The Hero Within

by Dale A. Johnson

The hero is the person who journies beyond
his or her present stage of being
to a new and authentic level
of thought, feeling, and behavior,
by confronting their whole being
So as to live from their true inner self
as it flows from the source of ALL.
And to compassionately share this wisdom with others.

DAJ

"To find your own way is to follow your own bliss.

This involves analysis,

watching yourself

and seeing where the real deep bliss is --

not the quick little excitement,

but the real, deep, life-filling bliss."
Joseph Campbell

Dedicated to a true hero:

Marta Hayden-Johnson

Seven Stages of Transformation

The Separation

Stage 1: The Call

Stage 2: The Crossing

The Initiation

Stage 3: The Trials

Stage 4: The Abyss

The Transformation

Stage 5: Enlightenment

Stage 6: Reconciliation

The Return

Stage 7: Wisdom

Dedicated to a true hero:

Marta Hayden-Johnson

Separation

(from the known)

The story of Jacob and Esau is the story of a hero, at least for Jacob`s part. We begin the story with the struggle at birth. Jacob and Esau fight to get out of the womb, or so it seems. Nevertheless, Esau is born first with Jacob trailing behind holding onto his brother`s heel.

I have always preferred to read this story in a psychological way, particularly from a Jungian point of view. Jacob and Esau represent our masculine and feminine sides, our consciousness and unconsciousness respectively. We read the story of Jabcob throughout the book of Genesis but very little is told about the life of Esau. So it is with our animus and anima. Every normal person is formed from these two sides. We possess a feminine and masculine side as well as a conscious and unconscious side to our personalities. Throughout life we seek to integrate these different sides. We probe the unconscious to discover repressed emotions and hidden desires. We embrace our feminine and masculine sides in order to become full human beings. This is the hero`s journey. It is a dangerous but ultimately rewarding path to follow if we are humble and brave.

Jacob makes a deal with Esau to trade food for his birth-right. Esau, the hunter, comes to Jacob complaining of needing food. Jacob takes advantage of this moment and asks for Esau to sell him his birthright. Esau reasons that his birthright is of no use to him because he is about to die so he trades his birthright for food and drink. In much the same way our unconscious rises up in the form of fears and dreams. After all this is was Esau represents. He is the symbol if not the actual fear welling up in us. We can remember the moments when sexual or death fantasies rise up in our dreams or are triggered by a scary story or movie. We would do anything to smother the fear or satisfy the agony of desire. We battle with our conscious side and drown our fears in food, drink, excessive pleasure. We feed the devil in the hope he will go away.

Yet, in the story of Jacob, we see that a price is paid by Esau. He gives up his birthright. What we often do not recognize is that Jacob pays a price to. He now carries the burden of the birthright, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it. The weight of this burden leads him to deceive his aged father in order to get his blessing. He is so determined to get what is his, after all he purchased the birthright fair and square, that he lies to his father. He says that he is Esau. He and his mother (the big anima) conspire together to get Isaac`s blessing. His mother dresses Jacob in Esau`s skins, she feeds the old man spicy food so he cannot smell so well. Still Issac is not so sure it is Esau who comes near and asks for a blessing. He asks Jacob to bend down to kiss him. Only then does he think that his is Esau. He can smell the earthiness on the skins. He gives Jacob the blessing thinking he is Esau.

Our consciousness if forever reinventing itself. It is a defense mechanism to avoid the pain of reconciliation and wholesomeness we are destined to recover. We are made to be the whole and fully integrated beings. But we repress what we do not like and what we fear into our unconsciousness. We deny our anima or animus afraid that we would be to vulnerable or out of control. It prevents us from being fully integrated and whole. It is the cause of our suffering.

Jacob leaves his home and family. He leaves what is know for the adventure of the unknown. In a way it is a substitute for reconciliation with his brother, his unconscious side, his feminine, spiritual, and vulnerable inner being. The deceit and reinvention has led to a terrible division and separation from Esau. Esau almost immediately discovers the trick of Jacob and pleads with his father to give him the blessing. His father refuses several times. Finally he gives into Esau and gives him an alternate and somewhat horrible blessing. He tells him that he shall live by the sword and serve his brother. If this isn't repression, then I do not know what is. It is a picture of the unconscious anima being crushed into oblivion. Anger, revenge, hatred are seeds planted in the dark rage of Esau. It gives Jacob the perfect reason to leave. Esau plans to murder his brother. Jacob is told to leave and go to Laban, his Uncle.

This is the story of every person's life. We are born into the world consisting of elements of both conscious and unconscious forces. We are made up of feminine and masculine traits in a psychological sense. Each of us has capacities for love, reason, willfulness, courage, and despair. Each trait has its place in the constellation of emotion and personality. Our task as human beings is to integrate all these powers of consciousness and unconsciousness into a fully authentic human being. The very power we are born with to integrate these powers is all the power to reinvent and substitute the false or invented self for the true self we are meant to be. The drive to pursue the hero`s journey is also the power to pervert, to take deviant paths and side trails into the wilderness where we are not meant to be.

The story of Jacob is the story of return and reconciliation. It is a story of every authentic person.

Stage 1

The Call:

Jacob journeys toward the land of Laban. He lays down to sleep and has a dream where he sees a ladder going to heaven with angels ascending and descending on it. God speaks to him and gives him a promise. Jacob says among other things, this is the gate of heaven. He builds an altar and calls the place Bethel, the House of God.

Clearly this is Jacob's call in the same way a young person gets a vision of what he or she wants to be. It may be practical or impractical. No matter what, it is a calling. With boldness Jacob ventures forth.

Somehow you have heard the call about an opportunity to serve in a distant remote place. That place may be in a neighborhood next door, a place you would have never gone unless you heard the call. That place could be a foreign land in what we sometimes call the third world. You have heard the call. Have you considered how you heard that distant sound that no one hears but you? Others around you may wonder what you have heard. They may question if you heard correctly. They may have even tried to talk you out of following that call complaining that it is too dangerous, too far away, too unknown. But you know that there is nothing that can stop you. It is something you must do.

The Call invites us into the adventure, offers us the opportunity to face the unknown and gain something of physical or spiritual value. We may choose willingly to undertake the quest, or we may be dragged into it unwillingly.

The Call may come boldly as a "transformative crisis," a sudden, often traumatic change in our lives. Or may quietly occur, with our first perception of it being a vague sense of discontent, imbalance or incongruity in our lives. Within this range the Call can take many forms:

· Something was taken from us and our quest is to reclaim it,

· Something is lacking in our life, and we must find what is missing,

· Something is not permitted to members of our society, and we must win these rights for our people.

On a psychological level, the call might be an awareness of a shift in our spiritual or emotional "center of gravity." We discover that we have outgrown our roles.

Many people end the journey here at the point of the Call. They sense their fear of leaving the known. The sound of fear overpowers the song of compassion. In fact I believe that most people quit the journey at this point, satisfied to have heard the Call as if it can be a substitute for the journey itself. Unfortunately, the call is recognition of our true self and to abandon the call is self denial which strangely becomes a substitute for the true life we are meant to live. So many people abandon the journey before they even start. The true self is repressed and an inauthentic life replaces the an authentic response to the call.

Lives of quiet desperation are the subjects of so many play, movies, and other art forms. It is the story of most people and it is the reason so many people relate to these stories. Tennessee Williams is perhaps one of the greatest playwrights of the last century who knew how to sound out this cry of failure to listen. A Streetcar Named Desire, the Glass Menagerie, and Cat on a Hot Tim Roof. To not follow one's call leads to a life of madness. It is a life of madness. Stanley Kowalski ends the play in A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, listening to his own voice shouting out the name Stella, the Latin word for star, which metaphorically is a call to his destiny who has left him.

John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath we observe a whole family, the Joads, are thrown off their land by the bank and head west to California where the story ends in a flood and a dead baby. The baby is the metaphor of a lost dream. California was not a true call, it was a response to a negative circumstance. Instead of facing the challenges of the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma, the family tumbles along route 66 like an uprooted weed blown by the wind.

Hemingway Many of his tales, especially in earlier years, centered around a character named Nicholas Adams, undoubtedly an incarnation of Hemingway himself. Just as Hemingway before him, Nick Adams grew up around the Michigan woods, went overseas to fight in the war, was severely wounded, and returned home. Earlier stories set in Michigan, such as "Indian Camp" and "The Three-Day Blow" show a young Nick to be an impressionable adolescent trying to find his path in a brutally violent and overwhelmingly confusing world. Like most all of Hemingway's main characters, Nick on the surface appears tough and insensitive. However, "critical exploration has resulted in a widespread conclusion that the toughness stems not from insensitivity but from a strict moral code which functions as the characters' sole defense against the overwhelming chaos of the world. This moral defense was also what has kept him from hearing the call to his real self.

I do not believe that hearing the Call to separate from the known happens accidentally, nor even by power of personal desire. Hearing the call to separate oneself from the known requires preparation. One must be in a state of being so that the a clarion call pierces through the veil of cacophonous noise of everyday life. This preparation most often comes through study and discipline. It creates conditions for quiet moments so that we can listen to our breath. Preparation usually comes by benefit of others who love us and have created conditions so that we can enter into a state of being so we can hear that distant call.

Buddha`s Call

Gautam Buddha was born as Prince Siddhartha, in the lap of luxury. Exposed to an overdose of riches and comfort right from the beginning, the prince, while still relatively young, exhausted for himself the fields of fleshly joy, thus becoming ripe for a higher, transcendent experience.

The young prince remained glued to his pleasure chambers and had no contact with ground reality. His palace, and the sensual pleasures which it contained, were his only limiting worlds.

Once, after a particularly hectic schedule of sensual frenzy, Siddhartha was suddenly awakened from his blissful sleep, in the middle of the night. Surrounding him were the remnants of last night's debauchery and revelry. The sight of the shameless naked flesh and the overflowing wine pitchers jarred him into the unreality of his own reality. He felt suffocated in those very environs which had once given him what he thought were the pleasures of paradise. He immediately arose form his gold-gilded bed, descended the stairs and asked his favorite charioteer to take him to an open space where he could breathe more freely.

He had traveled only a few miles when he came across a sight which was totally new to him in terms of the distressing emotions it stirred up in the innermost depths of his heart.

Right in front of him was an old man, tottering on a stick, his physical frame entirely ravaged by the trials of time. Never having been exposed to such an image, Siddhartha asked his charioteer who that individual was, and why he was the way he was?

When he heard that the man had deteriorated due to his advancing age, the next natural question was whether he himself, Siddhartha, the prince of the mighty Shakya clan, and all those whom he loved would one day be exposed to the same degradation? Confronted with the truth, the reply completely shattered him, and he asked to be taken back to the comforting environs of the palace.

In the journey of the hero, a figure suddenly appears as a guide, marking a turning point in the biography. This symbolic figure is somehow profoundly familiar to the unconscious, but is unknown, and even frightening to the conscious self. Thereafter, even though the hero returns for a while to his familiar occupations, he finds them unfruitful. A continuing series of signs of increasing force will then become visible. According to Campbell, "The Four Signs," which appeared to the Buddha, are the most celebrated examples of the call to adventure in the literature of the world. These are signals from a higher domain, summons, which can no longer be denied.

Here it is also significant to note that being awakened in the midst of his blissful sleep was another call of destiny. Modern psychoanalysis has confirmed that when we are asleep, we travel to realms unavailable to our waking moments. These are the depths of our consciousness, which is but a part of the combined heritage of humanity. To quote the words of Jung, in a dream: "man is no longer a distinct individual but his mind widens out and merges into the mind of the mankind - not the conscious mind, but the unconscious mind of mankind, where we are all the same."

Jolted from his subliminal dream state, the immediate horror of his temporal circumstances made Siddhartha, the future Buddha, realize his own cutting of from this eternal dimension of life. Thus a feeling of rootlessness gripped him and he felt himself disjointed and lonely, even amongst the multitude of those who loved him. The hero's journey almost always begins with such a call.

According to Campbell, the moment the hero is ready for the destined adventure, the proper heralds, or callers to his destiny appear automatically, as if by divine design. We have already noticed the first such herald, namely the old man above. The Buddha later came across three more such signs: a sick man, a dead man and a monk.

His mind greatly agitated by the first three disturbing views, Buddha at last came upon his final call, when he laid his eyes upon the monk. The confident spiritual calm he perceived within the monk emboldened him to the fact that amidst the inevitability of suffering and distress, there was still ground for sufficient optimism, and salvation.

Thus the first stage of the mythological journey, which is the 'call to adventure,' signifies that destiny has summoned the hero, and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown.

Stage 2

The Journey (with guardians, helpers, and mentors)

Jacob crosses the threshold at Bethel and travels to the land of Laban. Upon entry to this land he sees Rachel at the well. Jacob is smitten. Of course this is his cousin. He tells her that he is the son of her aunt and she takes him to her father. After being a house guest for a month, Laban and Jacob negotiate a deal. Laban needs someone to work for him and Jacob wants to marry Rachel. So Jacob agrees to work for seven years in exchange for the daughter of Laban. Laban tricks Jacob and gives him his eldest daughter Leah. Jacob is outraged. He works another seven years to get Rachel. The deceiver is deceived. Jacob, who tricked his father, is outmaneuvered by his uncle. The real world comes crashing down on his dreams and reality. Jacob had constructed a world in which everything would go his way and he becomes a slave to his ambition. He is blinded by his greed and lust, and in turn pays a big price.

Once called to the adventure, we must pass over the Threshold. The Threshold is the "jumping off point" for the adventure. It is the interface between the known and the unknown. In the known world, we feel secure because we know the landscape and the rules. Once past the threshold, however, we enter the unknown, a world filled with challenges and dangers.

Often at the threshold, we encounter people, beings, or situations which block our passage. These "threshold guardians" have two functions. They protect us by keeping us from taking journeys for which we are unready or unprepared. However, once we are ready to meet the challenge, they step aside and point the way. More importantly, to pass the guardian is to make a commitment, to say: "I'm ready. I can do this."

Early in our lives, our parents function as our threshold guardians. They try to keep us from doing things which would cause us harm. As we get older, our parents' job becomes more difficult. They must both protect and push, measuring our capabilities against the challenges we must face.

As adults, our threshold guardians are much more insidious. They are our fears, our doubts, our ineffective thought and behavior patterns. In fact, they may be the "dragon in disguise," our greatest fear, the catalyst for the journey, taunting and threatening, daring us to face him in the abyss.

Also at the threshold (and very often later in the journey), we will encounter a helper (or helpers). Helpers provide assistance or direction. Often they bring us a divine gift, such as a talisman, which will help our through the ordeal ahead.

The most important of these helpers is the mentor or guide. The mentor keeps we focused on our goal and gives us stability, a psychological foundation for when the danger is greatest.

Helpers and guides may appear throughout the journey. Fortunately, they tend to appear at the most opportune moments. The Swiss psychologist called these "meaningful coincidences" synchronicity.

We need to understand, too, that the journey is ours. Our mentor and helpers can assist and point the way, but they cannot take take the journey for us. The challenge is ours, must be ours if we are to benefit from it and grow.

To hear that voice often requires a guide who will invite us to listen to the sound of our own heart. In my own life, I was introduced to a man who was a scholar of 17 languages and lived a life of discipline. His model and inspirational life forced me to look at myself, my own beliefs, my own lack of discipline. He breathed into me (after all this is what inspiration means) the sweet air of desire for knowledge and wisdom. I wanted to be like him. Another person in my life challenged me at every step of life I took. He was an irascible being but I knew that he held important tools for me to use in the building of a life of worth. But to do that I had to face a life of transformation.

Journey to the Unknown

Your real duty
is to go away from the community
to find your bliss.

Breaking out
is following your bliss pattern,
quitting the old place,
starting your hero journey,
following your bliss.

You throw off yesterday
as the snake sheds its skin.

Its by going down into the abyss
that we recover the treasures of life.

The hero feels off-center, and when one is off-center, it's time to go. The hero leaves a certain social situation, moves into his own loneliness and finds the jewel. This departure occurs when the hero feels something has been lost and goes to find it. It is the crossing of the threshold into a new life. It is a dangerous adventure, since one is moving out of the known into the unexplored, unknown sphere.

The disenchanted prince Siddhartha believed that he was setting out on an exciting adventure. He felt the lure of the 'wide open' road, and the shining, perfect state of 'homelessness.'

But even then, it was not easy enough for him to leave behind the structured space of his home for the untamed forests. Texts mention that before finally leaving his palace, he could not resist the temptation to take a last peek at his wife and son sleeping upstairs. But his resolve was strong enough to bear the emotional brunt of the separation. Not looking back again, he went directly to his destined quest.

Trials and Tribulations of the Journey

When he set about on his journey, the Buddha did not know what lay in store for him. What he did know was that:

The goal of life
is to make your heartbeat
match the beat of the universe,
to match your nature with Nature.

The joy of the hero's adventure lies in exploring the unknown, through which nature unfolds and reveals its hidden treasures. The Buddha too experimented with various unexplored avenues, before coming to the ultimate spiritual realization.

He first tried asceticism. Since he believed his disillusionment to stem from the cravings of his body, his first reaction was to negate it totally, even to the extent that he stopped eating. Consequently, his bones stuck out like a row of spindles, and when he touched his stomach, he could almost feel his spine. His hair fell out and his skin became withered. But all this was in vain. However severe his austerities, perhaps even because of them, the body still clamored for attention, and he was still plagued by lust and craving. In fact, he seemed more conscious of himself than ever. Finally, Buddha had to face the fact that asceticism had failed to redeem him. All he had achieved after this heroic assault upon his body was a prominent rib cage, and a dangerously weakened physique.

Nevertheless, Buddha was still optimistic. He was certain that it was possible for human beings to reach the final liberation of enlightenment. And at that very moment, when he seemed to have come to a dead end, the beginning of a new solution declared itself to him. He realized that instead of torturing our reluctant selves into the final release, we might be able to achieve it effortlessly and spontaneously, as Campbell says:

The tree of life is said to be standing at the axis of the cosmos, and is a common feature of salvation mythology. It is the place where the divine energies pour into the world, where humanity encounters the absolute, and becomes more fully itself. We need only recall the cross of Jesus, which according to Christian legend, stood on the same spot as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. The hero as the incarnation of god is himself the navel or axis of the world, the umbilical point through which the energies of eternity break into time. More than a physical point, it is a psychological state which enables us to see the world and ourselves in perfect balance. Without this psychological stability and this correct orientation, enlightenment is not possible.

Hence, seated at the spiritual center of the world, Buddha dived into his own inner universe. As he sat in isolated meditation, the potential hero gave himself to the practice of mindfulness. This practice consists in observing, as a detached observer, all our activities: eating, drinking, chewing, tasting, defecating, walking, standing, sitting, sleeping, waking, speaking, and keeping silent.

He noticed the way ideas coursed through his mind and the constant stream of desires and irritations that could plague him in a brief half hour. He became 'mindful' of the way he responded to a sudden noise or a change in temperature, and saw how quickly even a tiny thing disturbed his peace of mind. This mindfulness was not cultivated in a spirit of neurotic inspection. Buddha had not put his humanity under the microscope in this way in order to castigate himself for his 'sins.' The purpose here is not to pounce on our failings, but becoming acquainted with the way human nature works in order to exploit its capacities. He had become convinced that the solution to the problem of suffering lay within himself and deliverance would come from the refinement of his own mundane nature, and so he needed to investigate it, and get to know it objectively. This could be achieved most effectively through extasis, a word that literally means 'to stand outside the self,' and which is the same as the practice of mindfulness.

As Buddha thus recorded his feelings, moment-by-moment, he became aware that the dukkha (suffering) of life was not confined to the major traumas of sickness, old age and death. It happened on a daily, even hourly basis, in all the minor disappointments, rejections, frustrations, and failures that befall us in the course of a single day. True, there was pleasure in life, but once he had subjected this to the merciless scrutiny of mindfulness, he noticed how often our satisfaction meant suffering for others. For example, the prosperity of one person usually depends upon the exclusion of somebody else, or when we get something that makes us happy, we immediately start to worry about losing it.

As Buddha observed the workings of his mind, he realized how one craving after another took possession of his heart. He noticed how human beings were ceaselessly yearning to become something else, go somewhere else, and acquire something they do not have. Blinded in our desires we almost never see things as they are in themselves, but our vision is colored by whether we want them or not, how we can get them, or how they can bring us profit. These petty cravings assail us hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute, so that we know no rest. We are constantly consumed and distracted by the compulsion to become something different than what we are at present.

'The world, whose very nature is to change, is constantly determined to become something else,' Buddha concluded. 'It is at the mercy of change, it is only happy when it is caught up in the process of change, but this love of change contains a measure of fear and insecurity, and this fear itself is dukkha.'

This constant changing whirlpool of dynamic flux characterizes our temporal existence and dominates it so thoroughly that we lose touch with the eternal essence of our lives, remaining subsumed only in the fleeting and passing moment of current time. Buddha realized that he just had to find that essential link in his inner being, which bound the transient to the eternal. Our existence is defined by our mortal self, and also an immortal divine spark underlying it. When we have found the bridge that links the two, we have attained salvation.

Brooding in this manner, Buddha finally was on the verge of enlightenment, when he was confronted by Mara, Buddha's shadow self, or the residual forces within him which still clung to the old ideals he was trying to transcend. Mara came out decked like a Chakravartin (World Ruler), seated on an elephant, and accompanied by a large army.

Mara's name means delusion. He symbolizes the ignorance which holds us back from enlightenment

Initiation

Not everyone enters adulthood. All one has to do is look at talk shows on television and recognize the sorrowful lives of people who have never grown up. Enormous obese woman complain that their husbands and boyfriends do not love them. It is not because of their size, this was simply a physical response to fear and loathing of life, it is their underdeveloped emotional life. You can hear the child in them exploding in rage over the most trivial things. But it is all the world to them. Their lovers cannot compete for attention. Their own world of petty emotion and hostilities put up a fence to every one who comes near. Men act like boys because they are. Fantasies of being professional ball players and rap stars are no different than their dreams when they entered the first day of school. The real world of responsibility and courage under pressure frightens them. They have no heroes. They live in a world without heroes.

Facing the challenges of a poor performance or a character flaw can be faced with true grit or by disappearance into a hazy world of drugs and escapism. How one responds to a challenge is the test of a hero. Even more so, facing the abyss and embracing the darkness produces fully alive human beings. Nelson Mandela did not smolder in hatred and anger on Robbins Island in South Africa. He could have blamed the world and it would have applauded him. He responded by advancing his education and more importantly by giving himself to others. He created a university of the mind and soul inside the abyss. When he emerged after 30 years he was a remarkably complete man capable of forgiving his jailers, and confident in his ability to lead a nation.

I was in South Africa at the time Mandela was released. I watched a nation transfixed on this remarkable man. People in the streets and in the shops shook their heads in wonder at how this man could seem to be so free of revenge and vindictive rage. Mandela beamed a peacefulness in his heart that radiated across the nation and contributed to one of the most peaceful and bloodless transitions of government in our time. His wife on the other hand had never taken the hero's journey. She remained in a world of revenge and hate. It was no surprise to learn of a divorce which followed soon after. I am sure Mandela loved his wife and I am sure there was a certain amount of pain that came with their separation. The hero's journey is not without suffering and consequence.

Stage 3

The Trials:

Jacob is initiated in the ways of the world. His response is not to whimper and slink away. He quietly rises to the challenge of his uncle Laban and waits for his moment. He tells Laban that he wants to go away and set up life for himself and his families. Laban needs Jacob to work among his herds. A deal is struck, only this time Jacob is wiser and warier. Jacob get to name his wage. At the end of a prescribed time he gets to keep all the spotted and stripped sheep and goats. Jacob has learned a thing or two about genetics and breeding. At the end of the time he has amassed as fortune by carefully breeding spots and stripes into the herds. Laban was furious that he had been tricked by his nephew.

Once past the Threshold, we begin the journey into the unknown. The voyage can be outward into a physical unknown or inward to a psychological unknown. Whichever direction the voyage takes, our adventure puts us more and more at risk, emotionally and physically.

On our quest, we faces a series of challenges or temptations. The early challenges are relatively easy. By meeting them successfully, we build maturity, skill and confidence. As our journey progresses, the challenges become more and more difficult, testing us to the utmost, forcing us to change and grow.

One of our greatest tests on the journey is to differentiate real helpers from "tempters." Tempters try to pull us away from our path. They use fear, doubt or distraction. They may pretend to be a friend or counselor in an effort to divert our energy to their own needs, uses or beliefs. We must rely on our sense of purpose and judgment and the advise of our mentor to help us recognize true helpers.

Whatever the challenges we face, they always seem to strike our greatest weakness: our poorest skill, our shakiest knowledge, our most vulnerable emotions. Furthermore, the challenges always reflect needs and fears, for it is only by directly facing these weaknesses that we can acknowledge and and incorporate them, turn them from demons to gods. If we can't do this, the adventure ends and we must turn back.

We are transformed by our responses to challenges. The challenges often happen due to no fault of our own. Our response is what shapes us. Like the preacher in Grapes of Wrath, John Casey, he gave up being a preacher because it was too hard. He drifts west to California with the Joad family. At the end of the book he is given the bead baby to bury. But it was just too hard so he releases the corpse of the baby in a flooded stream and says "Go down in the street an' rot an' tell 'em that way." It is a repeat and pattern of behavior initiated by his abandonment of his call to be a preacher.

Stage 4

The Abyss:

Jacob is cast away. He takes his herds and families. Laban chases after him because Rachel has stolen idols. Jacob does not know this and allows Laban to search the camp. They agrees to separate and make a covenant to not cross a boundary marker they set up. It is a low point in the life of Jacob, all that he has worked for, all that he has built, is now uprooted and forced into the desert. Jacob is afraid of returning home. His brother hates him. He cannot go back to the house of Laban, he has tricked and outsmarted him. Jacob's greatest fear is meeting his brother.

When we reach the Abyss, we face the greatest challenge of the journey. The challenge is so great at this point that we must surrender ourselves completely to the adventure and become one with it. In the Abyss we must face our greatest fear, and we must face it alone. Here is where we must "slay the dragon," which often takes the shape of something we dread, or have repressed or need to resolve.

There is always the possibility that, because we are unprepared or have a flaw in our character, the challenge beats us. Or perhaps we can't surrender ourselves to it and must retreat. In any case, unless we set off to try again, our life becomes a bitter shadow of what it could have been.

When we are faced with life's challenges we spend a period of time in the darkness of despair if we honestly face the challenge. The often realize that we a inadequate to face the challenge and we wonder how we can overcome the obstacle. In the 12 step program people are given the advice to let go and let God. It is a piece of wisdom for overcoming the obstacles we face. We are commanded to give up. When we do we discover that the shadows disappear in the light of this knowledge.

In 1981 I sat at the Jaffa gate in Jerusalem. I was so discouraged.

The Transformation As we conquer the Abyss and overcome our fears, our transformation becomes complete. The final step in the process is a moment of death and rebirth: a part of us dies so that a new part can be born. Fear must die to make way for courage. Ignorance must die for the birth of enlightenment. Dependency and irresponsibility must die so that independence and power can grow.

Part of the Transformation process is a Revelation, a sudden, dramatic change in the way we think or view life. This change in thinking is crucial because it makes us truly a different person. (The Revelation usually occurs during or after the Abyss, but sometimes it may actually lead us into the Abyss.)

Transformation

Three conditions must exist in order to be transformed. Even though the hero may have separated from the known, faced trials, experienced the Abyss he or she may remain unchanged, exhausted and full of dispair. To enter into a state of transformation we must empty ourselves, be present, and be in the presence.

The first condition is something fundamentally found in all major religious traditions. Christ emptied himself in order to become fully human, we are told by the Apostle Paul. This is known as “kenosis” the Greek word for self emptying.

Stage 5

Enlightenment

One night, Jacob goes into the desert alone. He is hopeless and full of remorse. He has made a mess of his life and the lives of other. His brother whom he fears is ready to attack him with 400 men. Jacob feels doomed. He wrestles a man and is either wounded in the thigh or as some translations say his hip was dislocated. Actually, there is a third possibility. The word for thigh is also the words for one`s sexual organs in the way that the Old English word for loins was used. He is emasculated, at least in a psychological sense. Now this is interesting because Jacob has just crossed the brook Jabbok and has prayed to God to claim his covenant which is that his descendants shall number greater than the sands of the sea. Like his grandfather Abraham, he comes to a point in his life where it looks like it is impossible to fulfill God`s promise of fertility. Abraham thought that he and Sarah were too old but then God performed a miracle. Jacob is emasculated by a divine being after he asks to have his covenant fulfilled. Of course, in a psychological sense this is a well known principle. In twelve step programs people are required to admit utter weakness and inability to conquer their addictions in their own strength. Only then are people able to progress in the remaining steps and ultimately keep their addictions at bay.

This is true enlightenment when we realize that it is not about us....it is about others. Only when we admit our weakness and understand our limitations can we be liberated from self defeating behaviors and all the ways we seek to destroy ourselves.

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Stage 6

The Atonement

Completely defeated, Jacob looks up and sees his brother coming. So much for an answer to prayer. Jacob humbles himself and sends his brother an offering of many animals. He is so afraid of his brother that he sends the animals in groups before him him herded by his servants. Herd after herd of animals are delivered to Esau with specific announcements from his servants that this is a present from Jacob.

When Esau sees his brother he weeps and runs to meet Jacob. It is an act of forgiveness and love. The love of the brother, the object of one's fear, casts out fear. The perfect love of the brothers for each other brings a oneness or atonement at the deepest levels.

Jacob meets his brother. In a deeper sense he confronts his fears. Reconciliation within the self is neither possible nor can we become authentic beings where fear exists. As it says in the New Testament, “Perfect love casteth out fear.” Here is the hint to the way of atonement. Jacob prays to be delivered

After we have been transformed, we go on to achieve Atonement, that is we are "at-one" with our new self. We have incorporated the changes caused by the Journey and we are fully "reborn." In a spiritual sense, the Transformation has brought us into harmony with life and the world. The imbalance which sent us on the journey has been corrected -- until the next call.

The Return

(to the known world)

Stage 7

The Return (with a Gift)

After Transformation and Atonement, we face the final stage of our journey: our Return to everyday life. Upon our return, we discover our gift, which has been bestowed upon us based on our new level of skill and awareness. We may become richer or stronger, we may become a great leader, or we may become enlightened spiritually.

The essence of the return is to begin contributing to our society. In mythology, some heroes return to save or renew their community in some way. Other mythological heroes return to create a city, nation, or religion.

Sometimes, however, things don't go smoothly. For example, we may return with a great spiritual message, but find that our message is rejected. We are ostracized or even killed our for our ideal. We also run the risk of losing our new understanding, having it corrupted by putting ourselves back in the same situation or environment we left earlier.

In some cases, the hero discover that her new level of awareness and understanding is far greater than than the people around her. She may then become disillusioned or frustrated and leave society to be on her own. On the other hand, many great heroes such as Buddha and Jesus have sacrificed the bliss of enlightenment or heaven to remain in the world and teach others.

Remember that the journey is a process of separation, transformation, and return. Each stage must be completed successfully if we are to become Heroic. To turn back is to reject our innate need to grow, and unless we set out again, we severely limit our growth.

In 1994 I was a guest at Snowmass Colorado where I met Thomas Keating, former Abbot of Spencer Abbey and leader the the Centering Prayer movement. During times between prayer I would either work in the greenhouse or work on wood sculptures in a workshop. Fr, Keating would often stop by to look at my work. Usually he would be amused and not say anything. Once when I was working on a large female nude reminiscent of a primal earth mother, he said, "you are not going to show that to anyone are you." I answered, "not if you object to it." He left and the next day he brought a psychiatrist to look at the piece. The psychiatrist loved it and made a donation to the monastery. Several of the monks and I took the large work of art, about four feet high and 200 lbs, to his house.