Carlos Castaneda says, in his book "Journey to Ixtlan" that the art of the benefactor is to take us to the brink, and that precisely is what the Hero's Journey does!
The Hero's Journey comes in many shapes and sizes. The common (mis)understanding is that it is a physical journey with physical obstacles and so the protagonists are usually depicted as physically well-endowed so that they can dispense a rough and ready justice along the way.
There are a couple of things wrong with this…
First, the journey need not be a physical one (an Inner Journey can be just as challenging as an Outer one) and second, not everyone is built like Conan.
Let's say, for example, we attempt to give up smoking…now that can be a worthy Hero's Journey but we are not going to be battling any Monsters or Demons or vicious and sadistic Villains, are we? And we don't even have to take a physical journey anywhere, except perhaps to the drug store. But the Journey does take place and it takes place inside our heads and it won't be long, once we've "given up smoking", that we are assailed by all sorts of doubts and temptations and cravings and fears and these Inner Demons and Villains may be just as difficult, if not more so, to overcome than the physical ones.
What we are trying to do here is to get away from the stereotyped Hero's Journey, which is usually thought of in physical terms and very graphic terms at that…somewhat along the lines of an Arnold Schwarzenneger, naked to the waist and battling horrifying monsters such as we saw in the Predator and in the Terminator sequels.
That sort of thing is graphic and mythic and everything is larger than life, but the Hero's Journey can take place in more ordinary, everyday situations, with ordinary, everyday people who rise to the occasion and become Heroes.
Take for example the Road Movie, which depicts that sort of scenario. The Road Movie can be a Hero's Journey on screen and often is… one, because it is an actual journey and two, because numerous very real obstacles are encountered along the way. The difference is that instead of Dolph Lundgren look-alikes in the driver's seat, the protagonists are very ordinary, average people doing very ordinary, average things like going on a holiday when suddenly, unasked, they are thrown into a horrifying set of circumstances.
They are not heroes to start with, but the trial by fire makes them so. You see, that is the point about the Hero's Journey. It is not a journey that a hero undertakes, but rather it is a Journey that transforms the ordinary person into a Hero - if said ordinary person is willing to "take up his cross" and rise to the occasion, as it were.
It could for example be said that the moment one faces up to one's fears rather than running from one's fears…it is at that moment that one embarks on the Hero's Journey. But...caveat emptor! Buyer beware! Once you take up the Gauntlet and enter on the Journey, the Gate swings shut behind you and there is no turning back. In effect you have let the Genie out of the bottle, and there is no squeezing it back.
Why do you think horror movies are so popular? Because we enjoy a "cheap thrill"? Yes indeed, except that the "cheap thrill" is not a cheap thrill. The Movie Monster symbolizes externally the horror we encounter internally when, finally, we embark on our own Hero's Journey. Movies, and horror movies in particular, are a safe way to experience the Hero's Journey - vicariously - because if the horror becomes too great, we can walk out. But sooner or later we must enter the Dragon's Den for real...and then there is no walking out. Sooner or later the Movie Journey must become a Real Journey.
And we never know, in advance, when that will be. It just sort of creeps up on us, unexpected, unannounced and unwanted. Like an Illness…
An Illness is a good example. Like most Hardships, Illness can lead into a Hero's Journey and it is more than capable of bringing out the Hero quality in us.
There is an amazing book called the "Alchemy of Illness", by Mary Duff, if I remember correctly. Grab it if you can find it! The young woman faced what so many of us face sooner or later: a debilitating and life threatening illness. What made this woman extra-ordinary is that she used this illness as her Hero's Journey into the Darkness where she encountered her own horrors and fears and anxieties to emerge, at the end of it, a new and transformed person. A Hero!
And that is why she called her Illness an "Alchemy", because that is what Alchemy means: to change lead into gold. And that is what the Hero's Journey does: we are NOT heroes to begin with, but the fire of the Alchemical Hero's Journey transforms us along the way and we emerge, at the end of the it, Transformed and Re-born!
****
Problems are Problems. We can run from them, or we can face them and enter upon the Hero's Journey.
We are not talking about everyday petty nuisances here. We are talking about the Big Problems that simply won't go away. Don Juan in "Journey to Ixtlan" calls them an "encounter with Power", leading to a battle that "a Warrior would give anything to have…"
So, when you are faced with an insurmountable Problem, put your hands together and say, thank you…
You had the luck of a fool! as Don Juan would say.
ends
The Hero's Journey comes in many shapes and sizes. The common (mis)understanding is that it is a physical journey with physical obstacles and so the protagonists are usually depicted as physically well-endowed so that they can dispense a rough and ready justice along the way.
There are a couple of things wrong with this…
First, the journey need not be a physical one (an Inner Journey can be just as challenging as an Outer one) and second, not everyone is built like Conan.
Let's say, for example, we attempt to give up smoking…now that can be a worthy Hero's Journey but we are not going to be battling any Monsters or Demons or vicious and sadistic Villains, are we? And we don't even have to take a physical journey anywhere, except perhaps to the drug store. But the Journey does take place and it takes place inside our heads and it won't be long, once we've "given up smoking", that we are assailed by all sorts of doubts and temptations and cravings and fears and these Inner Demons and Villains may be just as difficult, if not more so, to overcome than the physical ones.
What we are trying to do here is to get away from the stereotyped Hero's Journey, which is usually thought of in physical terms and very graphic terms at that…somewhat along the lines of an Arnold Schwarzenneger, naked to the waist and battling horrifying monsters such as we saw in the Predator and in the Terminator sequels.
That sort of thing is graphic and mythic and everything is larger than life, but the Hero's Journey can take place in more ordinary, everyday situations, with ordinary, everyday people who rise to the occasion and become Heroes.
Take for example the Road Movie, which depicts that sort of scenario. The Road Movie can be a Hero's Journey on screen and often is… one, because it is an actual journey and two, because numerous very real obstacles are encountered along the way. The difference is that instead of Dolph Lundgren look-alikes in the driver's seat, the protagonists are very ordinary, average people doing very ordinary, average things like going on a holiday when suddenly, unasked, they are thrown into a horrifying set of circumstances.
They are not heroes to start with, but the trial by fire makes them so. You see, that is the point about the Hero's Journey. It is not a journey that a hero undertakes, but rather it is a Journey that transforms the ordinary person into a Hero - if said ordinary person is willing to "take up his cross" and rise to the occasion, as it were.
It could for example be said that the moment one faces up to one's fears rather than running from one's fears…it is at that moment that one embarks on the Hero's Journey. But...caveat emptor! Buyer beware! Once you take up the Gauntlet and enter on the Journey, the Gate swings shut behind you and there is no turning back. In effect you have let the Genie out of the bottle, and there is no squeezing it back.
Why do you think horror movies are so popular? Because we enjoy a "cheap thrill"? Yes indeed, except that the "cheap thrill" is not a cheap thrill. The Movie Monster symbolizes externally the horror we encounter internally when, finally, we embark on our own Hero's Journey. Movies, and horror movies in particular, are a safe way to experience the Hero's Journey - vicariously - because if the horror becomes too great, we can walk out. But sooner or later we must enter the Dragon's Den for real...and then there is no walking out. Sooner or later the Movie Journey must become a Real Journey.
And we never know, in advance, when that will be. It just sort of creeps up on us, unexpected, unannounced and unwanted. Like an Illness…
An Illness is a good example. Like most Hardships, Illness can lead into a Hero's Journey and it is more than capable of bringing out the Hero quality in us.
There is an amazing book called the "Alchemy of Illness", by Mary Duff, if I remember correctly. Grab it if you can find it! The young woman faced what so many of us face sooner or later: a debilitating and life threatening illness. What made this woman extra-ordinary is that she used this illness as her Hero's Journey into the Darkness where she encountered her own horrors and fears and anxieties to emerge, at the end of it, a new and transformed person. A Hero!
And that is why she called her Illness an "Alchemy", because that is what Alchemy means: to change lead into gold. And that is what the Hero's Journey does: we are NOT heroes to begin with, but the fire of the Alchemical Hero's Journey transforms us along the way and we emerge, at the end of the it, Transformed and Re-born!
****
Problems are Problems. We can run from them, or we can face them and enter upon the Hero's Journey.
We are not talking about everyday petty nuisances here. We are talking about the Big Problems that simply won't go away. Don Juan in "Journey to Ixtlan" calls them an "encounter with Power", leading to a battle that "a Warrior would give anything to have…"
So, when you are faced with an insurmountable Problem, put your hands together and say, thank you…
You had the luck of a fool! as Don Juan would say.
ends
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