Phil Cousineau
Encyclopedia
Phil Cousineau is an author, lecturer, independent scholar, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker.
. He has worked as a sportswriter and taught screenwriting at the American Film Institute
(AFI). American mythologist Joseph Campbell
was a mentor and major influence; Cousineau wrote the documentary film and companion book about Campbell's life, The Hero's Journey
. The author of more than 25 nonfiction books, Cousineau has more than 15 documentary screenwriting credits to his name, including the 1991 Academy Award-nominated Forever Activists
.
Seminal works include, Soul: An Archaeology, Readings from Socrates to Ray Charles, which Los Angeles Times
columnist Jonathan Kirsch
reviewed as "Inspiring, often mind-blowing, sometimes even a little scary," and the best-selling book, The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide the Making Travel Sacred, described in the Austin American-Statesman
as "If Joseph Campbell, the Dalai Lama
and Bill Moyers were to have collaborated on a book about journeys...I suspect it would look very much like The Art of Pilgrimage." Cousineau worked with religion scholar Huston Smith
on two books as well as four documentary films on contemporary Native American
issues. His books have been translated into nine languages. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Phil Cousineau has long been a powerful presence in the [San Francisco] Bay Area literary scene, but he is best known as a filmmaker and...writer who has carried on and reinterpreted the work of Joseph Campbell, especially regarding the omnipresent influence of myth in modern life."
Cousineau grew up just outside of Detroit, once known as "the Paris of the Midwest,” with French Canadian
roots. While moonlighting in a steel factory he studied journalism at the University of Detroit. Before turning to writing books and films full-time, Cousineau’s peripatetic career also included playing semi-professional basketball
in Europe, harvesting date trees on an Israeli kibbutz
, painting 44 Victorian houses (also known as Painted Ladies
in San Francisco), teaching, and leading art and literary tours to Europe
.
"hero journey" structure of screenplays, Cousineau consults on writing projects of all kinds. He lectures frequently on themes of sacred travel, sports, writing, and creativity and is currently the host of the Link TV
television series, Global Spirit, interviewing guests such as Robert Thurman
, Karen Armstrong
, Andrew Harvey
, Deepak Chopra
, and Joanne Shenandoah
. Broadcast journalist Bill Moyers
has commented that “The discussions on Link TV’s Global Spirit series are sorely needed in this dispirited and disenchanted world. In many ways it is more important than journalism today.”
Cousineau lives in North Beach, San Francisco, California
and is currently writing different books on language, atonement, and beauty.
:
"Inspiration comes and goes, creativity is the result of practice." ~from Stoking the Creative Fires: 9 Ways to Rekindle Passion and Imagination
On Travel
and Pilgrimage
:
"Now is the time to lead your ideal life." ~from The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred
"The practice of soulful travel is to discover the overlapping point between history and everyday life, the way to find the essence of every place, every day: in the markets, small chapels, out-of-the-way parks, craft shops. Curiosity about the extraordinary in the ordinary moves the heart of the traveler intent on seeing behind the veil of tourism."
"In each of us dwells a pilgrim
. It is the part of us that longs to have direct contact with the sacred."
"The pilgrim is a poetic traveler, one who believes that there is poetry on the road, at the heart of everything."
"Are you alive now at home? Are you going to stay in your coffin of mediocrity, [or] break out of your cage, and take a journey to discover this in order to find yourself?"
"What every traveler confronts sooner or later is that the way we spend each day of our travel...is the way we spend our lives."
"Have you ever made a vow to go someplace that is sacred to you, your family, your group? Have you ever imagined yourself in a place that stirred your soul like the song of doves at dawn? If not you, then who? If not now, when? If not here, where?"
"Mapping out dozens of deeply focused trips around the world has convinced me that preparation no more spoils the chance for spontaneity and serendipity than discipline ruins the opportunity for genuine self-expression in sports, acting, or the tea ceremony."
"The force behind myths, fairytales, parables and soulful travel stories reveals the myriad ways the sacred breaks through the resistance and shines forth into our world. Pilgrimage
holds out the promise of personal contact with that sacred force."
"The art of movement, the poetry of motion, the music of personal experience, of the sacred in those places it has been known to shine forth. If we are not astounded by these possibilities, we can never plumb the depths of our own souls or the soul of the world.”
"What is sacred is what is worthy of our reverence, what evokes awe and wonder in the human heart, and what, when contemplated, transforms us utterly."
"Uncover what you long for and you will discover who you are."
"Our task in life is to find our deep soul work and throw ourselves headlong into it."
On Synchronicity
:
"[Synchronicity is] an inexplicable but profoundly meaningful coincidence that stirs the soul and offers a glimpse of one's destiny."
~from Coincidence Or Destiny?: Stories of Synchronicity That Illuminate Our Lives
On the Soul
:
"As the ancients said, the soul is realized in love."
On the Hero's Journey:
"The journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us; the uncanny discovery that the seeker is the mystery which the seeker seeks to know. The hero journey is a symbol that binds, in the original sense of the word, two distant ideas, the spiritual quest of the ancients with the modern search for identity, “always the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find."
Career
Phil Cousineau was born in an army hospital in Columbia, South CarolinaColumbia, South Carolina
Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan...
. He has worked as a sportswriter and taught screenwriting at the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
(AFI). American mythologist Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
was a mentor and major influence; Cousineau wrote the documentary film and companion book about Campbell's life, The Hero's Journey
The Hero's Journey (film)
The Hero's Journey: A Biographical Portrait is a 1987 filmed biography of famed mythologist Joseph Campbell , directed by Janelle Balnicke and David Kennard...
. The author of more than 25 nonfiction books, Cousineau has more than 15 documentary screenwriting credits to his name, including the 1991 Academy Award-nominated Forever Activists
Forever Activists
Forever Activists: Stories from the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade is a 1990 documentary film by Connie Field and Judith Montell that shares interviews with seven American veterans of the Spanish Civil War who fought for the Loyalist cause during the war and went on to live lives of...
.
Seminal works include, Soul: An Archaeology, Readings from Socrates to Ray Charles, which Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
columnist Jonathan Kirsch
Jonathan Kirsch
Jonathan Kirsch is a Biblical scholar, an attorney, and columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He is a bestselling author of books on religion, the Bible, and Judaism. He earned a B.A. degree in Russian and Jewish history from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a J.D. degree from Loyola...
reviewed as "Inspiring, often mind-blowing, sometimes even a little scary," and the best-selling book, The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide the Making Travel Sacred, described in the Austin American-Statesman
Austin American-Statesman
The Austin American-Statesman is the major daily newspaper for Austin, the capital city of Texas. It is an award-winning publication owned by Cox Enterprises. The Newspaper places focus on issues affecting Austin and the Central Texas region....
as "If Joseph Campbell, the Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...
and Bill Moyers were to have collaborated on a book about journeys...I suspect it would look very much like The Art of Pilgrimage." Cousineau worked with religion scholar Huston Smith
Huston Smith
Huston Cummings Smith is a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religions remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.-Education:...
on two books as well as four documentary films on contemporary Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
issues. His books have been translated into nine languages. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Phil Cousineau has long been a powerful presence in the [San Francisco] Bay Area literary scene, but he is best known as a filmmaker and...writer who has carried on and reinterpreted the work of Joseph Campbell, especially regarding the omnipresent influence of myth in modern life."
Cousineau grew up just outside of Detroit, once known as "the Paris of the Midwest,” with French Canadian
French Canadian
French Canadian or Francophone Canadian, , generally refers to the descendents of French colonists who arrived in New France in the 17th and 18th centuries...
roots. While moonlighting in a steel factory he studied journalism at the University of Detroit. Before turning to writing books and films full-time, Cousineau’s peripatetic career also included playing semi-professional basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
in Europe, harvesting date trees on an Israeli kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
, painting 44 Victorian houses (also known as Painted Ladies
Painted ladies
"Painted ladies" is a term used for Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings painted in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details. The term was first used for San Francisco Victorian houses by writers Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen in their 1978 book...
in San Francisco), teaching, and leading art and literary tours to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
Current work
An expert on mythology and film and the monomythMonomyth
Joseph Campbell's term monomyth, also referred to as the hero's journey, is a basic pattern that its proponents argue is found in many narratives from around the world. This widely distributed pattern was described by Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces...
"hero journey" structure of screenplays, Cousineau consults on writing projects of all kinds. He lectures frequently on themes of sacred travel, sports, writing, and creativity and is currently the host of the Link TV
Link TV
Link TV is a non-commercial American satellite television network providing "diverse perspectives on world and national issues." It is carried nationally on DirecTV and Dish Network. Link TV was launched as a daily, 24-hour non-commercial network in 1999...
television series, Global Spirit, interviewing guests such as Robert Thurman
Robert Thurman
Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman is an influential and prolific American Buddhist writer and academic who has authored, edited or translated several books on Tibetan Buddhism. He is the Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, holding the first endowed chair...
, Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong FRSL , is a British author and commentator who is the author of twelve books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic nun, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical faith...
, Andrew Harvey
Andrew Harvey
Andrew Harvey is an author, religious scholar and teacher of mystic traditions, known primarily for his popular nonfiction books on spiritual or mystical themes, beginning with his 1983 A Journey in Ladakh...
, Deepak Chopra
Deepak Chopra
Deepak Chopra is an Indian medical doctor, public speaker, and writer on subjects such as spirituality, Ayurveda and mind-body medicine. Chopra began his career as an endocrinologist and later shifted his focus to alternative medicine. Chopra now runs his own medical center, with a focus on...
, and Joanne Shenandoah
Joanne Shenandoah
Joanne Shenandoah is an Iroquois singer, composer and acoustic guitarist. She is a member of the Wolf Clan of the Oneida Nation, of the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy. Her music is a combination of traditional songs and melodies with a blend of traditional and contemporary...
. Broadcast journalist Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public...
has commented that “The discussions on Link TV’s Global Spirit series are sorely needed in this dispirited and disenchanted world. In many ways it is more important than journalism today.”
Cousineau lives in North Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It still holds many Italian restaurants today, though...
and is currently writing different books on language, atonement, and beauty.
Famous Quotes
On CreativityCreativity
Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new that has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs...
:
"Inspiration comes and goes, creativity is the result of practice." ~from Stoking the Creative Fires: 9 Ways to Rekindle Passion and Imagination
On Travel
Travel
Travel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...
and Pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
:
"Now is the time to lead your ideal life." ~from The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred
"The practice of soulful travel is to discover the overlapping point between history and everyday life, the way to find the essence of every place, every day: in the markets, small chapels, out-of-the-way parks, craft shops. Curiosity about the extraordinary in the ordinary moves the heart of the traveler intent on seeing behind the veil of tourism."
"In each of us dwells a pilgrim
Pilgrim
A pilgrim is a traveler who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journeying to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system...
. It is the part of us that longs to have direct contact with the sacred."
"The pilgrim is a poetic traveler, one who believes that there is poetry on the road, at the heart of everything."
"Are you alive now at home? Are you going to stay in your coffin of mediocrity, [or] break out of your cage, and take a journey to discover this in order to find yourself?"
"What every traveler confronts sooner or later is that the way we spend each day of our travel...is the way we spend our lives."
"Have you ever made a vow to go someplace that is sacred to you, your family, your group? Have you ever imagined yourself in a place that stirred your soul like the song of doves at dawn? If not you, then who? If not now, when? If not here, where?"
"Mapping out dozens of deeply focused trips around the world has convinced me that preparation no more spoils the chance for spontaneity and serendipity than discipline ruins the opportunity for genuine self-expression in sports, acting, or the tea ceremony."
"The force behind myths, fairytales, parables and soulful travel stories reveals the myriad ways the sacred breaks through the resistance and shines forth into our world. Pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
holds out the promise of personal contact with that sacred force."
"The art of movement, the poetry of motion, the music of personal experience, of the sacred in those places it has been known to shine forth. If we are not astounded by these possibilities, we can never plumb the depths of our own souls or the soul of the world.”
"What is sacred is what is worthy of our reverence, what evokes awe and wonder in the human heart, and what, when contemplated, transforms us utterly."
"Uncover what you long for and you will discover who you are."
"Our task in life is to find our deep soul work and throw ourselves headlong into it."
On Synchronicity
Synchronicity
Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance and that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner...
:
"[Synchronicity is] an inexplicable but profoundly meaningful coincidence that stirs the soul and offers a glimpse of one's destiny."
~from Coincidence Or Destiny?: Stories of Synchronicity That Illuminate Our Lives
On the Soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
:
"As the ancients said, the soul is realized in love."
On the Hero's Journey:
"The journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us; the uncanny discovery that the seeker is the mystery which the seeker seeks to know. The hero journey is a symbol that binds, in the original sense of the word, two distant ideas, the spiritual quest of the ancients with the modern search for identity, “always the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find."
Select Books
- A Seat at the Table: Huston SmithHuston SmithHuston Cummings Smith is a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religions remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.-Education:...
in Conversation with Native Americans on Religious Freedom (2005) - The Blue Museum (2005)
- The Olympic Odyssey: Rekindling the True Spirit of the Great Games (2003)
- The Way Things Are: Conversations with Huston SmithHuston SmithHuston Cummings Smith is a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religions remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.-Education:...
on the Spiritual Life (2002) - The Book of Roads: Travel Stories (2001)
- Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in Modern Time (2001) Foreword by Stephen LarsenStephen LarsenH. Stephen Larsen is a psychologist and author who, with his wife Robin Larsen, was on the founding board of advisors of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and also founded the Center for Symbolic Studies, to carry on with the work of Joseph Campbell...
- Coincidence Or Destiny?: Stories of Synchronicity That Illuminate Our Lives Foreword by Robert A. JohnsonRobert A. JohnsonRobert A. Johnson is a rock and blues guitarist based in Memphis, Tennessee who is best known for his work in the 1970s. He is usually known professionally as "Robert Johnson." He is no relation to the 1930s era blues guitarist Robert Johnson.Early in his career Johnson played in bands with Jack...
- The Soul Aflame: A Modern Book of Hours (2000)
- Soul: An Archaeology: From Socrates to Ray Charles (1993)
- The Soul of the World: A Modern Book of Hours (1993) Photography by Eric Lawton
Select Filmography
- A Seat at the Table: Struggling for American Religious Freedom A Kifaru Production.
- The Peyote Road: Ancient Religion in Contemporary Crisis A Kifaru Production. Narrated by Peter CoyotePeter CoyotePeter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audio books. His voice work includes narrating the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Apple's iPad campaign. He has also served as on-camera co-host of the 2000 Oscar...
. - The Red Road to Sobriety A Kifaru Production. Narrated by Benjamin BrattBenjamin BrattBenjamin Bratt is an American actor. He is most famous for his role as Rey Curtis on the TV series Law & Order; and his appearances in the movies Blood in Blood Out, Miss Congeniality, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Traffic, and Piñero.-Early life:Bratt was born in San Francisco, California,...
- Your Humble Serpent: The Life of Reuben Snake A Kifaru Production.
- Ecological Design: Inventing the Future A Knossos Project. Narrated by Linda HuntLinda HuntLinda Hunt is an American film, stage and television actress. After making her film debut playing Mrs. Oxheart in Popeye , Hunt portrayed Billy Kwan, her breakthrough performance in The Year of Living Dangerously...
- Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey Directed by Gail Evenari. Narrated by Napuanalani Cassidy and Patrick StewartPatrick StewartSir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
- Wiping the Tears of Seven Generations A Kifaru Production. Narrated by Hanna Left Hand Bull Fixico.
- The Presence of the Goddess A film by Christy Baldwin. Narrated by Isabel AllendeIsabel AllendeIsabel Allende Llona is a Chilean writer with American citizenship. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is famous for novels such as The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts , which have been commercially successful...
(1993) - Forever ActivistsForever ActivistsForever Activists: Stories from the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade is a 1990 documentary film by Connie Field and Judith Montell that shares interviews with seven American veterans of the Spanish Civil War who fought for the Loyalist cause during the war and went on to live lives of...
: Stories from the Abraham Lincoln BrigadeAbraham Lincoln BrigadeThe Abraham Lincoln Brigade refers to volunteers from the United States who served in the Spanish Civil War in the International Brigades. They fought for Spanish Republican forces against Franco and the Spanish Nationalists....
A film by Connie Field and Judith Montell. Narrated by Ronnie GilbertRonnie GilbertRonnie Gilbert is an American folk-singer. She is one of the original members of the Weavers with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Fred Hellerman.-Career:...
, nominated for an Academy Award Best Documentary, Features. (1990). - The Hero's Journey: The World of Joseph CampbellThe Hero's Journey (film)The Hero's Journey: A Biographical Portrait is a 1987 filmed biography of famed mythologist Joseph Campbell , directed by Janelle Balnicke and David Kennard...
Narrated by Peter DonatPeter DonatPeter Donat is a Canadian-American actor known for his roles in American television.-Early life:Donat was born Pierre Collingwood Donat in Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada, the son of Marie and Philip Ernst Donat, a landscape gardener. His uncle was British actor Robert Donat...
(1987)