Ever Forward

Haunted Mountain

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The present moment can be like an arena of battle. If it were always a pleasant place to be we would never leave it. But the truth is the present can be a rigorous experience. The present is where reality lives, and reality can be hard. In fact, reality can be hard even when it's good. Most experiences, from the bitter to the delightful, touch on limitations that make it hard to fully experience life.

The present moment is an entrance into the tunnel of transformation. The mythic path begins and ends in the present moment.

All my insecurities live in the present, that's why the tendency to escape it, into some form of distraction, is so strong. It's hard to stay in your body, on the ground, when what you are feeling is painful. It is by remaining in the present that we truly experience who we are. It is there -- in the present -- that we are strongest, most effective at engaging the painful parts of experience, and most capable of fully experiencing joy.

Ever forward.

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J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a poem called Mythopoeia. That's pronounced myth-o-pee-a. In that poem he builds on the Nordic idea of the storyteller as "maker." He refers to poets and storytellers as "legend-makers," "little makers" who participate with their craft in the Divine Making of creation.

Looking at the world as it is, it's hard to think of humanity as participants in the act of divine creation. But yesterday I helped out with a creative writing workshop for kids, run by the Spells Writing Center in Philadelphia. As always, I was struck by the quiet, undeniable energy of children bent on creation. There's nothing quite like a child rapt by the vastness of possibility. That clear-eyed face, frowning with concentration, peering into imagination, oblivious for a time of the pen and paper, assures me that it's the kids, not the adults, who stand the best chance of saving the world.

We grown ups are great for making changes in how things work. We make a difference in that we choose which messes to clean up. We do this in the world and in our inner condition. That's important, but it's not what I mean. Kids with access to creative time and space, who have guidance and encouragement are changing the very fabric of human consciousness. They're not doing repair work, they're laying foundations that are healthy to begin with. An army of kids who create will fashion an army of adults who can really lead. They are, literally, creating a brand new world.

But kids don't think about that. They just create for the sake of creating. A kid will write a two page story complete with an illustration just because she wants to. That's the most powerful form of creation there is. The kind that needs no reason, has no purpose. A vision forms in the child's mind and he follows it. That energy is raw and enough of it will shake the ground. This is the missing ingredient in adult society: pure creativity for its own sake.

But we adults can do it, too, if we want to. We just have to work at it. We have to let go of the need to make money at it, or to be good at it. We have to become at ease with the sense of exposure that goes along with any act of creation. I'm certain it's just a simple lack of practice. You can get good at expressing yourself. You can become fearless in developing your talents. You can reap the benefits of daily acts of creation. But it takes practice.

It's important to look at society as the sum total of the personalities it comprises. If we keep encouraging kids -- all the way to adulthood -- to spend time creating, exploring ideas, discovering their talents and abilities, we will change the world. We will stop the wars. We'll figure out poverty and pollution, because we'll have raised a breed of decision makers who can see. At long last we'll have a generation of true human beings, a tribe of people who know who they are because all along the way they've been doing what it takes to find out.

Ever forward.

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According to legend, the Hydra was a nine-headed beast that guarded a gate to the Underworld. Hercules faced it as one of his Twelve Labors, and found that each time he managed to cut off one of the heads, two more sprang from the wound to replace it. Maybe worst of all, one of the heads was immortal and even Hercules could not destroy it completely.

This legend provides a great metaphor for the mythic journey into the inner condition, and the struggle involved in uncovering and liberating the self. The Hydra's immortal head symbolizes the ongoing nature of the struggle, and the fact that we must, unavoidably, experience our fears and exhibit our dysfunctional behaviors in order to progress through them into wholeness.

That is the mythic path.

If you want to penetrate the Underworld of your being, you have to face the Hydra.

The Hydra can't be killed. However bitter it may be to simply experience fear and insecurity, the real strength of these things, the real strength of the Hydra, is its ability to engage us forever, to keep us fighting at the entrance of the Underworld without ever going in.

As a symbol, the regenerating heads reveal the futility of responding with brute force to an encounter with insecurity. Too often we respond to our fears by attempting to bully ourselves through the experience. This lack of self compassion strengthens and invigorates the Hydra. To berate yourself for your insecurity is to feed the Hydra. To reject yourself in favor of the opinion of others is to feed the Hydra. To constantly give fresh battle to the heads of the beast helps the Hydra fulfill its mission: to prevent you from entering the underground of your being, and to keep your God self from entering the world.

We have to circumvent the power of insecurity and pain -- the power of the Hydra. To do that we must experience these things, go through them, and keep going. You have to follow the trail of the Hydra back to its lair, to the source of its strength, in the Underworld.

Ever forward.

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When you tread the mythic path you will endure many rigors. The first is this: you can only begin where you are. The hunt for liberation starts with yourself as you are right now. This is far more challenging than it seems at first. To see yourself, really see yourself as you are can be brutal. You will need to admit at least to yourself, that you’re still afraid, still angry, still capable of inappropriate behavior, whatever it is that's true of you. But self acceptance is the very bottom line. You have to accept the shape you're in. Only then can you grow, heal and become transformed. You must not blame, judge, hate, ignore or in any way reject yourself. These things result in staying put in your weakness, your limitation, and your pain.

On the mythic path, it's likely that your first task will be to treat yourself with compassion. No "don't be stupid." No "why are you such an idiot?" No "don't be such a baby." And above all no "other people have it way worse than you." Developing the ability to respond with compassion to your own insecurity could take a long time. You need to be prepared for that, and willing to do it because until you do you won't grow. You can yourself be the worst, angriest, most negative nay sayer you will encounter. You can yourself be the greatest danger you will face. But on this journey you cannot afford to make an enemy of yourself. And unless you practice the art of self love and compassion, you will.

Ever forward.

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By deciding to view life as a mythic endeavor, we accept the hard work. No mythic goal was ever achieved without pain. That's a big part of what makes it mythic. Those who will not struggle cannot live a consciously mythic life. If we choose to pursue comfort we may achieve it. But we will not discover life that way. We will not uncover who we really are because to do that requires certain specific things, all of which bring struggle. We must discover and develop our talents. We must apply ourselves to creative expression that is more than occasional. We must attempt build a dream based on the impulses of our hearts. And above all we must love one another. A mythic endeavor requires the construction of an interior life, with an awareness that habitually interprets my exterior life and discovers there meaning and trajectory.

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The name Odysseus is taken to mean "Son of Pain." It's thought to be based on the "middle voice" of the Greek verb odussomai which means "to feel anger toward, to rage or hate." The "middle voice" is important, because it means that all the rage and hate is a two-way street. It's not simply taken or received, it's both. The one doing the raging is also raged against.

In his version of The Odyssey, Robert Fagles makes an interesting clarification in his notes to the text. He points out that the verb odussomai resembles another Greek word: ôdinô, which according to Fagles means "to suffer pain, especially the pain of labor -- as the rigors by which the hero brings his identity to life."

Fagles regards the word Odysseus to mean "'man of pain' but both active and passive, doing and done to, agent and victim both, inflicting and bearing pain yet somehow born himself in the process." One of Fagles' citations points to a margin note found in an old manuscript of The Odyssey. The note "of uncertain but ancient date," occurs alongside Odysseus's description of a boar hunt he went on in his youth. (Book 19 in The Odyssey.) The boar wounds Odysseus and Odysseus kills the boar. The note, in Greek, is a comment on the meaning of the scene. It reads: "When he grew up -- when he odysseused."

This ancient commentator turns the name itself -- Odysseus -- into a synonym for growing up. Each of us could just as easily insert our own name to describe our process of growth and emergence. Everyone except me that is, since my name has already been hijacked and now means the exact opposite of the point I'm trying to make. Thanks.

But it's important that one of the oldest western documents we know of, one of the pillars of our perspective has long been recognized to contain this basic truth: we become who we are by taking and inflicting pain. The story, among other things, is a tale about emerging from the acquired details of what we have been taught, and uncovering from that dross the natural glow of who we actually are.

Odysseus is his own frame of reference. He's a bit of a loose cannon, but he's doing it. Each of us needs to become his, her own frame of reference. I'm talking about the reflexive, habitual ability to choose for ourselves, based on our own experience, and according to the deep stirrings of our own hearts. Regardless of what other people think. We have to be able to do so honestly and without pretense. This is a vital ingredient to full life. Building that frame of reference into a trustworthy instrument is a big part of the task. And it's during that process that mistakes get made. Once we're up and running, we tend to treat people with the kindness and respect that goes hand in hand with true individuation. That comes when I feel secure in life, and security only happens if I dive in and undertake my personal odyssey.

One of the hallmarks of being your own frame of reference is the willingness to make mistakes. Those of us who fear making mistakes also fear being ourselves. We don't want to get it wrong. And as a result we do. We get it horribly wrong. But when we allow ourselves to show forth, the little things we fear will go wrong tend to burn up in the fire of our beauty. This crossing over can seem terrible. It can seem like a raging beast to be defeated or outwitted.

Odysseus just goes along, in search of himself, being himself with abandon, until he arrives home to his Penelope. He's proud of who he is. One of his objectives in life is to be known as Odysseus. Along the way he hurts people and gets hurt. He does some brutal things and undergoes some real brutality. He makes some terrible mistakes that get people killed. But it's a story, a dramatic portrayal. The Odyssey uses extremes to describe what it's like to be a person: one misstep and you can get hurt. Another misstep and you can hurt someone else. The important thing about Odysseus is that he's doing it.

Here in the twenty-first century, we share with Odysseus a common objective: to be known for who we are. The only way to do that is to be who we are and there's the rub. Sometimes being yourself brings pain: for yourself, for others, or both. Most often it's because someone can't take your radiance. When you are yourself you're a light in the world, regardless of how you feel. Any difficult feelings are simply a result of the conditioning you've undergone. If you exhibit confidence you are a true menace. People who lack confidence will be unbalanced by your presence. If your real self happens to be noticeably different from your surroundings you will undoubtedly arouse the fear of those who can't handle or have not discovered their own individuality.

You will experience alienation, fighting, hurt feelings and the insistence that you stop being yourself. It can happen in social groups, between friends, and most especially inside the family. It is this potential for discomfort and pain that keeps many people from ever experiencing who they really are. This means they are cut off from their own true potential, forced to reject or deny their own dreams and feelings. This is no way to live. But it's very common.

This unnatural state is the breeding pool for cruelty, disregard and greediness. Without access to our true selves we cannot act or even think on positive behalf of others or the world around us. We become acquiring machines. Anyone who is kind, who cares and exhibits concern through action, that person has some kind of access to herself which fuels her goodness. A shoot, a seedling of her true nature lives in her heart. The mythic life consists of cultivating that seed. Look at the truly cruel: they are cut off from themselves. Look at the truly loving: they have full access. Most of us are somewhere in between.

One of the hardest things to learn is that the hurt feelings of others are not your responsibility. Other people's feelings are THEIR responsibility. It's typical that we place responsibility for our pain on others. It's typical, and it's wrong. I do not advocate deliberately hurting people. I advocate courtesy, respect and kindness, but all the while being yourself. When that arouses the pain in others, as it inevitably will, that pain is theirs to deal with, not yours. Like Odysseus, you're just being yourself.

The idea of rejecting yourself in favor of protecting someone else from their own feelings is destructive. And it's disrespectful to the other person. When you seek to protect them from life you're saying to them, "You can't handle life as it really is. You need me to make this decision for you." If you were to actually say those words to that person, you'd probably make them angry. By leaving them alone with their feelings you're saying to them, "I trust that you are capable of managing your own feelings as a fellow adult in this world, and you don't need my protection."

When a person experiences their feelings, that person has a chance to grow, to become more free, to release more of their radiance into the world. It's not up to you to make people grow, but you have no right to stand in the way of that growth out of some arrogant belief that you know what is best for them. Or worse, out of some knee-jerk response that makes you try to avoid an awkward situation simply because it's awkward, regardless of the fact that it helps someone else avoid reality. That's the worst form of self preservation, the kind that serves no one, including yourself. The kind that, in fact, robs everyone involved of a life-giving experience.

To give birth to our true identities as people of light and goodness, we have to live. And living is hard if you really do it. It's a risky, tricky, messy situation we're in. It's called the human condition. Huge structures and systems have been contrived to avoid it, to fabricate an alternative. But you can't long escape the deep pool that underlies all experience, not if you want to have life to the full. The ones who thrive here, the ones who walk with confidence in their being are the ones who accept that and just dive in.

Ever forward.

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The motive for engaging in life on mythic terms is the Utter Self. It's the self we dream about, the one that is free and confident in all situations, even in failure. The Utter Self is what lies beyond our limitations, it's the prize for engaging and enduring those limitations with courage and perseverance. It is our potential unlocked. It treats everyone with respect, kindness and forgiveness because that's how it treats itself.

If we live mythically we will always be setting off on new adventures, constantly engaging new challenges to our inner safety, and constantly discovering that we are more then we thought we were. The Utter Self is the prize at the end of each of these quests, and it is always worth the struggle. As life goes on and we connect more and more with the Utter Self, it leaves more and more of itself behind, visible in the everyday world. As we proceed along the mythic path, we become more powerful, more grounded, more naturally ourselves. We unleash the Utter Self upon the world.

The mythic life leads me into deeper knowledge of myself. It gives me access to areas of my being that are always there, but of which I am not always conscious. The more self aware I am, the more potent I am in carrying out my own life. The more readily I can tap and maximize my strengths and build on my weaknesses, the more clearly I can connect with and participate in my life's path. I become more present and more capable of opening up to the influx of divine energy that is constantly flowing through me, seeking to take the unique shape that only I can give it. The more deliberate I am about this process, the more it will manifest.

There is an old Hopi saying (borrowed by President Obama early in his campaign): "We are the ones we have been waiting for." The meaning of this saying is different for each of us and hangs on our ideals. It's valuable to ask what it means to you, because it's a great window into the relationship between who you are, and who you want to be. What are you waiting for? What is that elusive ideal and what does it mean that you feel it's absence?

"I am the one I've been waiting for." This goes straight to the heart of the mythic life. All benefit flows from connection to self. Any good I can do for my neighbor or for the world begins with that vital connection. But I have not been merely waiting for it. I have been searching for it. In the mythic life, I have gone in pursuit of it. I endure my fears, my anxieties, my insecurities, my limitations, all in the effort to find it, to release it into my life. The Utter Self.

It is me I've been praying to -- that part of God that is me. There is an aspect of myself that is connected to God at all times. All the true spiritual practices are intended to open up the flow of this interchange, me with my God-self, me with God. All true myth tells the story of how this can be achieved. It is the most basic pattern of reality as we experience it in this life and it's symbols are everywhere. Birth and death. Sleeping and waking. The cycles of the seasons, the planets and the stars. We make passage after passage deeper into our selves, dying all the deaths large and small that slowly leave us bereft of our illusions, so that we may begin to perceive the truth and live in freedom from the lies born of fear.

I am the one that I've been searching for.

In the movie Angel-A, Andre askes the mysterious woman who has been helping him if she is an angel. She tells him, "I'm you. I'm you as you really are." We are all angels, beings of power and light. Our struggle here is meant to show us that, help us discover that, to assume that role in the world. It's different for each of us, but our talents and dreams are clues to what it will look like when we find it. The Utter Self is simply me as I really am, my God-self, as I will discover time and again along the mythic path.

Ever forward.

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Mark 6:7-13 (Fifteenth Sunday in ordinary time)

The mythic content of this gospel passage can’t be overstated. The key line is “He instructed them to take nothing for the journey... .” This reading touches the core of the mythical experience:

Trust.

A mythic life requires trust in the path. In The Art of War, Sun Tzu instructs his reader to literally rely on the circumstances of battle to provide victory. This is truly strong medicine. Applied to life, this approach contradicts pretty much everything the western mind is trained from childhood to do: be in control and leave nothing to chance.

On deeper scrutiny, however, and with the mythical dynamics of life in mind, it becomes clear that this is exactly what Jesus and Sun Tzu are counseling: leave nothing to chance. In their view, we are more at risk of something going wrong if we try to control things, rather than letting the path lead us, require choices of us, and provide the necessary information to handle those choices.

It depends on your motive. Are you trying to get through life safe and sound, with no cuts or bruises, in a manner that is predictable and secure? Are you trying to be as comfortable as you possibly can until you die? Or are you trying to surrender yourself to participation in your life’s purpose, willing to undergo gaps in security and periods of mental anguish? If the latter, then you leave all to chance by trying to control your situation. You stifle the workings of destiny. You curtail the natural flow of your life.

“Just a walking stick,” Jesus says. That’s all you can take with you. A simple, practical tool for the road. He wasn’t naive, after all. His disciples had a lot of walking ahead of them. “And if they won’t receive you, shrug it off and move on.” In other words, sound judgment. Trust in the path has nothing to do with blindness or wishful thinking. It’s hard, nuts-and-bolts work and a daily grind. But a grind with purpose. Apart from a few simple tools, trust and sound judgment are pretty much it.

In his novel Damien, Herman Hesse tells his reader “your destiny loves you and wants you to achieve it.” This is the wisdom both Sun Tzu and Jesus reveal to their adherents. No matter how difficult things get, no matter how scary, allow the path to lead you. This is the core value of the mythic perspective, and the organizing principle of a mythic life.

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