“Igne Natura Renovatur Integra” (By fire is nature renewed whole.) –Alchemical maxim
“The whole idea [of the hero’s journey] is that you’ve got to bring out again that which you went to recover, the unrealized, unutilized potential in yourself. The whole point of this journey is the reintroduction of this potential into the world; that is to say, to you living in the world. You are to bring back this treasure of understanding and integrate it into a rational life…the point is that what you have to bring is something that the world lacks—that is why you went to get it.” – Joseph Campbell (1)
The myths and legends of many cultures include stories of a dark time before there was a sun in the sky and before fire was available to men or animals. Regardless of who did the deed, the acquisition of sunlight and/or of fire itself was often accomplished through guile or outright theft.
Prometheus’ theft of fire is widely known; though most abbreviated accounts do not include the fact that mankind first lost fire due to Prometheus’ vanity. At a banquet, Prometheus had kept the best cuts of meat for the mortals in attendance after giving the worst cuts of meat—disguised to look good—to the gods. For this, Zeus punished all mankind by taking away fire. Prometheus sets out on a quest to get it back.
He climbs Mt. Olympus and, with Athena’s help, steals fire from Helios’ sun chariot and brings it back to earth on a slow-burning fennel plant stalk. In retaliation, Zeus sends him a woman of clay named Pandora created by Hephaestus. When Prometheus will have nothing to do with her, Zeus punishes Prometheus by chaining him to Mt. Caucasus where an eagle nibbles at his liver by day. The liver grows back during the night only to be eaten again the following day. This punishment lasts for 30 years until Heracles kills the eagle with an arrow.
In the Cherokee myth called “Grandmother Spider Steals the Sun,” the people, who were living in darkness, responded favorably to Fox’s claim that light was available on the far side of the world. Possum tried first to bring back the light, thinking to hide it in his bushy tail. Yet when he grabbed off a piece of the sun, it burned his tail and since that time his tail has been without fur. Buzzard tried next to steal a piece of the sun and bring it back on his head, but it burned his feathers making his head forever bald. Finally, Grandmother Spider created a web stretching to the far side of the world and used it to sneak into the land of light unobserved. She took with her a clay pot and hid the sun—and fire as well—and safely brought it back to the Cherokee. (2)
In “The Theft of Light,” a Tsimshian myth, the people lived in a world of darkness except for the dim light of the stars. Giant put on his Raven skin and found a hole in the sky into a realm of light. He removed his Raven skin and looks around. Ultimately, he stole the daylight—which was kept in a box in the Chief of Heaven’s house—and brought it back to earth. Though he was pursued by the heavenly hosts, he slipped back into his Raven skin and got away. (3)
As Joseph Campbell (4) notes, once the hero has found his trophy (light, fire, a healing elixir), a variety of scenarios may unfold. First, the hero may decide to stay in the otherworld on the far side of the threshold in a state of ethereal happiness rather than return to his own time and place. If he has found the object of his search with the blessings of the gods and goddesses of the realm, then he will be able to return home with their protection and assistance. On the other hand, if s/he has stolen his prize, then he may have to be rescued by others from his home town, s/he may be killed before s/he can escape or—finally—there may be dangerous return trip.
In some traditions, the mystic—after years of study and purification of self—eventually is able to journey to “heaven” and merge with the great light of the Creator. En route, s/he sheds earthly baggage (attitudes, physical body, astral body) so that upon arrival, all that remains is the divine spark. This spark becomes one with the limitless light, communes, absorbs knowledge and advice, and then returns to earth with new knowledge of benefit to himself/herself and others.
How then, do we account for the vast number of myths in which fire, light, and sacred knowledge are taken by theft? Why is theft required? In addition to the benefits of physical light and fire, spiritual light offers enlightenment, divine knowledge, and transformation—exactly that which one might suppose the God of the hero’s heart hopes s/he is seeking. Joseph Campbell offers a rationale:
“Once the treasure has been grabbed, there’s no reconciliation with the powers of the underworld—no sacred marriage, father atonement, nor apotheosis—so there’s a violent reaction of the whole unconscious system against the act, and the hero must escape.
“This is a psychotic condition. You have wrenched some knowledge from the deepest abysses of your unknown self, and now the demons have been loosened to wreak their vengeance.” (5)
We might suggest, then, that the hero is typically not a mystic, guru, or avatar who exists in a high state of perfection prior to the quest. Yet, s/he still has a goal in mind, a boon to bring back for the world. Remembering that myths are exoteric stories about inner journeys, we can suggest that the extent to which the hero must steal fire (or any other boon) and the extent to which the hero must fight gods and demons to return is proportional to his or her own imperfections. That is to say, in the dark realm of the unconscious, those imperfections will rise up in various guises and costumes to try and defeat him. The gods do not block the hero's path or return--s/he does.
The hero is undergoing a change for which he or she may not be totally prepared. Crossing the threshold on a quest into the realm of myth is, in a sense, a death, an annihilation of the old ways and the old personality. Returning is, in a sense, a rebirth. But the person, as s/he or she has been, does not approach death or change easily, and this often makes it necessary to steal fire from the gods.
DISCUSSION
(1) Robert Adams, in The Sun Singer, requires the help in order to return home. Who helps him and why?
(2) What attitudes, or aspects of his personality, have risen up to try and defeat him before he gets back to his own world?
NOTES
(1) Pathways to Bliss.
(2) Erdoes, Richard and Alfonso Ortiz, editors, American Indian Myths and Legends, New York, Pantheon Books, 1984.
(3) American Indian Myths and Legends.
(4) The Hero With a Thousand Faces.
(5) Pathways to Bliss.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Connecting with Earth in the Present
“The plight of the non-Indian world is that it has lost respect for Mother Earth, from whom and where we all come.
“We all start out in this world as tiny seeds—no different from our animal brothers and sisters, the deer, the bear, the buffalo, or the trees, the flowers, the winged people. Every particle of our bodies comes from the good things Mother Earth has put forth. Mother Earth is our real mother, because every bit of us truly comes from her, and daily she takes care of us.” –Ed McGaa (1)
“Humans are tuned for relationship. The eyes, the skin, the tongue, ears, and nostrils—all are gates where our body receives the nourishment of otherness. This landscape of shadowed voices, these feathered bodies and antlers and tumbling streams—these breathing shapes are our family, the beings with whom we are engaged, with whom we struggle and suffer and celebrate.” –David Abram (2)
The hero on the path, like the warrior en route to battle, attunes himself to his environment, for he depends on it for food, water, clothing, and shelter. He reads the land like a well-used dictionary, ever watchful for friends, enemies, predators, game, unraveled roads, challenges, and—if he has a mystic, mythic or shamanistic attitude—benevolent spirits and magical helpers.
David Abram argues persuasively in The Spell of the Sensuous that those of us in an increasingly literate world have traded in our ability to “read” the land for our ability to read the words on a page and a computer screen. Words engage all of our senses, our gift of reason, and our unlimited imagination, teaching us and inspiring us in the way the natural world once did.
For the most part, we are blind and deaf to all of nature. Not only is this a great loss—for so many voices now go unheard and unheeded—but it blinds us to the myriad nuances, connotations, perils, and treasures along the heropath.
Storm’s End
“Sky breaks open
just before dusk
as you stand in a
great wild silence
knowing that you’ve
made the right choice:
to weather the storm
and steal this moment
from the gods,
to rejoice
breath-by-breath,
fully aware
that just being here
so utterly alive
in the teeth of the world
with a belly full of smiles
is to prevail.”
--Walt McLaughlin (3)
EXERCISE: Connecting With the Earth in the Present
This exercise—and similar ones that you devise—will help you begin to reattune yourself with the natural world of the heropath, clarifying and magnifying the outer landscape through which you walk and the inner landscape through which you create.
The goals of this exercise are these: (a) Observe in detail, with all of your senses, the natural world around you; (b) Focus your mind on the here and now of yourself in communion with the trees, grasses, flowers, birds, animals, insects, clouds, sky and wind.
(1) Find a quiet natural setting—your back yard, a park, a favorite trail or beach.
(2) If the weather and terrain permit, take off your shoes. (Don’t forget sunscreen and a hat.)
(3) Briefly survey your surroundings. For purposes of this exercise, the present is everything from your vantage point out to the visible horizon, the past is everything beneath the surface of the ground, and the future is everything over the horizon. (4)
(4) Use your favorite relaxation technique and become at ease. If you don’t already have a relaxation or meditative technique, here’s one you can try: (a) Sit or lie down in a comfortable position with the soles of your feet flat against the grass, beach sand, or forest floor and focus on something interesting in the environment—a shadow on a rock, a flower, a tree branch, a blade of grass. (b) Take three deep breaths, slowly exhaling each time and visualize the tension draining out of you into the earth through the soles of your feet. (c) Then, slowly repeat (or think) the following: “I will now count from 10 to 1 and with each descending number, I will become more and more relaxed and rooted to the earth. Ten, nine, I feel myself relaxing and absorbing rich energy through my feet. Eight, seven, six…more and more relaxed. Five, four three…deeper and deeper into relaxation now. Two, one…I am now at a deeper level of relaxation, a level I can use to observe and communicate with the natural world.”
(5) Casually observe everything that interests you for as long as you can remain grounded in the present—10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour. That is, when your mind wanders to yesterday’s joys and regrets or tomorrow’s challenges and excitements, pull your attention back to the environment—how the wind moves the tall grass or the waves, the shadows dancing in the tree tops, a line of ants moving across a flat rock, a bird looking for seeds or insects in the forest floor. What do you see? What do you hear? What does the air taste like? What do the things around you feel like to your bare feet, the caress of your hands? What smells can you detect? Move toward anything that draws you. Consider the possibility that everything you see can see (or sense) you and that everything that makes a sound can hear the sounds that you make; that when you touch a rock a woody shrub it is also touching you. Imagine that you are deeply engaged in a conversation with the plants, animals, rocks and earth, water, clouds and the wind and—like any other conversation—it would be rude, in a sense, if you allowed your mind to wander off in the middle of it to think about something you read in a book or something you need to pick up at the store.
(6) Over time, this exercise will help sensitize you to the environment and the lives and the information around you. Try different places, different times of day, different focuses for your attention, imagining with each visit that as you come to know and feel more comfortable at the places were you go, they too are coming to know you and trust you as well.
(7) After you have been going to one or more places for a while, also visualize going to them while you are relaxed in a comfortable chair or bed at home. Use a relaxation technique such as the one given in step four, close your eyes and then imagine yourself driving or walking to the selected place, sitting or lying down in your favorite spot, and looking around with all of your senses at the environment you already know so well. Pick a time when distracting household noises that will pull you away from the visualization are at a minimum and when your mind wanders off to other things, gently pull it back to your mental trip to your mental images of the natural world and what it is telling you.
(8) Experiment with both your on-site observations and your mental “trips” and discover what works best for you and what pulls you and seems important. If you wish, jot down a few notes and record your impressions over time. (Do this long after the exercise—while doing the exercise, try not to plan what you are going to say in your notes.) Like any good friend, repeated conversations with the natural world will impact your life, changing it and making it richer and deeper just as it always has done for seekers on the path and heroes on a quest.
NOTES
(1) McGaa, Ed (Eagle Man), Mother Earth Spirituality: Native American Paths to Healing Ourselves and Our World, San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1990.
(2) Abram, David, The Spell of the Sensuous, New York, Vintage Books, 1996.
(3) From McLaughlin, Walt, in Deeper into Woody Chaos, reprinted in “Heron Dance,” March 2005, #46, www.herondance.org.
(4) This concept of past, present and future comes from The Spell of the Sensuous.
“We all start out in this world as tiny seeds—no different from our animal brothers and sisters, the deer, the bear, the buffalo, or the trees, the flowers, the winged people. Every particle of our bodies comes from the good things Mother Earth has put forth. Mother Earth is our real mother, because every bit of us truly comes from her, and daily she takes care of us.” –Ed McGaa (1)
“Humans are tuned for relationship. The eyes, the skin, the tongue, ears, and nostrils—all are gates where our body receives the nourishment of otherness. This landscape of shadowed voices, these feathered bodies and antlers and tumbling streams—these breathing shapes are our family, the beings with whom we are engaged, with whom we struggle and suffer and celebrate.” –David Abram (2)
The hero on the path, like the warrior en route to battle, attunes himself to his environment, for he depends on it for food, water, clothing, and shelter. He reads the land like a well-used dictionary, ever watchful for friends, enemies, predators, game, unraveled roads, challenges, and—if he has a mystic, mythic or shamanistic attitude—benevolent spirits and magical helpers.
David Abram argues persuasively in The Spell of the Sensuous that those of us in an increasingly literate world have traded in our ability to “read” the land for our ability to read the words on a page and a computer screen. Words engage all of our senses, our gift of reason, and our unlimited imagination, teaching us and inspiring us in the way the natural world once did.
For the most part, we are blind and deaf to all of nature. Not only is this a great loss—for so many voices now go unheard and unheeded—but it blinds us to the myriad nuances, connotations, perils, and treasures along the heropath.
Storm’s End
“Sky breaks open
just before dusk
as you stand in a
great wild silence
knowing that you’ve
made the right choice:
to weather the storm
and steal this moment
from the gods,
to rejoice
breath-by-breath,
fully aware
that just being here
so utterly alive
in the teeth of the world
with a belly full of smiles
is to prevail.”
--Walt McLaughlin (3)
EXERCISE: Connecting With the Earth in the Present
This exercise—and similar ones that you devise—will help you begin to reattune yourself with the natural world of the heropath, clarifying and magnifying the outer landscape through which you walk and the inner landscape through which you create.
The goals of this exercise are these: (a) Observe in detail, with all of your senses, the natural world around you; (b) Focus your mind on the here and now of yourself in communion with the trees, grasses, flowers, birds, animals, insects, clouds, sky and wind.
(1) Find a quiet natural setting—your back yard, a park, a favorite trail or beach.
(2) If the weather and terrain permit, take off your shoes. (Don’t forget sunscreen and a hat.)
(3) Briefly survey your surroundings. For purposes of this exercise, the present is everything from your vantage point out to the visible horizon, the past is everything beneath the surface of the ground, and the future is everything over the horizon. (4)
(4) Use your favorite relaxation technique and become at ease. If you don’t already have a relaxation or meditative technique, here’s one you can try: (a) Sit or lie down in a comfortable position with the soles of your feet flat against the grass, beach sand, or forest floor and focus on something interesting in the environment—a shadow on a rock, a flower, a tree branch, a blade of grass. (b) Take three deep breaths, slowly exhaling each time and visualize the tension draining out of you into the earth through the soles of your feet. (c) Then, slowly repeat (or think) the following: “I will now count from 10 to 1 and with each descending number, I will become more and more relaxed and rooted to the earth. Ten, nine, I feel myself relaxing and absorbing rich energy through my feet. Eight, seven, six…more and more relaxed. Five, four three…deeper and deeper into relaxation now. Two, one…I am now at a deeper level of relaxation, a level I can use to observe and communicate with the natural world.”
(5) Casually observe everything that interests you for as long as you can remain grounded in the present—10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour. That is, when your mind wanders to yesterday’s joys and regrets or tomorrow’s challenges and excitements, pull your attention back to the environment—how the wind moves the tall grass or the waves, the shadows dancing in the tree tops, a line of ants moving across a flat rock, a bird looking for seeds or insects in the forest floor. What do you see? What do you hear? What does the air taste like? What do the things around you feel like to your bare feet, the caress of your hands? What smells can you detect? Move toward anything that draws you. Consider the possibility that everything you see can see (or sense) you and that everything that makes a sound can hear the sounds that you make; that when you touch a rock a woody shrub it is also touching you. Imagine that you are deeply engaged in a conversation with the plants, animals, rocks and earth, water, clouds and the wind and—like any other conversation—it would be rude, in a sense, if you allowed your mind to wander off in the middle of it to think about something you read in a book or something you need to pick up at the store.
(6) Over time, this exercise will help sensitize you to the environment and the lives and the information around you. Try different places, different times of day, different focuses for your attention, imagining with each visit that as you come to know and feel more comfortable at the places were you go, they too are coming to know you and trust you as well.
(7) After you have been going to one or more places for a while, also visualize going to them while you are relaxed in a comfortable chair or bed at home. Use a relaxation technique such as the one given in step four, close your eyes and then imagine yourself driving or walking to the selected place, sitting or lying down in your favorite spot, and looking around with all of your senses at the environment you already know so well. Pick a time when distracting household noises that will pull you away from the visualization are at a minimum and when your mind wanders off to other things, gently pull it back to your mental trip to your mental images of the natural world and what it is telling you.
(8) Experiment with both your on-site observations and your mental “trips” and discover what works best for you and what pulls you and seems important. If you wish, jot down a few notes and record your impressions over time. (Do this long after the exercise—while doing the exercise, try not to plan what you are going to say in your notes.) Like any good friend, repeated conversations with the natural world will impact your life, changing it and making it richer and deeper just as it always has done for seekers on the path and heroes on a quest.
NOTES
(1) McGaa, Ed (Eagle Man), Mother Earth Spirituality: Native American Paths to Healing Ourselves and Our World, San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1990.
(2) Abram, David, The Spell of the Sensuous, New York, Vintage Books, 1996.
(3) From McLaughlin, Walt, in Deeper into Woody Chaos, reprinted in “Heron Dance,” March 2005, #46, www.herondance.org.
(4) This concept of past, present and future comes from The Spell of the Sensuous.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
When the Eagle Flies
“The full round, the norm of the monomyth, requires that the hero shall now begin the labor of bringing the runes of wisdom, the Golden Fleece, or his sleeping princess, back into the kingdom of humanity, where the boon may redound to the renewing of the community, the nation, or the planet, or the ten thousand words.” –Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces.
Some heroes embark on a quest and experience the “ultimate boon,” a great transcendent transformation into the world of Light where all is known and the illusions of the everyday world fall away. They become like the Golden Child of the Taliesin (1) story of Welsh legend or the Star Child in the heavily symbolic movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Others, like Robert Adams in The Sun Singer, experience significant changes within themselves as a function of the trials and adventures of the quest, and return to the everyday world with a treasure that is of benefit to others. They not only return from their quest but return into the world they have always known.
When Robert Adams locates the resting place of the legendary Dahlia during his vision on the mountaintop, he learns that it is not yet time for her to wake. As Dahlia is the divine goddess sleeping in a cave, so the divine spark—often called Light—of the creator is often said to sleep within each of us until sufficient personal transformations bring it forth.
When Dahlia psychically tells Robert not to divulge her resting place “until the sun is eclipsed, the daughter begs forgiveness from the father, the mother’s work is done, and the eagle flies,” she is referring to events that must happen within Pyrrha as well as within Robert’s psyche.
Simply put, Robert has more work to do. But he does discover treasures of value, in the form of knowledge rather than as objects, that he can bring back to his hometown and his country. He has, among other things, glimpsed the Light. He found it in Dahlia’s cave where—using the Qabalistic terminology for ultimate Light—it was described as limitless.
Before Robert returns to his own world, he briefly finds himself transformed into an eagle flying high over the mountains. In the vision, Aton is speaking to Robert’s grandfather, and when they see Robert fly overhead, they shout, “Look, the eagle flies.” Later, the threshold Guardian refers to Robert as Eagle rather than as Osprey, the name he had been using.
The flight of birds has often been used to signify transcendent experiences. Robert’s changing names also symbolize transformations. As the alchemist (2) Fulcanelli wrote, “to make the eagle fly, as the hermetic expression goes, is to extract light from the tomb and bring it to the surface.” (3) Tombs and caves often refer to the ego-oriented self; when one extracts light from within that self, one has discovered his or her divine spark and brought it forth (in part) into his/her waking consciousness. This process represents one of the meanings of the myth in which Theseus kills the Minotaur (symbolically, the god of the underworld) and escapes from the labyrinth. Theseus represents, as Fulcanelli puts it, “organized, manifested light.”
Robert Adams and other heroes returning from successful quests are, in various ways, illuminated. They have, in so many words, seen the light.
DISCUSSION
(1) What treasures does Robert Adams bring back from his vision quest for the people of Pyrrha?
(2) What treasures does Robert Adams bring back from his journey through Pyrrha to the people of his own world?
NOTES
(1) Campbell, Joseph, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. See also Graves, Robert, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975, originally published in 1948.
(2) Alchemy is essentially a process of inner transformation. For an exploration of alchemy and Carl Jung’s analytical terminology, see Chalquist, Craig, “Cooking for the Collective Unconscious: An Alchemically Enlivened Recipe,” Alchemy Journal, Volume 5, #3, Winter 2004. This article can be found in the archives of the Alchemy Journal web site at www.alchemylab.com.)
(3) Fulcanelli, Le Mystere des Cathedrales, London, Neville Spearman, 1957. Original publication date 1925. Translated from the French by Mary Sworder.
Some heroes embark on a quest and experience the “ultimate boon,” a great transcendent transformation into the world of Light where all is known and the illusions of the everyday world fall away. They become like the Golden Child of the Taliesin (1) story of Welsh legend or the Star Child in the heavily symbolic movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Others, like Robert Adams in The Sun Singer, experience significant changes within themselves as a function of the trials and adventures of the quest, and return to the everyday world with a treasure that is of benefit to others. They not only return from their quest but return into the world they have always known.
When Robert Adams locates the resting place of the legendary Dahlia during his vision on the mountaintop, he learns that it is not yet time for her to wake. As Dahlia is the divine goddess sleeping in a cave, so the divine spark—often called Light—of the creator is often said to sleep within each of us until sufficient personal transformations bring it forth.
When Dahlia psychically tells Robert not to divulge her resting place “until the sun is eclipsed, the daughter begs forgiveness from the father, the mother’s work is done, and the eagle flies,” she is referring to events that must happen within Pyrrha as well as within Robert’s psyche.
Simply put, Robert has more work to do. But he does discover treasures of value, in the form of knowledge rather than as objects, that he can bring back to his hometown and his country. He has, among other things, glimpsed the Light. He found it in Dahlia’s cave where—using the Qabalistic terminology for ultimate Light—it was described as limitless.
Before Robert returns to his own world, he briefly finds himself transformed into an eagle flying high over the mountains. In the vision, Aton is speaking to Robert’s grandfather, and when they see Robert fly overhead, they shout, “Look, the eagle flies.” Later, the threshold Guardian refers to Robert as Eagle rather than as Osprey, the name he had been using.
The flight of birds has often been used to signify transcendent experiences. Robert’s changing names also symbolize transformations. As the alchemist (2) Fulcanelli wrote, “to make the eagle fly, as the hermetic expression goes, is to extract light from the tomb and bring it to the surface.” (3) Tombs and caves often refer to the ego-oriented self; when one extracts light from within that self, one has discovered his or her divine spark and brought it forth (in part) into his/her waking consciousness. This process represents one of the meanings of the myth in which Theseus kills the Minotaur (symbolically, the god of the underworld) and escapes from the labyrinth. Theseus represents, as Fulcanelli puts it, “organized, manifested light.”
Robert Adams and other heroes returning from successful quests are, in various ways, illuminated. They have, in so many words, seen the light.
DISCUSSION
(1) What treasures does Robert Adams bring back from his vision quest for the people of Pyrrha?
(2) What treasures does Robert Adams bring back from his journey through Pyrrha to the people of his own world?
NOTES
(1) Campbell, Joseph, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. See also Graves, Robert, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975, originally published in 1948.
(2) Alchemy is essentially a process of inner transformation. For an exploration of alchemy and Carl Jung’s analytical terminology, see Chalquist, Craig, “Cooking for the Collective Unconscious: An Alchemically Enlivened Recipe,” Alchemy Journal, Volume 5, #3, Winter 2004. This article can be found in the archives of the Alchemy Journal web site at www.alchemylab.com.)
(3) Fulcanelli, Le Mystere des Cathedrales, London, Neville Spearman, 1957. Original publication date 1925. Translated from the French by Mary Sworder.
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