The Podcast With A Thousand Faces

In this episode, Sean Brawley, performance coach, former top-ranked professional tennis player, and expert in accelerated learning, joins John Bucher for a wide-ranging conversation that begins in the world of elite sport and opens into something much deeper. Drawing on his experience competing at the highest levels and his work with Tim Gallwey and the Inner Game philosophy, Sean shares how his understanding of performance shifted from effort and control toward awareness, attention, and the way we learn.

From there, the conversation moves into language, etymology, and the hidden layers of meaning within the words we use every day. Along the way, the ideas of Joseph Campbell weave through the discussion, especially the notion of following your bliss and the unexpected turns that shape a life. What emerges is a thoughtful exploration of performance, identity, and how paying closer attention - to both our experience and our language - can open up new ways of seeing and engaging with the world.

To learn more about Sean vist: https://seanbrawley.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)

Cassidy Gard is a three time Emmy Award–winning journalist, author, and entrepreneur whose work bridges storytelling, healing, and cultural insight. After more than a decade in the high pressure world of television news, including her years at Good Morning America, a personal and spiritual turning point during the pandemic led her to step away and reimagine her life and career. Her work explores recovery from childhood trauma, perfectionism, burnout, conscious sobriety, and the identity shifts of modern motherhood. She is the author of the memoir Cosmic Goodness: Surrendering the Shadows to Live in the Light, and lives abroad with her partner, their two sons, Golden and Indigo, and their fifteen year old Maltipoo, Hazel.

In this episode, Cassidy joins JCF's Joanna Gardner for a rich and personal conversation on the power of storytelling, the influence of Joseph Campbell, and the meaning of following your bliss. Together, they explore how our struggles can become sources of strength, and how the hero’s journey can unfold not as conquest, but as an inward reclamation - one rooted in authenticity, creativity, and the courage to live what truly lights us up.

For more on Cassidy and her book visit: https://www.cosmicgoodness.com/

Instagram: @cassidygard

 

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)

In this episode, Catherine Svehla joins JCF’s Joanna Gardner for a wide-ranging and deeply alive conversation about myth as a living force in our lives. Catherine Svehla, PhD, is an independent scholar, storyteller, and mentor in the mythic life who has been working in the liminal fields of myth, creativity, and consciousness for more than thirty years. She holds a doctorate from Pacifica Graduate Institute, is the creator of the Myth Matters podcast - part of the Joseph Campbell Foundation’s MythMaker Podcast Network - and is the author of Myths to Live By: A Skeleton Key Study Guide. Through workshops, storytelling, and one-on-one mentorship, she helps artists and seekers reconnect with their inner wisdom and the transformative power of myth.

In their conversation, Catherine and Joanna explore myth not as dogma or relic, but as conversation partner, something that reveals our conditioning, stretches our imagination, and invites us into greater autonomy. From Inanna’s descent to fairy tales and the modern myth of progress, they examine how stories shape our consciousness, and how we might begin to shape the stories we live by, more consciously and creatively.

For more about Catherine visit: https://mythicmojo.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)

In this episode, we welcome Brandon Boyd. Best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the multi-platinum band Incubus, Brandon has cultivated a parallel life as a painter, writer, and visual artist. He has published three books of visual art, exhibited internationally, and created large-scale installations and residencies in the U.S. Across music and visual work alike, his creative output returns to themes of impermanence, identity, nature, and transformation. Alongside his work with Incubus, Brandon continues to release solo music while expanding into acting and mentorship.
In this conversation with Tyler Lapkin of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, we explore where creativity begins, Brandon’s movement between music and painting as a single inner current, the influence of myth and Joseph Campbell, and the artist as a conduit for something larger than the self.
For more on Brandon visit: https://www.brandonboyd.me/

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)

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)