The Hero’s Journey: Creative Mythology, the healing path
“The mythogenic zone today is the individual with his own interior life, communicating through this art with those out there.” (Joseph Campbell-Creative mythology)
I was sitting and watching the basketball playoffs and was channel surfing during a commercial and there they were again, Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers talking. It was a conversation that took place 30 years ago. I sat transfixed again, still resonating. Campbell, “We are still myth makers, our existence is founded on metaphors. Without them we have nothing. Moyers, “What do you mean nothing?” Campbell, “Metaphors are how we make sense out of things, they are what bind us together. Metaphors through mythology bind our communities together historically. Yet every generation needs to create new metaphors. It is up to the individual because, “In our present world environment of the intermingling religious communities, nationalities, and races, social orders and economies, there is no actual community in depth anywhere . . . . It has become a deranged, demythologized world. (p 91)
Here we are immersed in a world of failed mythologies. And the hero is standing amidst the ruins asking the most pressing question. Why? And why me?
Bewildered, shocked, lost, the internal compass broken, the landscape bleak and meaningless, a post apocalyptic world. Recently I went to see Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot for the 3rd time. It opens on a barren stage, two actors in ragged clothing, one speaks hauntingly, “There is nothing to be done.” And then to defend against this realization they manically run around trying to find some meaning in order to keep them from going insane or killing themselves while waiting.
In order to live we must find a way to make sense of what happens to us. We must have a meaning frame which gives us a sense of significance purpose and a reason to live. From the first campfire, man has sat and told stories that tried to place him in some context of meaning amongst the vast, frightening, mysterious world. He created language and painted on the walls of his caves and told stories.
It is imperative that we make sense, find significance and purpose. If the old myths do not work, then we must create new metaphors which are worthy of commitment and passion. It is essential to our healing.
I found the most difficult part of my journey to be allowing myself to believe in anything and to care about anything. Making sense of what happened and finding a way to reconcile the old with my current experience was challenging. I found that a life without faith and purpose is a life of despair and meaninglessness. I often joked about Camus’ Sisyphus, I was doing a lot of boulder rolling. The cynical laugh as I embraced the absurdity and randomness of my life.
In my struggles I found a book written by James Fowler which I discovered in 1999 (I date books when I buy them). He writes in his book Stages of Faith: “Only with the death of god can we experience a new and more adequate one to emerge. Thus substantive doubt is a part of the life of faith.” He writes very perceptively, “the opposite of faith is not doubt but Nihilism. Nihilism is the inability to imagine any transcendent environment and the despair about the possibility of meaning.”
Despair is hard to live with. I wandered around like this with my dead gods and empty world for 10 years. Gradually the fog lifted as I read and continued searching. I began to see that I needed to build a new world. One that I could care about, invest in and believe. Curiously enough, my awakening came one morning when I awoke and looked up at my bedroom ceiling. I saw garish orange, yellow, and avocado colored flowers. (very 70’s) I realized how much I hated them, I jumped out of bed and went to the hardware store. Long story made short, I spent the next 5 years restoring my old house--built in 1916. By rebuilding my house I was metaphorically rebuilding my life. I took charge, made decisions about what I liked and what really made me comfortable. I empowered myself, I began to care about things, my things. I took an interest in landscaping and plants. This project also restored my relationship with my son and daughter.
All the while I was doing this I maintained a very important relationship with my lifelong, great friend who continually fed and nurtured my soul and intellect with reading suggestions. This gave me direction and new language for old problems. He recently shared his journey when he published his book: Just another Buddhist Christian. Through his friendship, reading and therapy I was able to restore my shattered life with a new and more coherent narrative.
The healing path led inward to old wounds, and lost faith, dead gods, and a world that appeared haphazard and random. I had to make sense of it all and reconcile my feelings and shattered beliefs. And now I continue evolving as I live in the creative mythogenic zone and share the emerging metaphors of faith, and try to create a community of searchers: still camped around our fires around the world. Fowler calls it Good Faith. It is characterized by trust and loyalty--a covenantal community of companions bound by our shared trust in and loyalty to transcendent centers of value and power. Faith in spite of death and meaninglessness. It is something to do while waiting and in the waiting we tell each other stories as we travel the infinite inner horizons of our lives: leaving our marks and drawings on the walls.
This ends my four part series on the Hero’s Journey. In the future I will continue writing and I will put my writings on a web page. I will continue writing about trauma and healing as well as all the other things which I find fascinating in the world of psychology, mythology and human behavior. Some of the writings will be short essays and I will soon publish a longer piece on Faith and Crisis. I hope to hear from fellow travelers and enter into interesting conversations as we create a community of mutual concerns. Keep your camp fires burning! Shine a light in the darkness.
