the MythMaker Podcast Network and Joseph Campbell, visit JCF.org.

To subscribe to our weekly MythBlasts go to jcf.org/subscribe

The Podcast With A Thousand Faces is hosted by Tyler Lapkin and is a production of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. It is produced by Tyler Lapkin. Executive producer, John Bucher. Audio mixing and editing by Tristan Batt.

All music exclusively provided by APM Music (apmmusic.com)

C.J. Macias is a big wave surfer, healer, and teacher whose life feels as mythic as it is deeply human. Featured in HBO’s Emmy Award–winning series 100 Foot Wave, C.J.’s journey stretches from the beaches of Florida, where he first surfed with his dad, to Nazaré, Portugal, home of the largest waves on earth.

Along the way he has faced devastating wipeouts, near-death moments, and the kind of initiations that strip life down to its essence. In 100 Foot Wave, we witness not only the danger and beauty of Nazaré, but also the brotherhood among surfers, the intimate dance with fear, and the transformation that comes from surrendering to the ocean’s immense power.

In this conversation, we explore C.J.’s path, his call to big waves with Garrett McNamara, his evolving relationship with fear and the unknown, the ocean as teacher, and how Joseph Campbell’s vision of myth resonates with his own path.

Find more about C.J. on Instagram @c.j.macias

For more information on the MythMaker Podcast Network and Joseph Campbell, visit JCF.org.

To subscribe to our weekly MythBlasts go to jcf.org/subscribe

The Podcast With A Thousand Faces is hosted by Tyler Lapkin and is a production of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. It is produced by Tyler Lapkin. Executive producer, John Bucher. Audio mixing and editing by Tristan Batt.

All music exclusively provided by APM Music (apmmusic.com)